Dignāga on Reflexive Awareness

DIGNĀGA ON REFLEXIVE AWARENESS Paul Bernier Department of philosophy Université de Moncton To appear in Philosophy East & West, University of Hawai’i Press ABSTRACT The purpose of this essay is to present and defend an interpretation of some central views of Dignāga, an important Indian Buddhist philosopher of the 5th century CE, on the theory of reflexive awareness (svasam vedana), or RA. According to RA, a conscious cognition, for instance a conscious visual experience, is directed not only at an object (or content), but also at itself. The Dignāgian view on reflexive awareness rests crucially on the so-called memory argument. I propose an interpretation of this argument and I underscore three ways one could try to resist it. These objections rest, broadly, on three alternative ways of understanding the scenario of the memory argument. I claim that these alternative interpretations are faced with serious problems and, thus, that they fail to refute the memory argument. I conclude that RA offers an adequate account of the nature of consciousness and self-knowledge, that is, how we know our own minds. Moreover, while Dignāga’s general philosophical views are typically understood as endorsing a kind of epistemological idealism, namely Yogācāra idealism, I point out that the interpretation of RA I propose is independent from such an idealist epistemology. Keywords words or phrases: Consciousness, self-knowledge, Dignāga, reflexive awareness, self-cognition. 1 Introduction The nature of consciousness and the epistemology of self-knowledge, or how we know our own minds, have prompted many discussions in Western philosophy, particularly in recent analytic philosophy. Classical Indian philosophy has also made noteworthy contributions to the developments of original theories and arguments concerning these issues. Unfortunately, these contributions are little-known in contemporary philosophy. The purpose of this article is to propose and defend an interpretation of some central views of Dignāga on reflexive awareness (svasam vedana), or RA, which throw light on these philosophical questions. The Dignāgian account of RA rests crucially on the so-called memory argument, which has remained relatively unknown in contemporary discussions. The main purpose of this article is to defend an interpretation of the memory argument and thus to contribute to contemporary discussions about the nature of consciousness and the epistemology of self-knowledge.1 Reflexive awareness is the view that a conscious mental event is not only directed at some object (or content), but that it is also directed at itself. In Western philosophy, Franz Brentano has endorsed a view that is quite similar to RA. As he states it: [Every conscious act] includes within it a consciousness of itself. Therefore, every [conscious] act, no matter how simple, has a double object, a primary and a secondary object. The simplest act, for example the act of hearing, has as its primary object the sound, and for its secondary object, itself, the mental phenomenon in which the sound is heard.2 The claim that conscious mental events have this reflexive character has been a very controversial issue throughout the history of classical Indian philosophy. As it is pointed out by B. K. Matilal, while different versions of RA are accepted i) by Buddhist philosophers in the tradition of Dignāga and Dharmakīrti, ii) by the Prābhākara Mīmām saka and iii) by the 2 Advaita Vedāntins, it is rejected by the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika and by the Bhāṭṭa Mīmām saka (followers of Kumārila Bhāṭṭa).3 My main claim is that the memory argument, as it is stated by Dignāga, can be interpreted in such a way that it does provide a very plausible support to RA.4 My general strategy is to defend the memory argument against the three main objections that can be raised against it. After clarifying some key notions, I formulate an interpretation of Dignāga’s account of RA, pointing out that it is plausible to interpret it as a piece of conceptual analysis of our concepts of conscious mental events, such as the concept of seeing, the concept of hearing, etc. which, for the sake of convenience, I will call “cognitions”, following B. K. Matilal’s terminology. Dignāga’s account of RA, as I understand it, involves the important idea of the dual aspect of cognitions, namely that they have both an object and a subject aspect. In the first section, I propose an interpretation of an argument Dignāga proposes in support of the dual aspect of cognitions. I argue, however, that this argument is insufficient to support RA. It establishes only that cognitions have a dual aspect. This claim can, however, be used to defend the memory argument against some potential objections. In the following section, I make some terminological remarks and I propose an interpretation of Dignāga’s idea of the dual aspect of cognitions. In