Misunderstanding Ourselves: Buddhist Perspectives on Ignorance and the Self
Student Conference
Speaker: Emily McRae, University of New Mexico
Start: Oct 30, 2025 - 04:30pm
End: Oct 30, 2025 - 06:00pm
Where: MITCH 101
Description:
In this talk I will share three short essays from my book project on misunderstanding the self. These essays, and the book project more generally, draw on Buddhist accounts of ignorance (avidyā) to investigate the limits and challenges of self-narration over the course of a life. Following the 4th century Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu, I argue that ignorance, especially ignorance about the self, is not a passive inheritance or a mere absence of knowledge but is an activity of opposition to knowledge. This opposition to knowledge is not only a cognitive failure but also deeply linked with our emotions, desires, and perceptions. With this account of ignorance in mind, I ask the questions, how should we relate to and understand our own self-conceptions in light of the fact that they are forged in ignorance? How do we narrate a life conceived in ignorance? Each essay is animated by first-person philosophical reflection based on my experience having, and partially recovering from, long Covid, an experience that radically changed my own self-conceptions.