Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge c7.64

c7.64

(101) His epistemological argument (assuming that his disproof of the pramānas is valid) only goes to prove that we do not or cannot *know* that there are real objects of knowledge and not that such objects do not exist. In other words, his argument should have led him to scepticism and not to nihilism But it is important to observe that nowhere in his work does he claim to be a sceptic or grant the possibility of the existence of things even if he cannot know them. On the contrary he even uses metaphysical arguments (*v. infra*, 104) to disprove the existence of the soul He is therefore not a sceptic but an absolute nihilist in his metaphysics though he may be called a logical sceptic in so far as he is sceptical of (i e. doubts or denies) the possibility of knowledge.