The Two Truths in Chinese Buddhism, Chang-Qing Shih, pp. xviii, 401. Rs. 695. ISBN 81-208-2035-5.

How is it possible to say that truth can be of one kind at the conventional level and totally different in the ultimate plane? As Matilal ( 1971 , p. 154) points out, Kumārila (ca. 600–650), a Mīmāṃsaka philosopher, claims that the Buddhist doctrine of two truths is “a kind of philosophical ‘double-talk’.” It is Prajñākaragupta (ca. 750–810), a Buddhist logician, who tries to give a direct answer to this question posed by Kumārila from the Buddhist side. He argues (...) that even a Mīmāṃsaka cannot demonstrate the validity ( prāmāṇya ) of the Veda without accepting two truth levels. His point is this. Consider the proposition to be proved: the Veda is valid. If the Veda is already known as valid, then it is useless to prove this proposition. But if it is already known as invalid, then it is impossible to prove this proposition. Therefore in the argument to prove the proposition, the Veda is not to be regarded either as valid or as invalid. This means that at the first stage of the argument one has the concept of the Veda as neutral in validity. However, as soon as one acquires the knowledge of the Veda as valid through the argument, one has to repudiate such a conception of the Veda. The acceptance of the Veda as neutral in validity is to the acceptance of the Veda as valid as the conventional truth is to the ultimate truth. (shrink)

All lineages of Tibetan Buddhism today claim allegiance to the philosophy of the Middle Way, the exposition of emptiness propounded by the second-century Indian master Nagarjuna. But not everyone interprets it the same way. A major faultline runs through Tibetan Buddhism around the interpretation of what are called the two truths-the deceptive truth of conventional appearances and the ultimate truth of emptiness. An understanding of this faultline illuminates the beliefs that separate the Gelug descendents of Tsongkhapa from contemporary Dzogchen (...) and Mahamudra adherents.The Two Truths Debate digs into the debate of how the two truths are defined and how they are related by looking at two figures, one on either side of the faultline, and shows how their philosophical positions have dramatic implications for how one approaches Buddhist practice and how one understands enlightenment itself. (shrink)

The distinction between "the two truths" was initially developed to resolve seeming contradictions in the Buddha's teachings.1 The Buddha teaches that persons should act compassionately, that persons will be reincarnated, and that persons do not exist. The first two lessons seem inconsistent with the third. Consistency could be restored by distinguishing kinds of truth: the first and second lessons are conventionally true, but it is conventionally but not ultimately true that persons exist.2In addition to this semantic distinction, there is (...) an ontological distinction between modes of being that also promises to restore consistency. As many note, "the two truths" is a distinction between entities at least as much as... (shrink)

Mādhyamikas argue that ultimate reality, which is without any delimitation and hence cannot be verbalized in itself, can be expressed in words on the basis of the attribution or superimposition of the basis for the application of the word. The denotation theory of ultimate reality Bhartṛhari advances in the Dravyasamuddeśa of his Vākyapadīya convincingly explains that, insofar as ultimate reality is spoken of, we must say that it is denoted by the word; ultimate reality is said to be ineffable only (...) in the sense that it is far from what is conveyed as something by the word; language is a pointer to the ultimate reality. The point that the application of a word to ultimate reality depends on the attribution of the basis for the application of the word to it naturally leads to an idea that one should not hypostatize the basis, although without resorting to it any word cannot be used to convey the ultimate reality; otherwise, it would have to be said that the ultimate reality to which the word is applied has in essence the property which serves as the basis. Such a property is precisely what the Mādhyamikas consider to be the svabhāva ‘intrinsic nature’. What they understand by the term śūnyatā is precisely that everything has no real basis for the application of the word to it. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The objective of this article is to contribute to the understanding of Nāgārjuna's 'two truths' doctrine as presented in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. For that purpose, we argue that 'two truths' doctrine the basic structural framework for the operational functionality of upāya of upāya, perhaps the most important epistemological/pedagogical notion of Mahāyāna Buddhism. RESUMO O objetivo deste artigo é contribuir para a compreensão da doutrina das "duas verdades", tal como presente no Mūlamadhyamakakārikā de Nāgārjuna. Argumentamos, para tanto, que a (...) doutrina das "duas verdades" constitui o fundamento estrutural básico para a funcionalidade operacional do upāya, que é, talvez, a noção epistemológico-pedagógica mais importante do budismo Mahāyāna. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl's Logical Investigations was the breakthrough of phenomenology. What made it a breakthrough was the new way of explicating truth or evidence as self-givenness or adequacy. Husserl did however also have another interpretation of truth: evidence as indubitability or certainty of apodicticity. Originally Husserl thought that apodicticity increases the evidence of something already adequately given. Yet, in the first Cartesian Meditation Husserl differentiates the two modes of evidence. In this article the way to this split up of evidence is (...) elaborated with the help of some recent publications in Husserliana. It is also suggested that the fact that Husserl has two separate views on truth is one reason for the dispersed state of Husserl-research. This article argues that Husserl's early view on evidence adequacy is more original and interesting. The real philosophical challenge, however, is to be able to join the two modes of evidence under one strenge Wissenschaft. (shrink)

