The topic of this dissertation is one that has been in the forefront of contemporary metaphysics in the Anglo-American philosophical tradition, namely, the problem of personal identity through time. Although we generally believe that we remain the same persons throughout our lives, the answers to questions concerning just what it is that remains the same about us prove to be elusive. Contemporary debate on the subject has its roots in the challenges posed by Locke and Hume to theories which assert (...) that persisting and substantial selves, or souls, constitute the ground for personal identity, and their efforts to suggest alternative theories based on such concepts as memory and causality. It is remarkable that a similar debate, aroused by the "non-self" doctrine of the Buddha, occupied a central position in Indian philosophical discourse during the last centuries B.C.E. and the first millennium C.E. While much historical and philological research has been devoted to Buddhist approaches to this problem, the task of interpreting these materials in the light of recent refinements of philosophical method has not yet been undertaken. It is this task to which the present thesis is devoted, drawing on the works of such Buddhist philosophers as Vasubandhu and Santaraksita, and their Brahmanical opponents such as Uddyotakara, as well as recent contributions to the debate on personal identity by Chisholm, Parfit and others. The dissertation is divided into three main sections: Part One, in six chapters, traces out the history of the problem of personal identity in Indian philosophy, and is especially concerned with the role played by refinements of Indian philosophical method in the developments discussed; Part Two presents a selection of the most important Buddhist and Brahmanical contributions to the problem, newly translated from the Sanskrit for the present dissertation; and Part Three includes three supplementary essays on personal identity in the work of Derek Parfit and Steven Colline, Buddhist idealism, and Buddhist hermeneutics. (shrink)

This chapter presents an overview of the life, work, and philosophical contributions of Śāntarakṣita (c. 725–788), who is known for his synthesis of Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka with elements of the Dignāga-Dharmakīrti tradition of logic and epistemology. His two most important independent treatises, the Compendium of True Principles (Tattvasaṃgraha) and the Ornament of the Middle Way (Madhyamakālaṃkāra), are characterized by an emphasis on the indispensable role of rational analysis on the Buddhist path as well as serious and systematic engagement with competing Buddhist (...) and non-Buddhist schools of thought. Śāntarakṣita employs a pedagogical-rhetorical device of provisionally adopting what he deems to be successively more rational views to reject less rational ones. Using this approach, in the Ornament of the Middle Way, he recommends a gradual path to arrive at an understanding of the Madhyamaka ultimate truth by incorporating Yogācāra idealist ontology into his presentation of conventional truth. In this same text, he presents an influential iteration of the neither-one-nor-many argument for the Madhyamaka ultimate truth, the emptiness of intrinsic nature—i.e., the universal negation of ontologically independent being—leaving a lasting and significant impact on both Indian and Tibetan Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophy. (shrink)

Śāntarakṣita was an important 8th century CE Indian Buddhist philosopher who introduced Indian Buddhism to Tibet and is believed to have created what the Tibetans call the Yogācāra-Svātantrika School of Madhyamaka Indian Buddhism. He composed the "Compendium of Reality" (Tattva¬saṃgraha), which is a comprehensive critical examination of the major Indian philosophical theories of his time. Kamalaśīla was Śāntarakṣita’s eminent disciple who wrote a commentary on the "Compendium of Reality", entitled "Commentary on the Difficult Points of the Compendium of Reality" (Tattva¬saṃgraha¬pañjikā), (...) which we shall call the Commentary. Here we translate and briefly comment upon the Commentary discussion of Śāntarakṣita’s examination in verses 285–310 of the classical Sāṃkhyas’ theory of a self (ātman). Śāntarakṣita, Kamalaśīla, and the Sāṃkhyas all believed that a self is consciousness, but according to Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla, consciousness is a causal continuum of momentary consciousnesses of objects and exists merely by convention; according to the Sāṃkhyas, it is a permanent and partless witness of objects that has independent existence. We give a brief explanation of the Sāṃkhya philosophy, and a brief explanation of the Buddhism of Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla. Then we translate one or more of Śāntarakṣita’s verses on the Sāṃkhya theory of a self, along with Kamalaśīla’s commentary, follow the translation with our own comments upon what is translated, and repeat this sequence until the examination of the Sāṃkhya theory is completed. We expand our comments when dealing with a few basic philosophical issues that arise from the arguments presented in the Commentary. We briefly evaluate the effectiveness of the arguments by Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla and the Sāṃkhya replies as they are represented. The basic philosophical questions upon which we shall comment concern the Sāṃkhya theories that a self is one (eka) in the sense that it has no parts, permanent (nityam) in the sense that it continues to exist without changing in any way, a witness of objects presented to it, and the experiencer of the objects presented to it without being an agent that produces them. (shrink)

