[Buddha-l] Realism, anti-realism and Buddhism #1

[Dan Lusthaus]

Richard,

> > Syadvada and anekantavada are themselves subject to numerous
> > interpretations, which we can take up separately in other postings. The
> > two-valued logic I was referring to is one in which (1) only two
opposing
> > options are considered viable, and thus all-inclusive, and (2) that
reduces
> > reality to propositions.
>
> The second clause is entirely irrelevant to this discussion, so it is
> better left aside.

The point I was trying to make is that the second issue is *not* irrelevant.
Certainly not for Indian philosophers (see below re: avaktavya). And
especially not for Asanga, who considers moving beyond naive realism and
yukti-prasiddha-vada as involving the stripping away of prajnaptis
(prapanca, etc.) in order to directly know things as they are. That it is
not on the radar screen of Analytics, or given the prominent place by them
that Indians give it has led to its relative neglect in Western
"philosophical" treatments of Indian sources. Present instance serves as an
example. (that has been the dominant position in Western philosophy since
Kant, in replying to Hume, conceded the inaccessibility of noumenals through
phenomenals; Husserl's phenomenology was an attempt to recover the noumenals
through a rigorous examination of phenomenals, to "return to the things
themselves.")

>As for bivalent logic, it is explicitly stated as the
> standard by every classical Indian thinker I have ever read.

I perhaps wasn't as clear as I could have been concerning the sense of
two-value logic to which I was referring. You seem to be taking my
statements as a denial or disparagement of such things as the excluded
middle, which is not what I was suggesting. I fully agree with you that
Indian philosophers, and no one more than Nagarjuna, accepted the excluded
middle as an unavoidable and useful tool. Let me try to recast what I meant.

What I was trying to indicate is a two-valued system into which two and only
two options, in toto, are possible. One is either a realist or one is an
"anti-"realist. This is not just a heuristic division, but an attempt at an
all-encompassing classification. There is no third option (aside from
irrelevance), though both realist and antirealist may have many
subdivisions. All the subdivisions fit INTO the initial opposition. That is
not an innocent move, since it completely frames and limits the entire
subsequent discussion. It is us-them in its rawest form.

A logical proposition, in isolation, may be a two-valued statement (true or
false), but something else happens depending on how a string of propositions
are related. A -> B, B -> C, C -> D, etc. is one possibility. A or B, B or
C, C or D, is another. And so on. The point of the catuhskoti or syadvada is
to posit newer possibilities which are not just alternatives to the previous
possibilities, but which also subsume and recontextualize them. To insist
this is still just two-valued (though two-valued contrasts are still part of
them and are part of how they relate to each other, i.e., intrinsic and
extrinsic relations), is like insisting the steps on a ladder are
horizontal, and therefore the ladder itself is horizontal. Obviously such
characterization will produce something useless for reaching the top shelf
or changing the lightbulb in a ceiling fixture. The vertical dimension
(e.g., going from X, -X to Both X and -X) reframes the progressive
horizontals, and that reframing is not trivial. How the vertical
recontextualizes the horizontal is important, especially if one wants to
ascend, though in the "merely two-valued formulation" the vertical links
become invisible. The steps of a ladder are not exclusively horizontal nor
exclusively vertical. To insist they are only one or the other would be a
category error and lead to confusion and paradoxes.

> >  Syadvada, as you know, adds three additional options
>
>[...] the seven ways Jaina logicians had of
> guarding against precipitant and absolute assignment of truth values in
> complex situations.

That is the typical characterization. I note that it manages to ignore the
implications of avaktavya (the amenability or lack thereof of reality to
linguistic articulation) that is key to the last three nayas. (Avaktavya
replaces the neither/nor option in the fourth alternative; the last three
extrapolate from that. A few add an eighth alternative: aktavya"sca
avaktavya"sca)

For a post-Keith example of how confused and confusing treatments of the
last three nayas are in modern treatments, try:
http://www.jainworld.com/jainbooks/firstep-2/indianjaina-1-1.htm

(Let's leave aside the importance of the notion of avaktavya for the
pudgalavadins, and their impact in this regard on subsequent Buddhist
developments).

> Dummett is very careful to say that there are many forms of what he
> calls anti-realism.

He is making the ladder horizontal.

> I have no idea what it could possibly mean to be liberated or free from
> bhaava or abhaava. The only sense I can make of such a seemingly bizarre
> claim is that it has nothing at all to do with ontology or logic and has
> everything to do with psychology.

Of course, in Analytic parlance to call something "psychological" is a way
of saying it is not philosophical, should probably not be part of
philosophical discourse, and is just fuzzy blabbering that has no room in
the clean, sanitized precincts of philosophy. That's why I coined the term
"psychosophy" in my book, since prior to 20th c Analytics philosophers the
world over had no such allergies or prejudices (or misconceptions). (Prior
beliefs DO play a controlling role on what counts as reality for different
people.)

In a separate email (when I get a chance, perhaps later this weekend), to
avoid exceeding the server's limits, I will offer up some of Asanga's
account of what this means for him.

Dan Lusthaus