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Losing Ourselves: Learning to Live without a Self
Why you don't have a self--and why that's a good thing
In Losing Ourselves, Jay Garfield, a leading expert on Buddhist philosophy, offers a brief and radically clear account of an idea that at first might seem frightening but that promises to liberate us and improve our lives, our relationships, and the world. Drawing on Indian and East Asian Buddhism, Daoism, Western philosophy, and cognitive neuroscience, Garfield shows why it is perfectly natural to think you have a self--and why it actually makes no sense at all and is even dangerous. Most importantly, he explains why shedding the illusion that you have a self can make you a better person.
Examining a wide range of arguments for and against the existence of the self, Losing Ourselves makes the case that there are not only good philosophical and scientific reasons to deny the reality of the self, but that we can lead healthier social and moral lives if we understand that we are selfless persons. The book describes why the Buddhist idea of no-self is so powerful and why it has immense practical benefits, helping us to abandon egoism, act more morally and ethically, be more spontaneous, perform more expertly, and navigate ordinary life more skillfully. Getting over the self-illusion also means escaping the isolation of self-identity and becoming a person who participates with others in the shared enterprise of life.
The result is a transformative book about why we have nothing to lose--and everything to gain--by losing our selves.
In Losing Ourselves, Jay Garfield, a leading expert on Buddhist philosophy, offers a brief and radically clear account of an idea that at first might seem frightening but that promises to liberate us and improve our lives, our relationships, and the world. Drawing on Indian and East Asian Buddhism, Daoism, Western philosophy, and cognitive neuroscience, Garfield shows why it is perfectly natural to think you have a self--and why it actually makes no sense at all and is even dangerous. Most importantly, he explains why shedding the illusion that you have a self can make you a better person.
Examining a wide range of arguments for and against the existence of the self, Losing Ourselves makes the case that there are not only good philosophical and scientific reasons to deny the reality of the self, but that we can lead healthier social and moral lives if we understand that we are selfless persons. The book describes why the Buddhist idea of no-self is so powerful and why it has immense practical benefits, helping us to abandon egoism, act more morally and ethically, be more spontaneous, perform more expertly, and navigate ordinary life more skillfully. Getting over the self-illusion also means escaping the isolation of self-identity and becoming a person who participates with others in the shared enterprise of life.
The result is a transformative book about why we have nothing to lose--and everything to gain--by losing our selves.
224 pages, Hardcover
Published May 24, 2022
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April 11, 2023
Losing What Self?
A Review of Jay Garfield’s Losing Ourselves
Philosopher Jay Garfield is one of the most knowledgeable and talented teachers one could possibly learn from. I’ve benefitted immensely from his many books as well as his online courses over the years. His recent book, however, is a bit of a disappointment for reasons I’ll try to explain in this review.
The main objective of Losing Ourselves is to explain to contemporary audiences the age-old Buddhist answer to the human condition and why it’s important. That answer, the doctrine of selflessness, goes like this: our default or naïve sense of self—the way we understand our self to be—is unknowingly and harmfully misconstrued. This sense of “I-ness”, this “me that things happen to” that we take for granted is, in fact, the primary source of our eternal discontent as well as much of our immorality. The Buddhist view is that to recognize and then “lose” or transform this mistaken sense of self, this self-illusion, to recast it into what Garfield calls a “selfless person,” can lead one to a happier life as well as improved moral and prosocial behavior. In ten short chapters, Garfield takes on a massive project and does a reasonable job in the space his publisher allows him.
In the first half of the book Garfield hits a home run, presenting selflessness, why it matters, and how our self-illusion is not only the primary cause of why foundational contentment is so elusive, but also how the separate self is unsupported by contemporary philosophy and research in cognitive science. Instead of a disconnected self that is set apart from all things and events, he offers a Buddhist view, the selfless person, a construction that is 100% OF the world, not IN the world, a difference he summarizes as:
The language is critical: we are living AS our bodies, not IN our bodies – selfless persons don’t experience conditions of the world, they ARE those conditions. In several places Garfield mentions embodied mind cognitive science, a multidisciplinary science which studies how the person is best understood as a mind-body system that exists because of its coevolution embedded in social and natural environments. All very down to earth.
By adopting this embodied-embedded selfless person view, what you lose is a mistaken and harmful idea of yourself as a thing disconnected from the world, something that “things happen to.” And with it gone, so Buddhism claims, your nasty egoism or self-centeredness gives way to true contentment as well as greater compassion for others. Garfield’s first three chapters spell this out in detail with plenty of useful examples from classic Buddhist teachings, philosophers such as Hume and Heidegger, as well as contemporary research.
Perhaps the most compelling part of the book occurs in chapters 4 & 5 where Garfield carefully refutes fellow philosophers such as Thomas Metzinger and Evan Thompson who both argue for some kind of preexistent self, either some kind of transcendent self or the so-called minimal self. These chapters contain a lot of philosophical hair splitting that, if you’re not familiar with contemporary phenomenology and consciousness studies, can be hard to follow. But Garfield does an admirable job of walking us through the subtle distinctions, pointing out why neither of these of these claims to an independent self are valid from a Buddhist perspective.
Two things in the second half of the book (chapters 6-10) combine to limit the effectiveness of Garfield’s effort, the first being that due to limited space allowances, he appears to venture outside his areas of expertise. He relies on an overly narrow set of facts to support his points and cites few prominent figures in these areas whose work is well known and regarded. Another limiting factor are shortcomings within Buddhism itself – such as unfamiliarity with contemporary psychology and social justice ethics, all of which reduce the effectiveness of Garfield’s presentation. In what follows, I’ll describe some of these shortcomings as well as other key aspects of the later chapters.
What Kind of Self Are We Losing?
It isn’t Garfield’s fault that Buddhism doesn’t address many important insights that Western psychology has established or that many Buddhist writers remain unfamiliar with this research. This unfamiliarity is partly due to contemporary intellectual fashions which have in particular devalued and ignored developmental psychology and its vast trove of insights and research. The result is Buddhist writers making claims that can’t stand up to what is known from these developmental perspectives. One important difference between Buddhist and Western psychology is how each tradition understands the self.
Traditional Buddhism is more concerned with the self-illusion per se rather than with what kind of self is being deluded. It doesn’t differentiate between kinds of selves in the same way Western psychology does. Even though Buddhist Abhidharma theory is a sophisticated system of understanding phenomena, causation, mind, experience, perception, feeling, and consciousness, it does not address how minds develop over the lifespan, or how minds differ with regard to gender, race, culture, or class; it has no theory of power and privilege, no personality or type psychology, and it has an antiquated view of psychopathology. We cannot expect Buddhism to be like Western psychology, but in contemporary applications of Buddhist teachings such this book, a lot of insights into human behavior that have been realized in the past hundred years are overlooked, conflated, or assumed, and they should not be. From a Western perspective, it really matters what kind of self or mind is being deluded and what kind of self is in need of recasting into a “selfless person,” but Garfield, following in the Buddhist tradition, does not address these things.
Buddhism’s lack of recognizing types of selves goes together with its lack of recognizing types of otherness. This can be noted in the language Buddhism typically uses when referring to otherness: “all beings,” “sentient beings,” or just “others” without specifying what kinds of others are under consideration, again with regard to culture, race, ethnicity, gender, class, religion-faith, age, sexual orientation, etc. There’s just a mushing together of the various types of “others” into one undifferentiated, amorphous category, without regard to culture, race, gender, class, etc. When referring to otherness, Garfield also uses generalized non-specific references such as “they,” “others,” “people,” “other beings,” “other selves,” etc. Why does this matter? Because what kind of self you “lose” has everything to do with what kind of selfless person you will become. In other words, an immature selfless person is not much better than an immature separate self. Transforming your mistaken sense of self as Garfield and Buddhism teach here is only part of becoming a fully developed social-justice and eco-justice informed ethical person. It’s clear from psychology that within adults there is a vast range of psychological capacity with regard to perspective taking, moral span, interpersonal skill, reflective judgment, personality type, etc. It ranges from less mature to more mature, more narcissistic to less narcissistic, and less empathetic to more empathetic. Just read the news.
The distinction between losing the self in one sense and maturing it in another sense has also been referred to as the difference between waking up -v growing up. These are useful terms that summarize two differing paths of human development that are often conflated. One path is concerned with transforming a mistaken self-sense to reduce suffering and increase true contentment, while the other is concerned with growing in maturity through learning and exposure to otherness narratives, acquiring greater knowledge and empathy for varieties of suffering that are different from one’s own. Just because you’ve acquired a new selfless personhood doesn’t mean you’ve heard and internalized the specific ways in which marginalized people suffer, that is unless you’ve also spent ample time heart-listening to their narratives. Learning how to “lose yourself” doesn’t accomplish the same thing as learning social justice ethics. Greater perspective-taking occurs in each type of development but acquiring awakened selfless person perspectives is not sufficient for acquiring mature social justice perspectives. For more on this, see my paper Waking Up and Growing Up on my Academia.edu page. Of course, for those who are already well established in mature social and eco justice perspectives, adopting Buddhist practices greatly enhances their capacity for care and compassion.
