Miscellaneous ??s

[John Dunne]

In reply to Robert Hueckstedt's request, I will offer a few comments on
his paragraph on Buddhist philsophy. I should preface my comments with the
recognition that such summaries can never satisfy the more pecayune
interests of specialists, but careful wording may avoid much of their more
indignant wrath. 

I do not mean to imply that `Buddhologists' are academic piranhas, but as
a specialist in the field, I have witnessed the occasional feeding frenzy.
I hope that in my comments below, I too do not become overly zealous. 

If Dr. Hueckstedt is relying on secondary sources, the difficulty of his
task is compounded by the gulf between the available secondary sources and
the current understanding of these issues among specialists. That is, most
of the sources available now have been superceded, often by many years,
but the research and literature that supercedes them is not yet available
in a work that would be accessible to the non-specialist. This problem may
disappear within the next year or two. 

To move on to my suggestions, I will excerpt lines from the paragraph and 
offer my comments below each:


> Buddhism encompasses four major, mutually differing schools and many
>minor ones. 

Historically, Indian Buddhist philosophers do not seem to have a clear 
notion of Buddhist philosophical `schools' (vaada) prior to the sixth 
century, and the codification of the so called `four schools' may not 
have occurred until the seventh or eigth centuries. Hence, you may wish 
to avoid any anachronism by saying: "Buddhism encompasses various 
philosophical views that were later typified as the `four schools.'

> All of them agree on atheism, that no God created the world.

Here I have a quite minor comment. Despite the appositive, this phrase
might lead a reader to think that Buddhists did not believe in gods,
whereas gods were important figures in Buddhist literature and practice.
Hence, you might say, "Although Buddhists believed in various realms of
existence teeming with gods, demons and assorted spirits, they denied that
any god could be omniscient, omnipotent, or the Creator. In this sense,
they are `atheist.'

>The M�dhyamikas' conclusion is one of radical non-existence. 

This statement would probably not be well received by many contemporary
specialists. You might say `The madhyamakas employ a radical critique of
essentialism, whereby they deny the existence of any ultimate entities
whatosever. Their claims might be reduced to a form of extreme
relativism.'

> The Yogaacaaras' conclusion is one of complete subjectivism -- there is 
>only the subject, no object.

Again, this would probably not be well received. Yogaacaraa philosophers
specifically state that their goal is to negate subject-object duality. 
Their procedure is to deny that any object exists in the way that it is
apprehended by deluded cognition--i.e., as non-contingent and
extra-mental. Through that negation, they further demonstrate that the
perceiving subject must likewise be non-existent. They claim, `Since the
object does not truly exist, the subject does not truly exist.' Subject
and object are thus collapsed into the causal flow of mind, in the sense
that they are simply events within (and not separable from) the
mind-stream. As such, the mind-stream could be called the substratum of
our experiences, but it cannot be a `subject' in the usual sense. 
Furthermore, in as much as language presupposes duality, this mind-stream
is in most cases inexpressible. Hence, it is `empty' of nearly any
property that might be predicated of it, for nearly all predications
presume duality. I say `nearly' because it seems that some of these
philosophers would be willing to attribute some non-dual properties
(whatever that might mean!) to this mind-stream, although the current
state of the field does not allow any conclusive discussion of this point.
Indeed, the various philosophers identified as `yogaacaara' do not agree
on many such points. 

I do not envy you the task of writing a single line to convey the overall 
conclusion of yogaacaara philosophy, but your statement might be modified 
to read: `The conclusion of Yogaacaara is one that might be called 
`relational idealism,' whereby the ordinary conceptions of an internal 
subject and external objects are seen to be fictions based on events 
within the mind-stream itself as a result of dispositions created by 
past actions and relations with other mind-streams.'

It is important to note that some contemporary authors would vehemently
reject the notion that any Yogaacaara denied external objects. On their
account, the word `idealism' should be replaced by `phenomenalism.' My own
feeling is that a phenomenalist interpretation of standard yogaacaara
(i.e., not Dignaaga and Dharmakiirti) is not supported by the texts and is
in many cases directly refuted by some texts. This is a point of
considerable dispute. Again, it is possible that there was no agreement
among the Yogaacaara philosophers themselves. 


> The conclusion of the Vaibh�.sikas is just the opposite -- direct
>realism, there is only the form > (\it{r�pa}<what is this??>), no subject. 

