Foundations of Dharmakirti's Philosophy

Foundations of Dharmakirti's Philosophy PDF Author: John D. Dunne
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0861718550
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 496

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Book Description
Throughout the history of Buddhism, few philosophers have attained the stature of Dharmakirti, the "Lord of Reason" who has influenced virtually every systematic Buddhist thinker since his time. Dharmakirti's renowned works, written in India during the philosophically rich seventh century, argue that the true test of knowledge is its efficacy, and likewise that only the efficacious is knowable and real. Around this central theme is woven an intricate web of interrelated theories concerning perception, reason, language, and the justification of knowledge. Masterfully unpacking these foundations of Dharmakirti's system, John Dunne presents the first major study of the most vexing issues in Dharmakirti's thought within its Indian philosophical context. Lucid and carefully argued, Dunne's work serves both as an introduction to Dharmakirti for students of Buddhism and a groundbreaking resource for scholars of Buddhist thought.

Foundations of Dharmakirti's Philosophy

Foundations of Dharmakirti's Philosophy PDF Author: John D. Dunne
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0861718550
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 496

Get Book

Book Description
Throughout the history of Buddhism, few philosophers have attained the stature of Dharmakirti, the "Lord of Reason" who has influenced virtually every systematic Buddhist thinker since his time. Dharmakirti's renowned works, written in India during the philosophically rich seventh century, argue that the true test of knowledge is its efficacy, and likewise that only the efficacious is knowable and real. Around this central theme is woven an intricate web of interrelated theories concerning perception, reason, language, and the justification of knowledge. Masterfully unpacking these foundations of Dharmakirti's system, John Dunne presents the first major study of the most vexing issues in Dharmakirti's thought within its Indian philosophical context. Lucid and carefully argued, Dunne's work serves both as an introduction to Dharmakirti for students of Buddhism and a groundbreaking resource for scholars of Buddhist thought.

Recognizing Reality

Recognizing Reality PDF Author: Georges B. J. Dreyfus
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 143840154X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 656

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Book Description
Dreyfus examines the central ideas of Dharmakīrti, one of the most important Indian Buddhist philosophers, and their reception among Tibetan thinkers. During the golden age of ancient Indian civilization, Dharmakīrti articulated and defended Buddhist philosophical principles. He did so more systematically than anyone before his time (the seventh century CE) and was followed by a rich tradition of profound thinkers in India and Tibet. This work presents a detailed picture of this Buddhist tradition and its relevance to the history of human ideas. Its perspective is mostly philosophical, but it also uses historical considerations as they relate to the evolution of ideas.

Buddhist Logic

Buddhist Logic PDF Author: Lata S. Bapat
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Buddhist logic
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
"In the present work at attempt has been made to point out that according to Dharmakīrti continued significance and relevance of Buddha's philosophy could be legitimately hoped to be brought out with reference to paradigmaticity of emprical [i.e., empirical] world, the problem of pain and auffering [i.e., suffering] coming to human lot and doctrine of Anattā."--Page 4.

Wilfrid Sellars and Buddhist Philosophy

Wilfrid Sellars and Buddhist Philosophy PDF Author: Jay L. Garfield
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429648154
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 407

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Book Description
The aim of this book is to address the relevance of Wilfrid Sellars’ philosophy to understanding topics in Buddhist philosophy. While contemporary scholars of Buddhism often take Sellars as a touchstone for philosophical analysis, and while many take Sellars’ corpus as their entrée into current philosophical discourse, fewer contemporary philosophers have crossed the bridge in the other direction, using Sellarsian ideas as a way of entering into Buddhist philosophy. The essays in this volume, written by both philosophers and Buddhist Studies scholars, are divided into two sections organized around two of Sellars’ essays that have been particularly influential in Buddhist Studies: "Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man" and "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind." The chapters in Part I generally address questions concerning the two truths, while those in Part II concern issues in epistemology and philosophy of mind. The volume will be of interest to Sellars scholars, to scholars interested in the contemporary interaction of Buddhist philosophy and Western philosophy and to scholars of Buddhist Studies.

Brains, Buddhas, and Believing

Brains, Buddhas, and Believing PDF Author: Dan Arnold
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231518218
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
Premodern Buddhists are sometimes characterized as veritable "mind scientists" whose insights anticipate modern research on the brain and mind. Aiming to complicate this story, Dan Arnold confronts a significant obstacle to popular attempts at harmonizing classical Buddhist and modern scientific thought: since most Indian Buddhists held that the mental continuum is uninterrupted by death (its continuity is what Buddhists mean by "rebirth"), they would have no truck with the idea that everything about the mental can be explained in terms of brain events. Nevertheless, a predominant stream of Indian Buddhist thought, associated with the seventh-century thinker Dharmakirti, turns out to be vulnerable to arguments modern philosophers have leveled against physicalism. By characterizing the philosophical problems commonly faced by Dharmakirti and contemporary philosophers such as Jerry Fodor and Daniel Dennett, Arnold seeks to advance an understanding of both first-millennium Indian arguments and contemporary debates on the philosophy of mind. The issues center on what modern philosophers have called intentionality—the fact that the mind can be about (or represent or mean) other things. Tracing an account of intentionality through Kant, Wilfrid Sellars, and John McDowell, Arnold argues that intentionality cannot, in principle, be explained in causal terms. Elaborating some of Dharmakirti's central commitments (chiefly his apoha theory of meaning and his account of self-awareness), Arnold shows that despite his concern to refute physicalism, Dharmakirti's causal explanations of the mental mean that modern arguments from intentionality cut as much against his project as they do against physicalist philosophies of mind. This is evident in the arguments of some of Dharmakirti's contemporaneous Indian critics (proponents of the orthodox Brahmanical Mimasa school as well as fellow Buddhists from the Madhyamaka school of thought), whose critiques exemplify the same logic as modern arguments from intentionality. Elaborating these various strands of thought, Arnold shows that seemingly arcane arguments among first-millennium Indian thinkers can illuminate matters still very much at the heart of contemporary philosophy.