The term nirvyāpāra, which literally means “non-activity”, can be a key point in understanding Śāntarakṣita’s causal theory. It is a necessary step in his argument for the doctrine of Dependent Origination. This paper presents the views of the orthodox Indian schools that endorses the existence of causal activity and examines how Śāntarakṣita establishes the idea of non-activity mainly by discussing his objection to causal activity. In addition, the paper also briefly investigate the history of the concept of “non-activity” in Buddhist (...) philosophy, trying to show that Śāntarakṣita contributes to this view by explicitly spelling it out and providing a detailed argument for it. (shrink)

The article details the biography and teachings of Śāntarakṣita, a famous Buddhist scholar and enlightener, a leading figure in the spread of Buddhism in Tibet and his closest student Kamalaśīla. Śāntarakṣita is the author of several treatises, including Compendium of Entities - Tattvasaṃgraha, a monumental work that can rightfully be called the Buddhist Philosophical Encyclopedia, consisting of 26 sections, in which all key philosophical schools of India, namely: Mīmāṃsa, Vedānta, Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Lokāyata, Jainism and Buddhism of other sects) (...) are analyzed and subsequently refuted. Kamalaśīla is a direct student of Śāntarakṣita, the author of a word-to-word commentary on the teacher's Tattvasaṃgraha. The article also dwells on the history of the discovery and study of the Tattvasaṃgraha. The novelty of the study lies in a full-length encyclopedic presentation of the philosophy of Śāntarakṣita and his immediate student Kamalaśīla. A special contribution of the author to the study of the topic is the demonstration that Śāntarakṣita, as a representative of the Yogācāra-Madhyamaka school, worked in the genre of synthesis of the teachings of Yogācāra and Madhyamaka, and in the field of epistemology he continued the theories of Dignāga and Dharmakīrti. (shrink)

There is a perennial and universal concern about the "self." The question of "who I am" is a necessary step on the path of self-awakening. The Ancient Greek aphorism "know thyself" was inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi and has been widely praised. Within the philosophical scope of the "self," the problem of personal persistence or personal identity has attracted a great deal of attention and has been discussed extensively in the Western philosophical tradition. The (...) problem is as follows: how can we ensure that those "I"s that exist at different times, play different roles, present different appearances, and have different thoughts are the same person? For example, I am a scholar; I am a... (shrink)

In challenging the physicalist conception of consciousness advanced by Cārvāka materialists such as Bṛhaspati, the Buddhist philosopher Śāntarakṣita addresses a series of key issues about the nature of causality and the basis of cognition. This chapter considers whether causal accounts of generation for material bodies are adequate in explaining how conscious awareness comes to have the structural features and phenomenal properties that it does. Arguments against reductive physicalism, it is claimed, can benefit from an understanding of the structure of phenomenal (...) consciousness that does not eschew causal-explanatory reasoning. Against causal models that rely on the concept of potentiality, the Buddhist principle of “dependent arising” underscores a dynamic conception of efficient causality, which allows for elements defined primarily in terms of their capacity for sentience and agency to be causally efficacious. (shrink)

The study provides an insight into the structural features of the famous VIII century Buddhist treatise Tattvasaṅgrāha by Śāntarakṣita with regard to the text’s main purpose ( prayojana ) as it is treated in Kamalaśīla’s commentary Pañjikā. Any text along with its referential (representational) function of conveying message - meaning to the addressee, or its expressive function, reflecting the author's attitude to what is communicated, also performs the ‘appellative’ function, encouraging the recipient of the message to act. This function which (...) could also be called praxiological was always significant in Indian text culture, since from the times of Veda-s it was embedded in its very core. This function is of paramount importance in the case of Indian religious and philosophical texts, whose main aim is to convince and transform the consciousness of their percipients. Along with linear models of message transfer, Sanskrit texts could demonstrate non-linear semantic structures, transmitting the main idea of the text indirectly. It is exactly how one should perceive the message of Śāntarakṣita’s Tattvasaṅgrāha according to the suggested by Śāntarakṣita’s prominent student Kamalaśīla in his Pañjikā -commentary to the treatise. He proposes to consider Tattvasaṅgrāha not as a thematically heterogeneous encyclopaedic or doxographic work, whose main objective is to refute different non-Buddhist views (as it is often treated by scholars now), but as a text, which by its very design exposes one of the most important Buddhist principles - the law of the dependent origination ( pratītyasamutpāda ). The themes, discussed in a number of the chapters of Tattvasaṅgrāha, indeed, appear to have direct correlation with the characteristics of pratītyasamutpāda given to it in Śālistamba-sūtra - an early Mahāyāna text, which explains this universal law. Kamalaśīla suggests looking at Tattvasaṅgrāha as at one big unit-sentence - mahāvākya, with the exposition of pratītyasamutpāda as its unitary purpose-meaning ( abhidheya ). In this context, the treatise functions as a praxiological tool for the ‘installing’ into the consciousness of the text’s addressee the knowledge of ‘true principles’ (tattva-s) of pratītyasamutpāda. This interpretation of the main message of the text raises also a question of the adequate translation of the name of the treatise into other languages, because, according to Kamalaśīla, ‘ Tattvasaṅgrāha’ means the ‘Assembly of Principles-(tattva’-s)’ which specify precisely pratītyasamutpāda (pratītyasamutpāda-viśeṣaṇāni tattvāni). (shrink)

