[Buddha-l] Realism, anti-realism and Buddhism #2

[Dan Lusthaus]

[continued from previous message]

But what relation, if any, obtains between the word "tree" and the sensory
object to which we are assigning it? The word functions as an indicator of a
class, a set of qualities by which members of that class can be identified.
Am I seeing an instance of the class "tree," or am I seeing a composite of
colors, shapes, textures, etc., that are unique to that time and place, but
for convenience, and/or in an act of re-cognition (pratyabhij~naa) I assign
the prajnapti "tree"?

This is familiar terrain in Indian philosophy, so I trust I needn't spell it
out further here. All schools -- Nyaya, Mimamsika, Vaisesika, Bauddhas,
Jains, etc. -- take explicit and detailed stands on those issues. What
Indian "realists" tend to do is either claim that the class (and/or
universal) is *as* real as the particulars which constitute its members, or
the universal is *more* real than the particular. Buddhists tend to
attribute reality to the particular (defined in various ways by them), and
assign less or no reality at all to the universal. For Buddhists "tree" is a
prajnapti, not a dravya, much less an entity that is paramaartha or has a
svabhaava.

For Buddhist such "realism" is "unreal" (since the universal is a fiction).
For the "realists," Buddhist rejections of things they accept as ultimate
"reals" (like universals and self) entails that Buddhists have a flawed
sense of reality.

I dredge all this up to reiterate that in Indian thought simple
propositions -- and assertions of their truthhood or falsehood -- are never
sufficient to settle matters of "reality." This is not a matter of
propositional syntax, or even simple reference, but of epistemology and the
relation of language to reality, issues the Indians took very seriously.

> > Candrakirti would be "neither realist nor antirealist." And he would
insist
> > Nagarjuna is the same. He would also remind us that he does not hold to
an
> > alternate option either.
>
> But in making this claim about himself, would he be speaking the truth?
> I know what he SAYS about himself, but I find it is not always wise to
> accept people's descriptions of themselves. I am especially wary of
> Maadhyamikas.

What would it mean to "accept" his self-description (or nonself
non-description)? "Neither/nor" means there is something wrong with those
categories as frames. Hence to reapply them would be a category error. For a
Madhyamaka, the discussion should then move to a demonstration of why the
categories are inapplicable and untenable.

> It could well be that realism is a
> better prescription for dukkha than anti-realism, and that anti-realism
> is a better prescription for dukkha-nirodha. Perhaps the reverse is
> true. It could even be that different people need different
> prescriptions for the malady of dukkha. Je ne sais pas.

dukkha as a concept is not real. Actual dis-ease is. Dukkha as a label for
how we deal with specific instances of impermanence is a useful tool.
Impermanence is also a a concept, but a useful reminder that all that we
attach to is conditioned, and what that entails. Attachment is real, but the
grasper and grasped as reified entities are not. Nonattachment becomes real
when undertanding that grasper and grasped is no longer merely conceptual.
Or so I've been told.

Dan