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Peter Abelard

3. Logic

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Abelard spends a great deal of effort to explore the complexities of the theory of topical inference, especially charting the precise relations among conditional sentences, arguments, and what he calls “argumentation” (roughly what follows from conceded premisses). One of the surprising results of his investigation is that he denies that a correlate of the Deduction Theorem holds, maintaining that a valid argument need not correspond to an acceptable conditional sentence, nor conversely, since the requirements on arguments and conditionals differ.

Peter Abelard

3. Logic

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

In the end, it seems that Abelard’s principles of topical inference do not work, a fact that became evident with regard to the topic “from opposites”: Abelard’s principles lead to inconsistent results, a result noted by Alberic of Paris. This led to a crisis in the theory of inference in the twelfth century, since Abelard unsuccessfully tried to evade the difficulty. These debates seem to have taken place in the later part of the 1130s, as Abelard was about to become embroiled with Bernard of Clairvaux, and his attention was elsewhere.

Peter Abelard

4. Philosophy of Language

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Much of Abelard’s philosophy of language is devoted to analyzing how a given expression or class of expressions function logically: what words are quantifiers, which imply negation, and the like, so that the logic described above may be applied. To do so, he relies on the traditional division, derived from Aristotle, that sees the main linguistic categories as name, verb, and their combination into the sentence.

Peter Abelard

4. Philosophy of Language

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Abelard takes names to be conventionally significant simple words, usually without tense. So understood there are a wide variety of names: proper and common names; adjectives and adverbs; pronouns, whether personal, possessive, reflexive, or relative; conventional interjections such as ‘Goodness!’; and, arguably, conjunctions and prepositions (despite lacking definite signification), along with participles and gerundives (which have tense). Abelard usually, though not always, treats compound names such as ‘street-sweeper’ reductively. Even so his list is not general enough to catalogue all referring expressions. In point of fact, much of Abelard’s discussion of the semantics of names turns on a particular case that stands for the rest: common names. These are at the heart of the problem of universals, and they pose particular difficulties for semantics.

Peter Abelard

4. Philosophy of Language

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

When Abelard puts forward his claim that universality is only a linguistic phenomenon, so that universals are “nothing more than words,” he raises the objection that unless common names are the names of common items, they will be meaningless, and so his view is no better than that of his teacher Roscelin (who held that universals were mere mouth noises). In reply Abelard clearly draws a distinction between two semantic properties names possess: reference (nominatio), a matter of what the term applies to; and sense (significatio), a matter of what hearing the term brings to mind, or more exactly the informational content (doctrina) of the concept the word is meant to give rise to, a causal notion. A few remarks about each are in order.

Peter Abelard

4. Philosophy of Language

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Names, both proper and common, refer to things individually or severally. A name is linked with that of which it is the name as though there were someone who devised the name to label a given thing or kind of thing, a process known as “imposition” (modelled on Adam’s naming the animals in Genesis 2:19), rather like baptism. This rational reconstruction of reference does not require the person imposing the name, the “impositor”, to have anything more than an indefinite intention to pick out the thing or kind of thing, whatever its nature may be:

Peter Abelard

4. Philosophy of Language

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

The inventor [of names] intended to impose them according to some natures or distinctive properties of things, even if he himself did not know how to think correctly upon the nature or distinctive property of a thing.

Peter Abelard

4. Philosophy of Language

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

A name “has a definition in the nature of its imposition, even if we do not know what it is.” Put in modern terms, Abelard holds a theory of direct reference, in which the extension of a term is not a function of its sense. We are often completely ignorant of the proper conceptual content that should be associated with a term that has been successfully imposed.