This article examines Śāntarakṣita’s and Kamalaśīla’s understandings of svatantra and prasaṅga proofs in the attempt to clarify how and why Tibetan Prāsaṅgikas came to portray svatantra inference as an instance of the very thing Madhyamaka rejects. The article proceeds in four parts. A brief comparison of Patsap Nyimadrak’s portrayal of svatantra inference with Bhāviveka’s and Candrakīrti’s employment of this expression shows that Patsap expanded the meaning of it, charging its users with embracing a realism at odds with Madhyamaka emptiness. Patsap’s (...) arguments against Śāntarakṣita’s “neither one nor many” proof lead us consider the latter’s and Kamalaśīla’s understanding of svatantra and prasaṅga proofs, which turns out to be consistent with, if more sophisticated than, Bhāviveka’s and Candrakīrti’s usage. An exploration of Kamalaśīla’s development of the proof of the naturelessness of all things, real and imagined, calls into question the svatantra-prasaṅga distinction but still leaves us without a source for Patsap’s characterization. A consideration of Śāntarakṣita’s and Kamalaśīla’s use of svatantra to characterize Mīmāṃsā conceptions of an authorless Veda and “intrinsic validity,” as well as their own view of “self-awareness,” offers potential sources for characterizing valid cognition and, by extension, inference as “autonomous.”. (shrink)

The so-called Buddhist momentarists, such as Dharmakīrti and his followers, defend the momentariness of all things. However, with equal force they also defend the persistence of all things, not just within a single lifetime but over an indefinite cycle of rebirth. Naturally, they have an interesting theory of persistence, according to which things persist without being self-identical over time. The theory is best presented in the Lokāyatāparīkṣā chapter of Śāntarakṣita’s Tattvasaṃgraha and Kamalaśīla’s Paṅjikā, as they clearly articulate the criteria of (...) persistence without identity. The purpose of this paper is to formulate a Buddhist theory of persistence through the analysis of these texts. Here is the basic formula: Things persist as series, which is constituted by momentary entities that are causally related as upādāna and upādeya. Upādāna causal relation is demarcated from other causal relations by the principle of changeability with temporal restriction, and the principle adopts further qualifications to accommodate complex cases and personal persistence. I have addressed a problem that contemporary physicalism might pose a threat to the Buddhist account of personal persistence, and argued that the problem can be evaded by regarding persons as psycho-physical entities rather than strictly non-physical. In its general outlook, the Buddhist theory of persistence is close to Theodore Sider’s stage theory in that persistence is a matter of distinct individuals standing in a special causal relationship. As regards personal persistence, the Buddhist has a stricter condition than Parfit’s IDM thesis, which states that psychological connectedness with any cause is what matters for survival. The Buddhist would say it is moral connectedness with a special cause called upādāna. (shrink)

There has emerged in recent years the recognition that the characteristically Buddhist doctrine of svasa vitti 2 (‘apperception’, as I will render it for reasons to become clear presently) was vari...

The great Buddhist writer Santaraksita (725-88) was central to the Buddhist traditions spread into Tibet. He and his disciple Kamalasila were among the most influential thinkers in classical India. They debated ideas not only within the Buddhist tradition but also with exegetes of other Indian religions, and they both traveled and nurtured Buddhism in Tibet during its infancy there. Their views, however, have been notoriously hard to classify. The present volume examines Santaraksita's encyclopedic Tattvasamgraha and Kamalasila's detailed commentary on that (...) text in his Panjika, two works that have historically been presented together. The works cover all conceivable problems in Buddhist thought and portray Buddhism as a supremely rational faith. One hotly debated topic of their time was omniscience -- infinite, all-compassing knowledge -- whether it was possible and whether one could defensibly claim it as a quality of the Buddha. (shrink)

It is common for philosophers from the Madhyamaka school of Indian Buddhist thought to offer a presentation of the two truths, ultimate truth ( param rthasatya ) and conventional truth ( sa v tisatya ), as a vehicle for presenting their views on the ontological status of entities. Though there is some degree of variance, generally ultimate truths are described as objects known by an awareness of knowing things as they are. Conventional truths are objects as conceived by a mistaken (...) awareness, one that superimposes a mode of existence onto objects that is not actually there. These two truths are contrasted (one is accurate; one is not) and used as a vehicle for understanding the ontological status of phenomena and the means by which they are known. ntarak ita (725-788 CE) was among the most important Madhyamaka thinkers in Indian Buddhist history, yet his presentation of the two truths has several features that signal its uniqueness. This paper will discuss two particular unique dimensions to ntarak ita's views on the two truths: his integration of aspects of Cittamatra/Yog c ra thinking, including the rejection of external objects, into his presentation of conventional truths, and the dynamic way in which conventional truths are not merely presented as objects of a mistaken awareness, but rather as an important soteriological step in the process of realizing the ultimate. This syncretic and dynamic integration of Yog c ra thought, where its ideas are fully engaged and incorporated into an over-arching Madhyamaka philosophical system is a key component to the thought of one of the most important, influential, and innovative figures in the late period of Indian Madhyamaka, and one which has yet to be fully acknowledged in secondary literature. (shrink)

Nichts bleibt Nichts. Der buddhistische Zurückweisung von Kumarilas abhavapramana. Übersetzung und Interpretation von Santaraksitas Tattvasamgraha vv.1647-1690 mit Kamalasilas Tattvasamgrahapanjika. Birgit Kellner. Vienna 1997. xxxiii, 154 pp. No price/ISBN given.

