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Foundations of Dharmakīrti’s Philosophy |
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| Author |
Dunne, John D.
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| Date | 2004 |
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| Pages | 496 |
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| Publisher | Wisdom Publications |
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| Publisher Url |
http://www.wisdompubs.org/
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| Location | Boston, MA, US [波士頓, 麻薩諸塞州, 美國] |
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| Content type | 書籍=Book |
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| Language | 英文=English |
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| Note | Throughout the history of Buddhism, few philosophers have attained the stature of Dharmakīrti, the “Lord of Reason” who has influenced virtually every systematic Buddhist thinker since his time.
Dharmakīrti’s renowned works, written in India during the philosophically rich seventh century, argue that the true test of knowledge is its efficacy, and likewise that only the efficacious is knowable and real. Around this central theme is woven an intricate web of interrelated theories concerning perception, reason, language, and the justification of knowledge. Masterfully unpacking these foundations of Dharmakīrti’s system, John Dunne presents the first major study of the most vexing issues in Dharmakīrti’s thought within its Indian philosophical context. Lucid and carefully argued, Dunne’s work serves both as an introduction to Dharmakīrti for students of Buddhism and a groundbreaking resource for scholars of Buddhist thought. |
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| Abstract | Buddhist philosophers often speak of beginninglessness. It is claimed that the minds of living beings, for example, have no beginning, and that our current universe is only one in a beginningless cycle of expansion and decay. Some Buddhist thinkers would claim that even the most mundane task can have no true beginning. That is, if a beginning occurs, there must be some moment, some “now,” in which it occurs. For the present to exist, however, there must be a past and a future, for what would “now” mean if there were no time other than now? And of course, if there is a past, then how could now be a beginning? Now should instead be the end of the past. Each beginning, in short, must itself have a beginning.In a more concrete sense, this book also starts from beginninglessness, for it arises from a need for a point of departure—a place from which to begin—in my work on the thought of Dharmakīrti, a South Asian Buddhist philosopher of the seventh century (c.e.).That Dharmakīrti is worthy of our attention seems scarcely necessary to justify. Following upon the work of his predecessor Dignāga, Dharmakīrti addressed at length numerous questions that are of central concern to Buddhist thought and practice. The impact of his views on Buddhist theories of perception, inference, and language is difficult to overestimate. Indeed, it would not be outlandish to claim that his ideas are repeated in every Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophical work written after his time in South Asia. To this day, the Tibetan translations of his Sanskrit texts are recited, studied, and debated by Tibetan monastic scholars to such an extent that, in the central monasteries of the largest Tibetan tradition, a lengthy monastic holiday is devoted entirely to debate on the works of Dharmakīrti.The difficulty in beginning a conversation on the work of Dharmakīrti stems from a problem that often plagues systematic philosophy and theology: the elements of the system are so tightly intertwined that the first word of an argument appears to presuppose the system in its entirety.In Dharmakīrti’s case, two circumstances render this hermeneutical circle particularly vexing. First, the systematicity of his thought is matched by its complexity and extreme concision. And second, the Buddhist traditions of South Asia and Tibet, in their reverence for Dharmakīrti, have reappropriated his works through successive generations of commentaries such that we encounter a sometimes dazzling variety of ways to read Dharmakīrti. As a result, we often find a striking lack of consensus on the most basic issues in the contemporary study of Dharmakīrti’s thought.
A lack of consensus is not itself a problem: Dominick LaCapra has noted that one frequently acknowledged sign of a great work is its resistance to definitive interpretation. Nevertheless, in the case of a systematic thinker such as Dharmakīrti, some of our most useful readings must emphasize the tightly woven nature of the web of ideas that constitute his thought, and without a consensus on even his most basic positions, such readings become impossible. Instead, we find ourselves arguing over the details of a particular position—such as his notion of an entity’s nature (svabhāva)—without ever coming to the point where we ask how theories about an entity’s nature relate to other issues, such as the questions of rational justification and authority. The central aim of this book is thus to contribute toward the development of a consensus by presenting the foundations of Dharmakīrti’s philosophy in terms of a consciously constructed starting point.
