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Notes for PHL 348 Argumentation East and West
Stephen Phillips
7 April 2014
The University of Texas at Austin
More on Dharmakirti
1. The distinction between "inference for oneself" and "inference for others."
2. Pervasion (of H by S) as the "natural relation" underpinning inference. It takes three distinct forms: (a)
identity or essence, (b) causality, (c) non-observation.
3. Levels to Dharmakirti's theorizing: (a) the realism of everyday beliefs and practices (vyavahara or
prapanca), (b) refutations of realism and establishment of Buddhist doctrinces such as no-self,
momentariness, and a phenomenalism of ineffable particulars, sva-lakshana, "that which is its own
mark," and (c) the silence of the Buddha.
Nyaya Epistemology and Science
1. Philosophy as analysis, e.g., of the concept of "cause": (a) the necessary condition, (b) the sufficient
condition, or (with Nyaya) the bundle of conditions sufficient to bring about an effect, and (c) the trigger.
2. Philosophy as concerned with questions engaging a first-person perspective, where, e.g., in ethics
(contra Millian scientism which sees "appeal to emotion" as a fallacy, for instance), emotional appeal may
be appropriate. And there is a difference between propositional and doxastic (first-person) justification.
3. Science as testimony of experts from the layperson's point of view. Nyaya-sutra 1.1.24-28 (pp. 11-12,
sutras 24-28 in Vidyabhusana's enumeration)—see notes for the class on 17 March—discusses the
concept of “justified beliefs,” siddhanta, positions that are accepted and have been proved (badly
translated by Vidyabhusana as “dogma”). The sixth-century commentator Uddyotakara says explicitly in
this context that all positions accepted and proved in a system, such as medicine, distinct from Nyaya, but
also in opposing world views, Nyaya's rival schools of philosophy, should be accepted unless they
contradict an established Nyaya tenet.
4. Defense of enumerative induction fallibilistically conceived.
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Inferential knowledge is prolific. (For the Buddhists, it is even more prolific than with the
Naiyayikas, since Nyaya accepts, while Yogacara rejects, direct perception of universals in
experience of individuals such as Bessie as a cow. The Buddhist claims inference is already
operative when we cognize Bessie as a cow.)
There is a (boot-strapping) correlation between relying on the knowledge generated by inference
and success in action.
Inferential knowledge depends on one thing being a sign of another. This occurs in different
ways: (A) conventional signs; (B) natural signs. Testimonial knowledge results from
understanding the conventional relationships given certain other conditions, but typically bits of
inferential knowledge complement a testimonial exchange. In any case, (B) nature-based
relationships between sign (prover) and probandum almost continually throughout our waking
lives help generate bits of knowledge by inference.
The main way the inference-underpinning prover/probandum relation is known is by correlations,
positive and negative, whether personally perceived, inferred, or known through attending to
expert testimony.
Recognition of fallibilism in unreflective knowledge-generation and in certification amounts to
acceptance of the skeptic's insight: sometimes our (limited) experience of correlations misleads.
Notes on the Buddhist Doctrine of “Momentariness”
In the Sermons (of the Buddha) section of the Pali Canon of Southern Buddhism (considered the oldest
Buddhist text), we find the Buddha teaching the transitory nature of worldly pursuits in contrast with the
time-transcending value of Nirvana. “Universal momentariness” seems gradually to have assumed the
status of a core Buddhist belief.
Within Dharmakirti's broad argument for momentariness, there are two key premises (nicely elaborated
by Ratnakirti):
(1) A thing is identical to itself just in case there is no difference in properties.
(1') Two things are distinct just in case one has a property that the other does not.
(2) To be a thing, i.e., to exist, is to have causal efficacy (as is shown by positive and negative
examples).
From these it follows, reasons Dharmakirti, that
(3) A thing's causal efficiency exhausts itself in producing its effect. (A single thing cannot both
have and fail to have causal efficiency, defined as effect-producing.)
The formal argument: What exists, that is momentary, like a cloud.
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Inferential subject (paksa) = whatever is in dispute (with the Nyaya realist)
Prover (hetu) = existence
Probandum (sadhya, that which is to be proved) = momentariness.
Example (drishtanta) = a cloud, that both exists and is momentary. Further examples are all those
things not in dispute, the flame of a candle, cognition, a river, and so on.
Both sides of the dispute accept the principle (GAIE) of the general acceptibility of inductive examples.
Nyaya accepts as momentary: flame flickers, clouds, cognitions, flowing water (but not a river). Eternal
things: atoms, the sky, God. Non-momentary, non-eternal things: people, plants, animals, artifacts,
mountains.
Dharmakirti claims that all of Nyaya's purported counterexamples (something existing but nonmomentary) are within the borders of that which is in dispute (i.e., the paksa).
Historically, Nyaya's main line of counterresponse (it has probably six or seven important lines out of
which one stands out) is the phenomenon of recognition ("This is that Kimberly").
Moksakaragupta
An argument for momentariness (p. 87, 16.1): "perishing" is a property P belonging to the pot ("The pot
being smashed with a hammer is perishing"). If P belonged to the same entity earlier, then that entity
would at that time be perishing. Therefore, everything that perishes is momentary.
According to Nyaya, recognition ("This is that Devadatta") proves that a self has endured. For
Moksakaragupta's response, see p. 88 (16.2): Constructive imagination gives us a strictly false but useful
picture of endurance.