Karmic Imprints, Exclusion, and the Creation of the Worlds of Conventional Experience in Dharmakīrti's Thought

Dharmakīrti's apoha (exclusion) theory of concept formation aims to provide an account of intersubjectivity without relying on the existence of real universals. He uses the pan-Yogācāra theory of karmic imprints (vāsanā) to claim that sentient beings form concepts by treating unique particulars...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sophia
Main Author: Prueitt, Catherine (Author)
Contributors: Garfield, Jay L. 1955- (Bibliographic antecedent)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Netherlands [2018]
In: Sophia
IxTheo Classification:BL Buddhism
TF Early Middle Ages
VA Philosophy
Further subjects:B Buddhist Philosophy
B Cosmology
B Dharmakīrti
B Intersubjectivity
B Concept formation
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
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Summary:Dharmakīrti's apoha (exclusion) theory of concept formation aims to provide an account of intersubjectivity without relying on the existence of real universals. He uses the pan-Yogācāra theory of karmic imprints (vāsanā) to claim that sentient beings form concepts by treating unique particulars as if a certain subset of them had the same effects. Since this judgment of sameness depends on an individual's habits, desires, and sensory capacities, and these in turn depend on the karmic imprints developed over countless lifetimes and continuously reshaped by ongoing actions, the extent to which individuals experience themselves as acting within a shared world (or not!) depends on these imprints. However, a number of critics—traditional and contemporary—have expressed compelling doubts about whether or not apoha can be successful given Dharmakīrti's ontology which, in addition to denying universals, eventually denies the reality of even the most basic structure of conventional experience: subject/object duality. In line with the tradition he inherits, Dharmakīrti considers even the mere division of a moment of awareness into defined structures of subject and object to be a distortion shaped by beginningless karmic imprints. While this initial moment of awareness is nonconceptual, the experience of a certain world is always already shaped by the previous actions of sentient beings trapped within the web of sa?sāra, in a process driven by ignorance. Dharmakīrti's reliance on karmic imprints on two distinct levels—one within the conventional world, and one which constitutes the conventional world—may thereby provide a compelling account of intersubjectivity without relying on universals.
ISSN:1873-930X
Reference:Kritik in "I Take Refuge in the Sangha. But how? The Puzzle of Intersubjectivity in Buddhist Philosophy Comments on Tzohar, Prueitt, and Kachru (2019)"
Contains:Enthalten in: Sophia
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s11841-017-0618-5