[Buddha-l] Pudgalavada

[Richard Hayes]

> In most other respects, the pudgalavadins are just like every other
> Buddhist group -- they just don't get queasy when the heuristic
> efficacy of the notion of a pudgala, which is neither the same nor
> different than the skandhas, etc., comes up.

As we all know, labels are useful only insofar as there is some purpose
served by using them. There is no need to get stuck on whether
pudgalavaadins are reductionists or non-reductionists, except that using
such labels may help one understand just how one position differs from
another. A value I see in Siderits's treatment (which is considerably
more sophisticated, nuanced and interesting than my minimalist summary
of it) is that he gives a plausible account for why there was a
perceived difference of opinion between Vasubandhu and whoever it was he
thought he disagreed with. Siderits attempts to show in just what claims
the difference of opinion is located. I find that enormously useful.

William James famously quipped that new theories tend to meet three
phases of reception. First, people say the new theory is outrageously
false and unworthy of further consideration. Next, the new theory is
acknowledged to be true but so trivial and obvious as to be unworthy of
further consideration. Finally, the new theory is acknowledged to be
saying something true, non-obvious and quite important, at which point
everyone says that this is what they have been saying all along.

Much of Indian philosophy is captured in James's quip. One read again
and again critics of a position saying something like this: "There are
two interpretations of what you are saying. If interpretation A is the
right one, then you are dead wrong. If interpretation B is the right
one, then you are just saying what the rest of us have been saying all
along." One sees exactly that sort of response to the pudgalavaadin
view. It's either dead wrong or a misleadingly novel way of expressing a
well-accepted truth that has been known for centuries.

Dan's account of the pudgalavaadins is, by my lights, not nearly as
helpful as Siderits's. Dan comes close to saying that the pudgalavaadins
are saying nothing but what everyone else has said. That naturally gives
rise to the question "Then why did Vasubandhu, who was not an entire
fool, think there was a difference of opinion that needed to be
addressed." The only answer Dan suggests is that the opponents of
pudgalavaada were queasy about something. Either they were queasy about
heuristic devices in general, or there were uneasy about this particular
heuristic construct. But why? Surely we deserve more than a conjecture
about Vasubandhu's psychological dis-ease.

The very idea of heuristic constructs seems potentially misleading to
me. What exactly is the Sanskrit term for a heuristic construct? How can
we be sure of any construct that its users were using it heuristically,
that is, merely as a device that promotes deeper understanding than
could be obtained without that device? What is the deeper understanding
that a pudgalavaadin, on Dan's account, claims can be gained by
postulating the heuristic construct of a person? What can one do with a
heuristic Person that one could never do without one? 

Siderits attempts to respond to all these questions in his book
<cite>Personal Identity and Buddhist Philosophy</cite>, which is why I
like his treatment (despite a slight queasiness to his using such
ponderous labels as "non-reductive mereological supervenience"). I am
prepared to like Dan's treatment just as well, if he can respond to some
or all of the questions I have posed about what he is claiming is going
on philosophically and/or practically in the disputes between Vasubandhu
and the folks he was taking so much care to warn us against. So far
Dan's treatment sheds quite a dim light on the issues.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico