Jay L. Garfield

Jay L. Garfield is an American philosopher who works on Buddhist philosophy, the philosophy of mind and cross-cultural philosophy. He is Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities at Smith College and has taught in Australia, India and Singapore, often in collaboration with Tibetan scholars. His translation and commentary The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way (1995) made Nāgārjuna's central text widely available to Western philosophers. Engaging Buddhism (2015) argues that Buddhist ideas about the self, consciousness, knowledge and ethics contribute to current philosophical debates.

Key ideas

• Buddhist philosophy is a partner in contemporary philosophical debate, not only an object of historical study.
• There is no enduring self; the sense of self is constructed from changing physical and mental processes.
• Following Nāgārjuna, all things are empty of intrinsic nature, and emptiness itself is empty.
• Conventional truth and ultimate truth are not two separate worlds but two ways of understanding one reality.
• Philosophy that ignores non-Western traditions is incomplete.

Major works

• Engaging Buddhism: Why It Matters to Philosophy (2015)
• The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way (1995)
• Losing Ourselves: Learning to Live without a Self (2022)
• Buddhist Ethics: A Philosophical Exploration (2022)

In the Book corner

• Engaging Buddhism: Why It Matters to Philosophy 2015 · Advanced
  A book addressed to Western philosophers, arguing that Buddhist philosophy is a resource for their own questions and not merely an object…

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