Peter Abelard

4. Philosophy of Language

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

A proper name—the name of a primary substance—signifies a concrete individual (hoc aliquid), picking out its bearer as personally distinct from all else. Therefore, proper names are semantically singular referring expressions, closely allied to indexicals, demonstratives, and singular descriptions (or descriptive terms). Common names, by contrast, are semantically allied with expressions that have what Abelard calls “plural signification”. On the one hand, common names are like plural nouns; the common name ‘man’ is grammatically singular but operates like the plural term ‘men’—each refers to every man, although the plural term signifies individuals as part of a collection, whereas the common name distributively refers to each individual. On the other hand, common names are like terms such as ‘trio’ or ‘pair’ in that they pick out a determinate plurality of individuals, but only on an occasion of use, since their extension is variable.

Peter Abelard

4. Philosophy of Language

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Thus a common name distributively refers to concrete individuals, though not to them qua individuals. Instead, it severally picks out those individuals having a given nature: ‘human being’ refers to Socrates and to Plato, in virtue of each of them being human. This is not a shared feature of any sort; Socrates just is what he is, namely human, and likewise Plato is what he is, namely human too. Abelard states his deflationary position clearly in his Logica ‘ingredientibus’:

Peter Abelard

4. Philosophy of Language

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Now it seems we should stay away from accepting the agreement among things according to what is not any thing—it’s as though we were to unite in nothing things that now exist!—namely, when we say that this [human] and that one agree in the human status, that is to say: in that they are human. But we mean precisely that they are human and don’t differ in this regard—let me repeat: [they don’t differ] in that they are human, although we’re not appealing to any thing [in this explanation].

Peter Abelard

4. Philosophy of Language

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Socrates and Plato are real; their agreement is real, too, but it isn’t to be explained by appealing to any thing—their agreement just is their each being human. From a metaphysical point of view they have the same standing as human beings; this does not involve any metaphysically common shared ingredient, or indeed appeal to any ingredient at all. That is the sense in which there is a “common reason” for the imposition of a common name.

Peter Abelard

4. Philosophy of Language

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

For all that signification is posterior to reference, names do have signification as well. Abelard holds that the signification of a term is the informational content of the concept that is associated with the term upon hearing it, in the normal course of events. Since names are only conventionally significant, which concept is associated with a given name depends in part on the psychological conditioning of language-users, in virtue of which Abelard can treat signification as both a causal and a normative notion: the word ‘rabbit’ ought to cause native speakers of English to have the concept of a rabbit upon hearing it. Abelard is careful to insist that the signification is a matter of the informational content carried in the concept—mere psychological associations, even the mental images characteristic of a given concept, are not part of what the word means. Ideally, the concept will correspond to a real definition that latches onto the nature of the thing, the way ‘rational mortal animal’ is thought to be the real definition of ‘human being’, regardless of other associated features (even necessary features such as risibility) or fortuitous images (as any mental image of a human will be of someone with determinate features). Achieving such clarity in our concepts is, of course, an arduous business, and requires an understanding of how understanding itself works (see the discussion of Abelard’s philosophy of mind in Section 5). Yet one point should be clear from the example. The significations of some names, such as those corresponding to natural-kind terms, are abstractions in the sense that they include only certain features of the things to which the term refers. They do not positively exclude all other features, though, and are capable of further determinate specification: ‘rational mortal animal’ as the content of the concept of ‘human being’ signifies all humans, whatever their further features may be—tall or short, fat or thin, male or female, and so on.

Peter Abelard

4. Philosophy of Language

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

What holds for the semantics of names applies for the most part to verbs. The feature that sets verbs apart from names, more so than tense or grammatical person, is that verbs have connective force (vis copulativa). This is a primitive and irreducible feature of verbs that can only be discharged when they are joined with names in the syntactically appropriate way, reminiscent of the ‘unsaturatedness’ of concepts in Frege. Sentences are made up of names and verbs in such a way that the meaning of the whole sentence is a function of the meaning of its parts. That is, Abelardian semantics is fundamentally compositional in nature. The details of how the composition works are complex. Abelard works directly with a natural language (Latin) that, for all its artificiality, is still a native second tongue. Hence there are many linguistic phenomena Abelard is compelled to analyze that would be simply disallowed in a more formal framework.

