This volume, designated by its authors as a “polygraph,” presents the fruits of a collaborative research project focused on claims regarding conventional truth that are articulated in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist traditions. Its authors, the so‐called “Cowherds,” include names that will be well known to contemporary students of Buddhist philosophical traditions (G. Dreyfus, J. Garfield, G. Newland, G. Priest, M. Siderits, T. Tillemans) and several younger rising stars (B. Finnigan, K. Tanaka, S. Thakchoe, J. Westerhoff). Focusing principally—though not exclusively—on Candrakīrti and his Dge lugs inheritors (most especially Tsongkhapa), these authors work to clarify the concept of conventional truth deployed by these thinkers and the ways in which it shaped and was shaped by their epistemological, ontological, ethical, and soteriological views. The volume as a whole makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the philosophical ramifications of an idea that Buddhist tradition holds to be as valuable as it is vexing: that both terms in the phrase conventional truth are to be taken seriously. Although the essays take different approaches to this material—some are more concerned than others with matters of philological and historical detail—they are generally of very high philosophical quality. Specialists are likely to benefit most, but the authors present their findings in a style that committed upper‐level undergraduate students are likely to find accessible.
