Tibetan Philosophy

Chapters 4–9 are the most important part of the book. Here Liberman displays his interpretive skills to the fullest. He explores various aspects of directly observed, live debate processes, drawing on the work of Schutz, Husserl, Durkheim, as well as Buddhist thinkers Nagarjuna, Sakya Pandita, Tsongkhapa, and others. Liberman exhaustively explains the organization and mechanics of debates, the public nature of reasoning, negative dialectics employed by debaters, strategies and techniques such as absurd consequences, hand-claps, ridicule, and repetition, and other matters.

Keywords Tibetan Buddhism - Gzhan stong - Dolpopa.

The similarities between contemporary externalist theories of knowledge and classical Indian and Tibetan theories of knowledge are striking. Drawing on comparisons with Timothy Williamson's recent work, I address related topics in Indo‐Tibetan epistemology and show that correct analysis of these issues requires externalist theories of mind and knowledge. The topics addressed range from a discussion of possible Gettier cases in the Tibetan philosophical tradition to an assessment of arguments for and against the existence of factive mental states/events that fail to (...) be knowledge states/events. I conclude by explaining how these matters in Indian and Tibetan epistemology can inform us about the viability of externalist epistemologies of the sort articulated by Williamson. (shrink)

The Dalai Lama is fond of quoting a verse attributed to the Buddha to the effect that as the wise examine carefully gold by burning, cutting and polishing it, so the Buddha's followers should embrace his words after examining them critically and not just out of respect for the Master. A role for critical thought has been accepted by all Buddhists, although during two and a half millennia of sophisticated doctrinal development the exact nature, role and range of critical thought (...) has been extensively debated. In general doctrinal difference in Buddhism has been seen as perfectly acceptable, reflecting different levels of understanding and therefore different stages on the path to enlightenment. Buddhism has tended not to look to or expect doctrinal orthodoxy, although there has always been a much stronger impetus towards orthopraxy, and common code and behaviour has perhaps played a comparable role in Buddhism to common belief and creed in some other religions. Nevertheless an acceptability of doctrinal divergence has not lessened the energy and vigour devoted to lengthy and sometimes fiercely polemical debate between teachers and schools. This was nowhere more so than in Tibet, where doctrinal debates—sometimes lasting all night—to the present day form the central part of a monastic education in most of the largest Tibetan monastic universities. (shrink)

This is a rebuttal to the wrong notions of Sarah H Jacoby.

The chapter offers a sustained comparison between American philosopher Wilfrid Sellars and Buddhist philosopher Dignaga and argues that while their views are prima facie inconsistent with one another, there are important areas of agreement worthy of exploration.

This chapter suggests that Sellars' account of subjectivity as socially constructed, and hence conceptual at its illusory roots, presents a crisp and compelling perspective on cognitive life that captures Buddhist conceptions of transformative non-duality.

This article aims to show why Sellars' critique of epistemic givenness has proven so apt in characterizing the philosophical problems that confront the project of Dignaga and Dharmakirti -- problem that result from the etent to whih these buddhists valorized "non-conceptual awareness.

This article argues that, rather than thinking that our ethics has to fall back on Kantian and proto-Christian claims, Sellars should have appealed to the framework of Buddhist ethics.

Sellars' critique of the myth of the given can help us understand the epistemology of consciousness in Madhyamaka and Yogacara thought.

The aim of this paper is to explore and try to give an answer to the question: what happens when the philosophy of Wilfrid Sellars meets the tradition of Japanese Buddhist philosophy.

A collection of essays on the ways in which the work of Wilfrid Sellars and the Buddhist philosophical tradition can illuminate each other.

The picture of moral development defended by followers of Aristotle takes moral cultivation to be like playing a harp; one gets to be good by actually spending time playing a real instrument. On this view, we cultivate a virtue by doing the actions associated with that virtue. I argue that this picture is inadequate and must be supplemented by imaginative techniques. One can, and sometimes must, cultivate virtue without actually performing the associated actions. Drawing on strands in Buddhist philosophy, I (...) explain several methods of moral development that rely on imagination and visualization rather than overt action. These techniques are essential in cases where cultivating virtue the way one practices the harp is impossible. In particular, I focus on single-event virtues, first-time virtuous acts, and morally dangerous situations. (shrink)

