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A Case Against Simple-mindedness: Śrīgupta on Mental Mereology

2023; Routledge; Volume: 102; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00048402.2023.2226687

1471-6828

Allison Aitken,

Indian and Buddhist Studies

ABSTRACTThere's a common line of reasoning which supposes that the phenomenal unity of conscious experience is grounded in a mind-like simple subject. To the contrary, Mādhyamika Buddhist philosophers beginning with Śrīgupta (seventh–eighth century) argue that any kind of mental simple is incoherent and thus metaphysically impossible. Lacking any unifying principle, the phenomenal unity of conscious experience is instead an unfounded illusion. In this paper, I present an analysis of Śrīgupta's 'neither-one-nor-many argument' against mental simples and show how his line of reasoning is driven by a set of implicit questions concerning the nature of and relation between consciousness and its intentional object. These questions not only set the agenda for centuries of intra-Buddhist debate on the topic, but they are also questions to which any defender of unified consciousness or a simple subject of experience arguably owes responses.KEYWORDS: Madhyamakaunified consciousnessmereologyunityanti-foundationalism AcknowledgementsFor helpful comments and discussion, I would like to thank Amber Carpenter, Antony Eagle, Alexander Englert, Jay Garfield, Leonard van der Kuijp, Jeffrey McDonough, Parimal Patil, Alison Simmons, audiences at the Columbia University Seminar on Comparative Philosophy, the Cornell University Proseminar on the History of Philosophy, the Harvard-Yenching Institute Workshop on Buddhist Philosophy of Consciousness, the Arizona State University Philosophy Colloquium, and the Five College Buddhist Studies Faculty Seminar, as well as two anonymous referees.AbbreviationsAAA Abhisamayālaṃkārāloka (Haribhadra). Wogihara (Citation1932–Citation1935).AKB Abhidharmakośabhāṣya (Vasubandhu). Pradhan (Citation1967).AKK Abhidharmakośa (Vasubandhu). Pradhan (Citation1967).AŚ antaraśloka (transitional stanza).AT Oeuvres de Descartes (Descartes). Adam and Tannery (Citation1964–Citation1974).BCAP Bodhicaryāvatārapañjikā (Prajñākaramati). Vaidya (Citation1960).CŚ Catuḥśatakaśāstra (Āryadeva). Lang (Citation1986).CSM The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, Descartes (Citation1641/1984).GP Die Philosophische Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Leibniz (Citation1960). (Reference is to volume and page.)JNĀ Jñānaśrīmitranibandhāvali (Jñānaśrīmitra). Thakur (Citation1959).MA Madhyamakālaṃkāra (Śāntarakṣita). Ichigō (Citation1989).MAP Madhyamakālaṃkārapañjikā (Kamalaśīla). Ichigō (Citation1985).MAS Madhyamakārthasaṃgraha (the eighth century Bhāviveka). PD 3084, vol. 58, 851–53.Mav Madhyamakāvatāra (Candrakīrti). Chapter 6 in Li (Citation2015).MAV Madhyamakālaṃkāravṛtti (Śāntarakṣita). Ichigō (Citation1985).MMK Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Nāgārjuna). Ye (Citation2011).MRP Madhyamakaratnapradīpa (the eighth century Bhāviveka). PD 3081, vol. 57, 1487–1567.MU Madhyamakopadeśa (Atiśa). PD 3148, vol. 64, 283–86.PD Bstan 'gyur Dpe bsdur ma. Beijing: Krung go'i bod rig pa'i dpe skrun khang, 1994­–2008. (Reference is to text number and page number.)PM Leibniz: Philosophical Writings. Leibniz (Citation1973).PSk Pañcaskandhaka (Vasubandhu). Li and Steinkellner (Citation2008).PSkV Pañcaskandhakavibhāṣā (Sthiramati). Kramer (Citation2013).PV Pramāṇavārttika (Dharmakīrti). Miyasaka (Citation1971/Citation1972).PVA Pramāṇavārttikālaṃkāra (Prajñākaragupta). Sāṅkṛtyāyana (Citation1953).RĀ Ratnāvalī (Nāgārjuna). Hahn (Citation1982).ŚS Śūnyatāsaptati (Nāgārjuna). Lindtner (Citation1982, 34–69).SDA Satyadvayāvatāra (Atiśa). Lindtner (Citation1981).SDV Satyadvayavibhaṅga (Jñānagarbha). Eckel (Citation1987).SSŚ Sākārasiddhiśāstra (Jñānaśrīmitra). Thakur (Citation1959).SVB Sugatamatavibhaṅgabhāṣya (Jitāri). PD 3129, vol. 63, 887–1034.TA Tattvāvatāra (Śrīgupta). See TAV.TAV Tattvāvatāravṛtti (Śrīgupta). PD 3121, vol. 63, 101–12; Aitken (CitationForthcoming).Treatise A Treatise of Human Nature. Hume (Citation1739/Citation2000). (Reference is to book, part, and section).Works The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne. Berkeley (Citation1948–Citation1957).Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 To this, we could add many from Early Modern Europe, including More, Cudworth, Leibniz, and Clarke. Following Kant, this line of thought is often referred to as the 'Achilles Argument' (Citation1999: A351).2 This paraphrase is a crude over-simplification, and the arguments grouped under this name are diverse. Some versions of the Achilles argument take as their starting point the unity of a single mental state while others focus on the unification of a plurality of mental states within a single subject. For analyses of such arguments throughout the history of Western philosophy, see Lennon and Stainton Citation2008, which includes a taxonomy of versions of the Achilles Argument (3–8).3 Barnett (Citation2008: 334) argues that the 'simplicity intuition', which he describes as the 'naïve commitment to the principle that conscious beings must be simple', is the 'source' of a host of other intuitions that have determined the debate space in contemporary philosophy of mind.4 Some, for example, maintain that consciousness sometimes fails to be phenomenally unified when there is a failure of access unity or subjective unity; see, e.g., Hurley Citation1998.5 See, for example, Nagel (Citation1971), Davidson (Citation1980), Dennett (Citation1991, Citation1992), O'Brien and Opie (Citation1998); and Rosenthal (Citation2003).6 Hume is often singled out as one of the few sceptics of any unified consciousness, though many commentators are quick to point out that he seems to have back-pedalled on this point in the conclusion of his Treatise; Garfield (Citation2019a: ch. 12) represents an exception. And in contemporary philosophy of mind, unified consciousness is largely taken for granted, with debates centring instead on how best to characterize or account for its unity. For more radical sceptical stances on the unity of consciousness, see, for example, Rosenthal Citation1986, Citation2002; Hill Citation2014; Garfield Citation2019b; and Masrour Citation2020.7 Certain Ābhidhārmikas, such as Vasubandhu in his AKB, might be understood as dualists of a sort, in so far as they accept the substantial reality (dravyasat) of fundamental, momentary physical and mental constituents to which all nominally real (prajñaptisat) composites, such as bodies and minds, are reducible. This picture, of course, differs from a kind of Cartesian substance dualism.8 The classification of Yogācāra/Vijñānavāda as a form of idealism is not uncontested. For example, the implications of Vasubandhu's attack on atomism in his VŚ 11-15 are variously interpreted: according to Oetke (Citation1992), for instance, the argument applies only to objects of experience, leaving open the possibility that material objects exist; Arnold (Citation2008) contends that this sub-argument is intended to establish 'metaphysical idealism'; Kellner (Citation2017b) instead argues that this section must be understood within the argumentative context of the entire text, which represents an argumentum ad ignorantiam, and that VŚ 11-15 falls under the section in which scriptural testimony (āgama) is precluded from serving as a means by which we can reliably gain knowledge of the existence of external objects. On this argument of Vasubandhu's, see also Kapstein Citation2001: 181–204; Kellner and Taber Citation2014; and Kellner Citation2017a.9 The original Sanskrit of Śrīgupta's Tattvāvatāra (TA) and autocommentary, the Tattvāvatāravṛtti (TAV), are lost, and the root text survives only as embedded in the autocommentary, which is extant only in Tibetan. See Ejima Citation1980 for a Japanese translation of the root verses of the TA; Kobayashi (Citation1992, Citation1994) offers a Japanese translation of the TAV, and see Aitken (Citationforthcoming) for an annotated English translation and critical edition of the TAV. All citations of the text refer by page number to the Bstan 'gyur Dpe bsdur ma edition (PD), and verse numbering follows my forthcoming critical edition of TAV. Śrīgupta's Madhyamaka