Peter Abelard

4. Philosophy of Language

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

For example, Abelard notes that most verbs can occur as predicates in two ways, namely as a finite verbal form or as a nominal form combined with an auxiliary copula, so that we may say either ‘Socrates runs’ or ‘Socrates is running’; the same holds for transitive predication, for instance ‘Socrates hits Plato’ and ‘Socrates is hitting Plato.’ Abelard argues that in general the pure verbal version of predication is the fundamental form, which explains and clarifies the extended version; the latter is only strictly necessary where simple verbal forms are lacking. (The substantive verb ‘is’ requires special treatment.) Hence for Abelard the basic analysis of a predicative statement recognizes that two fundamentally different linguistic categories are joined together: the name n and the simple verbal function V( ), combined in the well-formed sentence V(n).

Peter Abelard

4. Philosophy of Language

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Abelard argues that sentences (propositiones) must signify more than just the understandings of the constituent name and verb. First, a sentence such as ‘Socrates runs’ deals with Socrates and with running, not with anyone’s understandings. We talk about the world, not merely someone’s understanding of the world. Second, sentences like ‘If something is human, it is an animal’ are false if taken to be about understandings, for someone could entertain the concept human without entertaining the concept animal, and so the antecedent would obtain without the consequent. Third, understandings are evanescent particulars, mere mental tokenings of concepts. But at least some consequential sentences are necessary, and necessity can’t be grounded on things that are transitory, and so not on understandings. Sentences must therefore signify something else in addition to understandings, something that can do what mere understandings cannot. Abelard describes this as signifying what the sentence says, calling what is said by the sentence its dictum (plural dicta).

Peter Abelard

4. Philosophy of Language

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

To the modern philosophical ear, Abelard’s dicta might sound like propositions, abstract entities that are the timeless bearers of truth and falsity. But Abelard will have nothing to do with any such entities. He declares repeatedly and emphatically that despite being more than and different from the sentences that express them, dicta have no ontological standing whatsoever. In the short space of a single paragraph he says that they are “no real things at all” and twice calls them “absolutely nothing.” They underwrite sentences, but they aren’t real things. For although a sentence says something, there is not some thing that it says. The semantic job of sentences is to say something, which is not to be confused with naming or denoting some thing. It is instead a matter of proposing how things are, provided this is not given a realist reading. Likewise, the truth of true sentences is not a property inhering in some timeless entity, but no more than the assertion of what the sentence says—that is, Abelard adopts a deflationary account of truth. A sentence is true if things stand in the way it says, and things make sentences true or false in virtue of the way they are (as well as in virtue of what the sentences say), and nothing further is required. The sentence ‘Socrates runs’ is true because Socrates runs, which is all that can be said or needs to be said.

Peter Abelard

5. Philosophy of Mind

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Aristotelian philosophy of mind offers two analyses of intentionality: the conformality theory holds that we think of an object by having its very form in the mind, the resemblance theory that we do so by having a mental image in the mind that naturally resembles the object. Abelard rejects each of these theories and proposes instead an adverbial theory of thought, showing that neither mental images nor mental contents need be countenanced as ontologically independent of the mind. He gives a contextual explication of intentionality that relies on a linguistic account of mental representation, adopting a principle of compositionality for understandings.

Peter Abelard

5. Philosophy of Mind

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

The first Aristotelian analysis takes understanding to be the mind’s acquisition of the form of the object that is understood, without its matter. For an understanding to be about some thing—say, a cat—is for the form of the cat to be in the mind or intellective soul. The inherence of the form in matter makes the matter to be a thing of a certain kind, so that the inherence of the form cat in matter produces an actual cat, whereas the (immaterial) inherence of the form cat in the mind transforms the mind into an understanding of a cat: the mind becomes (formally) identical with its object. Since the ‘aboutness’ of understanding is analyzed as the commonness or identity of form in the understanding and the thing understood, we may call this approach the conformality theory of understanding. This theory captures the intuition that understanding somehow inherits or includes properties of what is understood, by reducing the intentionality of understanding to the objective identity of the form in the mind and the form in the world.