It is telling that social and eco justice ethics are not discussed in Garfield’s presentation here, nor are they part of his much longer book Buddhist Ethics: A Philosophical Exploration. This is not surprising because we cannot expect Buddhism itself to adequately address 21st century multicultural psychosocial issues even though many Buddhists think otherwise. Garfield makes many good points in the latter chapters, but such issues pervade the rest of the book. Much of what he presents is simply too abbreviated and overlooks important research that is pertinent to his project.
Individual/Collective Conflation (chs.5&9): Garfield is aware that one of the consequences of adopting the situated-person view is the questions it raises around agency or free will. That is to say, if there is no separate thing that wills or acts, how are we to understand agency, and how are we to distinguish between individual and group agency? What he doesn’t explain is that the Buddhist no-self/situated person view has contributed to a widespread contemporary conflation of groups-as-individuals whereby all manner of group phenomena is likened to individual behavior: ant colonies, tightly grouped schools of fish, flocks of birds, groups of meditators. All are said to be acting like single organisms – even corporations!
This is critical because there’s nothing more dangerous to modern democratic structures than the conflation of groups and individuals that happens when people become blind to their essential differences – how they are constituted, how their agencies differ, how they make decisions, how they act. A king is not the state; A corporation is not an individual. Groups cannot have the rights of individuals. To conflate them is to lead to “Citizens United,” corporate personhood, corporate rights, and in reverse, the idea that a single individual IS the group – l'état, c'est moi. I get that Garfield is trying to explain how agency works within a situated personhood, but am alarmed by the way he flirts with danger in these quotes:
Ch.7 – Ethics, Abandon the Self to Abandon Egoism: Here Garfield claims that abandoning the self-illusion together with cultivating key Buddhist moral principles (the four brahmaviharas, 121-124) and teachings by Shantideva on moral agency can vanquish what he calls “moral egoism,” a view that sees morality as concentric circles of social distance centering on “me and my own interests.” He’s not wrong that this moral egoism is widespread but he should also know that it is a simplistic component of a more complex picture.
The study of human morality and ethics has numerous schools of thought that would be impossible to summarize in a single 14-page chapter but Garfield seems comfortable not mentioning all of that and, instead, suggests that pursuing these Buddhist teachings is all one needs in order to abandon egoism and find a true moral compass, presumably one that works in almost any context. There is, however, plenty of evidence to the contrary suggesting that even the most accomplished spiritual practitioners can remain riddled with unexamined issues around power and privilege, such as sexism, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, or spiritual teachers who abuse their position for sex or money. Examples abound. One complex example from history is Brian Victoria’s Zen at War, but ongoing contemporary teacher scandals continually demonstrate that waking up is not the same as growing up and does not lead to the same results. There’s no questioning the profound value of the Brahmaviharas or Shantideva’s gorgeous poetic teachings, but the biggest failure of the second half of the book is that Garfield seems to be suggesting that these in combination with losing the self-illusion are all that is necessary to create an all-encompassing contemporary multicultural morality. This is simply misleading.
Ch.8 – Affirmation: This chapter sets out to explain “what a person is, how persons are constituted, and how we become persons” (131). Although this chapter presents complex topics in abbreviated form, it manages to get many of its points across successfully. The subsection “Many Levels” (134) is the weakest part of this chapter as it tries to situate the person in the language and framework of systems theory - including physics, biology, psychology, and sociology – by drawing on the work of a single individual, Edward Chace Tolman. Having been a student of systems theory since 1982, I’d never heard of Tolman, so I was surprised that a single, obscure theorist was Garfield’s choice. Also, the points this seven-page mini-summary makes are either vague, obvious, or too abbreviated to do justice to a proper systems theory view of the person.
In contrast, Garfield’s reliance on the work of a single psychologist, Vasudeva Reddy, manages to make some excellent points regarding the critical importance of second persons, social interactions, and systems of norms, intersubjectivity, and narrative to explain the complex development of a human mind over the lifespan. However, some of the subsections in chs.8&9 on human development are less than satisfying, again due to their abbreviated presentation. That Garfield ties this development to embodied mind cognitive science (157-9) is remarkable. But if you’re familiar with the 80 years of literature and research done in developmental psychology, you can’t help but come away from these chapters feeling that they contain only a minimal representation of the facts.
Final Thoughts
Buddhism is both a diagnosis of and a solution to the human condition: it addresses why humans “suffer,” our “existential dissatisfaction,” in profound ways. Losing the separate self-sense and coming to live as a person in the world are significant aspects of the Buddhist solution and are central to the topic of this book. Garfield does a commendable job presenting this Buddhist teaching, explaining why it matters and how it helps but, due to abbreviated treatments of topics, the absence of social justice perspectives, and the inherent limitations of Buddhism itself, more is attributed to the benefits of losing ourselves than is supported.
End
A Review of Jay Garfield’s Losing Ourselves
Philosopher Jay Garfield is one of the most knowledgeable and talented teachers one could possibly learn from. I’ve benefitted immensely from his many books as well as his online courses over the years. His recent book, however, is a bit of a disappointment for reasons I’ll try to explain in this review.
The main objective of Losing Ourselves is to explain to contemporary audiences the age-old Buddhist answer to the human condition and why it’s important. That answer, the doctrine of selflessness, goes like this: our default or naïve sense of self—the way we understand our self to be—is unknowingly and harmfully misconstrued. This sense of “I-ness”, this “me that things happen to” that we take for granted is, in fact, the primary source of our eternal discontent as well as much of our immorality. The Buddhist view is that to recognize and then “lose” or transform this mistaken sense of self, this self-illusion, to recast it into what Garfield calls a “selfless person,” can lead one to a happier life as well as improved moral and prosocial behavior. In ten short chapters, Garfield takes on a massive project and does a reasonable job in the space his publisher allows him.
In the first half of the book Garfield hits a home run, presenting selflessness, why it matters, and how our self-illusion is not only the primary cause of why foundational contentment is so elusive, but also how the separate self is unsupported by contemporary philosophy and research in cognitive science. Instead of a disconnected self that is set apart from all things and events, he offers a Buddhist view, the selfless person, a construction that is 100% OF the world, not IN the world, a difference he summarizes as:
The [mistaken] self is taken to be preexistent, primordial, unitary, and transcendent of the world of objects, independent of body, mind, and social context. [In contrast] The person is constructed; the person is dependent on the psychophysical and social network in which it is realized; the person is complex, embodied, and embedded. That is the difference between the actor and the role. We are roles, not actors. (42)
The language is critical: we are living AS our bodies, not IN our bodies – selfless persons don’t experience conditions of the world, they ARE those conditions. In several places Garfield mentions embodied mind cognitive science, a multidisciplinary science which studies how the person is best understood as a mind-body system that exists because of its coevolution embedded in social and natural environments. All very down to earth.
By adopting this embodied-embedded selfless person view, what you lose is a mistaken and harmful idea of yourself as a thing disconnected from the world, something that “things happen to.” And with it gone, so Buddhism claims, your nasty egoism or self-centeredness gives way to true contentment as well as greater compassion for others. Garfield’s first three chapters spell this out in detail with plenty of useful examples from classic Buddhist teachings, philosophers such as Hume and Heidegger, as well as contemporary research.
Perhaps the most compelling part of the book occurs in chapters 4 & 5 where Garfield carefully refutes fellow philosophers such as Thomas Metzinger and Evan Thompson who both argue for some kind of preexistent self, either some kind of transcendent self or the so-called minimal self. These chapters contain a lot of philosophical hair splitting that, if you’re not familiar with contemporary phenomenology and consciousness studies, can be hard to follow. But Garfield does an admirable job of walking us through the subtle distinctions, pointing out why neither of these of these claims to an independent self are valid from a Buddhist perspective.
Two things in the second half of the book (chapters 6-10) combine to limit the effectiveness of Garfield’s effort, the first being that due to limited space allowances, he appears to venture outside his areas of expertise. He relies on an overly narrow set of facts to support his points and cites few prominent figures in these areas whose work is well known and regarded. Another limiting factor are shortcomings within Buddhism itself – such as unfamiliarity with contemporary psychology and social justice ethics, all of which reduce the effectiveness of Garfield’s presentation. In what follows, I’ll describe some of these shortcomings as well as other key aspects of the later chapters.
What Kind of Self Are We Losing?
It isn’t Garfield’s fault that Buddhism doesn’t address many important insights that Western psychology has established or that many Buddhist writers remain unfamiliar with this research. This unfamiliarity is partly due to contemporary intellectual fashions which have in particular devalued and ignored developmental psychology and its vast trove of insights and research. The result is Buddhist writers making claims that can’t stand up to what is known from these developmental perspectives. One important difference between Buddhist and Western psychology is how each tradition understands the self.
