Brains, Buddhas, and believing : the problem of intentionality in classical Buddhist and cognitive-scientific philosophy of mind

327 Pages·2012·1.77 MB·English

by  Arnold

(ConTInued from fronT flaP) arnold Premodern Buddhists are sometimes
characterized as veritable “mind scientists”
Praise for
of dharmakīrti’s contemporaneous indian crit- whose insights anticipate modern research on
ics (proponents of the orthodox Brahmanical the brain and mind. aiming to complicate this
braIns, buddhas, and belIevIng
Mīmāsā school as well as fellow Buddhists from story, dan arnold confronts a significant obsta-
the Madhyamaka school of thought), whose cri- cle to popular attempts at harmonizing classical
tiques exemplify the same logic as modern argu- “ThIs Is a suPerb book, and dan arnold sets a new standard for contemporary Buddhist and modern scientific thought: since
B
ments from intentionality. elaborating these vari- most indian Buddhists held that the mental con-
cross-cultural philosophy. he approaches the most important and difficult issues in r
ous strands of thought, arnold shows that seem- tinuum is uninterrupted by death (its continuity
ingly arcane arguments among first-millennium contemporary philosophy of mind, epistemology, and the foundations of cognitive sci- a is what Buddhists mean by “rebirth”), they would
T
indian thinkers can illuminate matters still very ence through a sustained dialogue with classical indian Buddhist philosophers, such h i have no truck with the idea that everything about
e n
much at the heart of contemporary philosophy. P the mental can be explained in terms of brain
as nāgārjuna and dharmakīrti, and with contemporary Western philosophers, such as r s
o events. nevertheless, a predominant stream of
Wilfrid sellars, donald davidson, John Mcdowell, daniel dennett, and Jerry Fodor. he Coble , B indian Buddhist thought, associated with the
gm seventh-century thinker dharmakīrti, turns out
addresses both indian and Western traditions with great erudition and always in the n o u
ITf to be vulnerable to arguments modern philoso-
service of a philosophical project prosecuted with uncommon clarity and precision.” Ive In d phers have leveled against physicalism.
-T
se d
—Jay garfIeld, dorIs sIlberT Professor In The humanITIes and Professor Cn
of PhIlosoPhy, smITh College IenTI h by CharaCTerIzIng the philosophical prob-
To lems commonly faced by dharmakīrti and con-
Ifna a temporary philosophers such as Jerry Fodor
hool “dan arnold onCe agaIn leads us through a brilliant and original exercise in IC PlIT s and daniel dennett, arnold seeks to advance
nity sc cross-cultural philosophy. he gives a lucid account of the epistemology of the great hIly In , an understanding of both first-millennium in-
hicago divi indian Buddhist thinker dharmakīrti and then sets him into robust conversation with osoP Clas an dthiaen p ahriglousmopehnyt so af nmd incodn. tTemhep oisrsaurye sd ecebnatteesr oonn
university of C ionth Beur dpdhhiliosst otphhoeurgsh ot,f tmhein pdh, ibloosthop ihnyd ioafn m anindd W, tehset esrtnu,d iyll uomf Binuadtdinhgis imm paonrdt annet uisrosusceis- hy of msICal b d B wt(ioohrn arate lpimtrye—osdetenhrten o frpa hcmti leotahsnao)tp ohthteheres r m htihanivdne g csca.a nlTl erbadec iinanbgto eaunnt-
The ence, and the relation between humanistic and scientific inquiry.” Inud e account of intentionality through Kant, Wilfrid
ddh l sellars, and John Mcdowell, arnold argues that
dan arnold is associate professor of philoso- —roger JaCkson, John W. nason Professor of asIan sTudIes and relI- Is i intentionality cannot, in principle, be explained
phy of religions at the university of Chicago di- gIon, CarleTon College T a e in causal terms.
n v
vinity school, where he also received his Ph.d.
d
i
his first book, Buddhists, Brahmins, and Belief: n elaboraTIng some of dharmakīrti’s central
Epistemology in South Asian Philosophy of Reli- commitments (chiefly his apoha theory of mean-
g
gion, won an american academy of religion ing and his account of self-awareness), arnold
award for excellence in the study of religion. shows that despite his concern to refute physi-
calism, dharmakīrti’s causal explanations of
Brains, Buddhas, and Believing
the mental mean that modern arguments from
ColumbIa unIversITy Press / neW york
intentionality cut as much against his project
cup.columbia.edu as they do against physicalist philosophies of
The Problem of InTenTIonalITy In ClassICal buddhIsT and
mind. This is evident in the arguments of some
CognITIve-sCIenTIfIC PhIlosoPhy of mInd
JaCkeT PhoTo by Josef asTor
dan arnold
JaCkeT desIgn by mIlenda nan ok lee ColumbIa (ConTInued on baCk flaP)
PrInTed In The u.s.a.
Brains, Buddhas, and Believing