Peter Abelard

5. Philosophy of Mind

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

The second Aristotelian analysis takes understanding to be the mind’s possession of a concept that is a natural likeness of, or naturally similar to, that of which it is a concept. For an understanding to be about some thing, such as a cat, is for there to be an occurrent concept in the mind that is a natural likeness of a cat. The motivation for calling the likeness “natural” is to guarantee that the resemblance between the understanding and what is understood is objective, and that all persons have access to the same stock of concepts. (The conformality theory does this by postulating the objective existence of forms in things and by an identical process in all persons of assimilating or acquiring forms.) We may call this approach the resemblance theory of understanding: mental acts are classified according to the distinct degree and kind of resemblance they have to the things that are understood.

Peter Abelard

5. Philosophy of Mind

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

The resemblance theory faces well-known problems in spelling out the content of resemblance or likeness. For example, a concept is clearly immaterial, and as such radically differs from any material object. Furthermore, there seems to be no formal characteristic of a mental act in virtue of which it can non-trivially be said to resemble anything else. To get around these difficulties, mediaeval philosophers, like the British Empiricists centuries later, appealed to a particular kind of resemblance, namely pictorial resemblance. A portrait of Socrates is about Socrates in virtue of visually resembling Socrates in the right ways. And just as there are pictorial images that are about their subjects, so too are there mental images that are about things. These mental images, whether they are concepts or are contained in concepts, explain the way in which a concept is ‘about’ an object. For an understanding to be about a cat is for it to be or contain a mental image of a cat. The phenomenon of mental ‘aboutness’ is explicated by the more familiar case of pictorial aboutness, itself reduced to a real relation of resemblance.

Peter Abelard

5. Philosophy of Mind

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Despite their common Aristotelian heritage, the conformality theory and the resemblance theory are not equivalent. The transformation of the mind through the inherence of a form is not necessarily the same as the mind’s possession of a concept. Equally, natural likeness or resemblance need not be understood as identity of form; formal identity need not entail genuine resemblance, due to the different subjects in which the form is embodied.

Peter Abelard

5. Philosophy of Mind

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

The standard way to reconcile the conformality theory and the resemblance theory is to take the mind’s possession of a concept to be its ability to transform itself through the inherence of a form, construing formal identity as natural likeness, where having a form in the mind that is identical to the form of the object understood just is to have a mental image of that very object.

Peter Abelard

5. Philosophy of Mind

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Abelard argues against conformality as follows. Consider a tower, which is a material object with a certain length, depth, and height; assume that these features compose its form, much as the shape of a statue is its form. According to Aristotelian metaphysics, the inherence of a form in a subject makes the subject into something characterized by that form, as for instance whiteness inhering in Socrates makes him something white. The forms of the tower likewise make that in which they inhere to be tall, wide, massive—all physical properties. If these forms inhere in the mind, then, they should make the mind tall, wide, and massive, an absurd conclusion: the mind “cannot extend itself in length or width.” Yet it is a cardinal thesis of the conformality theory that the mind has the identical form that is possessed by the external object, the tower, although the form of (say) length is by its very nature physical. Thus, Abelard concludes, conformality is incoherent.

Peter Abelard

5. Philosophy of Mind

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Abelard’s main objection to the resemblance theory is that mental images qua images, like any sign, are inert: they require interpretation. A sign is just an object. It may be taken in a significative role, though it need not be. Abelard notes that this distinction holds equally for non-mental signs: we can treat a statue as a lump of bronze or as a likeness. Mental images are likewise inert. For a sign to function significatively, then, something more is required beyond its mere presence or existence. But the resemblance theory doesn’t recognize the need to interpret the mental image as an image, and thereby mistakenly identifies understanding with the mere presence of a mental image in the mind. Abelard concludes that mental images have only an instrumental role in thought, describing them as “intermediary signs of things” (intersigna rerum). Intentionality derives instead from the act of attention (attentio) directed upon the mental image. Proof is found in the fact that that we can “vary the understanding” simply by attending to different features of the mental image: the selfsame image—say, a fig tree—can be used to think about this very fig tree, or trees in general, or plant life, or my lost love with whom I sat under it, or anything whatsoever. There is no intrinsic feature of the mental image in virtue of which it is about any given thing; if there were, Abelard notes, we could determine by inspection what a sign is about—but we can’t. Mental images, therefore, can’t explain the intentionality of understanding, because their role is merely instrumental. We think with them, and cannot avoid them; but they do not explain intentionality.