Kris McDaniel has recently proposed an interpretation of the distinction between conventional truth and ultimate truth, as that distinction is made within Abhidharma metaphysics. According to McDaniel's proposal, the distinction between conventional truth and ultimate truth is closely connected with a similar distinction between conventional existence and ultimate existence. What is more, the distinction between conventional existence and ultimate existence should be interpreted along ontological pluralist lines: the difference between things that ultimately exist and things that merely conventionally exist amounts (...) to a difference in the modes of being enjoyed by the things in question.One... (shrink)

This paper proposes a critical analysis of that interpretation of the Nāgārjunian doctrine of the two truths as summarized—by both Mark Siderits and Jay L. Garfield—in the formula: “the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth”. This ‘semantic reading’ of Nāgārjuna’s theory, despite its importance as a criticism of the ‘metaphysical interpretations’, would in itself be defective and improbable. Indeed, firstly, semantic interpretation presents a formal defect: it fails to clearly and explicitly express that which it contains (...) logically; the previously mentioned formula must necessarily be completed by: “the conventional truth is that nothing is conventional truth”. Secondly, after having recognized what Siderits’ and Garfield’s analyses contain implicitly, other logical and philological defects in their position emerge: the existence of the ‘conventional’ would appear—despite the efforts of semantic interpreters to demonstrate quite the contrary—definitively inconceivable without the presupposition of something ‘real’; moreover, the number of verses in Nāgārjuna that are in opposition to the semantic interpretation (even if we grant semantic interpreters that these verses do not justify a metaphysical reconstruction of Nagarjuna’s doctrine) would seem too great and significant to be ignored. (shrink)

The Buddha famously enunciated the four reliances: “Rely on the teaching, not the teacher; rely on the meaning, not the words; rely on the definitive, not that which requires further interpretation; rely on direct insight, not conceptuality.” This chapter explores methodological problems arising in Buddhist philosophy. It addresses hermeneutical questions about the special problems involved in interpreting texts across cultures and considers problems that arise from translation and the consideration of philosophy conducted in radically different vocabularies and cultural registers. It (...) proposes a conversational model of engagement and suggests that this engagement can deepen not only Western philosophers’ understanding of Buddhist and other non-Western philosophy, but of Western philosophy as well. (shrink)

This paper proposes an interpretation of Nāgārjuna’s doctrine of the two truths that considers saṃvṛti and paramārtha-satya two visions of reality on which the Buddhas, for soteriological and pedagogical reasons, build teachings of two types: respectively in agreement with (for example, the teaching of the Four Noble Truths) or in contrast to (for example, the teaching of emptiness) the category of svabhāva. The early sections of the article show to what extent the various current interpretations of the Nāgārjunian (...) doctrine of the dve satye—despite their sometimes even macroscopic differences—have a common tendency to consider the notion of śūnyatā as a teaching not based on, but equivalent to supreme truth. This equivalence—philologically questionable—leads to interpretative paths that prove inevitably aporetic: indeed, according to whether the interpretation of śūnyatā is ‘metaphysical’ or ‘anti-metaphysical’, it gives rise to readings of Nāgārjuna’s thought incompatible, respectively, with anti-metaphysical and realistic types of verses traceable in the works of the author of the Mūla-madhyamaka-kārikā (MMK). On the contrary, by giving more emphasis to the expression samupāśritya (“based on”), which recurs in MMK.24.8, and therefore, by epistemologically separating the notion of śūnyatā from the notion of paramārtha-satya (and of some of its conceptual equivalents such as nirvāṇa, tattva and dharmatā), we may obtain an interpretation—at once realistic and anti-metaphysical—of the theory of the two truths compatible with the vast majority (or even totality) of Nāgārjuna’s verses. (shrink)

