Persons as Weakly Emergent: An Alternative Reading of Vasubandhu’s Ontology of Persons

According to Mark Siderits, conventional reality in the Abhidharma Buddhist philosophy, particularly as expounded by Vasubandhu (4 c.e.), is “useful fiction” that is “reducible” to ultimate reality or dharma. It is argued here that if conventional reality is useful in the way Siderits describes it in his “Consequentialist justification,” then weak emergentism better represents the Buddhist metaphysics than reductionism.