This book could be seen as a novel method of tracing the history of a scripture. Jacob P. Dalton does this by “tracing the vicissitudes of a single ritual system—that of the Gathering of Intentions Sutra (Dgongs pa ’dus pa’i mdo)—from its ninth-century origins to the present day” (xv). This tantra is referred to as the “root tantra” and is vital for understanding the history of Tibetan Buddhism, particularly the Nyingma school. This book is divided into seven chapters focusing on (...) the various forms of the traditions surrounding this text. (shrink)

What I aim to develop in this paper is a secular foundation to the concept of reincarnation that is consistent with the different ways in which this concept is understood across a number of Buddhist traditions, drawing in particular upon the doctrinal understanding of reincarnation in the Mahāyāna or Madhyamaka tradition as presented in the work of Śāntideva and Nāgārjuna.

A translation and analysis of a short ethical treatise written in Tibet in the late 18th or early 19th century. The Khache Phalu includes references to both Buddhist and Islamic thought in providing ethical and spiritual advice. The analysis gives an overview of the secondary literature in both Tibetan and English that is accessible to non-specialists and defends the claim that many passages are deliberately ambiguous. The translation was done with Tenzin Norbu Nangsal and also includes the full Tibetan text.

This thesis is a reflection upon objects of power and their roles in the lives of people through the lens of a single case example: power objects as they appear throughout the narrative, philosophical, and ritual writings of the Tibetan Buddhist ritual specialist Sog bzlog pa Blo gros rgyal mtshan and his milieu. This study explores their discourse on power objects specifically for what it reveals about how human interactions with certain kinds of objects encourage the flow of power and (...) charisma between them, and what the implications of these person-object transitions were for issues of identity, agency, and authority on the personal, institutional, and state registers in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Tibet. (shrink)

We often view emptiness as a negative condition, a symptom of depression, despair, or grief—an assessment furthered by authors like Franz Kafka or the existentialists, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. Offering an alternative view, _A Philosophy of Emptiness_ reclaims these hollow feelings as a positive and even empowering state, an antidote to the modern obsession with substance and foundation. Digging through early and non-Western philosophy, Gay Watson uncovers a rich history of emptiness. She travels from Buddhism, Taoism, and religious mysticism (...) to the contemporary world of philosophy, science, and art practice. Though most Western philosophies are concerned with substance and foundation, she finds that the twentieth century has seen a resurgence of emptiness and offers reasons why such an apparently unappealing concept has attracted modern musicians, artists, and scientists, as well as preeminent thinkers throughout the ages. Probing the idea of how a life without foundation might be lived—and why a person might choose this path—_A Philosophy of Emptiness_ links these concepts to contemporary ideas of meditation and the mind, presenting a rich and intriguing take on the concept of emptiness and the history of thought. (shrink)

Zen-Buddhist nothingness is the nowhere is there something that is I, or conversely: the I that is the nowhere is there something. (Hisamatsu, FN, 25-26; quoted and trans. in Stambaugh, FS, 76)... it is empty of being. That means that it is beyond all measure ....... it is empty without emptiness. That means that it does not cling to itself.... it possesses nothing. That means that it doesn't possess and also cannot be possessed. (Hisamatsu, FN, 31; quoted and trans. in (...) Stambaugh, FS, 77-8)The emptiness of what is called "emptiness" is referred to as "the emptiness of emptiness" (ʼsūnyatāʼsūnyatā), and it is explained in this way for the purpose of controverting any understanding of emptiness as a[n ontological reference to] "being." (Candrakīrti, EMW, 180)A skillful Zen student will strive to be awakened to an identity with all phenomena, the student him- or herself emptyand continually changing as the phenomena come forth. (Codiga, ZPSP, 108)Zen practice is a means for the enlightenment of bushes and grasses, an activity that has no beginning or end in the vastness of any empty universe. (p. 110). (shrink)

It is well known that Hegel contrasts the “Moral standpoint” or “morality” with the higher standpoint of “social ethics” or “ethical life”, and that he regards Kant’s ethical theory as an expression of the moral standpoint. Hegel finds many shortcomings in the moral standpoint, but probably the most famous of Hegel’s criticisms of Kantian moral theory is the charge that Kant’s theory is an “empty formalism,” incapable of providing any “immanent doctrine of duties,” The Kantian moral law, says Hegel, has (...) no content; its only criterion of morally right action is non-contradictoriness, and that proves to be no criterion at all, because it is a criterion which even the most immoral actions are able to satisfy. (shrink)