The teaching of the Buddha concerning Reality has recourse to Two Truths: the Mundane and the Highest Truth. Without knowing the distinction between the two, one does not know the profound point of the teachings. The Highest Truth cannot be taught apart from the Mundane, but without understanding the former, one does not apprehend nirvāna.

The presupposition strategy is a widely adopted approach to understanding the catus.kot.i or tetralemmas that appear in Nāgārjuna’s works. According to this strategy, the apparent contradictions between the statements in the tetralemmas can be resolved by viewing them as making the false presupposition that there are entities that have svabhāva, independent existence or intrinsic nature, and hence as semantically deficient. Contemporary discussions of the strategy, however, do not take into account recent work on presupposition in linguistics and philosophy, much of (...) which claims either that presupposition is not a genuine linguistic phenomenon at all, or that it is pragmatic rather than semantic, thus threatening the presupposition strategy’s claim to resolve the contradictions in the tetralemmas. Based on a consideration of these critiques, this paper argues for three claims. First, the svabhāva presupposition is best viewed as pragmatic rather than semantic in nature. Second, viewing this presupposition as pragmatic rather than semantic does not in fact undermine the ability of the presupposition strategy to resolve the apparent inconsistencies. Finally, the best way of preserving the viability of the presupposition strategy is to adopt a model of the two truths that views emptiness not as interdependence, as is widely held, but as nonconceptuality. (shrink)

A view among methodologists is that truth and convergence are related in such a way that scienti…c theories in their historical order of appearance contribute to the convergence to an ultimate ideal theory. It is not a fact that science develops accordingly but rather a hypothetical thought experiment to explain why science develops at all. Here, a simple formal model is presented for scrutinizing the relations between two truths and convergence.

What should the Buddhist attitude be to rebirth if it is believed to be inconsistent with current science? This chapter critically engages forms of Buddhist agnosticism that adopt a position of uncertainty about rebirth but nevertheless recommend ‘behaving as if’ it were true. What does it mean to behave as if rebirth were true, and are Buddhist agnostics justified in adopting this position? This chapter engages this question in dialogue with Mark Siderits’ reductionist analysis of the Buddhist doctrine of the (...) two truths, conventional and ultimate. Richard Hayes (1998) characterises talk of rebirth as a useful fiction. Siderits characterises talk of persons as a useful fiction and explains and justifies statements that involve it as conventionally true despite persons not featuring in our final or ultimate ontology. Does rebirth satisfy the same criteria to count as conventionally true, and does thinking of it in these terms help explain and justify what it might mean to behave as if rebirth were true? This chapter will defend a conditional yes to these questions. In the process, it will clarify what is distinctive about the traditional Buddhist approach to rebirth, provide an analysis of how the concept of rebirth might relate to practical outcomes, and address some limitations of this approach. (shrink)

As one of the most pivotal thinkers in the history Mahāyāna Buddhism, the writings of Nāgārjuna have long attracted the attention of scholars aiming to interpret in declarative terms the meaning of the arguments contained therein. However, the very aim of such an endeavor that seeks to ascribe to Nāgārjuna a philosophical position is fundamentally at odds with the unwaveringly critical nature of his project. In order to illustrate the singular character of Nāgārjuna’s methodology, this article seeks to clarify three (...) crucial points concerning his thought: (1) the central concept in his philosophical works, dependent origination (_pratītyasamutpāda_), ironically denotes the non-origination (_anutpāda_) of any entity (_bhāva_) whatsoever and is universal in scope; (2) emptiness (_śūnyatā_) is not a meaningful predicate of any entity, meaning that no entity exists that can be identified as being empty; and (3) the Two Truths (_satyadvaya_) are not a philosophically significant device for Nāgārjuna and subsequently do not provide a means by which to mitigate the radical consequences of his arguments. As a result, we can understand Nāgārjuna’s claim to have no postulative thesis (_pratijñā_) as a statement that he predicates no quality (_dharma_) of any subject (_dharmin_), and that his methodology is strictly critical, offering us no constructive theory by which to make sense of reality. (shrink)