Dharmakirti on the Duality of the Object

Dharmakirti on the Duality of the Object PDF Author: Eli Franco
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
ISBN: 364390486X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
According to one of the most fundamental tenets in Indian Buddhist epistemology, there are only two means of knowledge - perception and inference - because there are only two objects of knowledge: the particular and the universal. This book deals with this tenet as it was expounded and substantiated in Dharmakirti's (7th c.) magnum opus, the Pramanavarttika, a work that has exerted lasting influence on Buddhist philosophy in India and Tibet up to the present day. (Series: Leipzig Studies on Culture and History of South and Central Asia / Leipziger Studien zu Kultur und Geschichte Sud- und Zentralasiens - Vol. 5) [Subject: Buddhism, Religious Studies, Philosophy]

Santāna and Santānāntara

Santāna and Santānāntara PDF Author: Mangala R. Chinchore
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
On the Buddhist doctrine on impermanence; based on Dharmakirti's Santanantara-siddhi.

Buddhist Philosophy of Language in India

Buddhist Philosophy of Language in India PDF Author: Lawrence J. McCrea
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231150946
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Jnanasrimitra (975-1025) was regarded by both Buddhists and non-Buddhists as the most important Indian philosopher of his generation. His theory of exclusion combined a philosophy of language with a theory of conceptual content to explore the nature of words and thought. Jnanasrimitra's theory informed much of the work accomplished at Vikramasila, a monastic and educational complex instrumental to the growth of Buddhism. His ideas were also passionately debated among successive Hindu and Jain philosophers. This volume marks the first English translation of Jnanasrimitra's Monograph on Exclusion, a careful, critical investigation into language, perception, and conceptual awareness. Featuring the rival arguments of Buddhist and Hindu intellectuals, among other thinkers, the Monograph reflects more than half a millennium of competing claims while providing an invaluable introduction to a crucial philosopher. Lawrence J. McCrea and Parimal G. Patil familiarize the reader with the author, themes, and topics of the text and situate Jnanasrimitra's findings within his larger intellectual milieu. Their clear, accessible, and accurate translation proves the influence of Jnanasrimitra on the foundations of Buddhist and Indian philosophy.

Freedom from Extremes

Freedom from Extremes PDF Author: Go-rams-pa Bsod-nams-seng-ge
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0861715233
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
"What is emptiness? This question has preoccupied the greatest minds of India and Tibet for almost two millennia, producing hundreds of volumes by scholars grappling with this question. Differentiating the Views (lTa ba'i shan 'byed), by the fifteenth-century Sakya scholar Goram Sonam Sengge, or Gorampa, is one of the most important expositions of the philosophy of emptiness in all of Tibetan literature, a work esteemed for its conciseness, lucidity, and profundity. So influential is this book that it is taught in Tibet's greatest academic institutions even to the present day. "

Buddhist Epistemology as Apologetics

Buddhist Epistemology as Apologetics PDF Author: Vincent Eltschinger
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783700175834
Category : Buddhism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book deals first with the historical and doctrinal foundations of Dharmakirti's religious philosophy. It points to a socio-historical context of Brahmanical hostility toward non- and anti-Vedic denominations (chapter 1), new patterns of Buddhist self-diction (chapter 2), reinvented models of theoretical and apologetical rationality (chapter 3), and the dogmatic infrastructure underlying Buddhist epistemology (chapter 4). It argues that Buddhist "Tantrism" and Buddhist "logic," two roughly contemporary phenomena that can be regarded as the main literary outcomes of the "early medieval" period, share interesting features in terms of polemical targets and self-understanding. Since the end of the fifth century, intra-Buddhist polemics have become less relevant (at least in the form it had had heretofore) and partly receded into the background in favor of inter- or cross-confessional controversies. Departing from Abhidharma and addressing new, predominantly non-Buddhist targets resulted in the abandonment of scholastic, confession-specific terminology and methods as well as the development of new models of theoretical and apologetical rationality: first, the construction of a clear-cut concept of reason(ing) as opposed to scripture; second, the gradual constitution of a concept of practical rationality that served the apologetic purpose of defending the very possibility, or rationality, of the Buddhist path. Finally, the book examines the extent to which Buddhist epistemology can be said to be Buddhist at all as regards its deeper doctrinal structure. It attempts to interpret the foundations of Buddhist epistemology - the apoha theory, the doctrine of the pramanas, etc. - as a rationalization and an apologetically updated version of Buddhist dogmas on the structure of ultimate and conventional realities, on the cognitive bases of error and its elimination, and on the cintamayi prajna ("insight born of reflection") as a salvific means of a predominantly inferential order.