142220 SE Problems in Buddhist philosophy: the relationship between epistemology and dogmatic schools (2023W)

The tradition of Buddhist epistemology and logic, tracing itself back to Dignāga (ca. 480–540 CE) and Dharmakīrti (between mid-6th and mid-7th centuries CE), shares a complicated relationship to the so-called dogmatic schools, primarily Sautrāntika and Yogācāra. This seminar is devoted to exploring this relationship in the realm of philosophical ideas, with a special focus on the nature, structure and causation of perceptual awareness. We are first going to discuss whether, and if so, how, “Sautrāntika” and “Yogācāra” constitute “schools” or “systems”. Students will familiarize themselves with the array of scholarly positions regarding the relationship between the epistemological tradition and these “schools”, to which a considerable amount of recent research has been devoted. On this background we are then going to read, translate and analyze selected passages from Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttika and its Indian commentaries, in the original Sanskrit, with Classical Tibetan translations.