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| Mark Siderits | |
|---|---|
| Name | Mark Siderits |
| Birth date | 1955 |
| Era | Contemporary philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School tradition | Analytic philosophy, Buddhism, Comparative philosophy |
| Institutions | Boston University, University of Hawaii, University of California |
| Main interests | Philosophy of religion, Buddhist philosophy, Ethics, Metaphysics, Philosophy of mind |
| Notable ideas | Buddhist approaches to personal identity, Analytic comparative methods |
Mark Siderits is an American philosopher known for his work at the intersection of analytic philosophy, Buddhist philosophy, and philosophy of religion. He has taught at institutions such as Boston University, the University of Hawaii, and the University of California system, and has written on topics including personal identity, selfhood, and the interpretation of classical Nagarjuna and Theravada texts. His approach blends tools from David Hume, Galen Strawson, and Derek Parfit with close readings of figures like Nāgārjuna, Buddhaghosa, and Dōgen.
Siderits was born in the mid-20th century and pursued undergraduate and graduate studies that combined elements of Western philosophy and Asian studies. He studied under scholars influenced by Willard Van Orman Quine, Saul Kripke, and Peter Geach, and his doctoral training engaged with work by Gottfried Leibniz and Immanuel Kant as well as classical Indian philosophy texts. During his education he spent time in academic environments connected to Columbia University, Harvard University, and the University of Oxford, encountering scholars of Theravāda and Mahayana traditions.
Siderits has held faculty positions and visiting posts at departments related to philosophy and religious studies in North America and Asia. He has collaborated with faculty associated with Stanford University, Princeton University, Yale University, University of Chicago, and the University of Michigan, and participated in conferences hosted by organizations such as the American Philosophical Association, the International Association of Buddhist Studies, and the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy. He has served on editorial boards alongside editors affiliated with Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and Routledge and has contributed to journals comparable to Philosophical Review, Nous, and Philosophy East and West.
Siderits’s work addresses questions of personal identity by engaging with arguments from Derek Parfit, John Locke, and David Hume while bringing in analytic readings of Nāgārjuna, the Abhidharma tradition, and commentators such as Buddhaghosa. He defends a reading of non-self that dialogues with positions of Hume, Galen Strawson, and Thomas Metzinger and draws on ethical theory from Immanuel Kant and Aristotle to consider practical implications. His comparative method dialogues with scholars like Donald Lopez, Jan Nattier, and Jay Garfield, and his interpretations engage with textual sources such as the Mulamadhyamakakarika, Satipatthana Sutta, and Visuddhimagga. Siderits applies analytic tools employed by Hilary Putnam, Daniel Dennett, and Jerry Fodor to issues in Buddhist metaphysics, and his work interacts with debates involving metaphysics as discussed by W.V.O. Quine and Saul Kripke.
Siderits has authored and edited books and articles that have appeared alongside works by Derek Parfit, Galen Strawson, David Chalmers, and Patricia Churchland. His monographs address selfhood and Buddhist ontology in conversation with analytic debates represented by Thomas Nagel, Peter van Inwagen, and Sydney Shoemaker. He has contributed chapters to volumes published by Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press that sit in the same catalogues as works by Judith Jarvis Thomson, Hilary Putnam, and Quentin Smith. Siderits’s essays have been reprinted in collections alongside pieces by Roderick Chisholm, G.E.M. Anscombe, and Richard Rorty.
Siderits’s comparative analytic approach has been discussed by scholars from a range of traditions, including researchers at Harvard Divinity School, Columbia University, University of California, Berkeley, and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Critics and supporters have compared his positions to those of Jay Garfield, B. Alan Wallace, and Thich Nhat Hanh, while reviewers in venues connected to Philosophy East and West and The Journal of Buddhist Ethics have situated his contributions alongside debates influenced by Derek Parfit and David Hume. His influence extends to teaching syllabi at institutions such as Brown University, Dartmouth College, and New York University, and his ideas continue to be cited in work by scholars at SOAS University of London and the University of Toronto.
Category:American philosophers Category:Philosophers of religion Category:Buddhist studies scholars