Self and agency : a defence of Praśastapāda's differential naturalism

This thesis discusses the Vaiśeṣika philosopher Praśastapāda's conception of self in his text, the Padārthadharmasaṃgraha, and its key commentaries. It examines the arguments these texts propose for the existence of a self that is non-physical and yet non-Cartesian, based in a paradigm I term ‘differential naturalism'. I examine Praśastapāda's four arguments for the existence of a self from: the structures of agency and action in human cognition; in intentional mental and bodily acts; in the homeostatic regulation of the human body; and in the biological life of the human organism. The core thesis, I argue, is that the rational structures of agency and action we find in these activities require a conscious owner. This must be a self. The dualist argument for the self's non-physical nature emerges from a dichotomous ontology of mental and physical properties and causal powers, which entails that only a non-physical substance can be a bearer of the normative and intentional structures that agency and mental causation demand. The minded self is, however, necessarily embodied. Praśastapāda, I suggest, postulates a naturalistic conception of self. Such a self enables the integration of the mental, moral and physical realms as aspects of natural order, for self is the bearer not only of psychological, vital and normative powers in the natural world, but of natural law qua moral law. This integrative, yet differential, naturalism provides an innovative alternative to Western and classical Indian physicalist and dualist perspectives.