Facing the Boundaries of Epistemology: Kumārila on Error and Negative Cognition

An absence and its locus are the same ontological entity. But the cognition of the absence is different from the cognition of the locus. The cognitive difference is caused by a query followed by a cognitive process of introspection. The moment one perceptually knows y that contains only one thing, z, one is in a position to conclude that y contains the absence of any non-z. After having a query as to whether y has x one revisits one's knowledge of y containing z and comes to know that x is absent from y. Thus the knowledge of the absence of x logically follows from the knowledge of y containing z through the mediation of a query. This analysis goes against the thesis according to which an absence is an irreducible entity that is to be known through senses, and is inspired by the Mīmāṁ sā views, especially the Prābhākara views, on absence and its cognition.

2012

The paper concerns the very beginning of the chapter on perception in Dharmakīrti's Pramāṇavārttika. It focuses on an apparent contradiction in Dignāga's and Dhamrakīrti's epistemology, namely, that universals do not exist and yet aare considered to be objects of valid inferences. Thus, universals have to be distinguished from other non-existing entities, such as objects of illusions. The paper elucidates Dharmakīrti's theory with the help of his great commentator Prajñākaragupta.

Philosophy East and West, 2011

For the Buddhist logicians “perception” (pratyakṣa) is tantamount to “immediate awareness of a particular”, including also awareness of pain/pleasure, self-awareness, and the Buddha’s immediate awareness of the Four Noble Truths etc. Even in this latter case, maintain the Buddhists, the requisites of immediateness and non-conceptualisation are satisfied, for the pure mind of the awaken Buddha “sees” the Four Noble Truths, the Law of Karma etc. as they are, without superimposing conceptualisations on them. Kumārila replies that the common-sense understanding of pratyakṣa is “sense perception”, and this itself excludes the Buddha’s (intellectual) awareness from its sphere. Philosophers — argues Kumārila — have no right to interfere with the common usage of a word unless cogent arguments force them to do so. obviously enough, according to Kumārila, Diṅnāga’s arguments are not cogent, since they violate common sense on the basis of a theory that contradicts ordinary usages and beliefs and lies beyond any possible demonstration. Unlike Diṅnāga, Kumārila believes that we first perceive a non-conceptual “something” (the perception’s content cannot be verbalised as it is non-conceptual) and immediately afterthat, say, “a cow”. Although the latter is already conceptualised and can therefore be verbalised, it is still a perception, since it arises without interruption out of a contact of the sense faculty with its object (on the contrary, the judgement “it was a cow” occurring after one turned her eyes to something else, is not to be considered a perception). Later on, the sensorial datum “a cow” may become part of a complex judgement, such as the inference of a herdsman next to it etc.

インド思想史研究（Studies in the history of Indian thought）, 2003

Theoretical background of Kumārila's critique of omniscience Kumārila is a sub-commentator in the Mīmām . sā tradition: he comments on theŚābarabhās . ya, which is the oldest extant commentary on the Jaiminisūtra. Three different but serial works are attributed to him:Ślokavārttika (ad 1.1.1-1.1.32), Tantravārttika (ad 1.2.1-3.8.44) and T . upt .ī kā (ad 4.1.1-12.4.47). He is also known to have written another but now lost work, the Br . hat . t .ī kā, fragments of which were gathered from the Tattvasaṅgraha and other works. 1 TheŚlokavārttika (and the Br . hat . t .ī kā) deal(s) with philosophical ideas which provide the theoretical basis for the following arguments about the exegesis of the Vedas and their rituals. One of them is his critique of omniscience, ] pointed out for the first time that a now lost work of Kumārila called Br . hat . t .ī kā must have existed. His disciple K.S. [1928] gathered fragments of the Br . hat . t .ī kā from various sources and further confirmed that there must have existed a work of Kumārila called Br . hat . t .ī kā other than the extantŚlokavārttika. Frauwallner [1962] investigated chapters of svatah . prāmān . ya-parīks .ā and atīndriyārthadarśi-parīks .ā of the Tattvasaṅgraha, a work by a Buddhist monkŚāntaraks . ita (a.d. 725-788), which summarizes various philosophical views current in his time, and concluded that the verses quoted from an opponent Mīmām . saka must be quotations from Kumārila's lost work Br . hat . t .ī kā. He also pointed out that Kumārila's notion of vyāpti , i.e. logical invariable concomitance which enables inference, had developed from theŚlokavārttika to the Br . hat . t .ī kā most probably due to the influence of Dharmakīrti, in particular, his first work *Hetuprakaran . a (which was later incorporated as the first chapter of the Pramān . avārttika with the auto-commentary), and determined the sequential order of Kumārila's two works as well as the date of Kumārila, who must be a contemporary of Dharmakīrti. Against Frauwallner, however, Taber [1992] suggested a possibility of the contrary sequence from the Br . hat . t .ī kā to theŚlokavārttika. (Taber [2001], making a bit of concession, did not draw back his main line.) Steinkellner [1997], replying to Taber's critique, supported Frauwallner's view. The same is the case with Kellner [1997] and Krasser [1999]. Krasser [2001:194, n.75], taking into consideration the mutual influence of Kumārila and Dharmakīrti, pointed out the possibility that the sequence of their works isŚlokavārttika→*Hetuprakaran . a (=Pramān . avārttika I with the auto-commentary)→Br . hat . t .ī kā→Pramān . avārttika II-IV.

