Experiential Diversity

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

Experience is shaped in profound ways by the challenges and opportunities that must be managed to preserve viability, and to seek flourishing where possible. In this seminar, we will consider the significance of this fact, by focusing on the impact of embodiment, patterns of social interaction, attentional habits, and cultural identities on the experience of self and world. We will also ask what these differences imply for an understanding of cognition and consciousness, and we will consider a Yogācāra Buddhist framework for situating experiential diversity within a larger attempt to reshape our moral phenomenology.