For the second event in our series Buddhism and Posthumanism: Questioning the Place of Humans in Multispecies Environments, Geoff Barstow will present his talk “Rethinking Buddhist Notions of Human Superiority” and join Rory Lindsay and Frances Garrett for a conversation about our multi-species environment. Geoff will also discuss his research on vegetarianism in Tibet and animal intelligence.
Buddhist thinkers have often claimed that human life is superior to animal life by virtue of our superior intellect and capabilities, an understanding that has strongly informed how Buddhists engage with non-human animals. Many of the claims about human superiority in Buddhist texts, however, are made with the rhetorical aim of motivating humans to use their lives wisely. If we take this context into consideration, the Buddhist textual tradition can be fairly interpreted as more open to animal intelligence than it sometimes seems. Further, contemporary scientific evidence of animal intellectual and emotional abilities means that humans and animals may not be as far apart as the Buddhist tradition often assumes. For both of these reasons, Geoffrey Barstow argues that the tradition should reconsider its assumptions about the human / animal distinction, moving firmly towards a post-human understanding of our world.
This lecture series is organized by Rory Lindsay, Assistant Professor, and Frances Garrett, Associate Professor of Buddhist Studies in the Department for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto.
Lectures in the series on Zoom begin at 3:00 pm Eastern Time; registration is required.
Registration
You may register at any time to join a lecture. Your registration is valid for the whole series, and you may attend as many lectures as you like. You will automatically receive reminders for the lectures. Register here.
This event will also be live-streamed to our YouTube channel.
