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Buddhist Epistemology and Virtue Epistemology

Submitted to Program Units
1: Buddhist Philosophy Unit
2: Yogācāra Studies Unit

Catherine Prueitt, University of British Columbia, Presiding

Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)

Buddhist epistemology directs to knowledge of reality as it is and serves as a path toward liberation from suffering. Meanwhile, how one perceives reality fundamentally influences moral conduct and decision-making. So, what is the structure of such intellectual virtue? Reflecting on this question of valid cognition upon telic knowledge or truth, this panel focuses on Buddhist epistemology and virtue epistemology. Its objectives are to explore these two areas through different Buddhist philosophical perspectives, foster dialogue across various Buddhist contexts, and engage Buddhist epistemology with its contemporary relevance.

Papers

  • Laura Guerrero, The College of William & Mary

    A Buddhist Account of Epistemic Wellbeing

    Abstract

    This paper explores the Vaibhāṣika Buddhist account of knowledge. In particular, I will explore the way Vaibhāṣika trope ontology influences how the Vaibhāṣika understand complex mental states and when these states constitute knowing states. Mental states, like any complex entity in Vaibhāṣika metaphysics, are merely conventionally real, as are the agents they are commonly thought to belong. Here I will argue that despite denying the ultimate reality of epistemic agents, the Vaibhāṣika account constitutes a kind of virtue epistemology whereby a mental state counts as a knowing state only if it includes and precludes certain virtue-related tropes. Many Buddhist virtues, I argue, are importantly epistemic. Engaging in practices that inhibit the arising of certain epistemic vices and foster the occurrence of epistemic virtues is a core feature of Buddhist teachings, which constitute a path to a distinctive kind of epistemic well-being.

  • Amber Carpenter, Yale-NUS College

    How Dignāga's Epistemic Ideal Transforms the Knower

    Abstract

    Buddhist ethics can be seen to hold up a certain epistemic ideal—knowledge of reality as it is—as that at which we ought to aim, if we would be free from suffering. It is thus a fundamentally epistemological and idealist ethics. Dignāga codifies the nature of this epistemic ideal in his pramāṇa-theory, which argues there are exactly two forms of valid cognition and only one of them cognises things as they are. By considering how a conception of ideal knowledge embeds certain values and virtues (but not others), I wish to set out the expected effects on character of striving for, and attaining the primary epistemic ideal of knowing reality as it is. I then shall ask what the ethical effects are, if any, of pursuing or attaining the secondary form of valid cognition, anumāṇa, in pursuit of which one is held to quite different norms and values.

  • Dominic Sur, Utah State University

    The Art of Imagination at the Intersection of pramāṇa & samaya: Normative Epistemology & Tantric Ethics in Early Dzogchen

    Abstract

    Since the 19th-century reforms led by Ju Mipham, Nyingma philosophy has focused on using normative epistemological discourse (pramāṇa) to validate the tantric concept of primordial purity. This approach, attributed to the translator Rongzom (11th-12th c.), considered the pioneer of this trend in Tibet, is highlighted in Mipham’s Beacon of Certainty (nges shes rin po che sgron ma). Mipham traces the Nyingma tradition's practice of tantric pramāṇa, affirming primordial purity qua the inseparability of the two truths, as a defining feature of the Old School's philosophical Vajrayāna. Rongzom’s work, Establishing Appearance as Divine (snang ba lhar bsgrub pa), from a period when Tibetan Buddhism absorbed Vajrayāna ritual and pan-Indian epistemology, exemplifies this fusion. This paper explores Rongzom’s tantric pramāṇa within classical epistemology and Nyingma tantra, arguing that its purpose lies in authorizing an ideology behind a practical epistemology of tantric ethics (samaya) than in logically debating “right view.”

  • Yat Ching YEUNG, Temple University

    Virtuous Vision: Navigating the Nexus of Virtue Reliabilism and Moral Phenomenology in The Treasury of Valid Knowledge and Reasoning

    Abstract

    This paper explores Buddhist epistemology’s structure while considering its contemporary relevance. Specifically, it examines the plausibility of reliabilist virtue epistemology and moral phenomenology in chapter 9 on perception in The Treasury of Valid Knowledge and Reasoning (tshad ma rigs gter) written by Sakya Paṇḍita (1182–1251). Buddhist epistemology seems to overlap with virtue reliabilism by emphasizing a faculty-based approach that requires reliable and stable cognitive competences. For example, yogic perception constitutes non-erroneous valid knowledge, while being unaffiliated with self-clinging and afflictions, promotes a form of intellectual virtue. Meanwhile, Buddhist moral phenomenology directs toward a cultivating pathway experiencing in the world, focusing on the input side and non-egocentricity. Reflecting on these, this paper argues that Buddhist epistemology and cognitive theory, at least in the tshad ma rigs gter, are intertwined with ethical, metaphysical, and soteriological dimensions concerning how one perceives and engages with oneself, others, and the world without a self.

Audiovisual Requirements

Resources

LCD Projector and Screen
Play Audio from Laptop Computer
Podium microphone

Full Papers Available

No
Program Unit Options

Session Length

90 Minutes
Schedule Info

Monday, 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM

Session Identifier

A25-403