It is common for philosophers from the Madhyamaka school of Indian Buddhist thought to offer a presentation of the two truths, ultimate truth ( param rthasatya ) and conventional truth ( sa v tisatya ), as a vehicle for presenting their views on the ontological status of entities. Though there is some degree of variance, generally ultimate truths are described as objects known by an awareness of knowing things as they are. Conventional truths are objects as conceived (...) by a mistaken awareness, one that superimposes a mode of existence onto objects that is not actually there. These two truths are contrasted (one is accurate; one is not) and used as a vehicle for understanding the ontological status of phenomena and the means by which they are known. ntarak ita (725-788 CE) was among the most important Madhyamaka thinkers in Indian Buddhist history, yet his presentation of the two truths has several features that signal its uniqueness. This paper will discuss two particular unique dimensions to ntarak ita's views on the two truths: his integration of aspects of Cittamatra/Yog c ra thinking, including the rejection of external objects, into his presentation of conventional truths, and the dynamic way in which conventional truths are not merely presented as objects of a mistaken awareness, but rather as an important soteriological step in the process of realizing the ultimate. This syncretic and dynamic integration of Yog c ra thought, where its ideas are fully engaged and incorporated into an over-arching Madhyamaka philosophical system is a key component to the thought of one of the most important, influential, and innovative figures in the late period of Indian Madhyamaka, and one which has yet to be fully acknowledged in secondary literature. (shrink)

Buddhist perspectives on ethics and emptiness.

Jñanagarbha's Commentary on the Distinction between the Two Truths: An Eighth Century Handbook of Madhyamaka Philosophy. Malcolm David Eckel., State University of New York Press, Albany 1989. 220 pp. Hbk $34.50, pbk $10.95.

This essay explores one of the first distinctively Sinitic reappropriations of Madhyamaka epistemology: Seng Zhao’s essay “Prajñā is Without Knowledge.” Seng Zhao’s work is here read as a deliberate collapse of the traditional Madhyamaka Two Truths into two simultaneous aspects of sagely wisdom, rather than a diachronic means-end relation, arriving at a crypto-Zhuangzian “trivialist” conclusion aimed at undermining epistemological bivalence at its roots. For Seng Zhao, because nothing can be established as true, nothing can be excluded as false. Here (...) the understanding of Emptiness has become not the exclusion of all views, but the inclusion of all views. This is rooted in Seng Zhao’s view that, to use Jan Westerhoff’s terms, the denial of substance-svabhāva is always also implicitly the denial of essence-svabhāva. Seng Zhao move from Emptiness as exclusion to Emptiness as inclusion, and from denial of ontological substance to denial of mutually exclusive determinateness, sets the agenda for the distinctive developments of classical Chinese Buddhist philosophy to come. (shrink)

