Pitfalls in comparing Buddhist and Western psychology: A contribution to psychology's self-clarification / Wolfgang Giegerich.

Introduction -- The seduction of geography -- the simultaneity of the non-simultaneous. Or: The historical difference -- Negation, rupture vs. unbroken continuity -- Determinate vs. lump-sum negation (1. Negation in Buddhism: detachment from the phenomenal world and the aesthetic moment, 2. The "aesthetic turn". Or: the cushioning of the logical negation in aesthetic feeling, 3. The soul's self-wounding in Europe, 4. Addendum: The lowering of the level of consciousness and the melting away of the fixed-ego identity) -- The incommensurability between soul phenomena and psychology as a field of study -- Emptiness as rich possession vs. emptiness as poverty -- Unbroken unity of self and "conviction" vs separation of this fusion -- Embodiment in really existing "me" -- Maze of mirrors -- Dialectic: On speaking is the soul's speaking only to the extent that our speaking is not ours. Or: The necessity of disciplined commitment to objectivity -- Appendix, "A lemma science of mind"

This essay has the purpose of sharpening psychology's self-understanding by reflecting it against the foil of the "other" of Buddhism as elucidated by what competent Japanese scholars, well versed in both Eastern and Western thinking, have written about the Buddhist conception of the psyche or mind, often contrasting it with Western psychology. Close examination shows, however, that such a comparison meets with serious difficulties because what is compared is not always really comparable or commensurable. It is precisely through the analysis of these difficulties that psychology is enabled to come to a clearer understanding of where it stands.

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