The paper aims to clarify Ratnākaraśānti?s epistemological theory that mental images in a cognition are false (*alīkākāravāda) in comparison with Śāntarakṣita?s criticism of the Yogācāra position. Although Ratnākaraśānti frequently uses the neither-one-nor-many argument for explaining his Yogācāra position, the argument, unlike Śāntarakṣita?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-one-nor-many argument for demonstrating the falsehood of mental images. On the other hand, the last section investigates into his defense of the alīkākāravāda against Śāntarakṣita?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 neither-identical-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. (shrink)

This paper aims at examining the arguments between Śubhagupta (c.720–780) and Śāntarakṣita (c.725–788) over the Buddha’s cognition of other minds and shows how the question of the Buddha’s cognition of other mindsis incorporated into the proof of vijñaptimātratā or “consciousness-only” by Śāntarakṣita. According to Śāntarakṣita, Śubhagupta assumes that the Buddha’s cognition, which is characterized as “the cognition [of the Blessed One] which follows the path of cognition” (aupalambhikadarśana), grasps other minds when the Buddha’s cognition is similar (sārūpya) to other minds. (...) For Śāntarakṣita, the Buddha’s cognition cannot be aupalambhika. If the Buddha’s cognition were similar to the other minds, it would follow that the Buddha, whose cognition erroneously grasps other minds as something distinct from it, has not yet removed the hindrance constituted by objects of knowledge (jñeyāvaraṇa). But if it is accepted that the Buddha’s cognition is beyond the grasped-grasper duality, can the Buddha, who does not know other minds, be called sarvajña “omniscient”? According to Śāntarakṣita, even though the Buddha has no seeing (adarśana), the Buddha causes all sentient beings to gain benefits by virtue of seeing other minds and hence deserves to be called sarvajña. What underlies this argument is that the Buddha knows other minds without making a distinction between his own mind and other minds, which is possible only on the basis of self-cognition (ātmasaṃvedana). (shrink)

The doctrine of radical impermanence expresses the temporal dimension of Buddhist metaphysics, especially in the philosophy of Dharmakīrti and his successors. Most straightforwardly, the doctrine says that everything that exists is momentary; we are not impermanent in the sense that we perish eventually, say when our brain ceases functioning, but rather we perish immediately upon conception. The person who begins to write this sentence and the person who completes it are, strictly speaking, different entities. However, there is a devastating problem (...) for the doctrine: How can any momentary entities be causally efficacious, and more particularly, given their extremely meager duration of existence, how might the momentarist explain the phenomena of cooperation among contemporaneous entities to occasion novel entities, such as seeds, soil, water and sunlight giving rise to sprouts? Even more difficult, can the momentarist offer such an explanation that does not undermine his negative claim that non-momentary things cannot exist? Śāntarakṣita and Ratnakīrti offer answers, but they both fail. By meticulously analyzing and evaluating their arguments, I identify the stumbling blocks of their arguments and show what needs to be done to save the doctrine of momentariness. (shrink)

In his *Bāhyārthasiddhikārikā (BASK), “Verses on the Establishment of the External Object”—extant only in Tibetan translation—Śubhagupta (720–780 CE), a philosopher connected with the logical-epistemological school of Buddhism, argues the reality of external objects of cognitions. In this article, I shall provide an account of Śubhagupta's theory of the cognitive process, as expressed in BASK 35–44, particularly in light of his view that the images (ākāra) of those objects do not appear in cognition. BASK is part of an internal Buddhist debate (...) over the reality of external supports of perceptions, wherein Śubhagupta disproves the views of thinkers like Diṅnāga and Vasubandhu. On the other hand, he is one of the main opponents addressed in the Bahirarthaparīkṣā (BAP) of the Tattvasaṅgraha (TS) by Śāntarakṣita (725–788 CE) and the Tattvasaṅgrahapañjikā (TSP) by Kamalaśīla (740–795 CE). Therein, the two authors, while demonstrating the absence of the characteristics of apprehended (grāhya) and apprehender (grāhaka) with regard to cognition, keenly refute his ideas and quote selected Sanskrit verses that can be identified as the original Sanskrit of stanzas in BASK. Accordingly, I shall examine Śubhagupta’s theory of the cognitive process in two steps: (i) analyzing the arguments that Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla advance against him based on their interpretation of Śubhagupta’s views; and (ii) analyzing the arguments that he brings forward against his opponents (namely, Diṅnāga and Vasubandhu), by means of the investigation of BASK 35–44 in their original context. (shrink)

