The Whirlpool Test

This preprint reconstructs a methodological feature of the Kathāvatthu, the Theravāda Abhidhamma's book of controversy: its testing of propositions for parity, scope, consequence and reversal. It keeps three levels apart: lexical occurrence, argumentative deployment and reconstructed method. Building on Ganeri's reading of the text as a manual of dialogical method, it shows that scope qualifiers (everywhere, always, in every respect, in all cases) are built into the Kathāvatthu's eight openings and deployed as a sequence in Kv I.6. The result is a portable audit, DEFINE, CONDITION, AUDIT, CEASE, with two brakes: the Evidential Audit (do not claim more than the evidence shows) and the Evidential Stop Rule (do not answer questions outside the method's jurisdiction). It applies the audit to the person, Nibbāna, arahantship and Madhyamaka, and states three conditions under which the reconstruction would fail.