What is immediate perception? The Buddhist answer

Author(s):
Lysenko, V.
Published
2007
Publication type
Article / Letter to editor

Abstract

Is the immediacy of our knowledge an epistemological ideal or merely a psychological reassurance that our senses don’t misguide us? If we disregard immediacy in favour of other means to determine all of our knowledge including sensation, how can we discern sensation from knowledge? Conversely, if we regard immediacy as a physiological event (sense stimulation), how can we prove that it’s part of the cognitive process? Immediacy-related problems arise in any epistemological discourse – Western or Eastern, ancient or modern. What is immediacy according to Buddhist epistemological tradition (pramanavada) represented by Dignaga (480-540) and Dharmakirti (600-660)?

Buddhism
Date issued
2007
Language
English
Publisher
IIAS, Leiden
Is part of
IIAS Newsletter (2007), Vol. 44, p. 20-21
ISSN source
0929-8738
hdl
1887/12512