Traditional as well as contemporary interpreters of Indian Yogācāra divide that tradition into a variety of doxographical camps depending on whether awareness is understood tobe endowed with phenomenal content (ākāra) and, if so, whether that content is understood to be real or true. Kamalaśīla’s extensive commentary on his teacher Śāntarakṣita’s Tattvasaṃgraha contains passages that throw into question certain doxographical equivalencies, especially the equivalencies sometimes proposed betweenthe doctrine that awareness is endowed with phenomenal content (sākāravāda) and the doctrine that such content (...) is true or real (satyākāravāda) and between the doctrine that awareness is devoid of phenomenal content (nirākāravāda) and the doctrine that such content is false or unreal (alīkākāravāda). Further, in accord with his broadly rhetorical approach to the application of reason, Kamalaśīla is seen in this commentary to endorse a range of seemingly contradictory positions vis-à-vis ākāra. This article argues that this situation can be explained by way of reference to Kamalaśīla’s larger philosophical and soteriological program as a Mādhyamika thinker, a program not made explicit in the text yet nonetheless present in nascent form. That is, while various theories of awareness as endowed or not endowed with phenomenal content are useful in different rhetorical contexts as well as at different stages of philosophical analysis, at the end of the day such distinctions are moot since neither awareness nor its content is upheld as ultimately real. Instead, soteriologically efficacious phenomenal content is said to be like a “true dream” (satyasvapna), an illusion that satisfies only for as long as it remains unanalyzed. (shrink)

Although rhetoric is not a category of ancient Indian philosophy, this paper argues that Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla, 2 eighth-century Indian Buddhist philosophers, can nonetheless be seen to embrace a rhetorical conception of rationality. That is, while these thinkers are strong proponents of rational analysis and philosophical argumentation as tools for attaining certainty, they also uphold the contingent nature of all such processes. Drawing on the categories of the New Rhetoric, this paper argues that these Buddhist thinkers understand philosophical argumentation to (...) be directed at a universal audience of rational beings, where this universal audience is not an actual audience but a rhetorical one constructed through the author’s particular and historically contingent conception of what counts as rational. A reception theory of rationality is one that holds that the rationality of an argument depends upon its acceptance by a rational audience. When philosophers recognize the historically contingent nature of what counts as rational, they can embrace a reception theory of rationality that neither reduces the rational to mere opinion nor restricts it to a single, absolute, and timeless standard. (shrink)

Philosophical attention to animals can be found in a wide range of texts throughout the history of philosophy, including discussions of animal classification in Aristotle and Ibn Bâjja, of animal rationality in Porphyry, Chrysippus, Aquinas and Kant, of mental continuity and the nature of the mental in Dharmakīrti, Telesio, Conway, Descartes, Cavendish, and Voltaire, of animal self-consciousness in Ibn Sina, of understanding what others think and feel in Zhuangzi, of animal emotion in Śāntarakṣita and Bentham, and of human cultural uniqueness (...) in Xunzi. In recent years, there has been increased attention to animal minds in philosophical discussions across many areas of metaphysics, epistemology, and value theory. Given that nonhuman animals share some biological and psychological features with humans, and that we share community, land, and other resources, consideration of nonhuman animals has much to contribute to our philosophical activities. -/- Contemporary philosophy of animal minds often also engages with the sciences of animal cognition and behavior. The science of comparative cognition is a thriving area of research, complementing the philosophical study in two ways. For one, philosophers of animal cognition can use claims resulting from animal cognition studies as premises in philosophical discussions. For example, Jacob Beck (2012) relies on pigeons’ abilities to compare quantities to argue for nonconceptual content; Sidney Carls-Diamante (forthcoming) appeals to octopus behavior and physiology to defend embodied cognition; Richard Moore (2016a) refers to ape gestural communication to rethink the requirements for intentional communication; Andrew Barron and Colin Klein (2016) appeal to insect cognition research to defend new theories of consciousness; Sarah Vincent, Rebecca Ring, and Kristin Andrews (2019) cite dolphins’ social practices to argue for the existence of norms that do not require metacognition. -/- In addition, philosophers of animal cognition can examine the epistemology and methods used to justify the claims that arise from the science. Research into animal cognition has resulted in surprising claims about animal capacities, such as sociality in garter snakes (Skinner & Miller 2020), tool-use in ants (Maák et al. 2017), mirror self-recognition in fish (Kohda et al. 2019), empathy in rats (Bartal et al. 2011), social learning in fruit flies (Danchin et al. 2018), episodic memory in dogs (Fugazza et al. 2020), addition and subtraction in bees (Howard et al. 2019). How should we evaluate such claims? -/- Some philosophers have argued that animal cognition research is held to a higher standard than human cognition research, and that scientists working with animals are sometimes asked to solve skeptical problems (Halina 2015). Others have challenged scientific assumptions about the relationship between brain size and intelligence, as well as biases against invertebrates (Mikhalevich & Powell 2020). -/- Animal cognition research challenges philosophers to consider that many capacities and behaviors often assumed to require language, sophisticated technological capacities, or legal systems may in fact be had by other animals who lack these properties. In this way, animal cognition research often surprises us by showing that sophisticated-looking activity can be caused through rather simple mechanisms. -/- 1. What is Animal Cognition? 2. Philosophical Assumptions in the Study of Animal Cognition 2.1 Theory-ladenness 2.2 Value-ladenness 2.3 Objectivity 2.4 Simplicity 2.5 Summary 3. Animal Cognition Applied to Philosophy 3.1 The problem of other minds 3.2 The mind-body problem 3.3 Consciousness 3.4 Thought 3.5 Communication 3.6 Social understanding 3.7 The influence of animal cognition on value theory 3.7.1 Ethics 3.7.2 Political theory 3.8 Summary Bibliography Academic Tools Other Internet Resources Related Entries. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to take up three closely connected questions. First, does consciousness essentially involve subjectivity? Second, what is the connection, if any, between pre-reflective self-consciousness and subjectivity? And, third, does consciousness necessarily involve an ego or self? I will draw on the Yogācāra–Madhyamaka synthesis of Śāntarakṣita to develop an account of the relation between consciousness, subjectivity, and the self. I will argue, first, that phenomenal consciousness is reflexive or self-illuminating. Second, I will argue that consciousness necessarily (...) involves minimal subjectivity. Third, I will argue that neither the reflexivity nor the subjectivity of consciousness implies that there is any entity such as the self or ego over and above reflexive consciousness. Fourth, I will argue that what we normally think of as ‘the self’ is best understood as a complex, multi-layered process that emerges within the pre.. (shrink)

