Below is a review that was published in Confluence: Online Journal of World Philosophies, Vol. 2, 2015. The journal "is a bi-annual, peer-reviewed, international journal dedicated to comparative thought. It seeks to explore common spaces and differences between philosophical traditions in a global context." to subscribe to the journal, visit its website at http://www.verlag-alber.de/e-journals/confluence/.
During the lifetime of the Buddha and in subsequent centuries, the philosophical traditions of India commonly accepted the existence of an eternal, substantive self (ātman). Among Buddhism’s most novel and noteworthy tenets was the rejection of this view and the acceptance of the doctrine of selflessness or the non-existence of the self (anātman). The non-existence of the self was, however, controversial even among Buddhists, due in part to the Buddha’s conflicting comments on the question and to the Buddha’s use of personal pronouns. This led some to believe that he endorsed the existence of the self. As a consequence, various schools interpreted the doctrine in various ways. Several schools, particularly the Vātsīputrīyas and the Sammitīyas, maintained that some sort of “inexpressible person” (pudgala) must exist in order to make sense of personal continuity and rebirth and that this inexpressible person did not contradict the non-existence of the self. These schools became collectively known as Pudgalavādins. Other schools, particularly the Sarvāstivādins and the Sautrāntikas, maintained that the self was a conceptual fiction, constructed out of more fundamental elements called “dharmas.” Still another school, the Madhyamakas, considered the self, along with all objects, to be without independent existence. The Madhyamaka view was developed first by the second century philosopher Nāgārjuna and subsequently by other philosophers, including the seventh century philosopher Candrakīrti.
Works
written by Buddhist philosophers on the self are well-worth reading for any
philosopher outside of the Buddhist tradition as they offer theses that are at
times analogous to ones found in the European tradition as well as theses that
have no clear analogy. Among the most important works is the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya by Vasubandhu, particularly
its ninth chapter, Refutation of the
Theory of the Self (Ātmavādapratiṣedha
or Pudgalapratiṣedhaprakaraņa). This
work presents several important theories of the self. It outlines the view held
by the Sarvāstivādins, the Pudgalavādins, and the Sautrāntikas. For the
Madhyamaka tradition, one would do well to read Verses on the Fundamentals of the Middle Way (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā) by Nāgāruna and several works by Candrakīrti:
Clear Words (Prasannapadā), Introduction
to the Middle Way (Madhyamakāvatāra),
and his Autocommentary on the
Introduction to the Middle Way (Madhyamakāvatārabhāṣya).
None of these are easy reading for anyone not steeped in the concepts and
terminology of the Buddhist tradition. Happily, James Duerlinger has provided us
with two mostly clear and insightful guides to much of this literature.
The
first work is his 2003 book, Indian
Buddhist Theories of Persons: Vasubandhu’s “Refutation of the Theory of the Self” which provides us with a
translation of Vasubandhu’s Refutation of
the Theory of the Self.1 The second is his 2013 book, The Refutation of the Self in Indian
Buddhism: Candrakīrti on the Selflessness of Persons which provides us with
a translation of verses 120-165 of Candrakīrti’s Autocommentary on the Introduction to the Middle Way. A full review
of Duerlinger’s 2003 work is beyond the scope of this review, but readers would
be well served to read at least the introduction to the 2003 work. This will give
the reader a background that will make reading Duerlinger’s 2013 work more
meaningful.
The Refutation of the Self in Indian Buddhism is composed of three
parts. The first part is a general introduction to the root text and an overview
of the issues that it addresses (pp. 1-54). The second is the translation of
the root text (pp. 55-89). The third is Duerlinger’s own verse-by-verse
commentary on the root text (pp. 90-194). In the introduction, Duerlinger
describes and explains the views that Candrakīrti attributes to a several
Buddhist schools: the Sāṃmitīyas, the Āryasāṃmitīyas, the Sarvāstivādins, and
the Sautrāntikas, as well as the non-Buddhist Tīrthikas. Duerlinger also
provides a relatively clear expression of Candrakīrti’s criticisms of these
views as found in Candrakīrti’s Clear
Words, Introduction to the Middle Way,
and his Autocommentary on the
Introduction to the Middle Way. The introduction is composed of four
sections. The first section distinguishes Duerlinger’s translation and
commentary from the existing English translations and commentaries. The second
places Candrakīrti’s Autocommentary
in the context of the Mahāyāna and Madhyamaka traditions and explains the ten
stages of the Bodhisattva path of meditation and its fruit as Candrakīrti
understands it from the Sūtra on the Ten
Stages (Daśabhūmika Sūtra). The
third presents valuable explanations of several critical terms used by
Candrakīrti, and the fourth section relates Candrakīrti’s theory of persons to
other Indian Buddhist theories.
