Is the Mind a Magic Trick? Illusionism about Consciousness in the “Consciousness-Only” Theory of Vasubandhu and Sthiramati

The paper examines whether the classical Buddhist philosophers Vasubandhu and Sthiramati, writing in Sanskrit, actually hold an illusionist view of phenomenal consciousness—the claim that conscious qualia do not really exist but only seem to. The author finds that their concept of the mind as the 'imagination of what is non-existent' aligns with contemporary illusionism: an unconscious causal basis generates the illusion of representational states with phenomenal content. The paper considers three candidates for what might seem to be real phenomenality—mental appearances, affective sensory experience, and intrinsic luminosity—and concludes that Vasubandhu and Sthiramati indeed appear to be strong illusionists, especially if phenomenal states are assumed to be essentially representational.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Illusionists about consciousness boldly argue that phenomenal consciousness does not fundamentally exist—it only seems to exist. For them, the impression of having a private inner life of conscious qualia is nothing more than a cognitive error, a conjuring trick put on by a purely physical brain. Some phenomenal realists have accused illusionism of being a byproduct of modern Western scientism and overzealous naturalism. However, Jay Garfield has endorsed illusionism by explicitly drawing support from the classical Yogācāra Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu. In this paper, I assess the degree to which Garfield’s illusionist interpretation accurately captures the views of Vasubandhu and his commentator Sthiramati in their extant Sanskrit works. As it turns out, Vasubandhu and Sthiramati converge with contemporary illusionists in taking an unconscious causal basis of cognitive/linguistic processes to be responsible for generating the illusion of representational states with apparently phenomenal contents. Within their constitutive understanding of the mind as the “imagination of what is non-existent” (abhūtaparikalpa), I raise possible candidates for what might seem to be real instances of phenomenality—mental appearances (pratibhāsa), affective sensory experience (vedanā), and “intrinsic luminosity” (prakṛtiprabhāsvara)—and consider possible responses on behalf of an illusionist interpreter. I conclude that Vasubandhu and Sthiramati really do appear to be strong illusionists about phenomenal consciousness, particularly if phenomenal states are assumed to be essentially representational.