I think that there are some secondary sources that could easily mislead
one on this point, but in the usual sources of Vaibhaa.sika views (the
_Abhidharmako"sa_ and its _bhaa.sya_), the author Vasubandhu clearly
denies direct realism (I am thining especially of AK I.10). He says that
matter consists of infinitesimal particles (paramaa.nu), and these
particles are in most cases perceptible only in aggregation. Since he
denies the ultimate reality of any aggregated entity, to maintain his
realist tendencies he must posit a kind of intermediate sensum that is
related to but apparently distinct from that bundle of particles. He calls
this intermediate sensum the `perceptual particular'
(aayaatanasvalak.sa.na) in distinction to the `substance-particular'
(dravyasvalak.sa.na), which is the particles in proximity to each other. 
This view, I believe, disqualifies him from being a direct realist in any
straightforward sense. One might be tempted to see this as critical
realism, but in as much as critical realism usually understands sensa or
`character-complexes' to be mental (or, at least, not material),
Vasubandhu's *apparent* willingness to identify the perceptual-particular
as a non-mental quality or entity (such as `visual perceptibility') would
disqualify him as an indirect realist (on some accounts, this might thrown
him back into the direct realist camp; it depends to some extent on how
these terms are defined).  More importantly, Vasubandhu does not share
many of the ontological presuppositions that stem from direct realism when
it addresses questions of semantics and language. Hence, you might simply
call his position `moderate realism' or even `a modified direct realism' 
which is perhaps sufficiently vague to avoid most misunderstandings. The 
real problem here is that Vasubandhu was not explicit enough to warrant 
any such appellation in his discussions on perception, while his 
discussions of language tend more toward conceptualism.


>The Sautraantikas' conclusion is often called indirect realism: there is
>something out there, but only phenomenally so. 

This is my area of specialization, so I could probably quibble endlessly. 
But fortunately, I think that most scholars would probably agree that the
`Sautraantika' account of sense-perception could be called indirect
realism. But again, one must be careful to avoid the conclusion that
`Sautraantikas' share the conceptualist tendencies of most indirect
realists when discussing questions of semantics. Using the typical notion
of the `two realities' (conventional and ultimate), one could say that the
Sautraantikas admit conceptualism on a conventional level, in as much as
psychological considerations compel us to conclude that ordinary
individuals use mental images to construct meaning. But on an ultimate
level, Sautraantikas are nominalist, in that mental images are not what
actually allow the use of language; rather, a cognitive function called
exclusion, a certain form of negation important in Sautraantika semantics,
is the actual basis for the construction of meaning. And in as much as
negations have no mental images, Sautraantikas are not conceptualist.
Indeed, Sautraantika philosophy explicitly denies the ultimate validity of
the conceptualist position. Hence, we must conclude that they essentially
espouse a unique form of radical nominalism (one that is surprisingly
coherent). 

I put the term `Sautraantika' in quotes because it is unclear whether 
anyone was a `Sautraantika' in the fullest sense of the term. For most 
philosophers, Suatraantika philosophy seems to entail a form of 
yogaacaara philosophy; hence, Dignaaga and Dharmakiirti often speak as 
Sautraantikas, but at points they make it clear that a certain (possibly 
phenomenalist!) interpretation of yogaacaara is their final position. The 
lone candidate for pure Sautraantika-ism is the obscure S"ubhagupta, a 
little known and extremely terse author.


>Of course, the debates are more interesting than the conclusions. 

Forgive me for saying so, but this comment seems slightly gratuitous. For
instance, one of the conclusions drawn by Dignaaga, Dharmakiirti and their
philosophical inheritors is the exclusion (apoha) theory of meaning. This
theory has attracted some attention lately as an innovative approach to
nominalism. Of course, I am biased on this point, but certainly your
statement applies only to those who share your tastes or predilections I
only wish to suggest that you not prejudice your reader against these
materials. This is probably not your intention, but it might easily be
interpreted in that fashion. 

In any case, I hope that these comments have been helpful (or at least 
not overly tiresome).

Best wishes,

John Dunne
Study of Religion
Harvard University
 


> From D-JOHN4 at vm1.spcs.umn.edu 10 95 Aug CDT 14:05:54
Date: 10 Aug 95 14:05:54 CDT
From: Donald C Johnson <D-JOHN4 at vm1.spcs.umn.edu>
Subject: MSS in Orissa

Mr. Zysk:
The entry for the Orissa descriptive catalog is:
Author:  Orissa State Museum.
Title:   A descriptive catalogue of Sanskrit manuscripts of Orissa in the
         collection of the Orissa State Museum, by Kedarnath Mahapatra.
Published:  Bhubaneswar: Superintendent of Research & Museum, Govt. of
            Orissa, 1958-