Drawing on theories related to interpersonal and intergroup behavior, this study investigated effects of personality traits (i.e., empathy and identity insecurity) and attitudes (i.e., anti-migration attitudes and social dominance orientation) on the perceived severity of digital hate against immigrants in Austria. Findings of autoregressive path modeling using two-wave panel data revealed that empathic suffering and egalitarianism positively predicted perceived severity, while anti-migrant attitudes exhibited a negative prediction. In terms of interactions between personality and attitudes, we observed that the prediction of (...) empathic suffering becomes less relevant for egalitarian individuals, which indicates an overwriting process that might be a promising way to counteract socially harmful digital hate perceptions. Implications for research on annotation tasks and hate interventions are discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 115-125 [Access article in PDF] Pretending to Be Buddhist and Christian: Thich Nhat Hanh and the Two Truths of Religious Identity Jeffrey CarlsonDePaul University Nagarjuna replies: "The teaching by the Buddhas of the dharma has recourse to two truths: / The world-ensconced truth and the truth which is the highest sense. / Those who do not know the distribution (vibhagam) of the two (...) kinds of truth / Do not know the profound 'point' (tattva) in the teaching of the Buddha. / The highest sense [of the truth] is not taught apart from practical behavior, / And without having understood the highest sense one cannot understand nirvana. / Emptiness, having been dimly perceived, utterly destroys the slow-witted. / It is like a snake wrongly grasped or [magical] knowledge incorrectly applied." 1I would like to offer a response to Thich Nhat Hanh's book Living Buddha, Living Christ, a response which suggests that Nhat Hanh embodies and propounds this classical Buddhist notion of "two truths," in a way that sheds much light on the very notion of "religious identity."The fact that Buddhist teachings involve two kinds of truths is a familiar one in Buddhist studies. T.R.V. Murti describes worldly truth as "truth so called; truth as conventionally believed in common parlance.... It is the truth that does not do any violence to what obtains in our everyday world, being in close conformity with linguistic conventions and ideas." 2 Edward Conze notes that "... in some places the Buddhas have spoken of a 'self', in others they have taught a 'notself', and in addition they have also taught that there is neither a self nor a notself. Candrakirti convincingly explains this aphorism by pointing out that the Buddhas are physicians rather than teachers, that they always consider the mentality and spiritual maturity of their interlocutors, and vary their teachings accordingly." 3Ultimate truth, again characterized by Streng, is "the realization of dependent coorigination whereby there is no attachment to fabricated 'things'--not even to the formulation of dependent coorigination." 4 [End Page 115] 1. Thich Nhat Hanh on Conventional Truth and Religious Identity Thich Nhat Hanh writes: "We need roots to be able to stand straight and grow strong. When young people come to Plum Village, I always encourage them to practice in a way that will help them go back to their own tradition and get re-rooted. If they succeed at becoming reintegrated, they will be an important instrument in transforming and renewing their tradition." 5 An advocate of interreligious dialogue, he nonetheless maintains that "sharing does not mean wanting others to abandon their own spiritual roots and embrace your faith. That would be cruel. People are stable and happy only when they are firmly rooted in their own tradition and culture. To uproot them would make them suffer. There are already enough people uprooted from their tradition today, and they suffer greatly, wandering around like hungry ghosts, looking for something to fill their spiritual needs. We must help them return to their tradition." 6He cites the suffering caused by Christian missionaries who, he writes, "came to Vietnam several hundred years ago, [and] urged us to abandon the cult of ancestral worship and to abandon our Buddhist tradition. Later, when they offered to help us in refugee camps in Thailand and Hong Kong, they also urged us to give up our roots. The good will to help and to save us was there, but the correct understanding was not. People cannot be happy if they are rootless." 7Nhat Hanh tells a compelling story of six children he met in Sri Lanka. Coming upon them Nhat Hanh began chanting in Pali, "I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the Dharma. I take refuge in the Sangha." Nhat Hanh recounts that four of the children joined their palms and chanted, while the other two stood respectfully. "I motioned to the two children who were not chanting to join us. They smiled, placed their palms together and chanted in Pali, 'I... (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that the Abhidharma philosopher Saṅghabhadra’s account of conventional reality and truth does lend itself well to Kris McDaniel’s recent pluralist proposal that the Abhidharma Buddhist distinction between conventional truth and ultimate truth is best understood in terms of a more basic distinction between two different ways an entity can exist: conventionally or ultimately. However, McDaniel’s suggested account of conventional and ultimate truth needs to be modified to take into account Saṅghabhadra’s views about the nature of (...) ultimate truth, in particular his claim that there can be ultimate truths about what is conventionally real. For at least some Abhidharma thinkers, much of what is taken to be ultimately true in fact involves a recognition and appreciation of the relationship between what is ultimately real and what is conventionally real. Part of the ultimate truth is knowing the conventionality of the conventional. The account of ultimate and conventional truth I offer here takes this important feature of Saṅghabhadra’s view into account and is thus a better exegetical alternative to the account initially proposed by McDaniel. (shrink)

