Thinker · TH-0126
Dignāga
Dignāga was an Indian Buddhist philosopher, traditionally said to come from near Kāñcī in south India and to have studied under Vasubandhu's tradition. He…
दिग्नाग
Also known as Dignaga, Dinnaga
c. 480 – 540 · South India (Kāñcī, by tradition)
Traditions: Buddhist
Schools: Yogacara
Dignāga was an Indian Buddhist philosopher, traditionally said to come from near Kāñcī in south India and to have studied under Vasubandhu's tradition. He founded the Buddhist school of epistemology and logic, recognising only perception and inference as means of knowledge and treating testimony as a form of inference. His apoha theory explains how words and concepts classify by excluding what is other, without positing real universals.
Key ideas
- There are two means of knowledge: perception, which is free of concepts, and inference.
- Words and concepts work by exclusion of the other (apoha), not by naming real universals.
- A good reason must be present in the subject, present in similar cases and absent from dissimilar ones.
- Testimony is knowledge only as a kind of inference.
Major works
- Pramāṇasamuccaya (Compendium of the Means of Knowledge)
- Nyāyamukha (Introduction to Logic)
- Hetucakra (Wheel of Reasons)
- Ālambanaparīkṣā (Examination of the Object)
In the conversation
- Question If perception is free of concepts, as Dignāga says, how do I ever see a cup as a cup?
- Discussion I have grown cocoa for thirty years and never seen chocolate made. How do I know that is where it goes?
- Question What is apoha, and how can a word mean something by excluding everything else?
- Question How is apoha supposed to work? ‘Cow’ means ‘not non-cow’ sounds circular to me
- Discussion Dignāga’s apoha and Frege’s sense are answers to different questions
- Discussion Dignāga cut the Nyāya inference from five members to three. What did the example member become?
- Debate Sellars was right that raw experience can cause a belief but never justify one
- Discussion Seeing before naming: are Dignāga and Merleau-Ponty saying the same thing about perception?
- Question What are the Nyāya hetvābhāsas, and do they line up with the Western list of fallacies?
- Discussion Devadatta is fat but never eats by day: is Mīmāṃsā “postulation” just inference to the best explanation?
- Question What is apoha, and does defining by exclusion help with the frog-and-fly problem?
In the Journal
In the Coordinates
The questions of philosophy where Dignāga takes a place, from The Coordinates of Thought.
- 1.1.2 Universals and Particulars A tomato and a fire engine are both red. Is there something they share?
- 1.3.3 Intentionality How can one thing be about another thing?
- 2.2 Sources of Knowledge Which ways of finding things out actually work?
- 2.2.1 Perception When you see a tree, what are you actually seeing?
- 2.2.4 Testimony Do you need a reason to trust, or a reason not to?
- 4.1.3 Syllogistic Logic What follows from two statements about classes of things?
- 4.2.1 Fallacies When is a bad-looking argument actually bad?
- 6.10 Philosophy of Language How do noises come to be about things?
- 6.10.1 Reference What makes your word for a thing refer to that thing?