Naturalism and Intentionality: A Buddhist Epistemological Approach

In this paper I propose a naturalist account of the Buddhist epistemological discussion of svasa[mdot]vitti ('self-awareness', 'self-cognition') following similar attempts in the domains of phenomenology and analytic epistemology. First, I examine the extent to which work in naturalized epistemology and phenomenology, particularly in the areas of perception and intentionality, could be profitably used in unpacking the implications of the Buddhist epistemological project. Second, I argue against a foundationalist reading of the causal account of perception offered by Dignāga and Dharmakīrti. Finally, I argue that it is possible to read Dignāga's (and following him Dharmakīrti's) treatment of svasamvitti as offering something like a phenomenological account of embodied self-awareness. Notes Notes [1] For the purpose of this paper I use 'Buddhist epistemology' in a narrow sense as primarily referring to that preoccupation with establishing the sources of valid cognition historically associated with Dignāga, Dharmakīrti, and their Indian and Tibetan interpreters. The occasional use of 'pramā[ndot]avāda' in the sense of pramā[ndot]a-doctrine or pramā[ndot]a-view, as well as defining the chief scope of this classical Indian Buddhist philosophical enterprise, also attests to the difficulty of finding an adequate English equivalent. [2] Various obstacles still stand in the way of such an enterprise given that, as recently noted, 'we operate in the shadow of colonialism and its intellectual wing, orientalism' as Garfield notes (Citation2002, p. 230). The problem, as Garfield sees it, is not the legitimacy, let alone the absence of works dedicated to translating and commenting Asian texts for Euro-American audiences, or vice versa, but the deeply problematic nature of these intercultural philosophical ventures. This problematic concerns the types of inquiries that must accompany such enterprises, without which we cannot begin to talk about a single truly intercultural tradition. Garfield's list includes inquiries into 'the historical conditions under which it takes place; into the respective characters of each of the textual traditions brought thereby into contact; into the relations they bear to one another; into the nature and the very possibility of the linguistic and cultural translation such interchange involves; and finally into the very possibility of reading a text into a tradition that is not one's own' (Garfield, Citation2002, p. 231). While I agree that such inquiries are a valuable component of any cross-cultural philosophical enterprise, they strike me as overly restrictive when it comes to pursuing questions that are central to philosophy. Siderits' fusion philosophy model, it seems, operates with the assumption that addressing central problems in philosophy can, and ought to, exceed hermeneutical concerns. [3] As Matilal observes 'pramā[ndot]a (along with its possible interpretation as pramā) is a very important term in Indian philosophy. The sense of the word seems to be so comprehensive in some contexts and so limited in other contexts that it defies all our attempts at finding a happy English translation' (Matilal, Citation1985, p. 203). Matilal renders pramā as 'true cognition' and pramātva as 'truth', which is one of the meanings of prāmā[ndot]ya (i.e. the theory of the means for the apprehension of truth or true knowledge). Ruegg following his brief survey of various translations in French and German for pramā[ndot]a, notes that 'en épistémologie et en gnoséologie, la traduction la plus adéquate (sinon parfaitement satisfante) de pramā[ndot]a demeure "(moyen/instrument de) connaisance/cognition correcte/exacte", ou encore "connaisance droite"' (Ruegg, Citation1994, pp. 403–405). In this paper, I adopt the term 'knowledge' for pramā and 'accredited' or 