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Sankara on the Buddhist idealist dream analogy
Having laid out his arguments against the Buddhist realists in Brahma-sutra-bhasya II. ... 17-26, Sankara then attempts to refute the Vijnanavada position of Buddhist idealism, which renounces the existence of the external world of experience. By arguing against these claims, Sankara hopes to support a possibility for the reality of objects of perceptual experience. I aim to critically focus particularly upon Sankara’s arguments against the Vijnanavada’s claims about our perception being based upon an analogy between our waking experience and dream experience and to find whether or not these claims survive relevant criticism. In doing so I will hope to expose some conclusive evidence for the existence of perceptual objects, and offer some further reasons to substantiate any problems within Sankara’s arguments.
The Vijnanavada take the position that, by comparing our perception in a dream to our perception in our waking state, we must infer that there is no difference between knowledge of the (external) object and the object itself.
This is to be understood as analogous to dream etc. Even as the cognitions in a dream…have stamped on them the perceptions of the knowledge and the known, though there are no objects, so also it is to be understood that the perceptions of a pillar etc. ...
Here then Sankara outlines the Buddhist argument, explaining that our perceptions are the same whether in dreams or in a waking state and that because of this we must deny the existence of external objects. ... I will return to this point, but before I do let us go on to Sankara’s own arguments against the dream analogies drawn above.
He begins by remarking that, in fact, our dream states and waking states are completely ‘different in nature. ... With regard to this we say, the perceptions of the waking state cannot be classed with those in a dream. ... According to Sankara, this all hinges on the fact that in our dreams our experiences are ‘subject to sublation’. ...
To a man, arisen from sleep, the object perceived in a dream becomes sublated, for he says, “Falsely did I imagine myself in contact with great men. ...
In addition to this, Sankara claims, could be magic and other such activities, whereby ‘adequate sublation takes place. ... A pillar, Sankara says, ‘is not thus sublated under any condition’. ... Sankara follows on to say that, in any case, merely purporting this so called similarity between our waking and dream states isn’t enough in itself to deny our waking experiences:
Moreover, one who cannot speak of the waking experiences as naturally baseless, just because this would contradict experience, wants to speak of them as such on the strength of their similarity with dream experiences. ...
This seems to be a reasonable point that Sankara raises; both fire and water are elements and have a number of similarities in this sense, but we don’t then say that they are any less separate just because of these resemblances. ...
Having defined a differentiating factor between the two states, therefore, Sankara he builds upon this argument:
Moreover, dream vision is a kind of memory, whereas visions of the waking state are forms of perceptions (through valid means of knowledge). ... In dreams, Sankara claims, it is only memory that feeds the ‘visions’ that we experience, whereas perception in a waking state must necessitate the existence of an object. Sankara explains that the difference between the two can be understood when someone says, ‘I remember my beloved son, but I do not see him, though I want to see’.
But maybe the question here is, even if memory does constitute our dream states (rather than perception), whether this will sufficiently counter the Vijnanavada claims? Also, is it the case that we all ‘feel the difference’, as Sankara proposes, between memory and perception? ...
Let us then sum up Sankara’s argument. ... In dreams, Sankara says, we therefore use memory, not perception, since there are no objects.
But how do we use such a concept of memory in our dream state, when we are incapable of linking any particular memory, as a referent, to respective particular things? ... Sankara will certainly need further arguments to prove not only that our dream states are governed solely by a sort of memory, but also that it is this that makes them different from our waking states. ... The first problem that arises from Sankara’s argument concerns a certain notion of our waking states. ... Memory may not be, in this sense, the differentiating aspect between our dream and waking states.
Approximate Word count = 3804
Approximate Pages = 15.2
(250 words per page double spaced)
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