This article surveys some of the most influential Buddhist arguments in defense of idealism. It begins by clarifying the central theses under dispute and rationally reconstructs arguments from four major Buddhist figures in defense of some or all of these theses. It engages arguments from Vasubandhu’s Viṃśikā and Triṃśikā; Dignāga’s matching-failure argument in the Ālambanaparīkṣā; the sahopalambhaniyama inference developed by Dharmakīrti; and Xuanzang’s weird but clever logical argument that intrigued philosophers in China and Japan. It aims to clarify what is (...) being argued and motivate these arguments in terms of their presuppositions. These presuppositions range from views about the nature of mind and metaphysics to epistemology and logic. By making this context explicit, this article introduces central ideas in Buddhist philosophy and suggests ways in which they were mobilized in support of an idealist conclusion. (shrink)

According to Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta, a subject who has freed himself from the bondage of individuality is necessarily compassionate, and his action, necessarily altruistic. This article explores the paradoxical aspects of this statement; for not only does it seem contradictory with the Pratyabhijñā’s non-dualism (how can compassion and altruism have any meaning if the various subjects are in fact a single, all-encompassing Self?)—it also implies a subtle shift in meaning as regards the very notion of compassion ( karuṇā, kr̥pā ), (...) since according to the two Śaivas, compassion does not result from the awareness of the others’ pain ( duḥkha )—as in Buddhism—but from the awareness of one’s own bliss ( ānanda ). The article thus shows that in spite of their radical criticism of traditional ethical categories such as merit ( dharma ) and demerit ( adharma ), the two Śaiva philosophers still make use of ethical categories, but not without pro- foundly transforming them. (shrink)

Alec Hyslop defends a (modified) version of the traditional analogical inference to other minds and rejects alternatives, but only after subjecting each of...

This article offers an argument against solipsism, the view that there is only one mind that exists, my own, and that the world is a projection of my mind.1 We begin by offering a reductio ad absur...

This essay is concerned with Indian Yogācāra philosophers’ treatment of the problem of other minds in the face of a threatened collapse into solipsism suggested by Vasubandhu’s epistemological argument for idealism. I discuss the attempts of Dharmakīrti and Ratnakīrti to address this issue, concluding that Dharmakīrti is best seen as addressing the epistemological problem of other minds and Ratnakīrti as addressing the conceptual problem of other minds.

Though perhaps a dubious honor, Dharmakīrti is the first philosopher in any tradition to explicitly recognize the epistemological threat of solipsism, devoting an entire essay to the problem—The Justification of Other Minds. This essay revisits Ratnakīrti’s Doing Away with Other Beings as a diagnosis of Dharmakīrti’s attempt to reconstruct the very idea of other beings, with particular attention to Ratnakīrti’s sensitivity to the conceptual preconditions for a genuine threat of solipsism. Along with the diagnosis of the conditions for the emergence (...) of a problem of genuine solipsism, this essay takes as its focus Ratnakīrti’s criticism of attempts to meet with the problem. In particular, I shall stress an insight Ratnakīrti adduces in the course of his diagnosis. Attempts to meet the problem of solipsism head on, Ratnakīrti shows us, obscure what the preconditions for a genuine problem reveal: the fact of our possessing two incommensurable conceptions of mind, one of which is intrinsically and entirely first-personal—in a sense to be clarified in the course of this essay—and the other not. I conclude this essay with an inconclusive sketch of the difficulties that remain when considering what Ratnakīrti would have us conclude from his own diagnosis. (shrink)

