On why Madhyamaka rightly rejects epistemology: Candrakīrti in light of Peirce.

Colloquium

Speaker: Dan Arnold, University of Chicago

When: Sep 15, 2023 - 03:30pm - 05:30pm

Where: Mitchell Hall 102

 

Description:

Since my first book in 2005, I have been arguing that the distinctive arguments of India’s Madhyamaka tradition of Buddhist thought — exemplified by the main works of Nāgārjuna (ca. 150 CE), this tradition’s founder, but also (and especially) by his Indian commentator Candrakīrti (ca. 600-660 CE) — make sense as basically transcendental arguments. My first book developed that idea by way of a close reading of Candrakīrti’s sustained critique of the Buddhist philosopher Dignāga’s (ca. 480-540 CE) epistemological case for a Buddhist world-view; Candrakīrti rejects demands for epistemic justification, I argued, because Madhyamaka’s whole point is that such demands are intelligible only insofar as they are “empty” – that our epistemic situation is salient, in other words, for its already epitomizing just what Madhyamaka means to demonstrate. Having further developed this idea in a variety of contexts, I now want to motivate this reading with reference to some things I have learned from my recent work on C. S. Peirce, whose “pragmaticism” amounts to a fallibilistic sort of transcendental philosophy. Of particular significance is Peirce’s orienting contention that the metaphysically basic significance of mind has nothing to do with subjectivity; insofar as Peirce thinks that mind is salient as exemplifying “Thirdness” – that it’s not through consciousness but through semiotics that mind is grasped – Peirce shows that a transcendental approach requires no reference to consciousness or subjectivity. This insight, I contend, illuminates Candrakīrti’s principled eschewal of epistemology, which reflects what I take to be the animating conviction behind his philosophical modus operandi: Madhyamaka would have us eschew psychologistic analyses of epistemic justification, and instead take our bearings from linguistic analysis of intersubjectively intelligible meaning.