Traditional Buddhism is more concerned with the self-illusion per se rather than with what kind of self is being deluded. It doesn’t differentiate between kinds of selves in the same way Western psychology does. Even though Buddhist Abhidharma theory is a sophisticated system of understanding phenomena, causation, mind, experience, perception, feeling, and consciousness, it does not address how minds develop over the lifespan, or how minds differ with regard to gender, race, culture, or class; it has no theory of power and privilege, no personality or type psychology, and it has an antiquated view of psychopathology. We cannot expect Buddhism to be like Western psychology, but in contemporary applications of Buddhist teachings such this book, a lot of insights into human behavior that have been realized in the past hundred years are overlooked, conflated, or assumed, and they should not be. From a Western perspective, it really matters what kind of self or mind is being deluded and what kind of self is in need of recasting into a “selfless person,” but Garfield, following in the Buddhist tradition, does not address these things.
Buddhism’s lack of recognizing types of selves goes together with its lack of recognizing types of otherness. This can be noted in the language Buddhism typically uses when referring to otherness: “all beings,” “sentient beings,” or just “others” without specifying what kinds of others are under consideration, again with regard to culture, race, ethnicity, gender, class, religion-faith, age, sexual orientation, etc. There’s just a mushing together of the various types of “others” into one undifferentiated, amorphous category, without regard to culture, race, gender, class, etc. When referring to otherness, Garfield also uses generalized non-specific references such as “they,” “others,” “people,” “other beings,” “other selves,” etc. Why does this matter? Because what kind of self you “lose” has everything to do with what kind of selfless person you will become. In other words, an immature selfless person is not much better than an immature separate self. Transforming your mistaken sense of self as Garfield and Buddhism teach here is only part of becoming a fully developed social-justice and eco-justice informed ethical person. It’s clear from psychology that within adults there is a vast range of psychological capacity with regard to perspective taking, moral span, interpersonal skill, reflective judgment, personality type, etc. It ranges from less mature to more mature, more narcissistic to less narcissistic, and less empathetic to more empathetic. Just read the news.
The distinction between losing the self in one sense and maturing it in another sense has also been referred to as the difference between waking up -v growing up. These are useful terms that summarize two differing paths of human development that are often conflated. One path is concerned with transforming a mistaken self-sense to reduce suffering and increase true contentment, while the other is concerned with growing in maturity through learning and exposure to otherness narratives, acquiring greater knowledge and empathy for varieties of suffering that are different from one’s own. Just because you’ve acquired a new selfless personhood doesn’t mean you’ve heard and internalized the specific ways in which marginalized people suffer, that is unless you’ve also spent ample time heart-listening to their narratives. Learning how to “lose yourself” doesn’t accomplish the same thing as learning social justice ethics. Greater perspective-taking occurs in each type of development but acquiring awakened selfless person perspectives is not sufficient for acquiring mature social justice perspectives. For more on this, see my paper Waking Up and Growing Up on my Academia.edu page. Of course, for those who are already well established in mature social and eco justice perspectives, adopting Buddhist practices greatly enhances their capacity for care and compassion.
It is telling that social and eco justice ethics are not discussed in Garfield’s presentation here, nor are they part of his much longer book Buddhist Ethics: A Philosophical Exploration. This is not surprising because we cannot expect Buddhism itself to adequately address 21st century multicultural psychosocial issues even though many Buddhists think otherwise. Garfield makes many good points in the latter chapters, but such issues pervade the rest of the book. Much of what he presents is simply too abbreviated and overlooks important research that is pertinent to his project.
Individual/Collective Conflation (chs.5&9): Garfield is aware that one of the consequences of adopting the situated-person view is the questions it raises around agency or free will. That is to say, if there is no separate thing that wills or acts, how are we to understand agency, and how are we to distinguish between individual and group agency? What he doesn’t explain is that the Buddhist no-self/situated person view has contributed to a widespread contemporary conflation of groups-as-individuals whereby all manner of group phenomena is likened to individual behavior: ant colonies, tightly grouped schools of fish, flocks of birds, groups of meditators. All are said to be acting like single organisms – even corporations!
This is critical because there’s nothing more dangerous to modern democratic structures than the conflation of groups and individuals that happens when people become blind to their essential differences – how they are constituted, how their agencies differ, how they make decisions, how they act. A king is not the state; A corporation is not an individual. Groups cannot have the rights of individuals. To conflate them is to lead to “Citizens United,” corporate personhood, corporate rights, and in reverse, the idea that a single individual IS the group – l'état, c'est moi. I get that Garfield is trying to explain how agency works within a situated personhood, but am alarmed by the way he flirts with danger in these quotes:
If this is the case, awareness can be present—a person can be aware—without there being any single thing that is aware, just as a nation or corporation can act without there being any singular entity that performs that action. (5)71
And this is why it makes sense to think of organizations or natural phenomena as persons, as grounds for treating them with respect, or as grounds for the conferral of rights, even though it would make no sense whatsoever to assert that they have selves, even if we were thought that we do. (9)168
Ch.7 – Ethics, Abandon the Self to Abandon Egoism: Here Garfield claims that abandoning the self-illusion together with cultivating key Buddhist moral principles (the four brahmaviharas, 121-124) and teachings by Shantideva on moral agency can vanquish what he calls “moral egoism,” a view that sees morality as concentric circles of social distance centering on “me and my own interests.” He’s not wrong that this moral egoism is widespread but he should also know that it is a simplistic component of a more complex picture.
The study of human morality and ethics has numerous schools of thought that would be impossible to summarize in a single 14-page chapter but Garfield seems comfortable not mentioning all of that and, instead, suggests that pursuing these Buddhist teachings is all one needs in order to abandon egoism and find a true moral compass, presumably one that works in almost any context. There is, however, plenty of evidence to the contrary suggesting that even the most accomplished spiritual practitioners can remain riddled with unexamined issues around power and privilege, such as sexism, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, or spiritual teachers who abuse their position for sex or money. Examples abound. One complex example from history is Brian Victoria’s Zen at War, but ongoing contemporary teacher scandals continually demonstrate that waking up is not the same as growing up and does not lead to the same results. There’s no questioning the profound value of the Brahmaviharas or Shantideva’s gorgeous poetic teachings, but the biggest failure of the second half of the book is that Garfield seems to be suggesting that these in combination with losing the self-illusion are all that is necessary to create an all-encompassing contemporary multicultural morality. This is simply misleading.
Ch.8 – Affirmation: This chapter sets out to explain “what a person is, how persons are constituted, and how we become persons” (131). Although this chapter presents complex topics in abbreviated form, it manages to get many of its points across successfully. The subsection “Many Levels” (134) is the weakest part of this chapter as it tries to situate the person in the language and framework of systems theory - including physics, biology, psychology, and sociology – by drawing on the work of a single individual, Edward Chace Tolman. Having been a student of systems theory since 1982, I’d never heard of Tolman, so I was surprised that a single, obscure theorist was Garfield’s choice. Also, the points this seven-page mini-summary makes are either vague, obvious, or too abbreviated to do justice to a proper systems theory view of the person.
In contrast, Garfield’s reliance on the work of a single psychologist, Vasudeva Reddy, manages to make some excellent points regarding the critical importance of second persons, social interactions, and systems of norms, intersubjectivity, and narrative to explain the complex development of a human mind over the lifespan. However, some of the subsections in chs.8&9 on human development are less than satisfying, again due to their abbreviated presentation. That Garfield ties this development to embodied mind cognitive science (157-9) is remarkable. But if you’re familiar with the 80 years of literature and research done in developmental psychology, you can’t help but come away from these chapters feeling that they contain only a minimal representation of the facts.
Final Thoughts
Buddhism is both a diagnosis of and a solution to the human condition: it addresses why humans “suffer,” our “existential dissatisfaction,” in profound ways. Losing the separate self-sense and coming to live as a person in the world are significant aspects of the Buddhist solution and are central to the topic of this book. Garfield does a commendable job presenting this Buddhist teaching, explaining why it matters and how it helps but, due to abbreviated treatments of topics, the absence of social justice perspectives, and the inherent limitations of Buddhism itself, more is attributed to the benefits of losing ourselves than is supported.
End
September 4, 2022
I very much enjoyed reading "Losing Ourselves" after hearing the author interviewed on Sam Harris' "Making Sense" podcast. This book is a Western academic's explanation of the Buddhist/Eastern concept of "no self". I really don't think there is a book like this out there and I can't imagine it was in any way an easy book to write. I think the author writes about as clearly as one could on this very complex subject. This concept has been given deep scholarly and philosophical (as well experiential in the Buddhist meditative traditions) consideration for thousands of years in the East and Garfield makes the case that the West has failed to adequately engage with and learn from this valuable perspective. An understanding of "no self" is consequential for the way we think about us "as persons" and how we can live ethically and interdependently with our fellow human beings. The first 100 pages go in-depth into both Eastern and Western conceptions of the self informed by philosophy, developmental psychology, and neurobiology. For anyone with a deep interest in meditation, a desire to do a deep dive into the concept of "no self", or values the human enterprise of more thoughtfully trying to consider what this whole crazy existence is all about, I would highly recommend this book. It will leave you with much to think about.
