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

[Richard Hayes]

On Fri, 2008-05-23 at 22:42 -0400, Dan Lusthaus wrote:

> > > (They weren't "idealists.")
> >
> > Quite a few people disagree with you. John Taber and John Dunne seem to
> > treat them as idealists. As far as I can see, so does Schmithausen. So
> > did Matitlal.
> 
> And so does Arnold. And, with the exception of Schmithausen, none of them
> are much better read in Yogacara literature than you.

I think that's false. I have read no Yogacara literature at all (unless
you insist that Vi.m'satika, Trim.'sika, Aalamba.napariik.sa,
Pramaa.nasamuccaya and Pramaa.navaarttika are Yogacara works---I have no
convictions on that matter). I don't think it can be said of the other
scholars you mention that they have read as little as I have.

>  What they do read, if
> that, is restricted to a very few, short works, such as Vimsatika, which
> they profoundly misunderstand since they don't read the rest of the
> literature which would inform them on how to understand it.

If it's true that it's impossible to understand one text in a corpus
without having read the rest of the texts in the corpus, then it would
have to be true that the first text in the corpus was unintelligible
until other texts were written some centuries later. That can't be true.
Nor can it be true that later texts are unintelligible unless one has
read all its predecessors. If the Vi.m'satika was a text written by
Vasubandhu, one of the most intelligent and articulate philosophers in
the history of Indian thought, I'm guessing its author was capable of
getting his ideas across pretty much as he wanted to get them across and
that the text is therefore to some extent intelligible as an independent
treatise. If one reads a text with a commentary, chances are pretty good
that one will get a pretty clear idea of what the text is saying by
itself. So I doubt very much that if a relatively capable scholar with
good training in philosophy and in Sanskrit were to read the Vi.'msatika
that he or she would profoundly misunderstand it. A few allusions might
escape a modern scholar's attention, and some elliptical arguments might
seem opaque for want of knowing the full historical background. So a
modern interpreter's grasp would never be perfect, but I seriously doubt
it could be an instance of profound understanding.

Moreover, I think it is a rare text that can be legitimately interpreted
in only one way. Rarely can it accurately be said of any interpretation
that it is profoundly wrong. (I can think of exceptions. I recall
reading a very early appraisal of the then newly discovered Sanskrit
text of the Abhidharmako.sa that classified it as a work on Brahmanical
purification rituals, because of the frequent use of the term
sa.mskaara. But that was not done by anyone who had pored over the text
for years.) I would be inclined to say that you and Schmithausen
disagree but that both of you have made valuable contributions to the
study of the text and that both of you have produced work that will
stimulate further research and that in a century or so, people will know
enough that they will laugh at both of you, though for different
reasons.

> Schmithausen's case is different, and rather than take up time here with
> that (since it would quickly become too technical for this list), I refer
> people to Paul Griffiths' review of Schmithausen's Alaya-vijnana book (I
> don't have the citation on hand -- perhaps PEW; anyone know the reference?),
> which gets it right. There is a huge difference in understanding between
> reading philologically and reading philosophically. Schmithausen does the
> former very well; the latter is beyond his ken (which doesn't prevent him
> from making claims about Yogacara's philosophical orientation).

I think you dramatically overstate Schmithausen's lack of philosophical
acumen. While I agree that philosophers can often see things in texts
that philologists might miss, it is a relatively rare scholar these days
who works in isolation. Schmithausen certainly does not. He consults
extensively with colleagues in other disciplines. As you no doubt know
from your conversations with him, he is a remarkably open-minded scholar
and loves to consult with and learn from others. My impression is that
he knows philosophy well; it is certainly not in any way "beyond his
ken." It probably would not hurt to bear in mind that Griffiths is a
prone to fault-finding and is best known for praising with faint
condemnation.

> I'm not comfortable with the phenomenalist label either. 

Of course no label is perfect. Most labels are at best heuristics. As a
heuristic label goes, phenomenalism captures something fairly important
about some philosophers that you seem to think should wear the Yogacara
label. (I can speak, and then with only very limited authority, only of
Dignaga and Dharmakirti and Vasubandhu, on all of whom I am very
reluctant to pin any labels of scholastic affliliation.) As I use the
term "phenomenalist," I mean someone who thinks we can know only with
sense data, ideas and images within our own cognition but can never be
certain what the relationship is between those images and the world as
it is outside human awareness. So a phenomenalist, I take it, takes a
middle position between a realist and an idealist in that he regards the
question of the existence of the external world as unknowable. 

> They are epistemological idealists up to a point,
> but true epistemological idealists always consider noumena unreachable,
> whereas Yogacaras disagree with that.

I have absolutely no idea where either Dignaaga and Dharmkiirti stand on
the issue of noumena. I don't find "noumenon" a very useful concept for
talking about Indian philosophy. It has a very particular meaning in
modern Western philosophy, but I see no counterparts for the notion of
noumena in either medieval European or pre-medieval Indian thought. I
can safely say I have never translated any Sanskrit or Pali word as
"noumenon". That doesn't mean that one couldn't translate something that
way, I guess. I just can't imagine what Sanskrit term comes anywhere
close in meaning to the term "noumenon."

> Dhammajoti engages
> in very little polemical posturing -- he just presents the texts and
> arguments. He is a Malaysian Chinese Theravada monk who taught (Abhidhamma,
> etc.) in Sri Lanka for many years, and now teaches at the University of Hong
> Kong. In command of Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan and Japanese, and
> having practiced for most of his life in a living abhidhamma tradition, he
> is singularly qualified to sort out and present what the fullest possible
> range of sources tell us in an informed manner. And like us, his primary
> interest is in the arguments.

If I ever rekindle an interest in abhidharma beyond that which
influenced Dignaaga and Dharmakiirti, I'll take a look at Dhammajoti's
work. 

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico