The Oneness Hypothesis

Beyond the Boundary of Self

Eric Schwitzgebel, Hagop Sarkissian, Philip Ivanhoe, Owen Flanagan, Victoria Harrison, Eric Schwitzgebel, Hagop Sarkissian

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN:
  9780231544634
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Movements in Psychology

The idea that the self is inextricably intertwined with the rest of the world—the "oneness hypothesis"—can be found in many of the world's philosophical and religious traditions. Oneness provides ways to imagine and achieve a more expansive conception of the self as fundamentally connected with other people, creatures, and things. Such views present profound challenges to Western hyperindividualism and its excessive concern with self-interest and tendency toward self-centered behavior.

This anthology presents a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary exploration of the nature and implications of the oneness hypothesis. While fundamentally inspired by East and South Asian traditions, in which such a view is often critical to their philosophical approach, this collection also draws upon religious studies, psychology, and Western philosophy, as well as sociology, evolutionary theory, and cognitive neuroscience. Contributors trace the oneness hypothesis through the works of East Asian and Western schools, including Confucianism, Mohism, Daoism, Buddhism, and Platonism and such thinkers as Zhuangzi, Kant, James, and Dewey. They intervene in debates over ethics, cultural difference, identity, group solidarity, and the positive and negative implications of metaphors of organic unity. Challenging dominant views that presume that the proper scope of the mind stops at the boundaries of skin and skull, The Oneness Hypothesis shows that a more relational conception of the self is not only consistent with contemporary science but has the potential to lead to greater happiness and well-being for both individuals and the larger wholes of which they are parts.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Conventions
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Oneness: A Big History Perspective
• 2. Oneness and Its Discontent: Contesting Ren in Classical Chinese Philosophy
• 3. One Alone and Many
• 4. Oneness, Aspects, and the Neo-Confucians
• 5. One-to-One Fellow Feeling, Universal Identification and Oneness, and Group Solidarities
• 6. The Relationality and the Normativity of An Ethic of Care
• 7. Oneness and Narrativity: A Comparative Case Study
• 8. Kant, Buddhism, and Self-Centered Vice
• 9. Fractured Wholes: Corporate Agents and Their Members
• 10. Religious Faith, Self-Unification, and Human Flourishing in James and Dewey
• 11. The Self and the Ideal Human Being in Eastern and Western Philosophical Traditions: Two Types of “Being a Valuable Person”
• 12. Hallucinating Oneness: Is Oneness True or Just a Positive Metaphysical Illusion?
• 13. Episodic Memory and Oneness
• 14. Confucius and the Superorganism
• 15. Death, Self, and Oneness in the Incomprehensible Zhuangzi
• 16. Identity Fusion: The Union of Personal and Social Selves
• 17. Tribalism and Universalism: Reflections and Scientific Evidence
• 18. Two Notions of Empathy and Oneness
• Contributors
• Index