iteration of the neither-one-nor-many argument is prefigured in the writings of Nāgārjuna (c. second century), the progenitor of the Madhyamaka philosophical tradition; see, for example, Nāgārjuna's RĀ 1.71 and ŚS 32ab; see also Āryadeva's (third century) CŚ 14.19. Śāntarakṣita (eighth century) popularized the argument in his MA/MAV after which it came to be known as one of the so-called four or sometimes five great arguments for the emptiness of intrinsic nature (niḥsvabhāvatā), yet it appears to be an expansion of Śrīgupta's formulation of the argument as presented in the TA/TAV (on Śāntarakṣita's neither-one-nor-many argument, see Ichigō Citation1989; Blumenthal Citation2004; Aitken Citation2022). Indeed, Śrīgupta is taken by the Tibetan tradition to be the teacher of Śāntarakṣita's teacher, Jñānagarbha (early eighth century). Śrīgupta's application of the neither-one-nor-many argument to the mind and mental content is prefigured in Dharmakīrti's (sixth–seventh century) influential iteration of argument in PV 3.194–224; see Dunne Citation2004: 396–411 for an English translation of this section together with commentary from Devendrabuddhi and Śākyabuddhi, and see Inami Citation2011 for a partial English translation with Prajñākaragupta's commentary; on this passage, see also Prueitt Citation2019 and Tomlinson Citation2022b. While Dharmakīrti's considered view is commonly accepted to be some form of Yogācāra idealism, some later interpreters, including Jitāri (c. 940–1000), have read Dharmakīrti as a Mādhyamika based on this very argument. Jitāri cites PV 3.4, 208, 209, 210, 219, and 359 as evidence that Dharmakīrti is, in the final analysis, a Mādhyamika; see Shirasaki Citation1986 and Steinkellner Citation1990. Yet Śrīgupta takes the analysis farther than Dharmakīrti, ultimately targeting the true unity of non-dual awareness (advayajñāna). Prajñākaragupta's (c. mid-eighth to early ninth century) treatment of nondual awareness in his commentary on Dharmakīrti's version of this argument merits more careful consideration vis-à-vis Śrīgupta's treatment of nondual awareness. Such analysis may even prove helpful for more decisively determining Śrīgupta's relative chronology; see PVA ad kk. 3.197–207. For a discussion of this section of the PVA, see Inami Citation2011.10 Not only did subsequent Indian Mādhyamikas—most notably Śāntarakṣita, Kamalaśīla, and Jitāri (late tenth century; see SVB ad k. 7)—pick up and elaborate on this line of reasoning, but of equal intellectual historical significance is the range of Yogācāra authors who felt compelled to respond to this argument in competing ways, catalysing them to refine their theories of the ontological status of representations and the mind, develop subtler accounts of the relation between the mind and mental content, and clarify the criteria for existence itself (see, e.g., Tomlinson Citation2022b). As gestured to below, Jñānaśrīmitra and Ratnākaraśānti represent two of the central figures advancing these debates at Vikramaśīla in the eleventh century.11 TA 1: phyi rol nang na gnas 'di kun // yang dag tu ni rang bzhin med // gcig dang du ma'i rang bzhin nyid // bral ba'i phyir na gzugs brnyan bzhin // (PD 3121, 101). Cf. Śāntarakṣita's MA 1.12 'gal ba'i phyir ni rnam pa gzhan // yod par yang ni mi 'thad do // (PD 3121, 101). Cf. MA 62.13 In commenting on Śāntarakṣita's iteration of the neither-one-nor-many argument, Kamalaśīla (c. 740-795) makes this definition explicit: '"Unity" refers to something's being partless. The alternative member of [this disjunctive predicate pair] is non-unity (anekatva), which is synonymous with "consisting in discrete parts" (bhedatva).' MAP ad k. 1: cig pa zhes bya ba ni cha med pa nyid do // cig shos zhes bya ba ni du ma nyid de tha dad pa nyid ces bya ba'i tha tshig go // (Ichigō Citation1985, 23). This conception of true unity as being mereologically simple together with its relation to independent being is also reflected in Abhidharma accounts on which to be a fundamental constituent of the world (dharma) is to exist substantially (dravyasat) rather than just nominally (prajñaptisat), and to exist substantially is to both possess