Dan Arnold
Brains, Buddhas, and Believing
•
the problem of intentionality
in classical buddhist and cognitive-
scientific philosophy of mind
•
Columbia University Press
New York
columbia university press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © 2012 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Arnold, Daniel Anderson, 1965–
Brains, Buddhas, and believing : the problem of intentionality in classical Buddhist
and cognitive-scientific philosophy of mind / Dan Arnold.
 p.  cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-231-14546-6 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-231-51821-5 (electronic)
1. Intentionality (Philosophy) 2. Buddhist philosophy. 3. Philosophy of mind.
4. Philosophy, Comparative. I. Title.
B105.I56A76  012
128'.2—dc22 2011015742
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper.
This book was printed on paper with recycled content.
Printed in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing.
Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have
expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
kuto vā nūtanaṃ vastu vayam utprekṣituṃ kṣamāḥ /
vācovinyāsavaicitryamātram atra vicāryatām //
(“How could we discern anything new? Only the variety in the
composition should be considered here.”)
—Jayanta Bhaṭṭa
3
I don’t know about you guys, but when friends in other lines of work
ask me what philosophers are into these days, and I tell them that
these days philosophers are into claiming that really, deep down—
in a first-class conceptual system, you know?—it’s not true that “cat”
means cat . . . they laugh at me. I do find that embarrassing.
—Jerry Fodor
3
The moment we try to give a precise analysis of anything we
cannot doubt, we find we can doubt whether we have given the
right analysis.
—Charles Hartshorne

Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
“Neural Buddhism”: Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of
Dharmakīrti 1
Intentionality, the Status of Universals, and the Problems with
Cognitivism 6
Plan of the Book 14
1. Dharmakīrti’s Proof of Rebirth: A Dualist Account of the
Causes of Cognition 19
Introduction: Dharmakīrti as Empiricist 19
Causation and Subjectivity: Dharmakīrti’s Representationalism 24
“Compassion Is the Proof”: Dharmakīrti’s Arguments for
Dualism 31
What Kind of Argument Is This? On the Causes of Cognition, and
the Rest of This Book 40
2. The Cognitive-Scientific Revolution: Computationalism
and the Problem of Mental Causation 48
The “Amazingly Hard Problem”: Mental Causation and Philosophy
of Mind 48
viii 3 contents
Enter Computationalism 52
Narrow Content and Methodological Solipsism: Fodor’s Brief for
Interiority 58
The “Language of Thought”: An Account of Language Itself
as Causally Describable 66
Conclusion: Does Dennett’s Approach Represent an Alternative? 75
3. Responsiveness to Reasons as Such: A Kantian Account
of Intentionality 81
Introduction: From Brentano’s “Reference to a Content” to
Propositional Attitudes 81
The “Transcendental Unity of Apperception” and the Nature of
Judgment 84
On Conceptual Capacities as “Spontaneous” 90
First Part of a Case Against Physicalism: McDowell’s Reconstruction
of the “Sellarsian Transcendental Argument” 94
“Second Nature”: On Reading McDowell as a Critic of
Physicalism 100
A Necessary Complement to McDowell’s Argument: What Kant’s
Second Critique Adds to His First 108
Conclusion: Rationality and the First-Person Perspective 113
4. The Apoha Doctrine: Dharmakīrti’s Account of
Mental Content 116
Introduction: Apoha Theory as a Nonintentional Account of
Mental Content 116
Dignāga’s Account of Apoha: Conceptual Content as Defined
by Inferential Relations 123
On Learning Conventions: Dignāga’s “Augustinian”
Presuppositions 128
Dharmakīrti’s Account of Apoha: Causally Linking Percepts
and Concepts 133
Problems with the Focus on Inwardness: Dharmakīrti on
“Speaker’s Intention” 141
Dharmakīrti on Conceptual Thought as Essentially
Mnemonic 146
Conclusion: Saṃketakāla as “Meaning-Conferring
Experience” 152
contents 3 ix
5. The Svasaṃvitti Doctrine: Dharmakīrti’s “Methodological
Solipsism” 158
Introduction: Perceptual and Constitutive Understandings of
Self-awareness 158
Dignāga on Pramāṇaphala as Svasaṃvitti 165
Dharmakīrti’s Culminating Argument for Svasaṃvitti:
“Sahopalambhaniyama” 175
Svasaṃvitti and Causal Explanation 183
On What Dharmakīrti’s Argument Gets Us: Rāmakaṇṭha on the
Phenomenology of Time-Consciousness and the Limits of Causal
Explanation 189
Conclusion: Dharmakīrti’s Cognitivism 194
6. Indian Arguments from Practical Reason: Mīmāṃsakas
and Mādhyamikas Contra Cognitivism 199
Introduction: Dharmakīrti on Practical Reason 199
Mīmāṃsā: Practical Reason as Linguistic, Language as Timeless 201
Is Language Mind-Independent? 208
Dharmakīrti’s Concession: Practical Reason, Causal Explanation,
and the Madhyamaka Impulse 212
The “Conventional” as the “Intentional”: Madhyamaka Arguments
for the Ineliminable Character of These 219
Conclusion: How to Think It Really True That the Logical Space of
Reasons Is Ineliminable 229
Concluding Reflections: Religious Studies and Philosophy
of Mind 236
Notes 245
References 281
Index 297