Longchen Rabjampa (1308–64), scholar of the Tibetan Buddhist Nyingma tradition, presents a novel doxographical taxonomy of the so-called Svātantrika branch of Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophy, designating the Indian Mādhyamika Śrīgupta (c. 7th/8th century) as the exemplar of a Svātantrika sub-school which maintains that appearance and emptiness are metaphysically distinct. This paper compares Longchenpa’s characterization of this “distinct-appearance-and-emptiness” view with Śrīgupta’s own account of the two truths. I expose a significant disconnect between Longchenpa’s Śrīgupta and Śrīgupta himself and argue that the (...) impetus for Longchenpa’s doxographical innovation originates not in Buddhist India, but within his own Tibetan intellectual milieu, tracing back to his twelfth-century Sangpu Monastery predecessors, Gyamarwa and Chapa. (shrink)

Mipam (‘ju mi pham rgya mtsho, 1846–1912), an architect of the Nyingma (rnying ma) tradition of Tibet in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, articulates two distinct models of the two truths that are respectively reflected in Madhyamaka and Yogācāra Buddhist traditions. The way he positions these two models sheds light on how levels of description are at play in his integration of these traditions. Mipam positions one kind of two-truth model as the product of an ontological analysis (...) while another model can be seen as resulting from a phenomenological reduction. He accommodates both models into his systematic interpretation, and for him, each one has an important role to play in coming to understand the nature of the Buddhist truths of emptiness and Buddha-nature. Since each model reflects a different style of analysis, or a different perspective on truth, his presentation reveals how neither model alone has the last word on the nature of what is and how it is experienced. This paper analyzes the means by which he lays out these two models of the two truths, and explores the implications of their integration in his philosophical works. A primary concern for Mipam, and a factor that guides his attempt to integrate these two approaches to truth, is his aim to both induce authentic experience and true knowledge on the one hand, and represent reality and the experience of it on the other. These competing and complimentary objectives are a central focus around which both styles of critical reflection, and both models of the two truths, revolve. (shrink)

이 논문은 유식사상이 교설로서 체계화되기 이전에 삼성설의 원형으 로 상정되는 『보살지』 「진실의품」의 ‘vastu’와 『중변분별론』의 ‘abhūtaparikalpa(허망분별)’의 사상적․구조적 관계에 대한 이해를 통해 삼성설과 이제의 관계 등 교리적으로 발전해 가는 초기 유식학파의 존 재론의 형태와 그 의의를 사상사적으로 살펴본 것이다. 이 때 『해심밀 경』 「무자성상품」의 말미에 설해진 ‘삼전법륜설’의 해석학적 지평과 『석 궤론』에서 유식학파의 이제설에 대한 설명 가운데 제시된 세친의 해석 학적 입장을 그 기반으로 삼았다. 사실 『구사론』『석궤론』 「진실의품」 등에 설시된 유식학파의 이제설에 관련된 기술이나 그 해석학적 입장들 은 유식학파의 존재론을 파악하는 데 중요한 실마리를 (...) 제공한다. 특히 「진실의품」에 인용된 『전유경』 의 구절에 대한 유식학파의 견해는 삼성 설과 이제설의 긴밀한 구조적 관계를 시사한다. 따라서 삼성과 이제의 관계를 통한 초기유식학파의 존재론의 형태에 대한 탐구는 유식사상의 3대 이론 가운데 하나인 삼성설의 철학적․실천적 의의 등 유식사상의 구조체계를 파악하는 데 어느 정도 기여할 수 있을 것이다. (shrink)

Based on a crowdsourced truth value judgment experiment, we provide empirical evidence challenging two classical views in semantics, and we develop a novel account of counterfactuals that combines ideas from inquisitive semantics and causal reasoning. First, we show that two truth-conditionally equivalent clauses can make different semantic contributions when embedded in a counterfactual antecedent. Assuming compositionality, this means that the meaning of these clauses is not fully determined by their truth conditions. This finding has a clear explanation in inquisitive semantics: (...) truth-conditionally equivalent clauses may be associated with different propositional alternatives, each of which counts as a separate counterfactual assumption. Second, we show that our results contradict the common idea that the interpretation of a counterfactual involves minimizing change with respect to the actual state of affairs. We propose to replace the idea of minimal change by a distinction between foreground and background for a given counterfactual assumption: the background is held fixed in the counterfactual situation, while the foreground can be varied without any minimality constraint. (shrink)