'reliable source of cognition' for pramā[ndot]a. [4] 'savyāpārapratītatvāt pramā[ndot]a[mdot] phalam eva sat' (Hattori, Citation1968, p. 97n1.55). [5] 'yad ābhāsa[mdot] prameya[mdot] tat pramā[ndot]aphalate puna[hdot]. grāhakākārasa[mdot]vittī traya[mdot] nāta[hdot] p[rdot]thak k[rdot]tam' (Pramā[mdot]asamuccaya I.10, translation per Hattori (Citation1968, p. 29)). [6] See Arnold (Citation2005a, p. 88) and also Arnold (Citation2005b, p. 35). In his very extensive and philosophically interesting discussion of the concept of svasa[mdot]vitti, Arnold (Citation2005a) takes into account Dignāga's position, its refutation by Candrakīrti and later reworkings of it by Dharmottara, Śāntarak⋅ita and Mok⋅akaragupta. I am not concerned with the historical underpinnings of this debate, which Arnold explores in great detail and with subtle philosophical acumen. Instead, I am primarily concerned with Arnold's reading of svasa[mdot]vitti in the Buddhist pramā[ndot]a literature as doing the same kind of work that the notion of 'apperception' does for Kant. [7] 'di la phyi rol pa rnams kyi bzhin du tshad ma' (Hattori, Citation1968, p. 182). Translation per Hattori (Citation1968, p. 28). [8] See Pramā[ndot]asamuccayav[rdot]tti I k.11ab, text and translation in Hattori (Citation1968, pp. 30, 185). [9] See Kornblith's (Citation1997) edited collection Epistemology Naturalized, and his contribution therein, and more recently his essay 'In defense of naturalized epistemology' (Kornblith, Citation1999). For arguments against rationality as a foundational principle for traditional epistemology see Stich (Citation1984, Citation1990). [10] See, for instance, Goldman (Citation1992) for a critique of the notion of justified belief in epistemology, and his examination of the mutual relevance of epistemology and cognitive science (Goldman, Citation1993). Goldman's (Citation2002, pp. 3–23) review of the internalist/externalist debate in naturalized epistemology also includes an extensive critique of recent attempts to play the a priori against the radical empiricism that naturalism appears to endorse. [11] I follow Kim (Citation1988), whose detailed account of the Cartesian legacy in epistemology clearly spells out the divisions between the causal and normative questions. [12] As Richard Hayes notes in his examination of Dignāga's semantic theory, 'the conclusion towards which Dignāga argues is the fact that underlying the truth of the sentence "Devadatta is a human being" is no more than the fact that, by whatever conventions there may be that govern the use of symbols in a given language, the equivalent in that language to the word "human being" is applicable to the individual Devadatta' (Hayes, Citation1988, p. 205). [13] For more on this see Dunne (Citation2004, pp. 82f.). [14] See Abhidharmakośabhā⋅ya ad Abhidharmakośa 10cd. [15] There is no agreement among the early Ābhidharmikas regarding the word-meaning relation. The Sautrāntikas, for instance, regard word types (nāman), phrases (pāda) and phonemes (vyañjana) as forms of speech (vāc) capable of generating meaning. They also insist that 'speech' should actually refer to any verbal utterance that calls a certain object to attention, that is, as something agreed on by a community of speakers. The Sarvāstivadins, for their part, contend that word types are not speech, because speech is merely articulated sounds and, by themselves, articulated sounds (e.g. a yell) do not make their object comprehensible (Cf. Abhidharmakośabhā⋅ya ad Abhidharmakośa II, 46). Finally, the Vaibhā⋅ikas regard word types as 'constructs dissociated from thought' (cittaviprayuktasa[mdot]skāras). For the Vaibhā⋅ikas, thus, speech is nothing but vocal articulation (gho⋅a), which, alone, cannot generate meaning (Cf. Abhidharmakośabhā⋅ya ad Abhidharmakośa II 47ab: gho⋅asvabhāvatvād vāca[hdot] sarva[mdot] ghośamāra[mdot] nāma prakāśayi⋅yati