June 13, 2025
Don't be misled by the subtitle--there is little in the way of practical advice here. The author is a philosopher (a good one, I think) but apparently not a meditator. At one point he makes the bizarre claim that a person experiencing a flow state has no sense of self, giving actors and dancers as an example. I'm baffled as to how a person so involved with Buddhism could think this. This would imply that people in flow states experience a total absence of suffering or stress during such periods, which is silly. I hope what he meant to say is that the self-sense manifests on a spectrum. We can have a gross sense of self or a very subtle and refined one, and where we are on this spectrum fluctuates with our levels of craving and clinging. The dancer mid-performance may have shed the coarser layers, which is lovely, but they've not gone the whole way.
To learn to go the whole way you have to practice, and Professor Garfield's book likely won't help you with that.
To learn to go the whole way you have to practice, and Professor Garfield's book likely won't help you with that.
July 23, 2022
I found this book enormously helpful for an essay that I'm writing. I think where it misses somewhat is in audience. Garfield explicitly notes that he wrote for a general audience. Granting that the ideas here are paradoxical and complex, the text still can be too difficult to process at times. It's worth the effort, but it still reads too much like it's meant for an academic audience. (Note that I technically am an academic audience though my Ph.D. is in English, not philosophy, and I've read a lot and written about Buddhism.) Robert Wright's Why Buddhism Is True, for example, tackles equally complex ideas with much more accessible prose.
August 19, 2025
Fire book. Really does a great job of breaking down logical arguments, as a good philosophical conversation does, as to why we are embedded persons in a complex interactive environment. We are not separate, independent selves witness to life, but rather constantly changing, socially constructed persons. I think this book is great, however I think that it didn’t offer enough thorough arguments for some complex questions outside of the idea of the self.
December 22, 2024
Thoughts on the ethical theory done in the book in relation to cross cultural philosophy:
Read to find my reference to Jared Leto (real)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1m...
Read to find my reference to Jared Leto (real)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1m...
February 13, 2024
This critique of the idea of the self gave me a lot of food for thought. I appreciated the outline of the "Western" and the Buddhist/Hindu arguments on the illusion of the self.
I can appreciate the idea on an abstract level but I have a hard time internalizing it. The self/my consciousness seems so real but I suppose that's the illusion. I agree that I'm a socially embedded person but I don't see where that leaves me. (Though of course the "me" that's confused is a person and not a self/soul/consciousness.)
There is another option though. It's said that years of deep meditation and/or certain psychoactive substances can lead to this awakening. Or perhaps you don't even need all that - according to Barbara Ehrenreich's Living With A Wild God, 30% of people have had an experience like this but have kept quiet because they know they would sound crazy. (Ehrenreich herself had this experience in her teens and wrote about it obliquely in her own journal.)
In summary, "I" don't know what to do with this knowledge.
I can appreciate the idea on an abstract level but I have a hard time internalizing it. The self/my consciousness seems so real but I suppose that's the illusion. I agree that I'm a socially embedded person but I don't see where that leaves me. (Though of course the "me" that's confused is a person and not a self/soul/consciousness.)
There is another option though. It's said that years of deep meditation and/or certain psychoactive substances can lead to this awakening. Or perhaps you don't even need all that - according to Barbara Ehrenreich's Living With A Wild God, 30% of people have had an experience like this but have kept quiet because they know they would sound crazy. (Ehrenreich herself had this experience in her teens and wrote about it obliquely in her own journal.)
In summary, "I" don't know what to do with this knowledge.
February 20, 2023
I’m always fascinated by the philosophical discussions of the self, so I wanted to check out this book even though I saw a bad review of it. I really enjoyed most of this book and it had some great discussions, questions and opinions about the self. I learned a ton about how different philosophies view the self, and the author did a fantastic job breaking it down. At times, it got a bit boring, but that’s just the nature of the topic and why I don’t read these books all the time. Overall, it’s a great book and pretty short. So, if you’re interested in the topic, definitely give it a read.
July 31, 2024
The central thesis of this book is "a reflection on selflessness, that is, on what it is to be a person, but not to be a self."
The thesis is interesting, but the chapters he uses to substantiate his point I found even more fascinating.
He expands on the roles that psychology, sociology, biology, and psychophysical processes play in the web of interactions in which we exist. What constitutes us as persons is our perception of the world through this myriad web of psychophysical processes. We do not exist in the world as a transcendental ego existing outside of space and time, but embedded within it. "At the most basic level, the illusion of a self is the illusion that we stand outside of and against the world. We take ourselves pre-reflectively to be singularities: not participants in the world, but spectators of the world, and agents of actions directed on that world."
Our experience is ever changing and never permanent.
"For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never catch myself at any time without perception, and never can observe anything but the perception."
The interdependence of our existence is a necessary condition of how we constitute our self. We don't exist in a vacuum, and from the moment of our births, we begin constructing our "selves" through this carefully crafted web of interdependent interactions. We feel like selves because it's the easiest illusion to grasp. "One way to put this is to say that we are biologically determined to create social structures that provide the context in which we develop psychologically."
One of the most interesting chapters in the book references Vasudevi Reddy's work in developmental psychology, going over how from as early as two months old we begin to interpret non-linguistic action and recognize it as the difference between oneself and the other.
"That is, early in life, infants come to understand that minds constitute a multiplicity, with many different instances."
This interpretation builds the foundation of us as persons and our perception of the subject-object duality that constitutes the mirage of selfhood.
"In short, the emergence of subjectivity is inextricably bound up with the recognition of another’s attention and mood, and so with the primitive awareness of oneself as the object of another subject. The second person is hence inextricably bound up with the first."
The interdependence and embeddedness re-emerges.
The chapter on selfless spontaneity and skillful living was probably my favorite of them all. In short, it goes over how when we become experts at something, whether it be a job, a sport, or even social interaction, we begin to act automatically and spontaneously. We no longer think about each specific action or instance, because we've become skilled in that respective field and as such act with autonomous intention.
"When we are completely immersed in activity [..] our sense of self, and with it, the experience of the duality of subject and object in experience, vanish. There is only the experience of a flow of activity."
Overall, fascinating book. Learned a lot.
The thesis is interesting, but the chapters he uses to substantiate his point I found even more fascinating.
He expands on the roles that psychology, sociology, biology, and psychophysical processes play in the web of interactions in which we exist. What constitutes us as persons is our perception of the world through this myriad web of psychophysical processes. We do not exist in the world as a transcendental ego existing outside of space and time, but embedded within it. "At the most basic level, the illusion of a self is the illusion that we stand outside of and against the world. We take ourselves pre-reflectively to be singularities: not participants in the world, but spectators of the world, and agents of actions directed on that world."
Our experience is ever changing and never permanent.
"For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never catch myself at any time without perception, and never can observe anything but the perception."
The interdependence of our existence is a necessary condition of how we constitute our self. We don't exist in a vacuum, and from the moment of our births, we begin constructing our "selves" through this carefully crafted web of interdependent interactions. We feel like selves because it's the easiest illusion to grasp. "One way to put this is to say that we are biologically determined to create social structures that provide the context in which we develop psychologically."
One of the most interesting chapters in the book references Vasudevi Reddy's work in developmental psychology, going over how from as early as two months old we begin to interpret non-linguistic action and recognize it as the difference between oneself and the other.
"That is, early in life, infants come to understand that minds constitute a multiplicity, with many different instances."
This interpretation builds the foundation of us as persons and our perception of the subject-object duality that constitutes the mirage of selfhood.
"In short, the emergence of subjectivity is inextricably bound up with the recognition of another’s attention and mood, and so with the primitive awareness of oneself as the object of another subject. The second person is hence inextricably bound up with the first."
The interdependence and embeddedness re-emerges.
The chapter on selfless spontaneity and skillful living was probably my favorite of them all. In short, it goes over how when we become experts at something, whether it be a job, a sport, or even social interaction, we begin to act automatically and spontaneously. We no longer think about each specific action or instance, because we've become skilled in that respective field and as such act with autonomous intention.
"When we are completely immersed in activity [..] our sense of self, and with it, the experience of the duality of subject and object in experience, vanish. There is only the experience of a flow of activity."
Overall, fascinating book. Learned a lot.
September 29, 2024
My rating doesn't really reflect my enjoyment of the book. I liked this one a lot, especially the first few chapters peeling back the layers of the illusion of self. But, this felt like two different books stitched together, and the second one in particular was lacking.
So, I discerned two key things the author was trying to do: 1. expose how our experience of consciousness doesn't include a self, bringing together three bodies of knowledge, Buddhist theology, phenomenological philosophy, and cognitive neuroscience. 2. explain how dropping the illusion of self changes our interaction with the world, especially ethically.