In speaking of the “foundations” of Dharmakīrti’s philosophy, I mean those issues that repeatedly surface throughout his work: they are the fundamental elements of his conceptual system that, on my view, make all of his arguments possible. I have organized those elements under three broad categories: (1) ontology, (2) the “natural relation” (svabhāvapratibandha) in inference, and (3) |
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| Table of contents | [Table of Contents]
Preface
Abbreviations
A Note on the Sanskrit and Tibetan Translations
Introduction
A Question of Method: A Point of Departure
Some Suggestions for the Reader
1 Pramāṇa Theory: Dharmakīrti’s Conceptual Context
1.1 The Process of Knowing and Its Instrument
Two Ubiquitous Instruments: Perception and Inference
Shared Notions Concerning Perceptual Awareness
Shared Notions Concerning Inference
The Basic Structure of Inference
The Evidence-Predicate Relation and Its Exemplification
The Evidence-Subject Relation
A Restatement
1.2 Prameya: The “Real”
The Simplicity of the Real and a Fundamental Difference
1.3 Purpose as Context
1.4 Points of Divergence: The Action and Agent
1.5 Summary
2 Dharmakīrti’s Method and Ontology
2.1 The Scale of Analysis: Dharmakīrti’s Method
External Realism as a Level of Analysis
Divergent Interpretations of External Realism
2.2 Dharmakīrti’s Ontology
The Two Prameyas—The Two Realities
2.3 More on Particulars
The Perceptible as Ultimately Real
The Ultimately Real as Inexpressible and Momentary
Do Particulars Have Spatial Extension?
2.4 Universals
Summary of Dharmakīrti’s Apoha-Theory
Concerning Sameness of Effect
Are Universals Permanent?
Three Ways of Construing Apoha
3 Svabhāvapratibandha: The Basis of Inference
3.1 Relation through Svabhāva: Beyond “Co-Presence”
The Two Senses of Svabhāva
Svabhāva as “Property”
Svabhāva as “Nature”
Nature-svabhāva and the Causal Complex
The Subject (dharmin) and Svabhāva as “Nature”
3.2 The Production-mode of the Svabhāvapratibandha
Some Issues in the Application of the Production-mode
Concerning Necessity
The Determination of the Production-mode
3.3 On the Relationship between Property and Nature
Some Heuristic Terms
The Subordination of Property to Nature
3.4 Svabhāva-evidence and the Identity-mode
A Few Problems
4 Instrumentality: Justifying the Sources of Knowledge
4.1 Prāmāṇya as “Instrumentality”
Purpose and Instrumentality
The Role of Scripture
A Seeming Circularity
Scriptural Inference and Dharmakırti’s
Rejection of Credibility
Axiological Concerns: Mutual Restraint of Path and Goal
4.2 Dharmakırti on Instrumentality: The Earliest Commentarial Account
Some Basic Definitions
“Telic Function” (arthakriyā)
Instrumentality (prāmāṇya) in Terms of Two Effects
Instrumentality in Terms of the Mediated Effect
Instrumentality in Terms of the Unmediated Effect
The Two Effects and the Two Senses of Arthakriyā
The Primacy of Puruṣārtha
Instrumentality in Terms of Human Aims: Some Problems and Solutions
A Disparity in Time
Obstructed Action
Perception and Confirmation
Perception as Motivator (pravartaka): The Question of Novelty
Inference, Error, and Trustworthiness
Ultimate and Conventional Pramāṇa
Conclusion
Nature, Perception, and Refinement
Appendix of Translations
A Note on the Translations
PVSV ad PV1.34–37
PVSV ad PV1.68–75
PVSV ad PV1.137–142
PVSV ad PV1.214–223
PV2.1–6 with Selections from PVP and PVT
PV3.1–10 with Selections from PVP and PVT
PV3.194–224 wit |
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| ISBN | 9780861711840 |
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| Hits | 495 |
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| Created date | 2015.10.15 |
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