This work focuses on a narrow Buddhist epistemological tradition that begins with the Abhidharma philosopher Vasubandhu’s analyses of perception and is developed by Dignāga, Dharmakīrti, Kamalaśīla, and Śāntarakṣita. Coseru explains how Buddhist epistemology evolved in dialogue with competing conceptions internal to Buddhism and against orthodox Indian philosophies, particularly Nyāya and Mīmāṃsā. Coseru’s main argument is that although widespread interpretations of Buddhist epistemology are foundationalist, a more useful way to understand it is as a form of phenomenology consistent with enactivism and (...) a naturalism based in descriptive accounts of cognition. Coseru engages his analysis with contemporary Western philosophical concerns in philosophy of mind and language, cognitive science, and enactivism. (shrink)

Nyāya realists drew an important distinction between absence and non-existence. Perished particulars, such as Aristotle, emperor Ashoka, or the Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan are absent now but they are not non-existent in the sense of having become unreal or fictional. By dying, my grandmother did not become nonexistent like Snow White, though she suffered post-cessation absence. In order to be really dead, one could aptly remark, she has to be real. Can we therefore be realists about now deceased individuals (...) or past event-entities or should we listen to Vasubandhu and adopt a subtle anti-realism about wholly past entities and events. Can both Michael Dummett and his death (in 2011) be deemed unreal now? Inspired by Buddhist philosophers from Nāgārjuna to Śāntarakṣita, Mark Siderits has been committed to a nuanced fictionalist version of anti-realism not only about universals, permanent selves, and the external world but even about consciousness. In this paper I try, first, to reconstruct such an anti-realism about the past using Vasubandhu’s critique of the omni-existentist (sarvāstivādin) early Buddhists, and then respond to it by bringing in Bhāsarvajña the Kashmir-Naiyāyika and Michael Dummett into dialogue with Vasubandhu and his realist Buddhist predecessors. (shrink)

Although Candrakīrti has been a focus in the recent scholarly attention on conventional reality in Buddhist philosophy, the complexity of his discussions of the status of phenomenal world on the surface or conventional level has not been adequately explored. In cataloging the wide-ranging interpretations that Candrakīrti has offered, this paper identifies several clusters of connected ideas that are delineated here as dimensions of Candrakīrti’s conventional reality. It will be shown that his thoughts on the subject have divergent orientations, ranging from (...) commonsensical to technical. Thus, on the one hand, conventional reality represents the beliefs and consensus that ordinary people share about their world, while, on the other, traditional Madhyamaka, grammar, and Abhidharma discourses are used to provide linguistic and Buddhist doctrinal outlines of that same reality. The mobilization of available resources affords Candrakīrti several layers of articulation, as it does again for the eighth-century writers Jñānagarbha and Śāntarakṣita, who bring Dharmakīrti’s thought and Yogācāra philosophy to bear on the Madhyamaka theory of conventional reality. (shrink)