Greenfield accomplishes 1 just fine, but he doesn't tee up 2 well at all in my opinion. His idea that interdependence should be the basis of morality, personally, I don't think requires us to stop thinking of our selves as selves. Additionally, he doesn't really explain why bridging the subject-object divide leads to a respect for interdependence. There are plenty of people skeptical of traditional Western views of the self but don't go on to completely live life according to the preferences of others. You can have achieved a correct theology or philosophy of your surroundings and situation and still be a total jerk.
There's some beautiful passages here and there that do feel like a mini ego death. But, the juice isn't worth the squeeze of getting through some of the most out-there, stoned college dorm room thought experiments just to have the payoff of 'we should all be a little nicer'
So, I discerned two key things the author was trying to do: 1. expose how our experience of consciousness doesn't include a self, bringing together three bodies of knowledge, Buddhist theology, phenomenological philosophy, and cognitive neuroscience. 2. explain how dropping the illusion of self changes our interaction with the world, especially ethically.
Greenfield accomplishes 1 just fine, but he doesn't tee up 2 well at all in my opinion. His idea that interdependence should be the basis of morality, personally, I don't think requires us to stop thinking of our selves as selves. Additionally, he doesn't really explain why bridging the subject-object divide leads to a respect for interdependence. There are plenty of people skeptical of traditional Western views of the self but don't go on to completely live life according to the preferences of others. You can have achieved a correct theology or philosophy of your surroundings and situation and still be a total jerk.
There's some beautiful passages here and there that do feel like a mini ego death. But, the juice isn't worth the squeeze of getting through some of the most out-there, stoned college dorm room thought experiments just to have the payoff of 'we should all be a little nicer'
January 7, 2024
Muito cri cri
June 30, 2022
enlightening!
a must-read for anyone who cares about our humanity, i.e., our shared personhood!
a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of our lonely planet.
a must-read for anyone who cares about our humanity, i.e., our shared personhood!
a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of our lonely planet.
Read
July 23, 2022I am grateful for this book. I offer my various reactions here:
On the first few chapters:
As someone who doesn't read much philosophy, the style comes off as bloated by being circular, while also feeling rushed. The first half of the book doesn't read like what it seems to want to be: a validation of the instinct to posit a self, an overview of traditions that explicitly posit it, an accessible review of those arguments, and a skillful counter for each. Instead it feels like a slog for me to get to the implications of non-self, which I already accepted going in.
It is interesting that he doesn't include the Ship of Theseus or The Matrix in his explanations or summaries, but the analogies that he does make are well done.
On the rest:
I was so excited in the moment I saw that he was including the four divine virtues as a topic. Everyone should check out Christina Feldman's "Boundless Heart." He does not cite her, unfortunately, but his descriptions of the virtures were well-written enough that hopefully readers will seek further teachings.
In an odd moment at the end of the Ethics chapter, he seems to breeze past the "we're all just atoms, so why is anyone responsible for anything?" question (including in the footnotes...) Surely as a professor, he must be prepared for students who poke at this thorny issue, right? Maybe I didn't understand the writing.
In chapters 8 and 9, he labors to explain that social constructs are part of life, and that they and our bodies affect each other. He stresses that therefore a "social level of analysis" is necessary to understand "who we are, and what our lives are." Feminism offered this insight to us decades ago, I think, with its charge that the "personal is political"; hopefully there will come a day when this is recognized by anybody.
While I think his final sentence has some choices of words that are unfortunately out of sync with certain zeitgeists, the book ends strongly.
In none of the chapters does Garfield give any focus to validation. Validation is a crucially important interpersonal skill in this book's context. In this world where the Buddha lived, in a world that is not yet post-self, we all should be able to validate the pain of others who are suffering due to reification of selves, without validating those beliefs. We should seek teachings on how to do validation; Karyn Hall Ph.D. has a good article on the Psychology Today website, for example. In "How to Be an Adult in Relationships," David Richo describes how validation works from infancy to adulthood, in a self-help context (I am still reading through it.) To eschew validation is to invite an uncompassionate skeptics' movement a la "The God Delusion." This is not remotely Garfield's intention, to be sure, but great caution is warranted here.
On the first few chapters:
As someone who doesn't read much philosophy, the style comes off as bloated by being circular, while also feeling rushed. The first half of the book doesn't read like what it seems to want to be: a validation of the instinct to posit a self, an overview of traditions that explicitly posit it, an accessible review of those arguments, and a skillful counter for each. Instead it feels like a slog for me to get to the implications of non-self, which I already accepted going in.
It is interesting that he doesn't include the Ship of Theseus or The Matrix in his explanations or summaries, but the analogies that he does make are well done.
On the rest:
I was so excited in the moment I saw that he was including the four divine virtues as a topic. Everyone should check out Christina Feldman's "Boundless Heart." He does not cite her, unfortunately, but his descriptions of the virtures were well-written enough that hopefully readers will seek further teachings.
In an odd moment at the end of the Ethics chapter, he seems to breeze past the "we're all just atoms, so why is anyone responsible for anything?" question (including in the footnotes...) Surely as a professor, he must be prepared for students who poke at this thorny issue, right? Maybe I didn't understand the writing.
In chapters 8 and 9, he labors to explain that social constructs are part of life, and that they and our bodies affect each other. He stresses that therefore a "social level of analysis" is necessary to understand "who we are, and what our lives are." Feminism offered this insight to us decades ago, I think, with its charge that the "personal is political"; hopefully there will come a day when this is recognized by anybody.
While I think his final sentence has some choices of words that are unfortunately out of sync with certain zeitgeists, the book ends strongly.
In none of the chapters does Garfield give any focus to validation. Validation is a crucially important interpersonal skill in this book's context. In this world where the Buddha lived, in a world that is not yet post-self, we all should be able to validate the pain of others who are suffering due to reification of selves, without validating those beliefs. We should seek teachings on how to do validation; Karyn Hall Ph.D. has a good article on the Psychology Today website, for example. In "How to Be an Adult in Relationships," David Richo describes how validation works from infancy to adulthood, in a self-help context (I am still reading through it.) To eschew validation is to invite an uncompassionate skeptics' movement a la "The God Delusion." This is not remotely Garfield's intention, to be sure, but great caution is warranted here.
June 6, 2022
This clearly lays out the argument for a very difficult abstract concept - the intuitive concept that the autonomous, independent self is a mere illusion. Instead, we are persons - interdependently constructed by our participation in a shared world. Jay Garfield demonstrates his authority on this subject with his clear and concise philosophical arguments that build throughout the book. I wish he went on, at least doubling the size of this book, but he was apparently pressured to keep this as brief as it was. Overall, a fantastic book. Loved it.
June 15, 2022
Reapproachment continues to be a struggle. The promised roaring 20s of dancefloor action and free love appears more like a furrowed huddle of alienated survivors playing dungeons and dragons. Dogged conflict around masks, mandates, distancing, distance learning, policing, and teaching materials are a painful reminder that unity from our crises is not a given. Our identity and politics shaped by our intensity to the conflicts. Rancor and divide are deep-seeded; speech itself is under threat of silencing from cancellations, slaps, violence and illiberal thought.
In "Losing Ourselves: Learning to Live Without a Self" the primal conviction (p.9) of self-hood is critiqued, our illusion of self is replaced with our personhood. Jay L. Garfield, visiting Buddhist studies professor at the Harvard Divinity school, argues “I believe that the illusion that we are selves undermines ethical cultivation and moral vision, and that coming to understand ourselves as persons facilitates a more salutory, mature moral engagement with those around us’.
Arguments from classical Indian philosopher Candrakirti for unity of self are stripped away as psychological processes. Santideva, another classical Indian philosopher, writes of the underlying egocentricity from the dualism of self. Placing ourselves in the center of the moral universe disenables true friendship, care and imparitality (p.24). Scottish renaissance philosopher David Hume, perhaps the ultimate skeptic, found the unity of self to be an nothing more than the sensations and reactions of phenomena. Garfield, a masterful writer and expert on philosophy, shares thought experiments that question the unity of self, the dualistic nature of self and object and free will that separates us from animals.
One of the joy and challenges of this book is the language provided to understand the terrain of identity. In the introduction, Garfield concedes some readers will see the “self” and “person” argument as distinction without a difference. But the concepts alone are worth considering: synchronic vs diachronic self unity; pre-reflective self awareness; and supervenience. Given that so many readers, myself included, have a reflective sense of true unified self (an atman or soul), this book works with metaphor, stories, reasoning and thought experiments to challenge the fundamental “for-me-ness” of lived experience
There are two areas I wish Garfield would explore more. First, Garfield is an avowed student of the Buddhist dharmic practices, and clearly these ethical teachings are reflected in the last third of the book. The space to explore the “no self” with regard to religious faith seemed reasonable. Another book by his Harvard colleague, Richard Wright’s “Why Buddhism is True”, reveals the overlays of scientific truth with buddhist dharmic teachings. I would suspect that there is a transcending self/soul/atman in some of these faiths that Garfield would reject. But given that “reason” does not hold the prized status in post-modern thought, I thought there might be more to say about the parallels of a spiritual/religious practice and the “no-self” experienced in flow states like prayer, meditation, hallucinogens and elevated experience
The second area that would be interesting to explore is the lack of selfhood in Artificial Intelligence and social media. Sentience may not exist yet for weak AI, but comparison between the artificial neuronal brain and the biological neuronal brain could be an interesting exploration of self and personhood. Also, with our internet profiles that disembody and remove contextual speech cues, the promise of identifying with a personhood in these realms seems to not have the same promise of the “no-self” aware person. We engage this virtual space and with it a mode of ourselves get here..maybe just another narrative self though.
