Realism vs. Antirealism in Tibetan Epistemology
The disagreement that organises Tibetan epistemology, and the one dreyfus-recognizing-reality is written around. problem-of-universals sets out what the two sides hold and why; this page is about the historical shape of the dispute and what was at stake in it institutionally.
The Antirealist Position (Sakya)
Following dharmakirti and sakya-pandita:
- Only individuals (momentary, causally effective thing-events) are real
- Universals, commonsense objects, and all abstract properties are conceptual fictions
- The specifically-characterised is restricted to strict individuals with determinate spatio-temporal location
- momentariness is strict: duration is illusory
- Epistemology should not accommodate commonsense intuitions — they are products of ignorance
- The apoha (exclusion) theory of language explains how thought functions without real universals
The Moderate Realist Position (Gelug)
Following cha-ba’s innovations, codified by gyel-tsap, kay-drup, and Ge-dün-drup:
- Both individuals and universals have a degree of reality
- Universals are not separate from their instances but are real properties dependent on them
- Commonsense objects (jars, mountains) are real — not mere conceptual fictions
- The specifically-characterised is defined by causal effectiveness, not strict individuality
- momentariness means constant change, not instantaneous cessation — continua are real
- Epistemology should, as much as possible, respect commonsense intuitions
- A jar that lasts for seven years endures through a continuum of changes
Historical Background
The conflict has deep roots, going back to rival interpretations of Dharmakīrti in India. A “minority Buddhist interpretation” had already attenuated Dignāga and Dharmakīrti’s antirealism toward moderate realism; cha-ba encountered and adopted this interpretation by “what may have been no more than a historical accident” (shantarakshita-madhyamakalankara-intro, p. 29).
The conflict crystallised in the 14th–15th centuries:
- cha-ba (12th c.) introduced realist innovations into Tibetan epistemology
- sakya-pandita (13th c.) attacked these in the Treasure, quoting Dharmakīrti directly rather than relying on commentaries. His dual purpose: propagate correct understanding and refute the flawed realist interpretations. The work was initially poorly received (sonam-introduction-treasury)
- Yak-don (14th c.) revived the Treasure’s antirealist reading
- gyel-tsap and kay-drup (15th c.) attempted to reinterpret the Treasure as compatible with realism
- gorampa and sakya-chok-den (15th c.) wrote definitive Sakya rebuttals
The Suppression
The most strident critics of Tsongkhapa — Rongtön (1367–1449), Taktsang Lotsāwa (1405–?), gorampa, sakya-chok-den, and the 8th Karmapa Mikyö Dorje (1505–1557) — were silenced by ideological proscriptions at the beginning of the 17th century following the rise to political power of the Gelug school. Their writings “ceased to be available and were almost lost” — Gorampa’s works were only fully reassembled in the early 20th century, and Śākya Chokden’s were discovered in Bhutan and published as late as 1975 (shantarakshita-madhyamakalankara-intro, p. 12).
Dreyfus’s Assessment
Dreyfus gives each side something and neither side the argument. The Sakya reading is the closer to Dharmakīrti’s intent; the Gelug reinterpretation is answering a difficulty that is really there, above all the problem of grounding inference in an ontology with no universals in it (see can-inference-be-valid, where he calls this the greatest difficulty in the system, p. 320). He is equally unpersuaded by the Gelug repair: a moderate realism has to specify a relation between universal and particular that is less than real and more than conceptual, and he takes none of the available candidates — Duns Scotus’s formal distinction, Kumārila’s identity in difference, Cha-ba’s “distinct distinguishers within the same entity” — to be coherent (pp. 136, 139–140, 446–447).
He also warns against the terms this page is written in: the reified labels “Sa-gya” and “Ge-luk” flatten a much more fluid fifteenth-century situation, and are unavoidable only because on this topic the doctrinal lines really do follow the sectarian ones (pp. 33–34).
The Mīmāṃsā Contrast
The realism/antirealism debate within Tibetan epistemology has a precursor in the opposition between the Buddhist logico-epistemological school and Mīmāṃsā (westerhoff-dignaga-dharmakirti, pp. 267–268):
- Mīmāṃsā epistemic optimism: untrained awareness is broadly trustworthy; epistemic instruments are intrinsically authoritative; we are justified in believing that objects in general (universals, a permanent self, caste) are real as they appear
- Buddhist epistemic pessimism: untrained awareness is shot through with ignorance; objects in general are conceptual fictions; commonsense is corrupted by attachment to permanence
On these questions the Gelug moderate realist position sits closer to the Mīmāṃsā side than the Sakya position does, which keeps the full force of the Buddhist critique. Westerhoff draws the optimism/pessimism contrast; the placing of the Tibetan schools along it is this page’s inference from it, not his [unverified].
Sources
- dreyfus-recognizing-reality — the central theme of the entire book
- westerhoff-dignaga-dharmakirti — the Mīmāṃsā contrast and epistemic optimism vs. pessimism (pp. 261–270)
- shantarakshita-madhyamakalankara-intro — Indian origins of moderate realism, suppression of critics, Tsongkhapa’s paradoxical adoption of pramāṇa within Prāsaṅgika
- sonam-introduction-treasury — Sapan’s dual purpose, direct quotation method, Bodong Panchen’s nihilist accusation, Sapan’s identification of pramāṇa teachers’ ultimate tenets as Cittamātra