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences

For Advaita Vedānta, consciousness is to be distinguished from all contents of consciousness that might be introspectively detectable: It is precisely consciousness of whatever contents it is conscious of and not itself one of these contents. Its only nature is, Advaita holds, prakāṣa (manifestation); in itself it is devoid of any content or structure and can never become an object. This paper elaborates on this kind of understanding of consciousness in order to next explain why it might be fruitful for developing a clear understanding of the nature of the so-called problem of consciousness. Today’s philosophy of mind tends to conceive of consciousness in terms of qualia, thereby taking it as a special kind of (introspectively accessible) object. This renders the antimaterialist claim of the distinctness of consciousness from all physical (publicly accessible) features vulnerable to the materialist reply that the difference in question might be a merely epistemological matter, i.e., a matter of different modes of givenness without difference in what is thus given. This move, however – this paper argues –, is impossible without resulting in circularity or infinite regress with regard to consciousness in the sense of givenness (manifestation) itself.

2024

Abhāva (absence) is an important aspect in Indian philosophy, this paper mainly focuses on the idea of Abhāva particularly within the framework of Nyaya-Vaisheshika tradition. The Nyaya-Vaisheshika philosophers divide Padartha (category) into two main categories: Bhāva (existence) and Abhāva (non-existence). Bhāva Padārtha are considered as absolute but Abhāva is relative in its conception. The discussion explores various perspectives on the recognition of Abhāva as a distinct category. This paper focuses on the debate surrounding the recognition of Abhāva as a Padartha is thoroughly analysed in this paper.. Also, the paper investigates the relationship between absence and its locus, focusing on the need to consider Abhāva as a distinct category beyond its locus. The significance of the Ādhāra-ādhēẏa relationship between absence and its locus is highlighted. In conclusion, I try to establish that recognizing Abhāva as a distinct category is important because it is not merely the negation of existence but constitutes a unique category with its own characteristics.

Mahāmudrā in India and Tibet (ed. by Roger R. Jackson and Klaus-Dieter Mathes), 2020

The question of what, if anything, remains for the yogin who realizes emptiness gave post-classical Bka’ brgyud exegetes a fruitful hermeneutical instrument for differentiating between affirmative (cataphatic) gzhan stong and negative (apophatic) rang stong strains of Buddhist thought. The wide-ranging Buddhist philosophical interpretations of the remainder, which all turned on a famous passage from the Cūḷasuññatasutta (The Lesser Discourse on Emptiness) of the Pāli Canon, and the divergent Tibetan assimilations of them, provided the raw materials for Bka’ brgyud exegetes to evaluate different lines of response to an overlapping set of key soteriological problems that had long been discussed and hotly debated by Buddhist scholars. Paramount among the issues were [1] whether phenomena are best deemed to be empty of own [nature] (rang stong) or empty of other (gzhan stong), [2] whether a buddha can be said to have any cognition or wisdom at all, [3] what happens during states of cessation (nirodhasamāpatti), particularly the cessation of mind (cittanirodha), and [4] whether realization is ineffable and in what sense. This paper explores the broad range of Indian and Tibetan views of the remainder considered by the Eighth Karmapa Mi bskyod rdo rje and shows how he presented and defended his own tradition’s view in relation or reaction to these.

2008

Journal of Indian Philosophy, 2014

The paper aims to clarify Ratnākaraśānti's epistemological theory that mental images in a cognition are false (*alīkākāravāda) in comparison with Śāntarakṡita's criticism of the Yogācāra position. Although Ratnākaraśānti frequently uses the neither-one-nor-many argument for explaining his Yogācāra position, the argument, unlike Ś āntarakṡita's original one, does not function for refuting the existence of awareness itself as the basis of mental images. This point is examined in the first two sections of this paper by analyzing Ratnākaraśānti's proof of the selflessness of entities (dharmanairātmya) and his application of the neither-onenor-many argument for demonstrating the falsehood of mental images. On the other hand, the last section investigates into his defense of the alīkākāravāda against Ś āntarakṡita's severe criticism of it. Here, too, we can find his tactical usage of the neither-one-nor-many argument, or more precisely, one of its variants: the neitheridentical-nor-different argument. Through the above procedure, we can see how Yogācāra philosophy survived in the late period of Indian Buddhism by blending the Madhyamaka opponent's argument with its own thought.