Samavaya, the sixth category in the Kanada-sutra, the corner stone of the Nyaya-Vaisesika system of philosophy, on which the grand edifice of the said school has been assiduously built by the followers, from Prasastapada to Sridhara, Uddyotakara to Udayana and Gangesa, has been dealt with in this work, in its entirety and established that the theory of causality depends on Samavaya.The criticism against the concept of Samavaya by the other schools of philosophy, more particularly the attack mounted on it by (...) Buddhist logicians Dharmakirti, Asoka Pandita, Santaraksita, et al. and the Jain scholars such as Akalanka, Manikyanandin and Prabhacandra have been presented in their full vigour. The arguments in defence of Samavaya marshalled by scholars of the Navya-Nyaya school are also put forward, maintaining their flavour, strength and sharpness. By presenting the strength and weakness of all arguments for and against the concept of Samavaya, the present work establishes the concept of Samavaya in its true perspective. This comprehensive work on Samavaya, published for the first time, helps to understand the basic theory of creation and the emergence of the world order as propounded and upheld by the Nyaya-Vaisesika school of philosophy. This is a significant contribution to the modern review of Indian philosophy. (shrink)

This paper mainly addresses the following issues: how Buddhists deal with future existence, the difference between yogic perception and the cognition of ordinary people with regard to future entities, and how Buddhists resolve the contradiction between the theory of momentariness and that of action and its fruit. According to the Sarvāstivādins, a future entity exists in reality as long as there is cognition that has this entity as its object. According to the Sautrāntikas, however, that theory does not hold true. (...) A future entity is just what will occur hereafter, and it is never the case that such an entity exists at present. Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla do not directly negate an opponent’s argument that the distinction between past and future entities is made by yogic perception, but implicitly accept it. They state that because a future entity is situated in a causal stream, yogis can cognize it through purified worldly cognition. As for an effect that will occur in the future, Buddhists do not seem to follow the model that one and the same agent of action will necessarily receive the fruit of past action, which is often seen in other schools such as the Naiyāyikas and Mīmāṃsakas. Rather, Buddhists adopt the theory of the uninterrupted succession of cause and effect. (shrink)

The introduction to the topic of this issue is an overview of the research articles authored by Russian, Lithuanian, and Indian scholars on various problems of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. While explaining the status of the terms “Mahāyāna” and “Hīnayāna,” the author emphasizes that since they are represent the apologetic conceptualizations of Mahayanists, the appellation “Hīnayāna” (“Lesser Vehicle”, etc.) is not recognized either by those Buddhists who are supposed to be characterized by it, or by scholars striving for a neutral appellation. (...) This creates difficulties, including the need for a generally accepted designation for this Buddhist tradition. However, despite the apologetic nature of the Mahāyāna - Hīnayāna opposition, the difference between the two is captured very plausibly. The first one teaches about the individual way of achieving liberation from the cycle of endless rebirths (saṃsāra) through a personal, individual self-perfection (the path of the arhat) leading to enlightenment (bodhi) and nirvāṇa (extinction of passions). The second one develops a full-fledged religion with its own pantheon and rituals, in which nirvāṇa and individual liberation, while remaining, more or less theoretically, the ultimate goal, are pushed to a distant plane. At the same time, the idea of compassion and the ideal of bodhisattva who, having taken a vow to help all living beings to get rid of sufferings, continues to remain in saṃsāra, is put forward in the center. However, despite this major difference a Buddhist discipline known as Abhidharma which consists in analysis and classification of discrete states of consciousness (dharmas), identified in meditation, remains a reference point in both traditions. Three authors touch upon it (Helen Ostrovskaya, Pradeep Gokhale, and Vladimir Korobov). Two of them (Ostrovskaya and Gokhale) focus on the problems of murder and death, and the third one (Korobov) dwells on the methodology of Abhidharma. Vladimir Ivanov offers a new interpretation of the structure of Śāntarakṣita’s treatise “Tattva-saṃgraha” with Kamalaśīla’s “Pañjikā” commentary. Yangutov and Lepekhov explore the specificity of Buddhism reception in China, Tibet, Mongolia, and Russia. Nesterkin publishes for the first time B. Baradiin’s theses for Agvan Dordjiev’s lecture, which exemplifies the Buryat Buddhist Renovationists’ interpretation of Buddhism. Burmistrov analyzes the views of Indian historians of philosophy on the history of Buddhism, Volkova - the concepts of Buddhist ethics in contemporary analytical philosophy. (shrink)