Idealism is the core of the Pratyabhijñã philosophy: the main goal of Utpaladeva (fl. c. 925–950 AD) and of his commentator Abhinavagupta (fl. c. 975–1025 AD) is to establish that nothing exists outside of consciousness. In the course of their demonstration, these Śaiva philosophers endeavour to distinguish their idealism from that of a rival system, the Buddhist Vijñānavāda. This article aims at examining the concept of otherness (paratva) as it is presented in the Pratyabhijñā philosophy in contrast with that of (...) the Vijñānavādins’. Although, according to the Pratyabhijñā, the other subjects are not ultimately real since all subjects are nothing but limited manifestations of a single absolute subject, the fact that we are aware of their existence in the practical world has to be accounted for. The Vijñānavādins explain it by arguing the we infer the others’ existence. The Pratyabhijñā philosophers, while refuting their opponents’ reasoning as it is expounded in Dharmakīrti’s Santānāntarasiddhi, develop a particulary original analysis of our awareness of the others, stating that this awareness is neither a perception (pratyakṣa) nor an inference (anumāna), but rather a guess (ūha) in which we sense the others’ freedom (svātantrya). (shrink)

This paper aims at examining the arguments between Śubhagupta (c.720–780) and Śāntarakṣita (c.725–788) over the Buddha’s cognition of other minds and shows how the question of the Buddha’s cognition of other mindsis incorporated into the proof of vijñaptimātratā or “consciousness-only” by Śāntarakṣita. According to Śāntarakṣita, Śubhagupta assumes that the Buddha’s cognition, which is characterized as “the cognition [of the Blessed One] which follows the path of cognition” (aupalambhikadarśana), grasps other minds when the Buddha’s cognition is similar (sārūpya) to other minds. (...) For Śāntarakṣita, the Buddha’s cognition cannot be aupalambhika. If the Buddha’s cognition were similar to the other minds, it would follow that the Buddha, whose cognition erroneously grasps other minds as something distinct from it, has not yet removed the hindrance constituted by objects of knowledge (jñeyāvaraṇa). But if it is accepted that the Buddha’s cognition is beyond the grasped-grasper duality, can the Buddha, who does not know other minds, be called sarvajña “omniscient”? According to Śāntarakṣita, even though the Buddha has no seeing (adarśana), the Buddha causes all sentient beings to gain benefits by virtue of seeing other minds and hence deserves to be called sarvajña. What underlies this argument is that the Buddha knows other minds without making a distinction between his own mind and other minds, which is possible only on the basis of self-cognition (ātmasaṃvedana). (shrink)

본 논문은 유식 사상과 푸코의 이론이 모두 인간의 욕망에 초점을 두고 전개되고 있다는 점에 착안하여 두 이론을 비교했다. 이를 통해 개인의 마음을 관찰하여 그 작용양상을 주로 분석한 유식 사상 속에서 타인과의 관계는 어떻게 설명되고 있는지를 그려보고자 했다. 유식 사상은 알라야식에 존재하는 ‘공종자’를 개인이 타인과 공유하는 것으로 정의한다. 필자는 ‘공종자’를 공동체 구성원들이 공유하는 욕망의 결과물로 보고 이것이 현현하여 사회적 담론이 된다고 보았다. 한편 푸코는 인간의 욕망을 단적으로 보여주는 권력이라는 개념에 의거해서 사회 속에서 담론이 형성되는 기제를 설명했다. 특히 배제작용을 통해 담론이 사회 (...) 속에서 수용된다고 본 것은 푸코의 독특한 관점이다. 유식 사상은 해탈에 이르기 위한 수행의 과정에서 관찰된 마음의 작용을 이론화 한 것으로서, 인간의 욕망을 소멸하는 것에 목적을 둔다. 반면 푸코는 현실 속에서 진행되고 있는 사회현상 자체를 관찰하고 그것을 이론화했다. 두 이론이 인간의 욕망을 바라보는 관점은 이와 같이 다르다. 하지만 두 이론은 다음과 같은 유사한 면을 보이고 있다. 첫째, 두 이론은 담론을 구성원들이 가지고 있는 공통의 욕망이 표출된 것으로 본다. 둘째, 두 이론은 담론이 체계적인 지식이 되기까지를 유사하게 설명한다. 즉 두 이론은 모두 담론이 기존의 규칙에 부합될 때 그 담론이 지식으로 수용될 수 있다고 본다. (shrink)