Apoha — Exclusion (སེལ་བ་, apoha)
The Buddhist account of how words and concepts can mean anything if only individuals are real. Originated by dignaga and developed by dharmakirti, apoha holds that words and concepts work by excluding what the referent is not, rather than by picking out a positive property shared by the things they apply to.
Definitions
Dignāga (Pramāṇasamuccaya)
མཚན་གཞི་ (Definiendum): སེལ་བ་ / གཞན་སེལ་ (apoha / anyāpoha) — exclusion / elimination of other
མཚན་ཉིད་ (Definiens): The negative construction by which a concept or word signifies its object through the elimination of what it is not (གཞན་སེལ་) — the meaning of a word is not a positive entity but the preclusion of discordant kinds
མཚོན་བྱེད་ (Illustration): “Cow” functions by excluding everything that is not a cow; “cowness” is not a real property shared by all cows but merely the exclusion of all cows from the class non-cow
“Knowledge based on verbal communication signifies its object through the elimination of other things, just as [the fact of] being produced [signifies impermanence].”
Source: pramanasamuccaya, V; dreyfus-recognizing-reality, p. 225
Dharmakīrti (Pramāṇavārttika)
མཚན་གཞི་ (Definiendum): སེལ་བ་ (apoha) — exclusion
མཚན་ཉིད་ (Definiens): The conceptual construction that determines objects through a double negation: first, a simple negation (མེད་དགག་, prasajya-pratiṣedha) that excludes non-X; second, a bound negation (མ་ཡིན་དགག་, paryudāsa-pratiṣedha) that affirms the appearance of X
མཚོན་བྱེད་ (Illustration): Antipyretic drugs — their “causal power” is relativised to human desires; the concept “antipyretic” groups diverse substances by excluding what does not reduce fever
Dharmakīrti’s key innovation is that the causal power underlying exclusion is relativised to human desires and purposes. The concept “antipyretic drug” groups radically different substances (sandalwood, camphor, etc.) not because they share a real property but because they all satisfy a human need — reducing fever. The exclusion is constructed relative to a practical interest (dreyfus-recognizing-reality, p. 225; westerhoff-dignaga-dharmakirti, pp. 240–242).
Source: pramanavartika; dreyfus-recognizing-reality, p. 225
The Mechanism: Two Kinds of Negation
The two negations of Dharmakīrti’s definiens above do not cancel each other, because they are negations of different kinds (westerhoff-dignaga-dharmakirti, pp. 236–237):
- First, form the non-implicative negation (prasajya-pratiṣedha) of “being blue” → the set of non-blue things, without assuming this set is unified by any object-type
- Then, form the implicative negation (paryudāsa-pratiṣedha) of that result → returns us to the set of blue things, but the passage through non-implicative negation has stripped away the metaphysical assumption that all blue objects share a real property of blueness
This is supported by the general Buddhist intuition that absences are less real than presences — an empty table is both the absence of an orange and the absence of an apple, and the identity of each absence depends on our (mind-made) expectations (westerhoff-dignaga-dharmakirti, p. 236).
Dharmakīrti’s Innovation: Causal Power and Human Desires
Exclusion cannot be the whole story, because something has to fix which things get excluded together. Dharmakīrti’s answer is causal power relativised to human desires. Particulars are unique and resemble nothing else, but certain particulars all fulfil some desire of ours: every fire-particular is distinct, and all fires warm us, which is what lets us group them under one concept (westerhoff-dignaga-dharmakirti, p. 237).
The antipyretic case (see the definition block above) is the sharp version of the claim, because those drugs reduce fever through causally different mechanisms. If the grouping survives even when the underlying causal machinery differs, no common property is doing the work, only the common satisfaction of a need (westerhoff-dignaga-dharmakirti, p. 238).
