Tradition
Buddhist logico-epistemology
Overview
Buddhist logico-epistemology is a term used in Western scholarship to describe Buddhist systems of pramāṇa (epistemic tool, valid cognition) and hetu-vidya (reasoning, logic).
While the term may refer to various Buddhist systems and views on reasoning and epistemology, it is most often used to refer to the work of the "Epistemological school" (Sanskrit: Pramāṇa-vāda), i.e., the school of Dignaga and Dharmakirti which developed from the 5th through 7th centuries and remained the main system of Buddhist reasoning until the decline of Buddhism in India.
The early Buddhist texts show that the historical Buddha was familiar with certain rules of reasoning used for debating purposes and made use of these against his opponents. He also seems to have held certain ideas about epistemology and reasoning, though he did not put forth a logico-epistemological system.
The Theravada Kathāvatthu contains some rules on debate and reasoning. The first Buddhist thinker to discuss logical and epistemic issues systematically was Vasubandhu in his Vāda-vidhi (A Method for Argumentation). A mature system of Buddhist logic and epistemology was founded by the Buddhist scholar Dignāga (c. 480–540 CE) in his magnum opus, the Pramāṇa-samuccaya. Dharmakirti further developed this system with several innovations in his Pramanavarttika ("Commentary on Valid Cognition"). His work was influential on all later Buddhist philosophical systems as well as on numerous Hindu thinkers. It also became the main source of epistemology and reasoning in Tibetan Buddhism.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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The transcendental conception of reason is therefore nothing else than the conception of the totality of the conditions of a given conditioned. Now as the unconditioned alone renders possible totality of conditions, and, conversely, the totality of conditions is itself always unconditioned; a pure rational conception in general can be defined and explained by means of the conception of the unconditioned, in so far…
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason
States what Buddhist logico-epistemology is.
Consequently he is likely to set the attitude which has place and significance only in one of the serial functional situations of experience over against the active attitude which describes part of the structural constitution of another situation; or with equal lack of justification to assimilate materials characteristic of different stages to one another. He sets the agent, as he is found in the intimacy of love or…
John Dewey, Essays in Experimental Logic
States what Buddhist logico-epistemology is.
2. _The Philosophy of Gotama and Canade_. The philosophy of Gotama and that of Canade belong to one another.[18] The philosophy of Gotama is called Nyaya (reasoning), and that of Canade, Vaiseshica (particular). The first is a specially perfect dialectic, and the second, on the other hand, occupies itself with physics, that is, with particular or sensuous objects.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy
States what Buddhist logico-epistemology is.
Philosophers who discussed Buddhist logico-epistemology
- Dignāga
- Je Tsongkhapa
- Dharmakirti
- Śāntarakṣita
- Buddhism
- Bhāviveka
- Jñanasrimitra
- Longchenpa
- Ratnakīrti
- Utpaladeva
- Śaṅkaranandana
Related ideas
- Ātman (Hinduism)
- Empiricism
- Ashoka
- Philosophical realism
- Dignāga
- Hindus
- Vaibhāṣika
- Haribhadra (Buddhist philosopher)
- Jainism
- Sarvastivada
- David Kalupahana
- Menander I
- Majjhima Nikāya
- Nyāya Sūtras
- Dharmakirti
- Gelug
- Historical Vedic religion
- Śūnyatā
- Anattā
- Indian logic
- Nominalism
- Jamgön Ju Mipham Gyatso
- Aṅguttara Nikāya
- Anti-realism
Place in the tradition
Part of Buddhist philosophy.
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