The concept of ''self-awareness'' (svasam : vedana) enters Buddhist epistemological discourse in the Pramān : asamuccaya and -vr : tti by Dignāga (ca. 480-540), the founder of the Buddhist logico-epistemological tradition. Though some of the key passages have already been dealt with in various publications, no attempt has been made to comprehensively examine all of them as a whole. A close reading is here proposed to make up for this deficit. In connection with a particularly difficult passage (PS(V) 1.8cd-10) that presents the means of valid cognition and its result (pramān : a/pramān : aphala), a new interpretation is suggested, inspired by the commentary of Jinendrabuddhi. This interpretation highlights an aspect of selfawareness that has hitherto not been claimed for Dignāga: self-awareness offers essentially subjective access to one's own mental states and factors.
This paper compares and contrasts two infinite regress arguments against higher-order theories of consciousness that were put forward by the Buddhist epistemologists Dignāga (ca. 480-540 CE) and Dharmakīrti (ca. 600-660). The two arguments differ considerably from each other, and they also differ from the infinite regress argument that scholars usually attribute to Dignāga or his followers. The analysis shows that the two philosophers, in these arguments, work with different assumptions for why an object-cognition must be cognised: for Dignāga it must be cognised in order to enable subsequent memory of it, for Dharmakīrti it must be cognised if it is to cognise an object.Keywords Buddhist epistemology Á Self-awareness Á Infinite regress Á Higher-order theories of consciousness If the cognition of an object is cognised by another cognition, then the second cognition must be cognised by a third, the third by a fourth, and so on. Cognition can therefore not be cognised by another cognition, but must be intrinsically aware of itself. Among others, Bimal Krishna Matilal, Richard Hayes and Roy Perrett attribute such an infinite regress argument for self-awareness (svasam : vedana) to the Buddhist epistemologist Dignāga (ca. 480-540 CE) or his followers. 1 Infinite regress arguments of this kind are not uncommon in elaborations of consciousness in Euroamerican philosophy. In contemporary philosophical discourse, they are typically advanced by advocates of a one-level account of consciousness, like phenomenologists, against proponents of higher-order theories of 1
The existence of the external world is a major contested issue among Buddhist and Brahmanical thinkers in the logico-epistemological period of Classical Indian philosophy (c.5th–12th century ce). Buddhist philosophers aligned with the idealist Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda tradition refuted external objects with different methods and arguments. Two philosophers who contributed significantly to the discussion are Vasubandhu (probably between 350 and 420 ce) and Dharmakīrti (between mid-6th and mid-7th century ce), who was one of the two main figures in the logico-epistemological or pramāṇa school. Vasubandhu’s refutation of external objects in his Viṃśikā Vijñaptimātratāsiddhiḥ has been interpreted as an argument from ignorance that external objects do not exist because there is no evidence for their existence. Dharmakīrti’s main arguments against external objects from Pramāṇavārttika and Pramāṇaviniścaya are different. Investigating them in light of his elimination of arguments from ignorance from his own and original logical theory offers new possibilities for appreciating his stance on idealism.
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