Review of Realisms Interlinked by Arindam Chakrabarti

The Korea Journal of Buddhist Professors, 2020

In this study we aim to find a new way out of the epistemic view about Yogācāra or the Vijñānavādins by means of the argument of “realism and anti-realism”, looking at the issue which is considered to be a sort of idealist philosophy in connection with their claim of “vijñaptimātra” (merely representation) theory. Yogācāra as the empiric realism that Lusthaus wants to advocate is reasonable, but the evaluation for the epistemic view of Yogācāra as a typical example of the philosophy of idealism also has some validity. Therefore, to overcome the limitations of this debate, an exit must be found by using a new alternative trial. I propose an alternative trial to account for the epistemic view of Yogācāra, which shows how Vasubandhu tried to overcome nihilism, on the one hand, while overcoming essentialism on the other. This will be called “the embracing of realism and anti-realism”, Vasubandhu has attempted to escape suspicion of essentialism and nihilism; to do that and have secured an aspect of the “certainty” of our experience in terms of realism and an aspect of the “relativity” in terms of anti-realism. His argument will be meaningful, in that it can pinpoint what problems Vasubandhu tried to overcome through these attempts, rather than the question of whether the argument was successful or failed. Because the philosophical problem that Vasubandhu encountered at his time was the same as it is now, but the way of explaining how we get the certainties and relativities of cognition is different from ours, we would judge that his solution is insufficient in our times. In other words, if we see that Vasubandhu has failed to argue those issues from our current point of view, it cannot guarantee the certainty of the perception that realists think, based on this, that we can evaluate the epistemic view of Vasubandhu as ideologist and an extreme relativist philosopher too. Conversely, Vasubandhu can be judged as a typical essentialist unless the relativity of the perception that anti-realists think is secured within his argument. Therefore, what matters to us now is not to fossilize Vasubandhu’s legacy with our assessment, but to find the significance of the approach at his time; then we are now seeking meaningful reflection from ourselves. Therefore, in this study, I try to confirm that the philosophy of Vasubandhu belongs to “epistemological idealism” and “ontological idealism” simultaneously. This reveals within our context that Vasubandhu tried to cover empiric realism and explores the certainty of recognition, on the one hand, to cover anti-realism and accept the relativity of experience on the other.

2016

In section 1, I explain why a specifically Dummettian conception of realism will be relevant only in a restricted range of cases. In section 2, I suggest that Crispin Wright could be read as holding that the truth of certain judgements depends on our capacity to know it (if and) only if their being true consists in their being superassertible. In section 3, I point out that insisting on knowability, as both Dummett and Wright do, prevents one from seeing that their are other legitimate forms of realism. I argue against the claim attributed to Wright in section 2, which leads me to suggest that it is a mistake to construe the realism debates as being essentially concerned with the nature of truth. The purpose of this paper is to explain and criticize a conception of realism which is suggested by the general approach to the realism debates which Crispin Wright has developed, mainly in his Truth and Objectivity [Wright 1992]. This book largely contributed to restructuring the whole pro...

Metascience, 2010

Further Studies in Hinduism paper for FHS Theology and Religion at Oxford. An exploration of how Bhartrhari's metaphysics and theories of language can contribute to debates in philosophy and theology surrounding realism. I argue for strong parallels between Bhartrhari's picture of language and the theories -- drawn from Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty -- expressed in Charles Taylor and Hubert Dreyfus' work Retrieving Realism, especially in Bhartrhari's sphota theory which I read through Dreyfus and Taylor's 'gestalt holism'. In the process, I also propose possible readings of Bhartrhari's metaphysics.

In: Kenneth R. Westphal (ed.), Realism, Science, and Pragmatism, Routledge, 2014., 2014

Bhaskar’s Philosophy of metaReality (PMR) referred to as his spiritual turn, first began with his book From East to West, and continued within the three main books of metaReality. This paper attempts to place PMR within the stream of Critical Realism (CR) and introduce to the reader two of the most importance elements of PMR, non-duality, and the theory of transcendence. It suggests that the seriousness of our philosophy in theory and practice comes from the account that it can make for its power of emancipation.

Academicus International Scientific Journal, 2012

In the paper we argue that no neat border line between ontology and epistemology can be drawn. This is due to the fact that the separation between factual and conceptual is rather fuzzy, and the world is characterized by a sort of ontological opacity which makes the construction of any absolute ontology difficult. Our ontology is characterized by the fact that the things of nature are seen by us in terms of a conceptual apparatus that is inevitably influenced by mind-involving elements, and all this has important consequences on both the question of scientific realism and the realism/anti-realism debate. Conceptualization gives us access to the world, while, on the other, it is the most important feature of our cultural evolution. While the idealistic thesis according to which the mind produces natural reality looks hardly tenable, it is reasonable to claim instead that we perceive this same reality by having recourse to the filter of a conceptual apparatus whose presence is, in tur...

This paper engages with Johaness Bronkhorst's recognition of a "correspondence principle" as an underlying assumption of Nāgārjuna's thought. Bronkhorst believes that this assumption was shared by most Indian thinkers of Nāgārjuna's day, and that it stimulated a broad and fascinating attempt to cope with Nāgārjuna's arguments so that the principle of correspondence may be maintained in light of his forceful critique of reality. For Bronkhorst, the principle refers to the relation between the words of a sentence and the realities they are meant to convey. While I accept this basic intuition of correspondence, this paper argues that a finer understanding of the principle can be offered. In light of a set of verses from Nāgārjuna's Śūnyatāsaptati (45-57), it is maintained that for Nāgārjuna, the deeper level of correspondence involves a structural identity he envisions between understanding and reality. Here Nāgārjuna claims that in order for things to exist, a conceptual definition of their nature must be available; in order for there to be a real world and reliable knowledge, a svabhāva of things must be perceived and accounted for. Svabhāva is thus reflected as a knowable essence. Thus, Nāgārjuna's arguments attacks the accountability of both concepts and things, a position which leaves us with nothing more than mistaken forms of understanding as the reality of the empty. This markedly metaphysical approach is next analyzed in light of the debate Nāgārjuna conducts with a Nyāya interlocutor in his Vigrahavyāvartanī. The correspondence principle is here used to highlight the metaphysical aspect of the debate and to point out the ontological vision of Nāgārjuna's theory of emptiness. In the analysis of the Vigrahavyāvartanī it becomes clear that the discussion revolves around a foundational metaphysical deliberation regarding the reality or unreality of svabhāva. In this dispute, Nāgārjuna fails to answer the most crucial point raised by his opponent-what is that he defines as empty?