ād[rdot]śo vā gho⋅avi⋅eśa i⋅yate nāmna[hdot] prakāśaka[hdot] sa eva arthasya dyotako bhavi⋅yati /. text per Pradhan (Citation1975)). Of these three positions, that of the Vaibhā⋅ikas seems to come closest to the grammarians' understanding of the word-meaning relation, particularly as developed in Bhart[rdot]hari's theory of meaning disclosure (spho ⃛a). Cf. Pind (Citation1991, pp. 278f). [16] The question of whether or not a perceptual appearance (pratyak⋅ābhāsa) is inferential in nature is treated at length by the Naiyāyikas. See e.g., Nyāya-sūtra 2.1.30–2 and Nyāyasūtrabhāśya, Nyāyavārttika, and Tātparya ⃛īkā ad cit. For a detailed discussion of this issue, see Matilal (Citation1986, pp. 255–291). [17] Abhidharmakośabhā⋅ya ad Abhidharmakośa VI, 14ab: kāya[mdot] svasāmānyalak⋅a[ndot]ābhyā[mdot] parīk⋅ate / vedanā[mdot] citta[mdot] dharmś ca / svabhāva evai⋅ā[mdot] svalak⋅a[ndot]am/sāmānyalak⋅a[ndot]a[mdot] tu anityatā sa[mdot]sk[rdot]tānā[mdot] du[hdot]khatā sāsravā[ndot]ā[mdot] śūnyatā'anātmate sarvadharmā[ndot]ā[mdot] /. [18] Waldron borrows the notion of the 'cognitive unconscious' from Lakoff and Johnson (Citation1999), which Waldron claims, I think convincingly, is structurally similar to the Yogācāra notion of alayavijñna. [19] Waldron (Citation2002, p. 39) quotes this passage following its reconstruction and translation in Schmithausen (Citation1987, p. 357, n. 511). [20] See Mahāyāna-sa[mdot]graha, I. 58 as discussed in Waldron (Citation2002, p. 40). [21] The first attempt to interpret svasa[mdot]vedana as an aspect of mental perception is found in Hattori (Citation1968, p. 27). Similar interpretations have been proposed by Nagatomi (Citation1979) and Franco (Citation1993). Franco's account is also a critique of Wayman's (1991) view that Dignāga did indeed treat self-awareness as a different type of perception. Recently, Yao (Citation2004) has reopened this debate by adducing some further evidence to support Dignāga's endorsement of svasa[mdot]vedana as a type of perception. Yao bases his claim primarily on the Chinese translations of Nyāyamukha by Xuanzang (600–664) and Yijing (635–713) as well as on Kuiji's (632–682) commentaries on Dignāga's principal works, all of which seem to indicate, in no ambiguous terminology, that Dignāga treats svasa[mdot]vedana as a distinct form of perception. [22] Pramā[ndot]asamuccayav[rdot]tti ad Pramā[ndot]asamuccaya I.1: shes pa ni snang ba gnyis las skyes te rang gi snang ba dang yul gyi snang ba'o, snang ba de gnyis las gang dang rig pa de ni 'bras bur'gyur ro, ci'i phyir zhe na. Text and translation (slightly altered for consistency) in Hattori (Citation1968, pp. 28, 182). [23] For a detailed treatment of the relationships that obtain between these three conditions see Hayes (Citation1988, pp. 154ff), and Matilal (Citation1998, pp. 90ff). A comprehensive analysis of the trairūpya, which traces its evolution across several sources and authors, including Vasubandhu's Vādavidhi, Śaṇkarasvāmin's Nyāyapraveśa, Uddyotakara's Nyāyavārttika, Dignāga's Nyāyamukha, and Dharmakīrti's Pramā[ndot]avārttika and Nyāyabindu, is found in Oetke (Citation1994). [24] For Dignāga's formulation of the trairūpya, see PS II, 5cd: anumeye'tha tattulye sadbhāvo nāsti tāsti and translation in Hayes (1980, pp. 253f). See also Katsura (Citation1983) for an extensive discussion of the triple inferential mark. [25] For a discussion of the philosophical implications of current research in color constancy see Thompson (Citation1995, pp. 97–98). [26] For a discussion of the dynamics of visual awareness, see e.g. Palmer (Citation1999, pp. 616ff). [27] For a detailed survey of the recent literature on the topic of neuroscientific research on various types of mindfulness meditation, see Lutz, Dunne and Davidson (Citation2007). [28] See e.g. Hetubindu I.6. [29] As noted, in detail, by Dreyfus (Citation1996, pp. 132ff).