Borrowing a line from the late existentialist professor Robert C. Solomon, from the University of Texas, there is just something that is missing when we take away our agency from our identity.Talking about a human being as a confluence of forces or an actor in their narrative prevents us from seeing the choice and responsibility that makes life meaningful. I concede the points Garfield makes, that our ego-self is limited, reactive and often unethical. But I would also argue that life is about transcending our self. The passions, which can leave us inspired or foolish, can only be experienced by this consciousness. This language of self-ownership provide some sense of purpose in this chaotic world. Illusion or not, this fixed consciosuness is our steady rock in a sea of change.
In "Losing Ourselves: Learning to Live Without a Self" the primal conviction (p.9) of self-hood is critiqued, our illusion of self is replaced with our personhood. Jay L. Garfield, visiting Buddhist studies professor at the Harvard Divinity school, argues “I believe that the illusion that we are selves undermines ethical cultivation and moral vision, and that coming to understand ourselves as persons facilitates a more salutory, mature moral engagement with those around us’.
Arguments from classical Indian philosopher Candrakirti for unity of self are stripped away as psychological processes. Santideva, another classical Indian philosopher, writes of the underlying egocentricity from the dualism of self. Placing ourselves in the center of the moral universe disenables true friendship, care and imparitality (p.24). Scottish renaissance philosopher David Hume, perhaps the ultimate skeptic, found the unity of self to be an nothing more than the sensations and reactions of phenomena. Garfield, a masterful writer and expert on philosophy, shares thought experiments that question the unity of self, the dualistic nature of self and object and free will that separates us from animals.
One of the joy and challenges of this book is the language provided to understand the terrain of identity. In the introduction, Garfield concedes some readers will see the “self” and “person” argument as distinction without a difference. But the concepts alone are worth considering: synchronic vs diachronic self unity; pre-reflective self awareness; and supervenience. Given that so many readers, myself included, have a reflective sense of true unified self (an atman or soul), this book works with metaphor, stories, reasoning and thought experiments to challenge the fundamental “for-me-ness” of lived experience
There are two areas I wish Garfield would explore more. First, Garfield is an avowed student of the Buddhist dharmic practices, and clearly these ethical teachings are reflected in the last third of the book. The space to explore the “no self” with regard to religious faith seemed reasonable. Another book by his Harvard colleague, Richard Wright’s “Why Buddhism is True”, reveals the overlays of scientific truth with buddhist dharmic teachings. I would suspect that there is a transcending self/soul/atman in some of these faiths that Garfield would reject. But given that “reason” does not hold the prized status in post-modern thought, I thought there might be more to say about the parallels of a spiritual/religious practice and the “no-self” experienced in flow states like prayer, meditation, hallucinogens and elevated experience
The second area that would be interesting to explore is the lack of selfhood in Artificial Intelligence and social media. Sentience may not exist yet for weak AI, but comparison between the artificial neuronal brain and the biological neuronal brain could be an interesting exploration of self and personhood. Also, with our internet profiles that disembody and remove contextual speech cues, the promise of identifying with a personhood in these realms seems to not have the same promise of the “no-self” aware person. We engage this virtual space and with it a mode of ourselves get here..maybe just another narrative self though.
Borrowing a line from the late existentialist professor Robert C. Solomon, from the University of Texas, there is just something that is missing when we take away our agency from our identity.Talking about a human being as a confluence of forces or an actor in their narrative prevents us from seeing the choice and responsibility that makes life meaningful. I concede the points Garfield makes, that our ego-self is limited, reactive and often unethical. But I would also argue that life is about transcending our self. The passions, which can leave us inspired or foolish, can only be experienced by this consciousness. This language of self-ownership provide some sense of purpose in this chaotic world. Illusion or not, this fixed consciosuness is our steady rock in a sea of change.
May 22, 2023
Jay L. Garfield does for the Buddhist concept of anattā /anātman, what Robert Wright did for Buddhist meditation and mindfulness practices: he provides scientific and philosophical justification for their value to an audience that might be hesitate to embrace the metaphysics of Buddhism. For those unfamiliar with anattā /anātman, its a Buddhist doctrine that teaches there's no essential "I" underneath my physicality, emotions, perceptions, mental formations, or even consciousness. Instead, "I" am the culmination of these realities; their intersection, if you will. Buddhist call them "Skandhas" or "Aggregates" or "Heaps" that together make "me". Buddhist reject the idea, encapsulated in the Indian concept of the "Atman" which has parallels to the "soul" of the Abrahamic religions. Hinduism's "Atman" is the "real me" underneath it all. You could change my body, thoughts, feelings, etc., but those aren't the "real me". The "real me" is the Atman that holds it all together. Buddhist say "no," there's no "Atman" (hence, "anatman" or "no-Atman") underneath it all. What makes "me" who "I" am are all these realities. For those familiar with Greek philosophy, which posits an underlying "essence" that shouldn't change (e.g. humanness) and "accidents" that do change (e.g. gender, eye-color, weight, height) from human to human, in a way Buddhism teaches we are our collective "accidents" and that's what we must embrace when we speak of "I".
Garfield is a philosopher, so he runs through a wide-array of philosophical arguments for why this Buddhist concept is closer to the best philosophy than say Descartes dualism or other approaches to the mind-body problem that seem to depict a little "me" controlling my body from inside my brain. Similarly, modern neuroscience appears to be leaning in a direction that leads some to reject the concept of a static, essential "me" underneath it all. Instead, most neuroscientists appear to argue for an understanding of consciousness and explain our mind-body relationship in such a way that the Buddha would approve.
For Garfield, this doesn't mean there's no "me" but instead of a "self" he prefers the word "person," with a person being what Buddhist understand when they see the Skandhas intersecting together. And Garfield argues that there are ethical implications to seeing ourselves (for lack of a better word) as "persons," interconnected and dependent upon the environment in which we live and the relationships that shape us, over against a "self" that somehow transcends our material and relational realities. This work is very thought provoking, easy to read, clear in its arguments, and challenging in its conclusions. I highly recommend!
Garfield is a philosopher, so he runs through a wide-array of philosophical arguments for why this Buddhist concept is closer to the best philosophy than say Descartes dualism or other approaches to the mind-body problem that seem to depict a little "me" controlling my body from inside my brain. Similarly, modern neuroscience appears to be leaning in a direction that leads some to reject the concept of a static, essential "me" underneath it all. Instead, most neuroscientists appear to argue for an understanding of consciousness and explain our mind-body relationship in such a way that the Buddha would approve.
For Garfield, this doesn't mean there's no "me" but instead of a "self" he prefers the word "person," with a person being what Buddhist understand when they see the Skandhas intersecting together. And Garfield argues that there are ethical implications to seeing ourselves (for lack of a better word) as "persons," interconnected and dependent upon the environment in which we live and the relationships that shape us, over against a "self" that somehow transcends our material and relational realities. This work is very thought provoking, easy to read, clear in its arguments, and challenging in its conclusions. I highly recommend!
