Linguistic convention is one of the central notions of Indian philosophy of language. The well-known view of samaya/saṃketa is its conception as the agreement initiating the relationship between words and their previously unrelated meanings. However, in Indian philosophy of language, we also encounter two other important but little-researched interpretations of samaya/saṃketa, which consider it as the established usage of words. I present a new classification of traditions of Indian thought based on their view of linguistic convention. This classification is to (...) be verified and expanded in further studies. As far as I know, such a classification has never been undertaken before. 1) Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Buddhism, and later classical Yoga of the Tattvavaiśāradī accept samaya/saṃketa as an agreement initiating the relationship between words and their previously unrelated meanings. 2) Bhartṛhari the Grammarian and the continuators of his thought acknowledge samaya/saṃketa as the established usage of words that is rooted in the natural relationship between words and their meanings; the convention manifests the relationship. This view was probably also shared by Mīmāṃsakas and Advaitins. 3) Classical Yoga of the Yogasūtrabhāṣya and probably also earlier Grammar thought of the Mahābhāṣya accept linguistic convention as the established usage of words, but this usage, though having neither a beginning nor an end, is not based on any natural and necessary word–meaning relationship. In this view, linguistic convention not only manifests the word–meaning relationship but also keeps it in existence. Another new contribution of this research is my explanation for why the same Sanskrit term samaya/saṃketa was applied to the different ways of understanding linguistic convention. I explain this through the common aspects of all three kinds of samaya/saṃketa. The first aspect is the content of all these kinds of samaya/saṃketa. Irrespective of how linguistic convention is understood, its content is the same: “such and such a word has such and such a meaning”. The second aspect is the crucial role of linguistic convention in language acquisition, communication, and transmission. (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)

This paper examines the Buddhist’s answer to one of the most famous (and more intuitive) objections against the semantic theory of “exclusion” ( apoha ), namely, the charge of circularity. If the understanding of X is not reached positively, but X is understood via the exclusion of non-X, the Buddhist nominalist is facing a problem of circularity, for the understanding of X would depend on that of non-X, which, in turn, depends on that of X. I distinguish in this paper (...) two strategies aiming at “breaking the circle”: (i) conceding the precedence of a positive understanding of X, from which a negative understanding (i.e., the understanding of “non-X”) is derived by contrast, and (ii) denying any precedence by proposing a simultaneous understanding of both X and non-X. I consider how these two options are articulated respectively by Dharmakīrti in his Pramāṇavārttika cum Svavṛtti and by one of his Tibetan interpreters, Sa skya Paṇḍita, and examine the requirements for their workability. I suggest that Sa skya Paṇḍita’s motivation to opt for an alternative solution has to do with his criticism of notions shared by his Tibetan predecessors, an outline of which is given in Appendix 1. In Appendix 2, I present the surprising use of the charge of circularity by an early Tibetan logician against his coreligionists. (shrink)

In the past decade or so there has been a surge of monographs on the nature of ‘Buddhist Ethics.’ For the most part, authors are concerned with developing and defending explications of Buddhism as a normative ethical theory with an apparent aim of putting Buddhist thought directly in dialogue with contemporary Western philosophical debates in ethics. Despite disagreement among Buddhist ethicists concerning which contemporary normative ethical theory a Buddhist ethic would most closely resemble (if any), 1 it is arguable that (...) all Buddhist ethicists (like all Buddhists) embrace and endorse the Four Noble Truths as a framing assumption. That is, a Buddhist ethic will (1) typically assume that we fallible .. (shrink)

This paper examines some Indian philosophical arguments that are understandable as transcendental arguments—i.e., arguments whose conclusions cannot be denied without self-contradiction, insofar as the truth of the claim in question is a condition of the possibility even of any such denial. This raises the question of what kind of self-contradiction is involved—e.g., pragmatic self-contradiction, or the kind that goes with logical necessity. It is suggested that these arguments involve something like practical reason—indeed, that they just are arguments against the primacy (...) of “theoretical reason.” This characterization illuminates a characteristically Indic appeal to ordinary language. (shrink)

Dharmakīrti, elaborating one of the Buddhist tradition's most complete defenses of rebirth, advanced some of this tradition's most explicitly formulated arguments for mind-body dualism. At the same time, Dharmakīrti himself may turn out to be vulnerable to some of the same kinds of arguments pressed against physicalists. It is revealing, then, that in arguing against physicalism himself, Dharmakīrti does not have available to him what some would judge to be more promising arguments for dualism (arguments, in particular, following Kant's 2nd (...) Critique) – and indeed, that these arguments actually cut against Dharmakīrti's own position. After elaborating and characterizing Dharmakīrti's case for rebirth, then, this article briefly considers an argument that Dharmakīrti cannot himself enlist for this purpose. (shrink)