Evolution of the Theory
Six stages, each of which changes what exclusion is supposed to explain:
- dignaga: original formulation in the Pramāṇasamuccaya Chapter 5. Katsura notes that Dignāga’s apoha theory presupposes a Vaiśeṣika-like hierarchy of categorical concepts — Substance (dravya), Quality (guṇa), Action (karman), and Universal (sāmānya) — commonly accepted by people (lokaprasiddhi) (katsura-dignaga-lectures)
- dharmakirti: developed the theory by connecting concept formation to the negative nature of conceptuality — concepts are fundamentally mistaken (they superimpose a false unity) but pragmatically valid. Introduced causal power relativised to human desires (westerhoff-dignaga-dharmakirti, pp. 237–238)
- shantarakshita (725–783): transformed the theory by introducing the notion of representations (ākāra); part of his synthesis uniting Madhyamaka, Yogācāra, and the pramāṇa tradition (shantarakshita-madhyamakalankara-intro, p. 3)
- sakya-pandita (1182–1251): in Ch.4 of the Treasury, vehemently attacked the earlier Tibetan tenet that perception determines its objects (རང་ཡུལ་ངེས་པ་), since this implies acceptance of real universals. Perception merely holds its object in the perceptual field; conceptual cognition (Dreyfus: “conceptual thought”, རྟོག་པ་) then determines it. Also analysed the structure of abstraction and conceptual coalescence (sonam-introduction-treasury)
- gorampa (1429–1489): defined exclusion as “a superimposition which appears as this object through the elimination of its direct opposites” (sonam-introduction-treasury). In his Pramāṇavārttika commentary (gorampa-pramanavartika), exclusion is developed as the exclusive mode of engagement of verbal expression and conceptual cognition: direct perception alone engages by affirmation, and does so without conceptually distinguishing features, so any time we move from percept to concept we move into the excluding mode. Isolate (ldog pa) and reversal (bzlog pa) are “acts of convention” and are not different in reality
- The Tibetan split: the Sakya writers named above keep the antirealist reading, while the Gelug (Gyel-tsap, Kay-drup) reinterpret exclusion within their moderate realism, on which the object universal has a reality of its own. Which authors say what, and where, is not yet worked out on this page; dreyfus-recognizing-reality treats it in Ch. 14 and that chapter has not been added in detail [unverified]
Dreyfus’s Discussion
Dreyfus devotes Part III of Book One (Chapters 11–15) to the apoha theory, covering:
- The history and Hindu critiques of apoha (Chapter 11), where Kumārila’s Mīmāṃsā critique is the one Dharmakīrti answers
- Dharmakīrti’s account of concept formation (Chapter 12)
- The concept of negation (Chapter 13)
- Object universal (དོན་སྤྱི་, don spyi) in Gelug and Sakya (Chapter 14)
- Philosophy of language: signifier and signified (Chapter 15)
Three Types of Exclusion (Gelug Analysis)
The Gelug tradition (following Berzin’s systematisation) distinguishes three types of exclusions of something else (གཞན་སེལ་, gzhan-sel) as negation phenomena (berzin-science-of-mind, Distinctions in Terms of Ways of Cognizing):
1. Individually Characterised Object Exclusions (དོན་རང་མཚན་གྱི་གཞན་སེལ་)
- Nonstatic objective entities — e.g., “not an orange” and “nothing other than an apple”
- Can be implicitly apprehended when explicitly apprehending an objective entity such as “apple,” either non-conceptually or conceptually
- On the Gelug reading, these are nonstatic because they share the same essential nature as the commonsense object of which they are a quality
2. Mental Exclusions of Something Else (བློའི་གཞན་སེལ་)
- Equivalent to conceptual categories — the static metaphysical entities that are the appearing objects of conceptual-cognition
- E.g., the meaning/object category “apples”
- Can be implicitly apprehended only in conceptual cognition, and only by the self-awareness (རང་རིག་) that is part of and accompanies the conceptual cognition — not by the mental consciousness of the conceptual cognition itself
3. Absences (མེད་པ་)
- E.g., the absence of a peel on a peeled apple; space (ནམ་མཁའ་) — the absence of anything tangible that would obstruct motion
- Can be implicitly apprehended in either non-conceptual or conceptual cognition, but only by the self-awareness (Berzin: “reflexive awareness”, རང་རིག་) of a conceptual cognition
Non-Gelug contrast: All three types — object exclusions, mental exclusions, and absences — are static metaphysical entities in the non-Gelug reading. There are no nonstatic object exclusions.
The Isolator in Conceptual Cognition
The apoha mechanism operates in conceptual-cognition through an isolator (ལྡོག་པ་, specifier): a conceptual device of the type “nothing other than X” (མ་ཡིན་པ་ལས་ལོག་པ་). The isolator:
- Is an implicative negation phenomenon (མ་ཡིན་དགག་)
- Excludes “everything other than X”
- In the wake of this exclusion, explicitly tosses a mental appearance of X (a generic appearance pervading all members of the category)
- Implicitly tosses X as an objective external entity
(“Tosses in its wake” is Berzin’s own idiom for what the isolator does.) The isolator is where a negative mechanism yields positive cognitive content: the mental appearance of X is what the exclusion of non-X leaves behind, so no real universal X-ness is needed to account for it.
Sources
- dreyfus-recognizing-reality — Chapters 11–15
- westerhoff-dignaga-dharmakirti — two-negation mechanism, causal power and human desires, contrast with Mīmāṃsā language realism (pp. 235–238)
- katsura-dignaga-lectures — Dignāga’s presupposition of a Vaiśeṣika-like categorical hierarchy for apoha
- sonam-introduction-treasury — Sapan’s attack on perception determining its objects; Gorampa’s definition of exclusion; the distinction between theoretical and practical standpoints
- berzin-science-of-mind — three types of exclusion phenomena; isolator mechanism in conceptual cognition; Gelug vs. non-Gelug on the ontological status of object exclusions
- gorampa-pramanavartika — exclusion as exclusive mode of engagement for verbal expression and conceptualisation (PV 1.40–58); isolate and reversal as “acts of convention”; refutation of the Vaiśeṣika view that features are separate substantial entities