Buddhist Logic v2.c19.s1: § 1. Preliminary

v2.c19.s1.1

The Indian realists, Naiyāyikas, Mīmāṃsakas etc., admitted two kinds of sense-perception, a primitive, simple sensation without participation of conception (nirvikalpaka), and a more determinate, complex perception with participation of conception or construction (savikalpaka). The difference between the two kinds of perception was for them one of degree, of distinctness and clearness. Dignāga starts, Pramāṇa-samuccaya, I. 2, by establishing a radical, essential and even, as will be seen, transcendental, difference between pure sensation and conception. The latter in his system includes judgment and inference. What the realists call perception and inference is by Dignāga replaced by sensation and conception; although he retained the terms, but gave them another interpretation and scope. We have thus in his system pure sensation and pure conception and the corresponding distinctions of pure object, which is identified with reality itself, or the thing in itself, and pure Universals. According to the realists the Universe contains particulars, universals and mixed things (vyakti-jāti-ākṛti). They are apprehended by different sense faculties and by ratiocination. The same thing may be cognized in many ways. There are no strict distinct limits for each source of knowledge. Dignāga opposed to this a sharp distinction between two sources corresponding to two kinds of objectivity. The objects are either Particulars or Universals and the sources of knowledge are, accordingly, either Sensation or Conception. Particular and Universal are empirically (sāmvyavahārika) conceived by the realists, transcendentally (paramārthataḥ) understood by Dignāga. His Particular is the point instant, the thing in itself, absolutely undifferentiated and radically different from all constructions of the conceptive faculty of our mind. The concrete individual thing (svabhāva-viśeṣa), being a meeting point of several Universals, is nevertheless treated as a particular in European logic, for the Buddhists it is a construction and therefore treated as a Universal cognized by inference. The presence of fire is perceived, according to the Realists, by two sense-faculties, the visual sense and the tactile sense, or it may also be inferred from the presence of smoke. This fire is the concrete, empirical, physical object fire. For the Buddhists the sense of vision apprehends only colour, the tactile sense only heat, and the distinct image of fire is a construction of productive imagination (kalpanā), a Universal, a conception by dint of its sameness with similar points of reality and its contrast with every thing dissimilar. Such construction by similarity and contrast is the essence of indirect, conceptual or inferential knowledge. It will be seen from the examples given by Vācaspati that even the perceptual cognitions of the form «this is blue», «this is a jar», «this is a cow» are treated as perceptual judgments, as conceptions, i. e., conceiving states of mind and, therefore, inferences, cp. Tātp., p. 338. 0, sa ca vikalpānām gocaro yo vikalpyate, deśa-kāla-avasthā-bhedena ekatvena anusandhiyate and Udayana adds anumānātmakatvād vikalpasya. —According to Sigwart, Logik, II p. 395, the perceptual judgment «this is gold» is an inference, — «sobald ich sage «es ist Gold», interpretire ich das Phänomen durch einen allgemeinen Begriff, und vollziehe einen Subsumtions-schluss». By a broader definition of inference all conceiving activity, all comparing knowledge (sārūpya-pramāṇa) is called indirect, i. e., non-sensuous cognition or inference. The Buddhist view receives the name of a «radical distinction» between the sources of our knowledge (pramāṇa-vyavasthā), the Realist maintains the view which is called their «coalescence» (pramāṇa-samplava).