independent being/an intrinsic nature (svabhāva) and to be an indivisible, partless unity; in other words, to be both an ontological foundation and a substance is to be a partless unity, viz. a mereological simple (see AKB ad 6.4).14 Simplicity may strike many as a high bar for true unity. Still, there's something rather intuitive about the thought that whatever is a mind-independent, per se unity is not constituted by or divisible into more basic units. As Hume puts the thought, 'The whole globe of the earth, nay the whole universe may be consider'd as an unite. That term of unity is merely a fictitious denomination, which the mind may apply to any quantity of objects it collects together; nor can such unity any more exist alone than number can, as being in reality a true number. But the unity, which can exist alone, and whose existence is necessary to that of all number, is of another kind, and must be perfectly indivisible, and incapable of being resolved into any lesser unity' (Treatise 1.2.2).15 While Śrīgupta presumes that, for the foundationalist, true unity and true multiplicity/non-unity as defined here are mutually exclusive and exhaustive, an advocate of the possibility of infinitely divisible gunk would, of course, deny their exhaustiveness. In fact, as we'll see, Śrīgupta himself looks committed to an account on which things are indefinitely divisible. But that sort of picture is impermissible for his foundationalist opponents, with all the external world realists in his intellectual milieu being atomists of one kind or another. And the fact that his argument is 'opponent-relative' (in so far as he deduces unwanted consequences from his opponents' positions) helps explain why he does not bother to entertain any sort of priority monism or existence monism on which the whole world is a true unity. Even so, he would likely find the claim that a composite is ontologically independent and prior to its parts and nonetheless constituted by them, to be an incomprehensible foundationalist position.16 TAV ad k. 2b: gcig mang po'i ngo bo yin pas de med na 'di yang mi srid pa . . . (PD 3121, 102). Cf. CŚ 14.19 and MA 61.17 As Leibniz puts it, 'I hold this identical proposition, differentiated only by the emphasis, to be an axiom, namely, that what is not truly one being is not truly one being either. It has always been thought that "one" and "being" are reciprocal' (Letter to Arnauld, 30 April 1687, GP II 97/ PM 121). For a treatment of Leibniz in dialogue with Śrīgupta on unity and being, see Aitken and McDonough Citation2020.18 Where accepting the infinite dividedness of matter together with the simplicity of the mind drove Leibniz to argue for a form of immaterialist foundationalism, a similar pair of commitments motivated Descartes to endorse mind-body dualism, since whatever is simple cannot be the same in kind as whatever is infinitely divisible. As Descartes states, 'the body is by its very nature always divisible, while the mind is utterly indivisible. For when I consider the mind, or myself in so far as I am merely a thinking thing, I am unable to distinguish any parts within myself; I understand myself to be something quite single and complete' (CSM 59, AT VII 85–86).19 See, for instance, Tomlinson Citation2019 for an in-depth study of the debate between Jñānaśrīmitra and Ratnākaraśānti on the status of ākāras.20 Ākāra is a multivalent term in the history of Buddhist epistemology and philosophy of mind. See articles in Kellner and McClintock Citation2014 for recent scholarship on the variety of meanings of ākāra in different Indian Buddhist historical and philosophical contexts.21 There are two dichotomies that can be derived here from satya and alīka (which I've translated thus far as 'real' and 'unreal') as applied to representations, one epistemological and the other ontological: (i) the epistemological dichotomy concerns the veridicality of the representational content of a cognition, and (ii) the ontological dichotomy concerns whether or not a representation itself is real. These two sets of dichotomies are not unrelated. In explaining the representational anti-realist position, Śāntarakṣita (MA 52/MAV ad 