The
second part of the work, the translation of the root text, is informed by what
is perhaps the most important contribution that Duerlinger makes toward
understanding Candrakīrti’s arguments: the distinction between a self “with
person-properties” and a self “without person-properties.” By selves “with
person-properties,” Duerlinger means beings that possess minds and bodies,
perceive, think, feel, act, etc. When English speakers use the term “self” (and
personal pronouns), we commonly refer to beings with such properties. This is most
evident in our use of the reflexive pronouns “myself,” “yourself,” “himself,” “herself,”
“ourselves,” “yourselves,” and “themselves.” In each case, we refer to beings
that have person-properties. Even in the case of “itself,” we commonly use the
term to refer to beings with person-properties, e.g., “the mouse trapped itself
in the box.” The neuter pronoun merely elides our ignorance of the mouse’s sex.
There are, however, some instances when we use “itself” (and even “themselves”)
to refer to objects without person-properties, e.g., “the building collapsed on
itself” or “the bean stalks entwined themselves around the poles.” In these
instances, we appear to suggest a degree of agency (a feature of personhood)
that on more careful analysis we would reject. So while it is not always true,
on the whole our use of “self” refers to beings with person-properties.
The
use of the term “atman” to refer to persons is less consistent in Buddhist texts.
The world “ātman” is normally translated as “self,” but it ambiguously refers
to beings with person-properties and objects without person-properties. According
to Duerlinger, by carefully attending to the ambiguities in the Buddhist texts
and marking them with his person-property terminology, we can better understand
the arguments made by Candrakīrti. Duerlinger writes, “The distinction [between
selves with and without person-properties] is not to my knowledge explicitly
drawn by Candrakīrti and his Madhyamaka (Middle Way) followers,” but he goes on
to write, “The distinction is needed to explain why he [Candrakīrti] represents
his fellow Buddhists as asserting the thesis that a self exists by itself when
they deny that a self exists by itself” (p. 4). Perhaps it is because
Duerlinger does not find explicit evidence for his person-property terminology
that he does not us the terminology in his translation of the root text, but it
helpfully appears in both his introduction to the root text and in his
commentary on the root text.
The
third part of the work is Duerlinger’s verse-by-verse commentary on Candrakīrti’s
Autocommentary. It is based on seven
Tibetan commentaries written in the Madhyamaka tradition, six of which are from
English translations. Among the value-added features of Duerlinger’s commentary
are quotations from Candrakīrti’s Clear
Words, his commentary on Nāgārjuna’s Verses
on the Fundamentals of the Middle Way. These quotations provide additional helpful
perspective on Candrakīrti’s views.
To
delineate the various Buddhist views of the self as Duerlinger believes
Candrakīrti understands them, we should start by describing a view of the self
held by the non-Buddhist Tīrthika school. This is the most robust view of the
self considered by Candrakīrti. We can compare it to something like (but only
something like) a Cartesian substantive self. It is an eternally existing mind
that is temporarily associated with a particular body. This is in contrast to
the Buddhist view that sees the self as identical to or at least dependent upon
the body. Perhaps the simplest version of this contrasting view is held by the
Sarvāstivādins and the Sautrāntikas. They maintained that the self is identical
to the aggregates (skandhas), i.e., collections of elementary “dharmas” which
we might recognize as (i) physical atoms, (ii) sensations, (iii) perceptions,
(iv) volitional actions and external forces that condition our circumstances,
and (v) consciousness. The classic explanation of this view appears in the Questions of Milinda (Milindapañha), written in the first
century. In this text, Nāgasena explains to King Malinda that the self is like
a chariot, composed of parts, and while one might say that each part exists,
the chariot only exists dependently upon the parts; hence, its ontological
status is different than the ontological status of the parts. The chariot does
not exist in the strictest sense. The word “chariot” is only a convenient way
to refer to the collection of parts that alone exist. Similarly, the word “I”
is merely a convenient way to refer to the collection of parts or “aggregates”
which make up the self.