Read
September 24, 20242023.10.04–2023.10.11
Contents
Garfield JL (2022) (06:51) Losing Ourselves - Learning to Live without a Self
Preface
Acknowledgments
01. Who Do You Think You Are? What a Self Is and Why You Think You Have One
• What We Mean by Self
• That You Really Believe That You Have Such a Self
• Why We Think We Have a Self
02. Why You Have No Self: The View from Buddhism, Philosophy, and Science
• Buddhist Arguments
• Humean Arguments
• The Self as Illusion
03. What You Really Are: Recovering and Discovering the Person
04. The Self Strikes Back I: The Transcendent Self
• Uddyotakara and Descartes: The Necessity of the Self for Consciousness
• Transcendental Arguments for the Existence of the Self
• Transcendental Arguments for the Existence of the Self: Synchronic Identity
• Transcendental Arguments for the Existence of the Self: Diachronic Identity
05. The Self Strikes Back II: The Minimal Self
• Minimal Selves: Reflexivity Arguments
• Minimal Selves: For-me-ness
• Minimal Selves: An Argument from Intransitive Self-Consciousness
• Pre-reflective Self-Awareness
• Persons and Narrative
06. Immersion: Selfless Spontaneity and Skillful Living
• A Daoist Perspective
• Applying the Daoist Insights, and a Bit of Zen
07. Ethics: Abandon the Self to Abandon Egoism
• Moral Egoism
• A Selfless Moral Landscape: The Brahmavihāras
• A Selfless Moral Landscape: Agency
08. Affirmation: Becoming and Being a Person among Persons
• Fact and Fiction
• Many Levels
• Becoming Persons
09. Being in the World: Living as a Person
• Bees and Hives
• Adult Subjectivity and Personhood
• The “Problem” of Other Minds
• Persons and Values
10. Getting Over Yourself: Drawing This All Together
Notes
References
Index
Contents
Garfield JL (2022) (06:51) Losing Ourselves - Learning to Live without a Self
Preface
Acknowledgments
01. Who Do You Think You Are? What a Self Is and Why You Think You Have One
• What We Mean by Self
• That You Really Believe That You Have Such a Self
• Why We Think We Have a Self
02. Why You Have No Self: The View from Buddhism, Philosophy, and Science
• Buddhist Arguments
• Humean Arguments
• The Self as Illusion
03. What You Really Are: Recovering and Discovering the Person
04. The Self Strikes Back I: The Transcendent Self
• Uddyotakara and Descartes: The Necessity of the Self for Consciousness
• Transcendental Arguments for the Existence of the Self
• Transcendental Arguments for the Existence of the Self: Synchronic Identity
• Transcendental Arguments for the Existence of the Self: Diachronic Identity
05. The Self Strikes Back II: The Minimal Self
• Minimal Selves: Reflexivity Arguments
• Minimal Selves: For-me-ness
• Minimal Selves: An Argument from Intransitive Self-Consciousness
• Pre-reflective Self-Awareness
• Persons and Narrative
06. Immersion: Selfless Spontaneity and Skillful Living
• A Daoist Perspective
• Applying the Daoist Insights, and a Bit of Zen
07. Ethics: Abandon the Self to Abandon Egoism
• Moral Egoism
• A Selfless Moral Landscape: The Brahmavihāras
• A Selfless Moral Landscape: Agency
08. Affirmation: Becoming and Being a Person among Persons
• Fact and Fiction
• Many Levels
• Becoming Persons
09. Being in the World: Living as a Person
• Bees and Hives
• Adult Subjectivity and Personhood
• The “Problem” of Other Minds
• Persons and Values
10. Getting Over Yourself: Drawing This All Together
Notes
References
Index
February 5, 2024
“That is, the proponent of the no-self view must show that everything that the self is meant to explain can actually be accomplished by a person, a socially embedded human being with no self. The ātman reemerges in another guise in a Christian context as the psyche, another term usually translated as soul.”
“My body and my psychological states are constantly changing, like the oil and lamps that support the flames. But, like those flames and those lamps, they constitute a causal sequence with a common function. And we have a convention of calling distinct members of such sequences by the same name. So, in one obvious sense, I am not identical to the person called by my name yesterday. We are alike, causally related, but numerically distinct. In another sense, though, we are the same person. We share a name, many properties, a causal history, and a social role; and that, while not involving a self, is enough.”
“THIS BOOK is a reflection on selflessness, that is, on what it is to be a person, but not to be a self.”
“What, we might ask, is the status of the person who is no self? In particular, one might wonder, what accounts for the continuity of consciousness from one moment to the next, and the persistence of our identity through all of the changes we undergo in our lives if there is no self? Wouldn’t we exist even if there were no conventions? Isn’t our existence the precondition of any conventions? That is, we might ask, what exactly is the mode of existence that persons like us in fact enjoy?”
November 20, 2023
This started out really strong, one of the clearest non-technical/non-specialist explanations of emptiness I have seen. But it felt a lot looser in the back half, wtih his discussion of the ramficiations of selflessness on ethics and so forth not feeling nearly as robust as the work dismantling the self in the earlier chapters.
What was especially underwhelming, I think was the way he limited the construction existence of personhood to human beings, describing a second-order recognition of being a (human) person that ignores the grasping at selves person and phenomena, the grasping at me and mine, that pervades all sentient beings regardless of capacity for language or symbolic thought or complex, intentional social structures. In focusing on this second-order social, narrative construction of being a person that he locates in the amalgamation of human biology, psychology, and sociology, he ignores the actual mere imputation or designation of personhood in dependence on the psycho-physical aggregates that is the actual mere person that we, all sentient beings not just humans, intuitively mistake for a self. In this way he never really penetrated the heart of the matter.
Still, a great read for the early chapters alone. And the way he describes personhood and its construction in the later chapters is a useful, if only partial, understanding of what it means to be selfless.
What was especially underwhelming, I think was the way he limited the construction existence of personhood to human beings, describing a second-order recognition of being a (human) person that ignores the grasping at selves person and phenomena, the grasping at me and mine, that pervades all sentient beings regardless of capacity for language or symbolic thought or complex, intentional social structures. In focusing on this second-order social, narrative construction of being a person that he locates in the amalgamation of human biology, psychology, and sociology, he ignores the actual mere imputation or designation of personhood in dependence on the psycho-physical aggregates that is the actual mere person that we, all sentient beings not just humans, intuitively mistake for a self. In this way he never really penetrated the heart of the matter.
Still, a great read for the early chapters alone. And the way he describes personhood and its construction in the later chapters is a useful, if only partial, understanding of what it means to be selfless.
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August 18, 2025From Shantideva:
“When I don’t get angry with sources of great suffering such as jaundice, then why get angry with sentient beings? They are also propelled by conditions. . . . Although nobody wants them, our psychopathologies inevitably befall us.”
“Just as nobody ever thinks ‘Let me come into existence,’ nobody ever thinks ‘Now, let me be angry.’ Instead, people just get angry.”
Though I’m not sure the example holds up—sometimes we do indeed think “Now, let me be angry”—I’m compelled by the analogy; I think everyone would agree that nobody asks to be born. It makes me think of how often we are willing to extend this kind of grace to children, or to people we find sympathetic, though not to everyone.
It’s also appealing for a moral framework to be so accepting of the world as it is—accepting of the fact that however we try to behave, we will inevitably get angry.
Later in the book, I really appreciated Jay’s explanation of misconceptions about supervenience among “fields of knowledge.” A very satisfying account of how physics and biology simply are not the most fundamental ways of understanding the world, and of how dependent they are on social and psychological and interpersonal truths.
“When I don’t get angry with sources of great suffering such as jaundice, then why get angry with sentient beings? They are also propelled by conditions. . . . Although nobody wants them, our psychopathologies inevitably befall us.”
“Just as nobody ever thinks ‘Let me come into existence,’ nobody ever thinks ‘Now, let me be angry.’ Instead, people just get angry.”
Though I’m not sure the example holds up—sometimes we do indeed think “Now, let me be angry”—I’m compelled by the analogy; I think everyone would agree that nobody asks to be born. It makes me think of how often we are willing to extend this kind of grace to children, or to people we find sympathetic, though not to everyone.
It’s also appealing for a moral framework to be so accepting of the world as it is—accepting of the fact that however we try to behave, we will inevitably get angry.
Later in the book, I really appreciated Jay’s explanation of misconceptions about supervenience among “fields of knowledge.” A very satisfying account of how physics and biology simply are not the most fundamental ways of understanding the world, and of how dependent they are on social and psychological and interpersonal truths.
April 29, 2024
Dr. Garfield, who has taught philosophy at numerous universities, masterfully deconstructs the common dualistic notion that we humans each possess a separate, unchanging, and nonphysical "self" that defines who we are as individuals. Drawing from modern neuroscience, he lends support to the theory that the ego/self is an illusion created by our brains - an illusion that often leads us to feel separated from the rest of humanity (and from the universe as a whole) and as a major cause of suffering in the world.
Followers of Eastern philosophies will no doubt notice many parallels between Garfield's writings and the various nondual strains of Buddhism - which is no surprise since Garfield has devoted much of his academic career studying Buddhism in its many forms.
The only thing I find lacking is practical advice as to how one might experientally realize the fundamental truth of "no-self" in one's day-to-day life. *Intellectually* understanding that the self/ego is illusory is not the same thing as deeply sensing and living it out consistently. For this, I would recommend developing a daily practice of contemplation/meditation.
Followers of Eastern philosophies will no doubt notice many parallels between Garfield's writings and the various nondual strains of Buddhism - which is no surprise since Garfield has devoted much of his academic career studying Buddhism in its many forms.
The only thing I find lacking is practical advice as to how one might experientally realize the fundamental truth of "no-self" in one's day-to-day life. *Intellectually* understanding that the self/ego is illusory is not the same thing as deeply sensing and living it out consistently. For this, I would recommend developing a daily practice of contemplation/meditation.
October 23, 2022
The book is a very systematic and thorough analysis of the idea we are a "selves".
It analyzes what we actually mean by saying we have a self, and what the distinction is between having a continuous, solid, single, transcendent entity that is the same self we had many years ago, and a being a person.