In Part Three I offer my own interpretation of the svalaksana--that it is an aggregate of paramanus. I defend this interpretation with an analysis of textual passages taken mostly from Dharmakirti's Pramanavarttika that have not been adequately explored in the secondary literature. My analysis shows that Dharmakirti's "atoms" are quality particulars such as bits of color, which have spatial and temporal location although they are immeasurably small both spatially and temporally. Because the svalaksana is an aggregate of "atoms" of this (...) sort, it is neither a propertyless Kantian noumenon nor a single paramanu. The svalaksana is replicated in sensation though imperfectly in that the sensory images does not capture the plurality of the atoms. ;Part Two is a discussion of the two interpretations of the svalaksana as a Kantian noumenon and as a single paramanu or "atom." Both interpretations owe their origins to the publication in 1930-32 of Theodor Stcherbatsky's two volume work, Buddhist Logic. I sketch each theory and show the inadequacies in the reasoning in support of each. ;The first of the three parts of the dissertation reconstructs Dharmakirti's Sautrantika theory of perception. It provides the background for Parts Two and Three and in addition corrects a shortcoming in the standard interpretations of Dharmakirti's perceptual theory. These interpretations do not appreciate that Dharmakirti uses the term "pratyaksa" to mean both "sensing" and "perceiving" . The reconstruction in Part One emphasizes the fact that "pratyaksa" has these two senses. It also shows that Dharmakirti holds a resemblance theory of universals and not, as is sometimes thought, a naive nominalism. ;Dharmakirti's philosophy is a synthesis of two schools of Indian Buddhism, the Sautrantika and the Yogacara. To the extent that Dharmakirti was a Sautrantika and the Yogacara. To the extent that Dharmakirti was a Sautrantika, he believed in the existence of objective or nonmental entities, which he called svalaksanas. As a Sautrantika, Dharmakirti also believed in the existence of a type of atom, which he called a paramanu. In this dissertation I present an interpretation of the svalaksana that differs substantively from two important interpretations in the secondary literature, these two being that the svalaksana is a Kantian noumenon, a propertyless, unknowable cause behind our sensations, and that it is a single "atom" or paramanu. (shrink)

This dissertation provides an historically based interpretation of the most central issues in the philosophy of Dharmakirti, a major South Asian Buddhist thinker of the seventh century . Our interpretation is historically based in that it construes Dharmakirti's thought either through his text themselves or through the earliest known layer of commentarial literature. Our goal is not to recover some single, true intention of Dharmakirti's works, but rather to provide the basis for a consensus among contemporary scholars that will enable (...) us to move forward more readily in understanding Dharmakirti's philosophy. ;After introducing the notion of a "baseline interpretation" as our methodological motif, we offer in the second chapter a summary of Praman&dotbelow;avada philosophy, the general form of South Asian philosophy in which Praman&dotbelow;ava&dotbelow;¯da was engaged. Here, we attempt to explicate some of the fundamental notions, such as unity or oneness as a criterion for reality, that were shared across South Asian traditions during Dharmakirt's time. We begin the third chapter by examining Dharmakirti's philosophical method, which involves a soteriologically motivated use of multiple philosophical perspectives that are designed to lead his audience away from the suffering caused by ignorance . In the second half of the third chapter, we examine Dharmakirti's ontology of particulars and universals . We consider several issues that have become either controversial or uncertain in the interpretation of Dharmakirti. Concerning particulars, these issues include the alleged spatial extension of particulars. Concerning universals, our discussion focuses upon the apoha-theory, the central notion in Dharmakirti's nominalism. In this context, we inquire, for example, into the question of whether universals are permanent. ;In the fourth chapter of the dissertation we turn to svabhavapratibandha , the foundation of Dharmakirti's logical theory. Expanding upon Ernst Steinkellner's analysis of the key term svabhava, we inquire at length into Dharmakirti's notions of "nature" and "property" and their interrelation. Our approach attempts to address several difficulties in previous interpretations. Finally, in chapter five we examine Dharmakirti's epistemology in terms of "instrumentality" , that which constitutes the validity of an "instrument of knowledge" . After discussing the problematic claim that the Buddha is the source of all instrumentality, we turn to the earliest commentarial presentation, which raises issues such as extrinsic and intrinsic instrumentality and the role of telic function. (shrink)