David
Hume comes closest to holding this particular view of the self. For Hume, personal
identity is a bundle of overlapping impressions and ideas. Hume would not agree
with the Buddhist enumeration of the aggregates (the strands that make up the
bundle that is the self), but the important point is that the self is a
composition of elementary parts and does not have an independent existence. The
Sarvāstivādins differed from the Sautrāntikas on a number of points, but most
importantly the former maintained the existence of the past, present, and
future, while the latter only accepted that the present exists. In other words,
the Sarvāstivādins accepted a kind of duration of the dharmas that the
Sautrāntikas rejected. At the same time, the Sautrāntikas accepted the spatial
extension of the bodily dharmas while the Sarvāstivādins held that they were
infinitely divisible. Importantly, they agreed that the self was identical to
the aggregates and that a self with person-properties did not exist
independently of those aggregates.
In
contrast, the Pudgalavādins held a view that lay precariously between the
Tīrthika view and the Sarvāstivādin-Sautrāntikan view. For the Pudgalavādins
the self was dependent upon the aggregates. In this respect it was like the
Sarvāstivādin-Sautrāntikan self; however, the Pudgalavādin self did possess
person-properties. This latter feature made the Pudgalavādin self similar to
the Tīrthika self, but as distinct from the Tīrthikas, Pudgalavādins did not
maintain that the self was eternal. It could, though, transmigrate from body to
body in rebirth. That the Pudgalavādin self was dependent upon the aggregates,
but at the same time possessed person-properties while the aggregates did not,
meant that the self and the aggregates were neither the same nor different from
each other. The Pudgalavādin self was, in this way, “inexpressible.” Perhaps
the closest Western notion to the Pudgalavādin view is that of a form of supervenience.
The self is dependent upon the aggregates, but does have the same ontological
status as the aggregates. It is not substantive as is a Cartesian or Tīrthikan
self; yet, it does possess a mind and body and has the capacity to perceive,
think, feel, act, etc. It is no wonder that orthodox Buddhists greeted this
view with extreme skepticism.
Candrakīrti
rejected all of these views and carried to completion the refutation of the
self begun by the Buddhist tradition. His refutation relied on a distinction
that all of the previous schools of Buddhism accepted but did not make the most
of. Each school recognized two forms of truth: conventional (saṃvṛtisatya) and
ultimate (paramārthasatya). By asserting that the self is a collection of
aggregates and that reference to the self was a short hand for referring to the
aggregates, Buddhists were able to maintain that the existence of the self was of
a different order than the existence of the aggregates. That is, the self
existed conventionally, while what ultimately existed were the aggregates or
the elementary dharmas that composed the aggregates. This allowed Buddhists to
maintain that it was conventionally true that the self “existed,” while at the
same time maintaining that it was not ultimately true. When the Buddha spoke of
the self or made use of personal pronouns, he was asserting facts that were
merely conventionally true. Both the Pudgalavādins and the
Sarvāstivādin-Sautrāntikan made use of this distinction and both accepted that
the aggregates – or more precisely, the dharmas – had an ultimate existence.
It is
this last claim that Candrakīrti and the Madhyamikas rejected. Their critical
premise was that all things with which we are normally acquainted arise
dependently. That is, their existence relies on the existence of other things. This
includes even the dharmas, the elemental building blocks of the aggregates. In
light of this, the self had no ultimate basis at all. All things, including the
self, neither existed (independently) nor did not exist. Instead, they
maintained what provisionally might be thought of as a third ontological status
between existence and non-existence known as “emptiness” (śūnyatā). One might
see this as similar to the Pudgalavādin claim that the self was neither the
same as nor different from the aggregates, but the similarity is only
superficial. The Pudgalavādins located the “inexpressible self” within the
conventional realm, while accepting the ultimate reality of the aggregates. Consequently,
the self had a basis in the ultimate realm. Against this, the Madhyamikas drew
the conventional-ultimate distinction not between the self and its component
parts, but between all experience and a transcendent realm accessible only to
the enlightened. The illusion of the self as ultimate or as being composed of
ultimate elements was what anchored us in samsāra – this delusional world of
suffering. Candrakīrti and the Madhyamikas were thus able to acknowledge the
purely conventional existence of the self while completely purging it of any
ultimate reality. This, more than any other Buddhist theory of the self, was
able to interpret the doctrine of anātman in its most rigorous form, while
making sense of our (and the Buddha’s) use of personal pronouns.
Relying
solely on Buddhism’s root texts upon which these distinctions are based makes
for difficult study. Consequently, commentaries and other secondary literature are
of great value. James Duerlinger’s The
Refutation of the Self in Indian Buddhism along with his early work Indian Buddhist Theories of Persons
stand among the most helpful aids to understanding the critical and intriguing
Buddhist doctrines of the self.
1. Duerlinger, J. Indian Buddhist Theories of Persons: Vasubandhu’s “Refutation of the
Theory of the Self,” (London: Routledge, 2003).
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