The book doesnt argues against our existence (because we are persons), but against the idea we are selves.
I enjoyed the book, even though the first part (first seven chapters) was at times a bit dry, and the last part (about the consequences of not having a self for ethics etc) was at times a bit too easy in its conclusions.
If you are interested in the question, and consider reading this book, it might be a good idea to listen the Sam Harris podcast #282 with the author; that's where I first heard about the book and I liked the tone of the author, so i figured the book would be nice too.
It analyzes what we actually mean by saying we have a self, and what the distinction is between having a continuous, solid, single, transcendent entity that is the same self we had many years ago, and a being a person.
The book doesnt argues against our existence (because we are persons), but against the idea we are selves.
I enjoyed the book, even though the first part (first seven chapters) was at times a bit dry, and the last part (about the consequences of not having a self for ethics etc) was at times a bit too easy in its conclusions.
If you are interested in the question, and consider reading this book, it might be a good idea to listen the Sam Harris podcast #282 with the author; that's where I first heard about the book and I liked the tone of the author, so i figured the book would be nice too.
January 27, 2023
I found this book pretty dense and hard to get through at times (this could be because I haven't read much philosophy since undergrad, 10 years ago). With a subtitle like "Learning to Live Without a Self," I was surprised by the lack of practical and/or experiential discourse. Everything was based on philosophical reasoning, nothing based on the author's or others' experiences with no-self, nor much reference to empirical studies that could shed light on what it means to live without a self. I am very friendly to the idea of no-self, so I was excited when this book came out, but I was disappointed by its lack of richness. On the plus side, this book contained what seemed like a pretty thorough, yet relatively concise, going over of the arguments for and against the self. I will likely use this as a reference work in the future. And I will keep waiting for a book that dives into the experience of no-self from a closer, less abstract perspective.
February 2, 2023
A hard one to rate.
This is precisely the topic and structure of book that I wanted to read most: what it means to not have a self.
Structurally, it succeeds. It establishes the argument, makes multiple arguments for one side, and discusses the implications.
Yet it suffers from trying to be both a philosophical essay and a book for the layman. I am not qualified to judge the former, but on the latter it struggles.
The middle of the book has long deep dives into specific arguments that aren't warranted for the general audience. Whilst the end consequences and implications are barely even covered. For a western audience this is a radical shift, and I was hoping for an analysis or overview of what thinking like this could mean. Of what it did mean to human development in anatta/buddhist societies.
Still, it was exactly the book I wanted in terms of vision. I hope more are written soon.
This is precisely the topic and structure of book that I wanted to read most: what it means to not have a self.
Structurally, it succeeds. It establishes the argument, makes multiple arguments for one side, and discusses the implications.
Yet it suffers from trying to be both a philosophical essay and a book for the layman. I am not qualified to judge the former, but on the latter it struggles.
The middle of the book has long deep dives into specific arguments that aren't warranted for the general audience. Whilst the end consequences and implications are barely even covered. For a western audience this is a radical shift, and I was hoping for an analysis or overview of what thinking like this could mean. Of what it did mean to human development in anatta/buddhist societies.
Still, it was exactly the book I wanted in terms of vision. I hope more are written soon.
May 11, 2025
I think there are a lot of ancient and modern texts about, roughly, the 'false-ness' of ego. As he points out in the book, the rejection of ego-centrism is the foundation of most concepts of 'morality' or, by extension, 'fairness' or 'justice'.
What's missing in most books or ideas, though, is what to replace the concept of ego with. Most older spiritual texts kind of go "I want this thing. But there is no 'I'. So there is no want." which maybe works conceptually but... that doesn't really explain what's happening. Even if there's no ego, there's still *something* going on there.
If we have no unchanging self sitting outside of time, reality, and causation, why do we feel like we do? This book does a really good job answering that.
The language does feel like philosophical nitpicking at times, but since the implications of the nitpicking are pretty huge and can fundamentally change our understanding of 'I'.... I think it's worth pushing through.
What's missing in most books or ideas, though, is what to replace the concept of ego with. Most older spiritual texts kind of go "I want this thing. But there is no 'I'. So there is no want." which maybe works conceptually but... that doesn't really explain what's happening. Even if there's no ego, there's still *something* going on there.
If we have no unchanging self sitting outside of time, reality, and causation, why do we feel like we do? This book does a really good job answering that.
The language does feel like philosophical nitpicking at times, but since the implications of the nitpicking are pretty huge and can fundamentally change our understanding of 'I'.... I think it's worth pushing through.
June 27, 2025
I went into this being of the firm opinion that the self does not exist, and yet I cannot endorse this book.
The title is excellent, but every chapter bar maybe chapter 7 was a nigh unreadable hodge-podge of wordsalad to me. This would have profited from a stricter proofread and a few re-writes, and maybe even a different structure. That would have still not solved the systemic issue, which is in my opinion that the Author does not practice. And as a result, his writing is muddied and devoid of experience, for lack of a better description. A purely academic perspective, simultaneously lacking in refinement and depth on all sides. I was impressed with the reading that the author had referenced, and proportionally disappointed with what he made out of it.
Alas, let me leave you with a quote by Krishnamurti and spare yourself reading this book:
"There is no self to understand but only the thought which creates the self."
The title is excellent, but every chapter bar maybe chapter 7 was a nigh unreadable hodge-podge of wordsalad to me. This would have profited from a stricter proofread and a few re-writes, and maybe even a different structure. That would have still not solved the systemic issue, which is in my opinion that the Author does not practice. And as a result, his writing is muddied and devoid of experience, for lack of a better description. A purely academic perspective, simultaneously lacking in refinement and depth on all sides. I was impressed with the reading that the author had referenced, and proportionally disappointed with what he made out of it.
Alas, let me leave you with a quote by Krishnamurti and spare yourself reading this book:
"There is no self to understand but only the thought which creates the self."
June 2, 2024
From the blurb: 'Examining a wide range of arguments for and against the existence of the self, Losing Ourselves makes the case that there are not only good philosophical and scientific reasons to deny the reality of the self, but that we can lead healthier social and moral lives if we understand that we are selfless persons. The book describes why the Buddhist idea of no-self is so powerful and why it has immense practical benefits, helping us to abandon egoism, act more morally and ethically, be more spontaneous, perform more expertly, and navigate ordinary life more skillfully. Getting over the self-illusion also means escaping the isolation of self-identity and becoming a person who participates with others in the shared enterprise of life.'
August 14, 2022
Ready for a ride on the roller coaster?
This is a must read book, but not before one is ready to take a ride on the roller coaster of facing the discovery of being so profoundly wrong about what it is being that one and unrepeatable self (?) fully known only to oneself.
I ended up having lost all notion of “me” only to find myself still complete, and even more so, at the end.
I so hope that having been shown the illusion, I will, at least, be able to teach myself to keep the illusion on my conscience as much as possible; meaning that I hope I can be reminded at every possible turn that I’m taking seriously a mere illusion.
This is a must read book, but not before one is ready to take a ride on the roller coaster of facing the discovery of being so profoundly wrong about what it is being that one and unrepeatable self (?) fully known only to oneself.
I ended up having lost all notion of “me” only to find myself still complete, and even more so, at the end.
I so hope that having been shown the illusion, I will, at least, be able to teach myself to keep the illusion on my conscience as much as possible; meaning that I hope I can be reminded at every possible turn that I’m taking seriously a mere illusion.
May 7, 2023
I saw the title on the library website, and thought this might be an interesting book about not getting a big ego. That might be something worth looking at for my athletes. Turns out this is a book about how the self (read: spirit or soul) isn't real and we should think of ourselves as persons (read: body). The author reassuringly states how this isn't really a book of circular reasoning and isn't a straw man argument. Proceeds to use circular reasoning, straw man arguments and bad analogies. My favorite is how a belief in a self is bad, and he then describes psychopaths. This was a laughably bad argument couched in dense philosophical and psychological jargon.
August 25, 2024
Ready for a ride on the roller coaster?
This is a must read book, but not before one is ready to take a ride on the roller coaster of facing the discovery of being so profoundly wrong about what it is being that one and unrepeatable self (?) fully known only to oneself.
I ended up having lost all notion of “me” only to find myself still complete, and even more so, at the end.
I so hope that having been shown the illusion, I will, at least, be able to teach myself to keep the illusion on my conscience as much as possible; meaning that I hope I can be reminded at every possible turn that I’m taking seriously a mere illusion.
This is a must read book, but not before one is ready to take a ride on the roller coaster of facing the discovery of being so profoundly wrong about what it is being that one and unrepeatable self (?) fully known only to oneself.
I ended up having lost all notion of “me” only to find myself still complete, and even more so, at the end.
I so hope that having been shown the illusion, I will, at least, be able to teach myself to keep the illusion on my conscience as much as possible; meaning that I hope I can be reminded at every possible turn that I’m taking seriously a mere illusion.
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