The concept of “self-awareness” ( svasaṃvedana ) enters Buddhist epistemological discourse in the Pramāṇasamuccaya and - vṛtti by Dignāga (ca. 480–540), the founder of the Buddhist logico-epistemological tradition. Though some of the key passages have already been dealt with in various publications, no attempt has been made to comprehensively examine all of them as a whole. A close reading is here proposed to make up for this deficit. In connection with a particularly difficult passage (PS(V) 1.8cd-10) that presents the means (...) of valid cognition and its result ( pramāṇa/pramāṇaphala ), a new interpretation is suggested, inspired by the commentary of Jinendrabuddhi. This interpretation highlights an aspect of selfawareness that has hitherto not been claimed for Dignāga: self-awareness offers essentially subjective access to one’s own mental states and factors. (shrink)

This paper compares and contrasts two infinite regress arguments against higher-order theories of consciousness that were put forward by the Buddhist epistemologists Dignāga (ca. 480–540 CE) and Dharmakīrti (ca. 600–660). The two arguments differ considerably from each other, and they also differ from the infinite regress argument that scholars usually attribute to Dignāga or his followers. The analysis shows that the two philosophers, in these arguments, work with different assumptions for why an object-cognition must be cognised: for Dignāga it must (...) be cognised in order to enable subsequent memory of it, for Dharmakīrti it must be cognised if it is to cognise an object. (shrink)

It has been argued that the use of the concept of ākāra—a mental “form,” “appearance” or “aspect”—in Buddhist epistemological analysis or pramāṇa exhibits continuities with earlier Buddhist thinking about mental processes, in particular in Abhidharma. A detailed inquiry into uses of the term ākāra in pertinent contexts in Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośabhāṣya brings to light different semantic nuances and functions of this term. The characteristic use of ākāra in Buddhist epistemological discourse turns out to be continuous with only some of the nuances (...) it has in Abhidharma. Moreover, ākāra becomes associated with novel explanatory functions in Buddhist pramāṇa. These discoveries underscore the need to pay closer attention to the reuse of terms and concepts, ideas and arguments in Buddhist philosophy, and to the often subtle adaptations and transformations that formed an integral part of its history. (shrink)