[Buddha-l] Withdrawal of the senses

[Richard Hayes]

On Fri, 2006-11-24 at 19:40 -0500, Dan Lusthaus wrote:

> I can't believe you are disputing this, as if I were saying something
> unusual. And you accuse me of weird interpretations?

A request for evidence is hardly an accusation. There is a tendency to
read Dharmakirti's philosophical commitments into Dignaga. Almost
everyone has done this. When one reads Dignagaon his own, without the
post-Dharmakirti commentaries, one usually finds that he does not commit
himself to the doctrinally hard lines that Dharmakirti takes. One of
those areas may indeed be radical momentariness. We'll have to wait
until someone does a careful study of the original Sanskrit.

> Ok. Is H.N. Randle completely wrong when he writes:
> 
> "Dinnaga accordingly abstracted the five predicables, namely generic
> character, specific character, relation to other substances, quality, and
> action -- as 'fictions of the understanding' (kalpanaa), from the momentary
> existent (k.sana, svalak.sa.na) which alone is the object (graahya) of pure
> perception..."

Randle gratuitously adds k.sa.na to his characterization of
svalak.sa.na. There is no doubt that Dignaga regarded svalak.sa.nas as
impermnent, but so far as I know he does not argue (as Vasubandhu and
Dharmakirti do) that whatever is impermanent must be momentary---that
is, must go out of existence in the very moment in which it comes into
existence.


> > I have no idea how one measures the accuracy of an interpretation of a
> > text. Accuracy is an entirely subjective category.
> 
> In which case your accusations about my ability to read is simply subjective
> caprice. Very responsible.

There is, I would claim, a difference between knowing whether someone
else's interpretation of one's own thought is accurate and whether one's
own intepretation of someone's else's thought is accurate. I think one
can do the former with ease and cannot do the latter at all.

> Silly Hayes. Go back and reread the passage from my message that you went
> off on. It was precisely that there was a trend of interpreting "all" of
> Eastern thought as neoplatonic. You called me a bunch of names in response.

No, I have never called you any names at all, you paranoid twit. I am
always ready to question what you claim. Your original claim, that there
is a trend to interpret ALL of Eastern thought as neoplatonic, is a
horrendous overstatement. At best one can say that some people see some
Eastern thought has having some features in common with neo-Platonism.

> A reasonable inference is that you disagreed with that idea.

There is no need to make any inferences about what I disagreed with,
since I stated exactly what I meant to say quite clearly. It was my
claim that there are some classial Indian thinkers who an legitimately
be seen as having a family resemblance to neo-Platonist thinkers that
you apparently disputed by saying "Name one. Seriously." I named
several. You disputed each one an then attributed to me a position I
have never explicitly stated and that does not follow from anything I
have explicitly stated.

> Otherwise, why the tirade.

Somehow I missed seeing any tirades on this thead.

> These distortions and silly tirades don't become you, Richard.

There have been neither distortions nor tirades so far, except for your
rather careless and unwarranted characterization of what I have been
saying, which I take to be nothing more serious than failed attempts on
your part to seem witty.


-- 
Richard Hayes <rhayes at unm.edu>
University of New Mexico