Peter Abelard

5. Philosophy of Mind

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Abelard draws the conclusion that intentionality is a primitive and irreducible feature of the mind, our acts of attending to things. Different acts of attention are intrinsically different from one another; they are about what they are about in virtue of being the kind of attention they are. Hence Abelard adopts what is nowadays called an adverbial theory of thought.

Peter Abelard

5. Philosophy of Mind

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Given that intentionality is primitive, Abelard adopts a contextual approach to mental content: he embeds these irreducible acts of attention in a structure whose articulation helps define the character of its constituent elements. The structure Abelard offers is linguistic, a logic of mental acts: just as words can be said to express thoughts, so too we can use the articulated logic of language to give a theory of understanding. In short, Abelard gives something very like a linguistic account of mental representation or intentionality. To this end he embraces a principle of compositionality, holding that what an understanding is about is a function of what its constituent understandings are about. The unity of the understanding of a complex is a function of its logical simplicity, which is characterized by the presence of what Abelard calls “a single dominant conjunction” (the logical operator of greatest scope). Hence the understanding of a complex may be treated as a complex of distinct understandings, aggregated in the same thought, with its (logical) structure flowing from the ‘dominant conjunction’ over the other logical operations governing its constituent understandings. Abelard’s acts of attention thus display the logical structure of the understanding they express, and thereby give the semantics of written or spoken language. Much of Abelard’s writings on logic and dialectic are given over to working out the details as a scheme for explicating mental content.

Peter Abelard

6. Ethics

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Abelard takes the rational core of traditional Christian morality to be radically intentionalist, based on the following principle: the agent’s intention alone determines the moral worth of an action. His main argument against the moral relevance of consequences turns on what contemporary philosophers often refer to as moral luck. Suppose two men each have the money and the intention to establish shelters for the poor, but one is robbed before he can act whereas the second is able to carry out his intention. According to Abelard, to think that there is a moral difference between them is to hold that “the richer men were the better they could become … this is the height of insanity!” Deed-centred morality loses any kind of purchase on what might have been the case. Likewise, it cannot offer any ground for taking the epistemic status of the agent into account, although most people would admit that ignorance can morally exculpate an agent. Abelard makes the point with the following example: imagine the case of fraternal twins, brother and sister, who are separated at birth and each kept in complete ignorance of even the existence of the other; as adults they meet, fall in love, are legally married and have sexual intercourse. Technically this is incest, but Abelard finds no fault in either to lay blame.

Peter Abelard

6. Ethics

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Abelard concludes that in themselves deeds are morally indifferent. The proper subject of moral evaluation is the agent, via his or her intentions. It might be objected that the performance or nonperformance of the deed could affect the agent’s feelings, which in turn may affect his or her intentions, so that deeds thereby have moral relevance (at least indirectly). Abelard denies it:

Peter Abelard

6. Ethics

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

For example, if someone forces a monk to lie bound in chains between two women, and by the softness of the bed and the touch of the women beside him he is brought to pleasure (but not to consent), who may presume to call this pleasure, which nature makes necessary, a fault?

Peter Abelard

6. Ethics

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

We are so constructed that the feeling of pleasure is inevitable in certain situations: sexual intercourse, eating delicious food, and the like. If sexual pleasure in marriage is not sinful, then the pleasure itself, inside or outside of marriage, is not sinful; if it is sinful, then marriage cannot sanctify it—and if the conclusion were drawn that such acts should be performed wholly without pleasure, then Abelard declares they cannot be done at all, and it was unreasonable (of God) to permit them only in a way in which they cannot be performed.