The phenomenon of recognition is a point of contention in the debate between the orthodox Hindus and Buddhists on whether the self exists. The Hindus, including Naiyāyikas and Mīmāṃsakas, argue that recognition evidences the existence of the self, while Buddhist philosopher Śāntarakṣita maintains that there is no self and recognition should be explained in another way. This article examined two disputes, focusing on the two subsidiary aspects of a recognition: memory and self-recognition. For Hindus, it is the existence of the (...) self that makes memory and self-recognition possible. For Buddhists, it is due to the phenomena of memories and self-recognitions that people postulate the existence of the self. I argue that Buddhist explanation of memory is more acceptable, while their debates on self-recognition should be considered as a tie. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Illusions of KnowingMatthew T. Kapstein (bio)Knowing Illusion: Bringing a Tibetan Debate into Contemporary Discourse, Volume I: A Philosophical History of the Debate, and Volume II: Translations. By The Yakherds ( José Cabezón, Ryan Conlon, Thomas Doctor, Douglas Duckworth, Jed Forman, Jay Garfield, John Powers, Sonam Thakchöe, Tashi Tsering, and Geshé Yeshes Thabkhas). New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.Metaphysics is a subject much more curious than useful, the knowledge of (...) which, like that of a sunken reef, serves chiefly to enable us to keep clear of it.Charles S. Peirce, "How to Make Our Ideas Clear"I. The Elusive Way to the MiddleKnowing Illusion: Bringing a Tibetan Debate into Contemporary Discourse is the fruit of collaborative efforts by the Yakherds, a group of scholars stemming from the earlier Cowherds, in which two of the present herdsmen—Sonam Thakchöe and Jay Garfield—were active as well.1 In moving from the broad issues of Buddhist philosophy that occupied the Cowherds to a tightly focused study of a particular debate in Tibet, the group has parted from the gentle cattle of the Indian plains to tend more rugged Himalayan stock. The present work, in two volumes, offers an exceptionally lucid guide to some of the main lines of Madhyamaka thought in Tibet and the disputes that these engendered. It constitutes an essential contribution to our knowledge of the philosophical traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, but, beyond this, merits the attention of those focusing on their Indian background and on Buddhist philosophies more generally. Indeed, Knowing Illusion is among the rare works in this area that may be profitably taken up by philosophers who are not specifically concerned with Buddhist or other Asian ways of thought, but who may wish to explore approaches beyond those of the Euro-American tradition to some of the central topics of philosophy overall: truth and falsehood, knowledge and ignorance, existence and illusion, belief and argument. Of the many interesting [End Page 1023] questions raised in Knowing Illusion, whether from the perspective of specialized Tibetan Buddhist Studies or of philosophy more broadly, only a sample can be addressed in the space of this review.The unifying thread in Knowing Illusion is a series of written disputes that were provoked by a fifteenth-century teacher belonging to the Sakyapa order of Tibetan Buddhism, Taktsang Sherab Rinchen (1405–1477), in his treatise titled Freedom from Extremes Accomplished through Comprehensive Knowledge of Philosophy (hereinafter Comprehensive Knowledge of Philosophy).2 Central to these debates was the challenge of squaring the Madhyamaka philosophy of Nāgārjuna (second century c.e.), whose teaching of ultimate emptiness (śūnyatā) seemed to undermine most—perhaps all—claims to knowledge, with the positive theory of knowledge (pramāṇa) advanced by Dignāga (fifth century c.e.) and Dharmakīrti (sixth century c.e.). The problem had already preoccupied Indian Buddhist thinkers, including philosophers Bhāviveka (sixth century c.e.) and Śāntarakṣita (eighth century c.e.), who sought to harmonize the insights of Madhyamaka with those of the pramāṇa school, and Dharmakīrti's contemporary Candrakīrti, whose trenchant interpretations of Nāgārjuna appeared to undermine the entire project of a 'theory of knowledge'.3 In Tibet, thinkers of the former camp came to be known as proponents of Svātantrika-Mādhyamika (so-called because they affirmed that emptiness could be established through positive proof, svatantra), while those allied with Candrakīrti were said to follow Prāsaṅgika-Mādhyamika (who allowed only indirect proof, reductio ad absurdum, or prasaṅga).4The debate reemerged forcefully in Tibet, and not merely as a historical exercise, in tandem with the expansion of monastic colleges there during the twelfth century, as Tibetan teachers increasingly elaborated original perspectives on the Indian classics. Many aspects of the Svātantrika/Prāsaṅgika split were co. (shrink)

The Madhyamaka Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna (2nd c. CE) is best known for his works on emptiness in which he advances a program for the relinquishing of all philosophical views (_dṛṣṭi_) in light of the impossibility of establishing the true existence of any kind of entity. At the same time, he is famous also for his theory of two truths, according to which conventional or transactional language is both a legitimate and a necessary factor on the path to the ultimate abandonment (...) of views. Although more than 100 works are ascribed to Nāgārjuna in the Tibetan canon, none is specifically dedicated to an exploration of conventional or transactional truth. So it is of great interest to find that two eighth-century Madhyamaka thinkers, Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla, have in their writings preserved and commented on six verses from a treatise they ascribe to Nāgārjuna entitled _Establishing the Transactional_ (_Tha snyad grub pa = *Vyavahārasiddhi_). The present article provides a translation of the six verses from the Tibetan (the Sanskrit of all these writings is lost) along with a translation for the first time in English of Śāntarakṣita’s commentary and Kamalaśīla’s subcommentary upon the verses. The multi-part translation is framed by a consideration of the nature and role of philosophical views in relation to Nāgārjuna’s other writings, based on a reading of these few tantalizing verses from an apparently lost text, the commentaries of Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla, and the theories of contemporary Madhyamaka scholars. (shrink)