section 2, I formulate my interpretation of Dignāga’s version of the memory argument. In sections 3 and 4, I present two different ways of developing a first strategy attempting to refute the memory argument. This strategy concedes a crucial assumption of the memory argument, namely that to remember a past cognition that cognition must have been cognized when it occurred, but it denies that it must have been cognized reflexively. For instance, the past cognition must have been cognized by a further numerically distinct cognition, which is the view of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika discussed in section 3, or it must have been cognized inferentially, which is the view of Kumārila discussed in section 4. I argue that these two objections do not hold, and that the theory of reflexive 3 awareness is preferable to these two rival views. In the last section, I discuss a different strategy to object to the memory argument. This strategy consists of rejecting the crucial assumption according to which the past cognition must have been cognized in order to remember it. In the last section, I argue that this strategy also fails. 1. Dignāga’s account of reflexive awareness and the dual aspect of cognition The Pramāṇasamuccaya, which can be translated as the Compendium of Valid Cognition, is one of Dignāga's most important works. In it he develops the bulk of his theory of knowledge. The first chapter of this work, called Pratyakṣapariccheda, is concerned mainly with the theory of perception and it is there that the Dignāgian views on RA and the memory argument are presented.5 To avoid any confusion, it is useful to make a few terminological remarks concerning my use of such expressions as “cognition”, “self-knowledge”, “cognition of cognition” and “second-order cognition”. Though RA is understood to be a general characteristic of any kind of conscious mental event, the discussion, starting with Dignāga himself, has focused on conscious mental episodes of perception, which according to Dignāga’s epistemology is one of the two means of knowledge, or valid cognition (pramāṇa), the other one being inference (anumāna). It is clear, however, that the theory of RA does not apply only to perceptions, especially if perceptions are understood as mental events which are cases of knowledge. Indeed, RA is a general claim which applies to any conscious mental event whatsoever, including cases of illusion as well as emotions, beliefs, desires and sensations, such as pain. This being clear, it will do no harm to follow both M. Hattori and B. K. Matilal in using the generic term “cognition” to talk of any conscious mental event falling under the theory of RA, that is to say, as being known reflexively. This may seem a bit confusing in so far as the notion of cognition obviously connotes knowledge. This should not distract us, however, since the main issue, especially in the memory argument, is not whether 4 RA is restricted only to conscious mental events which are cases of knowledge, but whether conscious mental events need to have this reflexive character, and if not, why not. In fact the appeal of RA is precisely that it would give us a general view concerning the nature of consciousness which contributes to clarifying the epistemology of self-knowledge, or how we know our own minds. Thus, RA can be stated as saying that in any cognition—understood as any episode of conscious sensory perceptions, conscious beliefs, desires, emotions, conscious pains, etc.—there is awareness not only of the object or content of the cognition, but also awareness of the very cognition itself. Another terminological remark is in order. While we may accept the general claim that we do have some cognitions that constitute self-knowledge, that is, knowledge of our own conscious mental events or what we may call a “cognition of cognition”, or a “second-order cognition”, this claim in itself does not presuppose or entail RA. One can claim, as some have done, that a subject of first-order cognitions typically knows them, but these need not be known reflexively. For instance, they could be known non-reflexively by some other cognition, which can be construed as another perception or as another thought, or they could be known inferentially. Thus it should be clear that when I use such expressions as “cognition of cognition”, “second-order cognition” or “self-knowledge” this in no way presupposes or entails RA. The expression “self-knowledge” simply means knowledge of one’s own mental states, leaving it open that such second-order knowledge be understood in different ways. It is one thing to claim that a subject typically knows her conscious mental events, but it is another to claim that cognitions are reflexive. RA is the specific theory according to which any conscious mental event is by the same token a first-order cognition and a second-order cognition.

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