Peter Abelard

6. Ethics

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

On the positive side, Abelard argues that unless intentions are the key ingredient in assessing moral value it is hard to see why coercion, in which one is forced to do something against his or her will, should exculpate the agent; likewise for ignorance—though Abelard points out that the important moral notion is not simply ignorance but strictly speaking negligence. Abelard takes an extreme case to make his point. He argues that the crucifiers of Christ were not evil in crucifying Jesus. (This example, and others like it, got Abelard into trouble with the authorities, and it isn’t hard to see why.) Their ignorance of Christ’s divine nature didn’t by itself make them evil; neither did their acting on their (false and mistaken) beliefs, in crucifying Christ. Their non-negligent ignorance removes blame from their actions. Indeed, Abelard argues that they would have sinned had they thought crucifying Christ was required and did not crucify Christ: regardless of the facts of the case, failing to abide by one’s conscience in moral action renders the agent blameworthy.

Peter Abelard

6. Ethics

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

There are two obvious objections to Abelard’s intentionalism. First, how is it possible to commit evil voluntarily? Second, since intentions are not accessible to anyone other than the agent, doesn’t Abelard’s view entail that it is impossible to make ethical judgements?

Peter Abelard

6. Ethics

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

With regard to the first objection, Abelard has a twofold answer. First, it is clear that we often want to perform the deed and at the same time do not want to suffer the punishment. A man wants to have sexual intercourse with a woman, but not to commit adultery; he would prefer it if she were unmarried. Second, it is clear that we sometimes “want what we by no means want to want”: our bodies react with pleasure and desire independently of our wills. If we act on such desires, then our action is done “of” will, as Abelard calls it, though not voluntarily. There is nothing evil in desire: there is only evil in acting on desire, and this is compatible with having contrary desires.

Peter Abelard

6. Ethics

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

With regard to the second objection, Abelard grants that other humans cannot know the agent’s intentions—God, of course, does have access to internal mental states, and so there can be a Final Judgement. However, Abelard does not take ethical judgement to pose a problem. God is the only one with a right to pass judgement. Yet this fact doesn’t prevent us from enforcing canons of human justice, because, Abelard holds, human justice has primarily an exemplary and deterrent function. In fact, Abelard argues, it can even be just to punish an agent we strongly believe had no evil intention. He cites two cases. First, a woman accidentally smothers her baby while trying to keep it warm at night, and is overcome with grief. Abelard maintains that we should punish her for the beneficial example her punishment may have on others: it may make other poor mothers more careful not to accidentally smother their babies while trying to keep them warm. Second, a judge may have excellent (but legally impermissible) evidence that a witness is perjuring himself; since he cannot show that the witness is lying, the judge is forced to rule on the basis of the witness’s testimony that the accused, whom he believes to be innocent, is guilty. Human justice may with propriety ignore questions of intention. Since there is divine justice, ethical notions are not an idle wheel—nor should they be, even on Abelard’s understanding of human justice, since they are the means by which we determine which intentions to promote or discourage when we punish people as examples or in order to deter others.

Peter Abelard

6. Ethics

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

There is a sense, then, in which the only certifiable sin is acting against one’s conscience, unless one is morally negligent. Yet if we cannot look to the intrinsic value of the deeds or their consequences, how do we determine which acts are permissible or obligatory? Unless conscience has a reliable guide, Abelard’s position seems to open the floodgates to well-meaning subjectivism.

Peter Abelard

6. Ethics

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Abelard solves the problem by taking obedience to God’s will—the hallmark of morally correct behaviour, and itself an instance of natural law—to be a matter of the agent’s intention conforming to a purely formal criterion, namely the Golden Rule (“Do to others as you would be done to”). This criterion can be discovered by reason alone, without any special revelation or religious belief, and is sufficient to ensure the rightness of the agent’s intention. But the resolution of this problem immediately leads to another problem. Even if we grant Abelard his naturalistic ethics, why should an agent care if his or her intentions conform to the Golden Rule? In short, even if Abelard were right about morality, why be moral?

