Perceiving Reality: Consciousness, Intentionality, and Cognition in Buddhist Philosophy

Abstract

Combining epistemological insights from Dignāga, Dharmakīrti, Śāntarakṣita, and Kamalaśīla, but also drawing on the work of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty and on recent work in analytic philosophy and phenomenology, this book defends the view that perception is intentionally constituted and, under certain circumstances, represents a type of implicit knowing that precludes (or at least minimizes) the possibility of error. The book also explores the classic debate between Buddhists philosophers and their opponents, principally the Naiyāyikas and the Mīmāmsakas, on such issues as establishing reliable means of belief formation, the relation between language and conceptual thought, and the structure of awareness. It also provides new ways of conceptualizing the Buddhist epistemological defence of the reflexivity thesis of consciousness, namely that each cognitive event is to be understood as involving a pre-reflective implicit awareness of its own occurrence. From a methodological point of view, the book advances an innovative approach to Buddhist philosophy of mind under the guise of phenomenological naturalism—which allows for cognitive awareness to be understood in causal terms without reducing the contents of awareness to non-cognitive elements—and moves beyond comparative approaches to philosophy by emphasizing the continuity of concerns between the discourses of Buddhist and Western philosophers.