52) comments that, on this view, representations appear due to an error caused by the ripening of karmic latencies (and are thus non-veridical in an epistemological sense), but in actual fact, they do not exist (and are thus unreal in an ontological sense), likened to the illusion conjured by a magician. For the present purposes, however, I will bracket the epistemological dichotomy, since it is the ontological dichotomy that drives Śrīgupta's argument.22 For helpful summaries of this positions see, for example, Seitetsu Moriyama Citation1984: 10–11 and Shinya Moriyama Citation2014: 340.23 In the context of realists about external objects, this same pair of terms, sākāra and nirākāra, signify respectively representationalist and direct realist/non-representationalist theories of perception. This same set of terms, however, is also used to refer to divisions of Yogācāra idealist theories on the status of representations, which is the topic of the present discussion. On the sākāra-nirākāra dispute in Yogācāra, see, for instance, Kajiyama 1965/1989.24 Tibetan doxographers commonly classified Yogācāra Sākāravādins position as 'proponents of real representations' (*Satyākāravādins, rnam pa bden par smra ba) and Yogācāra Nirākāravādins as 'proponents of unreal representations' (*Alīkākāravādins, rnam pa brdzun par smra ba), despite the fact that these latter labels are unattested in Indian Buddhist writings. These Tibetan doxographical categories can be understood as deriving from the Ontological Question, though this pair of labels is not attested in extant Indic doxographies, where we instead find the Sākāravāda-Nirākāravāda distinction. See Almogi Citation2010 for a helpful survey of these categorizations in late Indian Buddhist and early Tibetan doxographical writings.25 See Putnam Citation1967 on the swarm of bees intuition and Unger Citation1990 on the brain separation intuition. As noted above, Barnett (Citation2008: 334) argues that the 'simplicity intuition,' which he describes as the 'naïve commitment to the principle that conscious beings must be simple,' is the 'source' of a host of other intuitions including these two, which have determined the debate space in contemporary philosophy of mind.26 The name 'numerical parity of awareness and representations view' is taken from Tibetan doxographies, and although it is not an attested doxographical label in Indic writings to my knowledge, the view it signifies is.27 Proponents of the experiential parts view include Lockwood Citation1989, Citation1994, Shoemaker Citation1996, Citation2003, Bayne and Chalmers Citation2003, Dainton Citation2005, and Bayne Citation2010, while advocates of the no experiential parts view include Searle Citation2000 and Tye Citation2003. For a helpful overview of this debate, see Brook and Raymont 2017. For a helpful overview of this debate, see Brook and Raymont 2017.28 For a treatment of Jñānaśrīmitra's response in his Sākārasiddhiśāstra to Śāntarakṣita's iteration of this argument, see Tomlinson Citation2022b.29 TA 4ab and TAV ad k. 4ab: rnam pa tha dad ma yin rnams // sna tshogs phyir na sems gcig min // shes pa gcig pu ma yin te // rnam pa du ma dang tha mi dad pa'i phyir ro // gzhan du na chos 'gal bar gnas pa gnyis tha dad par 'gyur te / (PD 3121, 102-3).30 On issues concerning topic-neutrality in mereology, see Johnston Citation2005; Varzi Citation2010; Donnelly Citation2011; and Johansson Citation2015.31 It's important to keep in mind here that conceptual divisibility is not equivalent to conceptual distinction. Nor is conceptual divisibility inclusive of the conceptual distinguishability of a formal aspect, as in, for instance, the distinguishability of a mouth from its smile. Someone like Descartes would, of course, maintain that the mind and thought are conceptually distinct, but not conceptually divisible, in so far as thought is the principal attribute, or essence, of the mind. Neither Śrīgupta nor his primary interlocutors would agree with this account of the relation between the mind and thought. A common account of the defining characteristic of mind in Śrīgupta's intellectual milieu would instead be reflexive awareness (svasaṃvedana/svasaṃvitti).32 See, for instance, Leech Citation2016 on taking seriously (rather than just metaphorically) the mereological structure of Kantian representations.33 TA 4cd and TAV ad k. 4cd: gal te 'o na sems kyang rnam pa'i grangs bzhin no zhe na / ma yin te // shes pa du ma'i phyogs bsags pa // mi rung phyir na 'thad par dka' // cig car du shes pa du ma khas len na / rnam pa rnams rdul phran bzhin du bsags par mi 'gyur te / ji ltar rtag tu bsgrubs pa bzhin no / (PD 3121, 103). Cf. MA 49 and PV 3.212.34 This is based on Śrīgupta's argument against material simples which he summarizes as follows: 'A fundamental particle could not be a [true] unity because an [extended] composite [of unextended particles] is impossible. This is because if they were unitary in nature, then adjoining [particles] would [absurdly] occupy a single location. Nor is it the case that fundamental particles possessed of some other kind of [extended] nature could adjoin, since in that case it would absurdly follow that [each fundamental particle] would be a manifold.' TAV ad k. 3ab: de ltar rtsom byed med pa'i phyir // rdzas la sogs pa thams cad bsal // de lta bur rdul phran rang bzhin med pa nyid yin pas na de mngon sum dang / gzhan du brtsams pa yan lag can gyi rdzas dang de la brten pa dang / yon tan dang / las dang / spyi la sogs pa'ang ring du spangs pa kho na'o // (PD 3121, 102).35 While Śrīgupta entertains the idea of an extended simple, he only does so for the purpose of demonstrating that it is incoherent. By his own lights, so long as there are conceptually isolatable subregions of x, no one of those subregions is identical with x, and thus x has distinct parts and is not simple. For contemporary arguments defending the coherence of extended simples, see Markosian Citation1998, Citation2004a, Citation2004b and McDaniel Citation2007. See McDaniel Citation2003 for an argument against extended simples.36 With respect to a representation that belonged purely to some other, non-visual modality—perhaps a sound, or a thought of an abstract object—then the argument could be run from a temporal perspective: there is not a temporally partless representation, since any moment of mind necessarily has a beginning, middle, and end, each of which themselves have a beginning, middle, and end, and so on ad indefinitum. See RĀ 1.68–70 and Prajñākaramati's BCAP ad k. 9.101 for arguments to this effect.37 If one insists that, like Berkeley (Principles in Works vol. 2, 98) and Hume (Treatise 1.2.4), there is a minima sensibilia, i.e., that our perceptual content is reducible to indivisible, unextended simple phenomenal parts, the Intentionality Question leads to a further argument that might be levelled against representational realism, which we will turn to in Section 4.38 "If it is accepted that these images are in fact unreal, then is it not the case that all this is well theorized?" TAV ad k. 5: gal te 'di rnams bden pa ma yin pa nyid khas blangs na 'di thams cad legs par smras pa ma yin nam zhe na / (PD 3121, 103); Cf. MA 52.39 TA 5ab1: rnam rnams mi bden nyid yin na / ha cang thal 'gyur / (PD 3121, 103). Peking, Nar thang, and Gser bris ma editions read: ha cang thal bar 'gyur; Sde dge and Co ne editions read: ha cang thal 'gyur ba. TA 5 is not preserved unified or in consistent meter in any edition of the Tengyur. I emend the text in accordance with 'Gos lo tsā ba's Rgyud bla ma'i 'grel bshad de kho na nyid rab tu gsal ba'i me long, which cites the stanza as unified and in consistent meter (Mathes Citation2003: 181).40 TAV ad k. 5ab1: gal te nyams su myong na 'di dag kyang mi bden pa nyid yin te / rtogs pa'i ngo bo yang der thal bar 'gyur te / (PD 3121, 103). Cf. MA 53.41 On Ratnākaraśānti's line of reasoning on this point, see Shinya Moriyama Citation2011, Citation2014 and Tomlinson Citation2019, Citation2022a.42 One might worry that a hallucination of a dragon, for instance, can have very real effects (engendering fear, motivating us to act, etc.), despite the fact that it misrepresents reality to us, and thus an unreal thing can stand in a causal relation. But the proposed relatum in that case would be the hallucination qua a real