QuestionsWho am I, really?The chariot: "Nagasena" is only a name
Who am I, really?No fixed self

The chariot: "Nagasena" is only a name

King Milinda's chariot

Nagasena born c. 150 BCA monk of the 2nd century BCE, he explains to the Greek king Milinda that a person is only a name for an assemblage of elements, like a chariot.
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What it claims

There is no permanent self over and above the elements: "Nagasena" is a conventional designation for an assemblage of elements, as "chariot" is for an assemblage of parts.

Why

The self is not a part, their sum, or something else: like the chariot, it is just a name for an assembly.

The same idea through history
Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha)450 BCNo-self (anatta) is taught in the oldest texts. In the Vajira sutra, the nun answers Mara with the image of the chariot: a word for an assemblage of parts, as "being" is for the aggregates.
Nagasena100 BCIn the dialogue with King Milinda, the chariot image shows that "being a person" is a conventional designation, with no permanent self.
Nagarjuna150Nagarjuna examines the same question: the self can be neither identical to the aggregates nor something other than them.David Hume1739In Europe, twenty centuries later: the mind is a bundle of perceptions and the identity ascribed to it is a fiction.
Derek Parfit1984Parfit defends a close "Reductionist" view and himself notes, in an appendix, its resemblance to the view attributed to the Buddha.
In short

"The chariot: "Nagasena" is only a name" is an argument by Nagasena (Milindapanha, II, 1 (King Milinda and the monk Nagasena), 100 BC) on the question "Who am I, really?" (answer: no fixed self). Its claim: There is no permanent self over and above the elements: "Nagasena" is a conventional designation for an assemblage of elements, as "chariot" is for an assemblage of parts. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P5). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 2 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Milindapanha, II, 1 (King Milinda and the monk Nagasena)
Valid with an implicit premise

King Milinda (the Greek king Menander, according to tradition) asks a monk, Nagasena, his name. "I am called Nagasena," the monk answers, "but it is only a name: there is no permanent individual involved." The king protests: then who eats, meditates, acts? Nagasena asks the king how he came, on foot or by chariot. By chariot. "And what is the chariot? The pole? The axle? The wheels? The framework? All of these together? Something else besides?" Each time: no. Yet the king did travel by chariot. Nagasena concludes that "chariot" is a convenient word for an assemblage of parts, and "Nagasena" likewise for an assemblage of elements (body, sensations, perceptions, dispositions, consciousness). Note that he does not say the person does not exist; he says it is not a permanent thing over and above these elements. The text is a composed dialogue (probably in northwest India, between the 1st century BCE and the 2nd century CE): the two characters speak through the pen of an author we do not know.

P1If there were a permanent "self", a real thing the name refers to, it would be either one of the elements that make up the person (hair, bones, body, sensations, perceptions, dispositions, consciousness), or their totality, or something outside them.
P2It is none of these elements taken separately: Nagasena answers no to each.
P3Nor is it their totality, as if that totality were one more thing.
P4Nor is it something outside the five elements: no trace of it is found.
P5 · implicit premiseA name can rightly be used for an assemblage of parts, without there being a permanent thing over and above the parts: this is the case of the "chariot".
Therefore there is no permanent self over and above the elements: "Nagasena" is a conventional designation for an assemblage of elements, as "chariot" is for an assemblage of parts.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P5, the computer finds a case where no permanent thing corresponds to the name, but the name is not a legitimate designation either (it is "a mere empty sound", as the king first says).
P1 lists the possibilities; P2, P3 and P4 rule them out one by one; so there is no real, permanent thing that is "the self". P5 is the hidden premise: without it, one might think that if the self does not exist as a thing, the name "Nagasena" is empty and the monk lied (this is the king's accusation). The chariot example is meant to show that this is not so. In the text, P3 is the most delicate: "the totality" is not rejected because it would be wrong to speak of the person, but because it is not one more thing that would be "the self". Objectors mostly attack P4: Descartes claims to grasp a thinking self without a body.
Analogy. A football team is not the goalkeeper, nor the striker, nor the coach, nor their sum as one more thing, nor someone outside them. Yet we do speak of "the team" and we know what we mean. Nagasena says "Nagasena" works like "the team" or "the chariot": a correct word that does not point to a hidden thing behind the elements.

Objections

3

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

K
King Milinda (in the dialogue) 100 BC · attacks the conclusion

If the person is only a flow of passing elements, who is reborn? Is it the same or another? And if it is another, the one reborn escapes the deeds of the one who died: no one is responsible any more.

Nagasena replies
Nagasena 100 BC · Nagasena's reply in the same text
Neither the same nor another. He compares the person to the flame of a lamp lit for the night: the flame of the first watch is not that of the second, and yet there are not three lamps, the light comes from the same lamp. Likewise, one element arises as another passes away, and rebirth is as if simultaneous: a person's continuity is maintained without an identical thing running through time.
K
King Milinda (in the dialogue) 100 BC
But if what is reborn is another, should the new being not be released from its past evil deeds?
See the rest of the debate (1)
Nagasena 100 BC
No, precisely because it is reborn. He compares with a mango thief: even if he says the mangoes he took are not those the other planted, he is guilty, because his fruit comes from the other. Deeds are done by one set of elements and another set is reborn; but the latter comes from the former and is not released from its deeds.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Nagasena's answer separates identity ("the same") from causal continuity: what matters for rebirth and responsibility is the cause-and-effect link between elements. The core disagreement: does this link suffice to ground responsibility without an identical subject? Parfit later defends a close thesis (see below), philosophers like Reid reject it. An open point. (Our summary.)
Descartes 1641 · attacks premise 4

When I doubt everything, one thing resists: I think, and thought cannot be detached from me. So I am a thinking thing. This self is neither my body nor my sensations: I grasp it directly, and it is not one of the elements you list.

a defender replies
see the argument
No reply possible: objection raised in 1641, after the author's death (null).
Derek Parfit defender of the argument · 1984
Parfit rejects the idea of a self that would be an extra fact, distinct from the body, the brain and the series of mental events. For him, everything about a person's life can be said by describing these events and the links between them: the feeling of being an independent subject does not prove there is one. He himself notes, in an appendix, that this view resembles the one attributed to the Buddha.
Where the debate stands (our summary)The core disagreement: is what Descartes grasps when he thinks a subject distinct from his thoughts, or only one more thought? Neither Descartes nor the defenders of no-self can prove their testimony to the other. An open point. (Our summary.)
Thomas Reid 1785 · attacks the conclusion

Thoughts, pains and acts pass: they are successive like time. But identity supposes continued existence without interruption. A person is therefore something indivisible, which stays the same when its thoughts change. My personal identity implies the continued existence of that indivisible thing I call myself: an assemblage of parts is not enough.

no reply
No reply possible: objection raised in 1785, after the author's death (null).
The debate goes on (our summary) Nagasena lived almost nineteen centuries before Reid. He could have answered what he tells Milinda: a person remains by continuity, like the flame of a lamp, not by identity (Milindapanha II, 2, 1). Reid would answer that the continuity of a flame is not identity: a thing that ceases to exist cannot be the same as the one that begins afterwards. (Our summary.)
Where the debate stands (our summary)The core disagreement: does "remaining the same person" require a strictly identical subject (Reid), or only a continuity that suffices for memory and responsibility (Nagasena)? An open point. (Our summary.)