The sociology of science seeks to theorize the social conditioning of science. This theorizing seems to undermine the validity of scientific knowledge and lead to relativism. Bourdieu and Latour both attempt to develop a sociology of science that overcomes relativism but stipulate opposite conditions for the production of scientific truths: while Bourdieu emphasizes autonomy, Latour emphasizes associations. This is because they work with oppositional epistemological and ontological assumptions. In both theories, the notion of truth lacks an independent definition; it (...) is derived from the theorist’s position on rationalism and defined with reference to how it is produced. This interdependence creates a different problem in each case. Bourdieu’s assertion that truths produced in relatively autonomous scientific fields are “trans-historical” remains an epistemological assertion. Latour’s argument that truths are produced through associations fails to capture the different resources, distinctions and boundarie.. (shrink)

The relations between Sellars' two 'images' of man-in-the-world and the Ahidharma doctrine of two truths.

Two proofs are given which show that if some set of truths fall under finitely many concepts (so-called Collectivity), then they all fall under at least one of them even if we do not know which one. Examples are given in which the result seems paradoxical. The first proof crucially involves Moorean propositions while the second is a reconstruction and generalization of a proof due to Humberstone free from any reference to such propositions. We survey a few solution routes (...) including Tennant-style restriction strategies. It is concluded that accepting Collectivity for some set of truths while also denying that any of the involved concepts in isolation capture all of them requires that one of these concepts cannot be closed under conjunction elimination. This is surprising since the paper surveys several applications in which Collectivity and the latter closure condition seemed jointly satisfiable for concepts of actual philosophical interest. (shrink)

Philosophers love a priori knowledge: we delight in truths that can be known from the comfort of our armchairs, without the need to venture out in the world for confirmation. This is due not to laziness, but to two different considerations. First, it seems that many philosophical issues aren’t settled by our experience of the world — the nature of morality; the way concepts pick out objects; the structure of our experience of the world in which we find ourselves (...) — these issues seem to be decided not on the basis of our experience, but in some manner by things prior to (or independently of) that experience. Second, even when we are deeply interested in how our experience lends credence to our claims about the world, the matter remains of the remainder: we learn more about how experience contributes to knowledge when we see what knowledge is available independent of that experience. (shrink)

A number of popular arguments for dualism start from a premise about an epistemic gap between physical truths about truths about consciousness, and infer an ontological gap between physical processes and consciousness. Arguments of this sort include the conceivability argument, the knowledge argument, the explanatory-gap argument, and the property dualism argument. Such arguments are often resisted on the grounds that epistemic premises do not entail ontological conclusion. My view is that one can legitimately infer ontological conclusions from epistemic (...) premises, if one is very careful about how one reasons. To do so, the best way is to reason first from epistemic premises to modal conclusions , and from there to ontological conclusions. Here, the crucial issue is the link between the epistemic and modal domains. How can one reason from theses about what is knowable or conceivable to theses about what is necessary or possible? To bridge the epistemic and modal domains, the framework of two-dimensional semantics can play a central role. I have used this framework in earlier work to mount an argument against materialism. Here, I want to revisit the argument, laying it out in a more explicit and careful form, and responding to a number of objections. In what follows I will concentrate mostly on the conceivability argument. I think that very similar considerations apply to the other arguments mentioned above, however. In the final section of the paper, I show how this analysis might yield a unified treatment of a number of anti-materialist arguments. (shrink)

Using a latent variable modelling strategy we study individual differences in patterns of answers to the selection task and to the truth table task. Specifically we investigate the prediction of mental model theory according to which the individual tendency to select the false consequent card (in the selection task) is negatively correlated with the tendency to judge the false antecedent cases as irrelevant (in the truth table task). We fit a psychometric model to two large samples ( N = 486, (...) twice), and find no evidence for this negative correlation. We examine which of the assumptions of the model theory must be amended to accommodate our findings. (shrink)

The distinction between truth in, and truth at, a possible world plays a significant role in many debates in modal metaphysics. In this note, I argue that there are two radically different ways of making the distinction precise. I argue that the differences matter, showing how they differently constrain the modal metaphysics of properties and propositions.