mental event, as opposed to the content represented in the hallucination, which does not correspond to any real referent. Likewise, the subject of this argument is the representation itself—not the represented content. So just as a non-existent hallucination could not cause any fear or motivate any action, the thought goes, neither could any nonexistent representation stand in any relation with awareness. To borrow Descartes' formal reality vs. objective reality distinction, Śrīgupta takes the unreal representation view to mean that representations don't even have formal reality as ideas/thoughts, and so any discussion of objective reality is baseless.43 TAV ad k. 5b2c: gzhan yang brdzun pa rnams dang shes par ma 'brel ba'i phyir snang ba nges pa dang ldan par mi 'gyur ro // (PD 3121, 103).44 Notice that the unwanted consequence in the second phase of the argument against the distinct lemma—that representations would be real—is in fact view (ii) from our list of four possible Yogācāra views on the mind and mental, which was dismissed at the outset as implausible.45 TAV ad k. 5d: nges par snang ba'i dbang gis 'brel par khas len na ni bden pa kho nar 'gyur te / gzhan du na de'i bdag nyid dang de las byung ba mi srid pa'i phyir ro // (PD 3121, 103). Cf. MA 57–58 and MA 60cd.46 As Kamalaśīla puts the objection: 'Well, although in the impure state, consciousness simply consists in unreal variegated appearance, in the completely pure state, there is simply the unitary nature [of consciousness] that has a nondual character. Thus, your reason [that consciousness is neither-one-nor-many] is unestablished due to being doubtful (saṃdigdhāsiddha).' MAP ad k. 60: 'o na yongs su ma dag pa'i gnas skabs na shes pa na tshogs su snang ba brdzun pa kho na yin du chug kyang yongs su dag pa'i gnas skabs na ni rang bzhin gcig pa gnyis su med pa'i ngo bo kho nar 'gyur te / (Ichigō Citation1985: 159); =AAA (Wogihara, Citation1932–Citation1935: 633.24-6): tarhi apariśuddhāvasthāyāṃ citrāvabhāsam alīkam eva jñānam, pariśuddhāvasthāyāṃ bhrāntivigamād advayarūpam evaikasvabhāvaṃ bhaviṣyatīti.47 TAV ad k. 6ab1: 'on te gnyis las nges par grol ba yin na / de ni ji ltar na shes pa yin / (PD 3121, 104). Cf. MA 55 and 59.48 In fact, verbs commonly translated as 'to be aware', 'to be conscious', 'to cognize', and 'to know' all derive from the same Sanskrit verbal root, jñā. And with his insistence on the Intentionality Demand, Śrīgupta appeals to a long tradition of textbook definitions of consciousness among a diversity of Buddhist schools of thought. Vasubandhu defines vijñāna, which Śrīgupta uses interchangeably with jñāna, as follows: 'What is consciousness? It is the cognition of an object' PSk: vijñānaṃ katamat / ālambanaṃ vijñaptiḥ // 112 //. In his PSkV, Sthiramati explains that here, '"Object" refers to [any] object of the mind or of a mental activity, including any of the six kinds, from matter to mental objects. The "cognition" of that [object] refers to apprehending, being aware of, and understanding'; ālambanaṃ cittacaittaviṣayaḥ / sa punaḥ ṣaḍ-prakāraḥ / rūpaṃ yāvad dharmāḥ / tasya vijñaptir grahaṇam avabodhaḥ pratipattir ity arthaḥ /; de yang rnam par rig pa ni 'dzin pa dang / rtog pa dang khong du chud pa zhes bya ba'i tha tshig go /' (Kramer Citation2013: 89). Similarly, Vasubandhu defines the vijñānaskandha as follows: '"Consciousness is individual cognition" [AKK 1.16c]. It is said here that the consciousness aggregate is the understanding that consists in the cognition of individual objects' AKB ad 1.16a: vijñānam prativijñaptiḥ / [1.16a] viṣayaṃ viṣayaṃ prati vijnaptir upalabdhir vijñānaskandha ity ucyate / (Pradhan Citation1967: 11.6-7).49 TAV AŚ 3: rig bya med phyir gzhan mi rig // gnyis su med phyir bdag nyid min // brtags na yang dag nyid mi 'gyur // rnam pa gzhan gang yin pa smros // (PD 3121, 104); I follow the alternate, preferable Tibetan translation of TAV AŚ 3abc as cited in *Vipaśyanotpādanopāya, a work of unknown authorship: shes bya med phyir gzhan rig min // gnyis su med phyir bdag rig min // gal te brtags na yang dag min // (PD 3611, 1462).50 One may think that if Śrīgupta accepts that any dependent being exists at