Peter Abelard

6. Ethics

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Abelard’s answer is that our happiness—to which no one is indifferent—is linked to virtue, that is, to habitual morally correct behaviour. Indeed, Abelard’s project in the Collationes is to argue that reason can prove that a merely naturalistic ethics is insufficient, and that an agent’s happiness is necessarily bound up with accepting the principles of traditional Christian belief, including the belief in God and an Afterlife. In particular, he argues that the Afterlife is a condition to which we ought to aspire, that it is a moral improvement even on the life of virtue in this world, and that recognizing this is constitutive of wanting to do what God wants, that is, to live according to the Golden Rule, which guarantees as much as anything can (pending divine grace) our long-term postmortem happiness.

Peter Abelard

6. Ethics

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

The Philosopher first argues with the Jew, who espouses a ‘strict observance’ moral theory, namely obedience to the Mosaic Law. One of the arguments the Jew offers is the Slave’s Wager (apparently the earliest-known version of Pascal’s Wager). Imagine that a Slave is told one morning by someone he doesn’t know whether to trust that his powerful and irritable Master, who is away for the day, has left instructions about what to do in his absence. The Slave can follow the instructions or not. He reasons that if the Master indeed left the instructions, then by following them he will be rewarded and by not following them he will be severely punished, whereas if the Master did not leave the instructions he would not be punished for following them, though he might be lightly punished for not following them. (This conforms to the standard payoff matrix for Pascal’s Wager.) That is the position the Jew finds himself in: God has apparently demanded unconditional obedience to the Mosaic Law, the instructions left behind. The Philosopher argues that the Jew may have other choices of action and, in any event, that there are rational grounds for thinking that ethics is not a matter of action in conformity to law but a matter of the agent’s intentions, as we have seen above.

Peter Abelard

6. Ethics

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

The Philosopher then argues with the Christian. He initially maintains that virtue entails happiness, and hence there is no need of an Afterlife since a virtuous person remains in the same condition whether dead or alive. The Christian, however, reasons that the Afterlife is better, since in addition to the benefits conferred by living virtuously, the agent’s will is no longer impeded by circumstances. In the Afterlife we are no longer subject to the body, for instance, and hence are not bound by physical necessities such as food, shelter, clothing, and the like. The agent can therefore be as purely happy as life in accordance with virtue could permit, when no external circumstances could affect the agent’s actions. The Philosopher grants that the Afterlife so understood is a clear improvement even on the virtuous life in this world, and joins with the Christian in a cooperative endeavour to define the nature of the virtues and the Supreme Good. Virtue is its own reward, and in the Afterlife nothing prevents us from rewarding ourselves with virtue to the fullest extent possible.

Peter Abelard

7. Theology

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Abelard held that reasoning has a limited role to play in matters of faith. That he gave reasoning a role at all brought him into conflict with those we might now call anti-dialecticians, including his fellow abbot Bernard of Clairvaux. That the role he gave it is limited brought him into conflict with those he called “pseudo-dialecticians,” including his former teacher Roscelin.

Peter Abelard

7. Theology

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Bernard of Clairvaux and other anti-dialecticians seem to have thought that the meaning of a proposition of the faith, to the extent that it can be grasped, is plain; beyond that plain meaning, there is nothing we can grasp at all, in which case reason is clearly no help. That is, the anti-dialecticians were semantic realists about the plain meaning of religious sentences. Hence their impatience with Abelard, who seemed not only bent on obfuscating the plain meaning of propositions of the faith, which is bad enough, but to do so by reasoning, which has no place either in grasping the plain meaning (since the very plainness of plain meaning consists in its being grasped immediately without reasoning) or in reaching some more profound understanding (since only the plain meaning is open to us at all).

