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Dignāga
Dignāga (also known as ''Diṅnāga'', ) was an Indian Buddhist philosopher and logician. He is credited as one of the Buddhism, Buddhist founders of Indian logic (''hetu vidyā'') and Buddhist atomism, atomism. Dignāga's work laid the groundwork for the development of deductive logic in India and created the first system of Buddhist logic and epistemology (pramāṇa). According to Georges Dreyfus, Georges B. Dreyfus, his philosophical school brought about an Indian "epistemological turn" and became the "standard formulation of Buddhist logic and epistemology in India and Tibet." Dignāga's thought influenced later Buddhist philosophers like Dharmakirti and also Hindu thinkers of the Nyaya school. Dignāga's epistemology accepted only "perception" (Pramana#Hinduism, ''pratyaksa'') and "inference" (''anumāṇa'') as valid instruments of knowledge and introduced the widely influential theory of "exclusion" (''apoha'') to explain linguistic meaning.Arnold, Dan. The Philosophi ...
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Buddhist Logic
Buddhist logico-epistemology is a term used in Western scholarship to describe Buddhism, Buddhist systems of ' (Epistemology, epistemic tool, valid cognition) and ' (reasoning, logic). While the term may refer to various Buddhist systems and views on reasoning and epistemology, it is most often used to refer to the work of the "Epistemological school" (Sanskrit: ), i.e. the school of Dignāga, Dignaga and Dharmakirti which developed from the 5th through 7th centuries and remained the main system of Buddhist reasoning until the Decline of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent, decline of Buddhism in India. The early Buddhist texts show that the Gautama Buddha, historical Buddha was familiar with certain rules of reasoning used for debating purposes and made use of these against his opponents. He also seems to have held certain ideas about epistemology and reasoning, though he did not put forth a logico-epistemological system. The Theravada ''Kathāvatthu'' contains some rules on ...
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Apoha
Apoha (Sanskrit: अपोह) is a Buddhist epistemological theory first proposed by the philosopher Dignāga (c. 480 – c. 540 CE) in his seminal text '' Pramāṇasamuccaya''. The theory went on to be significantly elaborated upon and extended by Dignāga's successor Dharmakīrti (6th or 7th century CE). Buddhist philosophers of the logico-epistemological school, of which Dignāga and Dharmakīrti were the most influential, were nominalists, i.e., they held the position that the world is composed of unique particulars and that the concepts in terms of which we think and communicate have no counterpart in reality but are mere mental impositions. Our categories of thought and language are thus, according to the Buddhists, purely subjective – the result of our past karmic impressions that obscure from us the true nature of reality. Apoha theory was proposed to provide an explanation for how, in the absence of objectively existent universals, we are able to form concepts an ...
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Dharmakirti
Dharmakīrti (fl. ;), was an influential Indian Buddhist philosopher who worked at Nālandā.Tom Tillemans (2011)Dharmakirti Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy He was one of the key scholars of epistemology ( pramāṇa) in Buddhist philosophy, and is associated with the Yogācāra and Sautrāntika schools. He was also one of the primary theorists of Buddhist atomism. His works influenced the scholars of Mīmāṃsā, Nyaya and Shaivism schools of Hindu philosophy as well as scholars of Jainism. Dharmakīrti's '' Pramāṇavārttika'', his largest and most important work, was very influential in India and Tibet as a central text on pramana ('valid knowledge instruments') and was widely commented on by various Indian and Tibetan scholars. His texts remain part of studies in the monasteries of Tibetan Buddhism. History Little is known for certain about the life of Dharmakirti. As per John Taber, the only reliable information that we have about his life was that he was a ...
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Anumāṇa
''Pramana'' (; IAST: Pramāṇa) literally means "proof" and "means of knowledge".pramANa
Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Koeln University, Germany
James Lochtefeld, "Pramana" in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Vol. 2: N-Z, Rosen Publishing. , pages 520-521 One of the core concepts in Indian , pramanas are one or more reliable and valid means by which human beings gain accurate, true knowledge. The focus of pramana is how correct knowledge can be acquired, how one knows, how one does not know, and to what extent knowledge pertinent about someone or something can be acquired.Karl Potter (2002), Presupp ...