all, then, given his neither-one-nor-many argument, he violates the law of excluded middle himself. After all, surely the following also holds [Dependent Being One-or-Many Dilemma]: If anything has dependent being, then it is either a unity or a non-unity. But he would deny that, in affirming dependent beings while insisting that nothing is truly one or many, he violates the law of excluded middle. That's because, so long as we understand unity and non-unity/multiplicity according to the foundationalist definitions outlined above, Śrīgupta would likely regard the Dependent Being One-or-Many dilemma as involving a kind of category mistake, akin to saying, 'if x is a unit of time, then it is either blue or non-blue.' In other words, he may understand this dilemma as equivalent to the ill-formed proposition: 'if x does not belong to a foundationalist structure of reality, then it is either a foundation or it terminates in some foundation(s).' So, rather than denying that unity and non-unity/multiplicity as defined by the foundationalist are jointly exhaustive, he would instead take issue with the framework to which the definitions belong. It is also important to note in this regard that Mādhyamikas recognize two different notions of dependent being, one that belongs to the foundationalist framework and which they reject, and one that qualifies conventionally real things and which they affirm: the first is a kind of extrinsic being (parabhāva) that is founded in some thing(s) that has intrinsic being (svabhāva), or ontological independence (see, e.g., MMK 15.3), whereas the second is something that is merely dependently originated (pratītyasamutpanna) and which is not well-founded.51 Subsequent endorsements of this threefold criterion include, for instance, Jñānagarbha's SDV 8, 12, 21; Śāntarakṣita's MA 64; Kamalaśīla's MAP ad 64; Haribhadra's AAA (Wogihara Citation1932–Citation1935: 594.18–25); the c. eighth century Bhāviveka's MAS 9–11 and MRP 1.4; and Atiśa's SDA 3.52 '[1] Satisfactory only when not analysed, [2] [things] arise from [causes] similar to themselves. [3] Those things enact their respective forms of causal efficacy.' TA 11: ma brtags gcig pu nyams dga' ste // de 'dra las byung de bzhin no // dngos po de dag de lta bu'i // don bya de dang de byed do // (PD 3121, 105). The TAV continues: 'Thus, regarding these things that appear both externally and internally, which cannot withstand the pressure of analysis and which are produced from causes similar to themselves, based on which conventions (*vyavahāra) then come into being—if one has not examined their causal efficacy, one will approach satisfaction here and there.' de lta bas na phyi rol dang nang na snang ba'i dngos po brtag pa'i spungs mi bzod pa rang dang mthun pa'i rgyus bskyed pa 'di dag ni gang las tha snyad 'dir 'gyur ba don bya ba ma brtags na nyams dga' ba nyid de dang der nye bar byed do // (PD 3121, 105-6). As Eckel (Citation2008: 25) points out, Śrīgupta's TAV appears to be the earliest extant text in which we find this threefold characterization of conventional reality, with the first criterion as listed above possibly adapted from Candrakīrti (e.g., MAv 6.35), the second inherited from Nāgārjuna, and the third a repurposing of Dharmakīrti's criterion for being ultimately real in PV 3.3. On these three criteria, see also Eckel Citation1987: 137-38 n. 104. On the relation between Śrīgupta's and Śāntarakṣita's accounts of conventional reality, see Aitken Citation2021b and Citation2022.53 For a detailed account of the metaphysical dependence structure to which I argue that Mādhyamikas like Śrīgupta are committed, see Aitken Citation2021a.54 This question might be cast as inquiring into the relationship between the formal reality and the objective reality of thought for Descartes, as a prime example in the Western philosophical tradition. Indeed, it is on this very question that the well-known Arnauld-Malebranche debate on Cartesian ideas centred. For an overview of this debate, see Moreau Citation2000.55 One may look to Hume's Treatise (1.4.5–6) for a prime example in the Western philosophical tradition of an inquiry into this line of questioning.