July 2, 2023
Dimitry Shevchenko
3 citations
This monograph examines the metaphor of reflection in a mirror, widely used in Indian philosophical traditions to address problems about consciousness without reducing it to physical processes. Just as a face reflected in a mirror appears where it is not, consciousness and its properties—selfhood, subjectivity, qualia—are falsely perceived as related to cognitive and perceptive processes. The book systematically explores mirror models of consciousness in Sāṃkhya, Yoga, and Advaita-Vedānta, situating them in historical intellectual debates between reductionists and non-reductionists. It discusses their impact on theories of mental representation, knowledge, language, illusory causality, and the noumena-phenomena relationship, as well as soteriological and theological theories. Engaging with psychoanalysis and analytic philosophy of mind, the author defends a new model integrating consciousness-mind dualism, mind naturalism, and representationalism.
Mirror of Nature, Mirror of Self
July 2, 2023
Dimitry Shevchenko
1 citation
In Sāṃkhya and Yoga philosophy, consciousness and the mind are fundamentally distinct, and their apparent interaction is an illusion explained through mirror reflection. Early theories described external objects reflected in the mind, consciousness reflected in the mind, and the mind reflected in consciousness. Later thinkers developed these ideas: Vācaspati Miśra proposed that consciousness reflects in the mind, and Vijñānabhikṣu argued for mutual reflection—consciousness in the mind and back into consciousness. The chapter also examines Krishna Chandra Bhattacharyya's creative but little-known interpretation of these reflection theories, engaging with it for the first time.
Mirror of Nature, Mirror of Self
July 2, 2023
Dimitry Shevchenko
1 citation
This chapter traces the historical development of mirror models of consciousness in Indian philosophy, beginning with the early Vedic theory of resemblances between human and divine realms. It argues that later theories of reflection preserve the general structure of the Vedic model of formal causation. The chapter then examines the early theory of reflection in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad, specifically in the story of Prajāpati’s instruction to Indra and Virocana. Subsequent sections survey reductionist mirror models in Buddhism and mirror models in Nyāya, Mīmāṃsā, and Kaśmiri Śaivism, mapping various positions on the interpretation of the optical process of mirror reflection and its implications for consciousness, mental processes, and cognition.
Mirror of Nature, Mirror of Self
July 2, 2023
Dimitry Shevchenko
Advaita-Vedānta is a non-dualist tradition that sees the many individual selves as mere reflections of a single transcendent self. This chapter examines the concept of ahaṃkāra (the “I-maker”), an entity that arises from the mistaken identification of mind with consciousness and mediates between them. It provides the first analysis of Śaṅkara’s reinterpretation of the Sāṃkhya model of consciousness reflected in the mind, later developed by Padmapāda and Prakāśātman, and later mirror models that identify god with individual selves, as reported by Appayya Dīkṣita in the sixteenth century. These texts of the Vivaraṇa sub-school have been seriously understudied.