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Pramana
''Pramana'' (; IAST: Pramāṇa) literally means " proof" and "means of knowledge".pramANa
Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Koeln University, Germany
James Lochtefeld, "Pramana" in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Vol. 2: N-Z, Rosen Publishing. , pages 520-521 One of the core concepts in Indian , pramanas are one or more reliable and valid means by which human beings gain accurate, true knowledge. The focus of pramana is how correct knowledge can be acquired, how one knows, how one does not know, and to what extent knowledge pertinent about someone or something can be acquired.Karl Potter (2002), Presup ...
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Anumāna
''Pramana'' (; IAST: Pramāṇa) literally means "proof" and "means of knowledge".pramANa
Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Koeln University, Germany
James Lochtefeld, "Pramana" in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Vol. 2: N-Z, Rosen Publishing. , pages 520-521 One of the core concepts in Indian , pramanas are one or more reliable and valid means by which human beings gain accurate, true knowledge. The focus of pramana is how correct knowledge can be acquired, how one knows, how one does not know, and to what extent knowledge pertinent about someone or something can be acquired.Karl Potter (2002), Presupp ...
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Buddhist Philosophy
Buddhist philosophy is the ancient Indian Indian philosophy, philosophical system that developed within the religio-philosophical tradition of Buddhism. It comprises all the Philosophy, philosophical investigations and Buddhist logico-epistemology, systems of rational inquiry that developed among various schools of Buddhism in ancient India following the ''Parinirvana, parinirvāṇa'' of Gautama Buddha (c. 5th century BCE), as well as the further developments which followed the Silk Road transmission of Buddhism, spread of Buddhism throughout Asia. Buddhism combines both philosophical reasoning and the Buddhist meditation, practice of meditation.Siderits, Mark. Buddhism as philosophy, 2007, p. 6 The Buddhist religion presents a multitude of Buddhist paths to liberation; with the expansion of early Buddhism from ancient India to Sri Lanka and subsequently to East Asia and Southeast Asia, Buddhist thinkers have covered topics as varied as cosmology, ethics, epistemology, logic ...
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Buddhism
Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or 5th century Before the Common Era, BCE. It is the Major religious groups, world's fourth-largest religion, with about 500 million followers, known as Buddhists, who comprise four percent of the global population. It arose in the eastern Gangetic plain as a movement in the 5th century BCE, and gradually spread throughout much of Asia. Buddhism has subsequently played a major role in Asian culture and spirituality, eventually spreading to Western world, the West in the 20th century. According to tradition, the Buddha instructed his followers in a path of bhavana, development which leads to Enlightenment in Buddhism, awakening and moksha, full liberation from ''Duḥkha, dukkha'' (). He regarded this path as a Middle Way between extremes su ...
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Richard Hayes (professor)
Richard Hayes (aka Dharmacārī Dayāmati) (born 1945) is an Emeritus professor of Buddhist philosophy at the University of New Mexico. He received his Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indian studies from the University of Toronto in 1982. Hayes moved to Canada in 1967 in order to avoid being drafted for the Vietnam War. Hayes is a noted scholar in the field of Buddhist Sanskrit, specializing in the study of Dharmakīrti and Dignāga. Hayes was formerly Associate Professor of religious studies at McGill University in Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun .... He joined the University of New Mexico in the fall of 2003 and retired in 2013. Hayes was co-founder, moderator and a prolific contributor to the online discussion group Buddha-L. Buddha-L attracted a mix of scholars and ...
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Indian Logic
The development of Indian logic dates back to the Chandahsutra of Pingala and '' anviksiki'' of Medhatithi Gautama (c. 6th century BCE); the Sanskrit grammar rules of Pāṇini (c. 5th century BCE); the Vaisheshika school's analysis of atomism (c. 6th century BCE to 2nd century BCE); the analysis of inference by Gotama (c. 6th century BC to 2nd century CE), founder of the Nyaya school of Hindu philosophy; and the tetralemma of Nagarjuna (c. 2nd century CE). Indian logic stands as one of the three original traditions of logic, alongside the Greek and the Chinese logic. The Indian tradition continued to develop through early to modern times, in the form of the Navya-Nyāya school of logic. Origins The Nasadiya Sukta of the ''Rigveda'' ( RV 10.129) contains ontological speculation in terms of various logical divisions that were later recast formally as the four circles of '' catuskoti'': "A", "not A", "A and 'not A'", and "not A and not not A". Medhatithi Gautama (c. 6th cen ...
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