[Buddha-l] Re: Did Buddhism Anticipate Pragmatism

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Sun, 2005-07-24 at 21:13 -0400, StormyTet at aol.com wrote:

> I am unclear as to whether Dign-aga reasoned to the 'yogic sensation'
> that Dharmak-irti espoused. 

Dignaga accepted yogic sensation (yogipratyaksha) as one of the types of
sense perception. He had little to say about it except that it occurs
only when one forgets what one has been taught by teachers. Like all
sense perception, it is not mediated through language and is free of
conceptualization.

Dharmakirti's yogi-pratyaksha is more elaborate than Dignaga's. If you
look in the Journal of Indian Philosophy, you'll find a few articels by
Brigit Kellner on it. There is also an excellent thesis by Raynald
Prévèreau, "Dharmakirti's account of yogic intuition as a source of
knowledge," (M.A. thesis, McGill University, 1994).

>  Have I been wrongly under the impression that this 'yogic sensation'
> concept is as central to Buddhist doctrine as the concept that there
> is a real distinction between mind and body?

This notion of yogic sensation (or yogic intuition) was a kind of
philosophical deus ex machina used to salvage Dignaga's epistemological
theory. The problem, in a nutshell, is that sense perception is supposed
to be only of particulars, never of universals. It is also supposed to
be inexpressible. All conceptual knowledge and language is regarded as
ultimately false and misleading. So what does that suggest about the
four noble truths and other teachings of the Buddha? Well, since the 4NT
are supposed to be universally true, they can't be the subject matter of
sense perception, and since they are expressed in language, they must be
ultimately false and misleading. That looks bad for the teachings of the
Buddha, eh? But wait a minute! Here comes yogic intuition to the rescue!
Since it is sense perception, it must be ultimately true. And its
subject matter, unlike ordinary perception, is supposed to be something
like a momentary flash of omniscience whereby one directly sees all
suffering all at once. Sound fishy? It is. It may be indispensable to
Dharmakirti's system of philosophy, but it is still a very bad theory.

>  Is it not central to Buddhism in general, in other words, that
> eventually you will 'see' (even if glimpses and incompletely) beyond
> what you have been taught and reflected upon (1st and 2nd stages)?

I don't think so. I think what is said is that after one hears and
reflects about virtue, one may go on to cultivate virtue and embody it.
This is not a matter of seeing anything more profoundly; rather, it is a
matter of practising what one had heard someone else preach.

> The whole concept of the dawning realization that we are on a pathless
> path?

I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. It is not, so far as I
know, a Buddhist idea. It sounds a little like something a svelt New Age
yoga teacher would murmur to her class while a Yanni CD is playing in
the background. 
 
> Is there other works in English on Dign-aga's system of signs and
> signifiers? It seems to me that Dign-aga's political concerns of
> Buddhist sectarianism has some relevance to cultural studies

Dignaga has some relevance to everything in life. I have no idea what
cultural studies is, but if it's part of life, then Dignaga can probbaly
help set it straight.

>  --  the idea of comparing Dign-aga's system of signs and signifiers
> to Saussures could be interesting? 

Dignaga stole most of his good ideas about language from Bhartrhari, who
was one of India's greatest linguistic geniuses. Ferdinand de Saussure
put together some interesting ideas on language that resemble some of
the things Bhartrhari had said 1500 years earlier. Bhartrhari himself
got many of these ideas from the pre-Panini exegetes on the Vedas. If I
were you, I'd drop cultural studies, devote a dozen years to learning
Sanskrit, and study Panini, Patanjali and Bhartrhari. I think you'll
find it's deeper and more substantial than de Saussure (who was no
slouch). Meanwhile, get hold of some of the writings of J.F. Staal. You
can find them on the Library of Congress on-line catalog
(http:/catalog.loc.gov). Staal's reflections on language are informed by
a combination of year's of study of the works of the Sanskrit
grammarians, the deep structures underlying the syntax of the Vedic
ritual, and mathematical logic. He's pretty much of a genius. (I say
that because I think it may be true, not just because I'm too dumb to
follow a lot of what he says.) 

Also take a look at John Dunne's book, Foundations of Dharmakirti's
Philosophy. It has one of the clearest accounts of the most important
Indian Buddhist theory of language that I know of. You'll see an
adumbration of some of de Saussure's ideas, I reckon.

-- 
Richard Hayes