This paper will compare some discoveries and debates within contemporary neuroscience to some of Advaita Vedanta's analyses of the mind, as presented in the work of Shankara and some of his followers. I will argue, first, that the conception of mind within Advaita Vedanta provides a better model for contemporary neuroscience than either Cartesian dualism, or its antithesis, reductivist materialism, does. Second, I will show how some discoveries and arguments within contemporary neuroscience could benefit from the Vedantic philosophical framework. Finally, I will show how Vedanta might profit from interactions with contemporary neuroscience, and suggest some areas for cross-fertilization between the Indian philosophical system and contemporary brain science.

This brief study employs Lacan's theory about the self and about the way that our self-image is constituted to highlight some crucial differences between one important Roman Catholic philosophical religious anthropology and one interpretation of the Theravāda Buddhist theory of anattā. It concludes that one persuaded of Lacanian theory would be likely to regard the Roman Catholic model of personal-identity as fostering a particularly tenacious and dangerous illusion, while being likely to view the Theravādan philosophy more favourably, regarding it as encouraging a similar process of ego-deconstruction to that available within Lacanian psychoanalysis.