The article analyses and interprets the critique of the special dharmic theory of the early Buddhist school of sarvāstivāda-vaibhāṣika undertaken by the school of sautrāntika. Special attention is paid to the critique of the theory of the existence of dharmas, elementary psycho-physical data, in all three time periods. At the beginning, a general Buddhist theory of two truths is presented, which tries to legitimize the so-called philosophy of abhidharma as a “higher teaching” regarding reality (dharma theory) which is only rudimentarily (...) present in the Buddha’s discourses. Then we turn to a concise presentation and analysis of the key ontological concepts of sarvāstivāda-vaibhāṣika, and then to the critique of the same undertaken by the school of sautrāntika. It is concluded that sautrāntika, with its critique, “returned” Buddhist philosophy on the path of pure phenomenology after the sarvāstivada-vaibhāṣika’s attempt to interpret the Buddha’s teaching in line with a realistic reductive ontology. (shrink)

The main body of this article presents Vasubandhu’s and Candrakīrti’s discussion on the etymology of pratītyasamutpāda and its meaning as it appears in the Bhāṣya to Abhidharmakośa 3.28ab and Prasannapadā 4.5–9.27, respectively. Both authors put forward and critically examine various Buddhist grammatical analyses and interpretations of the term. Many passages in the indicated sections parallel or nearly parallel to each other suggest that Buddhist discussions on pratītyasamutpāda were held in a very specified manner during the mature phase of Buddhist philosophy (...) in India. In the conclusion of the article, an attempt is made to discern the reason for Buddhists’ mutually competing analyses of the term, showing that their seemingly objectively conducted discussions regarding pratītyasamutpāda are actually rooted in their ontological presumptions. Thus, for example, the nearly identical etymological analyses of the term provided by Va.. (shrink)

In this article, I propose to analyse the earliest Indian systematic discussion on the problem of meaning and denotation of words. The discussion itself seems to have been conceived within the famous Indian grammatical tradition (vyākaraṇa), and its definitive form was given by the Grammarian Patañjali (second century BC) in his work Mahābhāṣya. This whole discussion is carried over and further developed within classical Indian philosophy, beginning with the Nyāya school, whose positions regarding semantics are also analysed here, based on (...) classical works of this school. (shrink)

The paper discusses certain aspects of Buddha’s and Confucius’ philosophy that could be relevant for the general philosophical discussion on the problem of freedom, free action and related philosophical themes. Although their philosophical thinking was shaped in a rather different linguistic, cultural and philosophical milieu and background, both thinkers are in agreement at least twofold. Firstly, the possibility of freedom and free action is not opposed to the natural order of things, quite contrary, it is enabled by this order. Secondly, (...) this possibility is being realised through never-ending self-cultivation and attunement to the world as it is. In the context of contemporary discussions on the problem of the relationship between free will and determinism, it could hence be said that both thinkers are on the position of “compatibilism”, nay, on the position that free action is possible only in the context of determinism that sees nature as ever-changing and conditioning circumstances and “patterns”, and not bound to strict and linear deterministic causality. (shrink)