Peter Abelard

7. Theology

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Abelard has no patience for the semantic realism that underlies the sophisticated anti-dialectical position. Rather than argue against it explicitly, he tries to undermine it. From his commentaries on scripture and dogma to his works of speculative theology, Abelard is first and foremost concerned to show how religious claims can be understood, and in particular how the application of dialectical methods can clarify and illuminate propositions of the faith. Furthermore, he rejects the claim that there is a plain meaning to be grasped. Outlining his method in the Prologue to his Sic et non, Abelard describes how he initially raises a question, e.g. whether priests are required to be celibate, and then arranges citations from scriptural and patristic authorities that at least seem to answer the question directly into positive and negative responses. (Abelard offers advice in the Prologue for resolving the apparent contradictions among the authorities using a variety of techniques: see whether the words are used in the same sense on both sides; draw relevant distinctions to resolve the issue; look at the context of the citation; make sure that an author is speaking in his own voice rather than merely reporting or paraphrasing someone else’s position; and so on.) Now each authority Abelard cites seems to speak clearly and unambiguously either for a positive answer to a given question or for a negative one. If ever there were cases of plain meaning, Abelard seems to have found them in authorities, on opposing sides of controversial issues. His advice in the Prologue amounts to saying that sentences that seem to be perfect exemplars of plain meaning in fact have to be carefully scrutinized to see just what their meaning is. Yet that is just to say that they do not have plain meaning at all; we have to use reason to uncover their meaning. Hence the anti-dialecticians don’t have a case.

Peter Abelard

7. Theology

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

There is a far more serious threat to the proper use of reason in religion, Abelard thinks (Theologia christiana 3.20):

Peter Abelard

7. Theology

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Those who claim to be dialecticians are usually led more easily to [heresy] the more they hold themselves to be well-equipped with reasons, and, to that extent more secure, they presume to attack or defend any position the more freely. Their arrogance is so great that they think there isn’t anything that can’t be understood and explained by their petty little lines of reasoning. Holding all authorities in contempt, they glory in believing only themselves—for those who accept only what their reason persuades them of, surely answer to themselves alone, as if they had eyes that were unacquainted with darkness.

Peter Abelard

7. Theology

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Such pseudo-dialecticians take reason to be the final arbiter of all claims, including claims about matters of faith. More exactly, Abelard charges them with holding that (a) everything can be explained by human reason; (b) we should only accept what reason persuades us of; (c) appeals to authority have no rational persuasive force. Real dialecticians, he maintains, reject (a)–(c), recognizing that human reason has limits, and that some important truths may lie outside those limits but not beyond belief; which claims about matters of faith we should accept depends on both the epistemic reliability of their sources (the authorities) and their consonance with reason to the extent they can be investigated.

Peter Abelard

7. Theology

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Abelard’s arguments for rejecting (a)–(c) are sophisticated and subtle. For the claim that reason may be fruitfully applied to a particular article of faith, Abelard offers a particular case study in his own writings. The bulk of Abelard’s work on theology is devoted to his dialectical investigation of the Trinity. He elaborates an original theory of identity to address issues surrounding the Trinity, one that has wider applicability in metaphysics. The upshot of his enquiries is that belief in the Trinity is rationally justifiable since as far as reason can take us we find that the doctrine makes sense—at least, once the tools of dialectic have been properly employed.

Peter Abelard

7. Theology

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

The traditional account of identity, derived from Boethius, holds that things may be either generically, specifically, or numerically the same or different. Abelard accepts this account but finds it not sufficiently fine-grained to deal with the Trinity. The core of his theory of identity, as presented in his Theologia christiana, consists in four additional modes of identity: (1) essential sameness and difference; (2) numerical sameness and difference, which Abelard ties closely to essential sameness and difference, allowing a more fine-grained distinction than Boethius could allow; (3) sameness and difference in definition; (4) sameness and difference in property (in proprietate). Roughly, Abelard’s account of essential and numerical sameness is intended to improve upon the identity-conditions for things in the world given by the traditional account; his account of sameness in definition is meant to supply identity-conditions for the features of things; and his account of sameness in property opens up the possibility of there being different identity-conditions for a single thing having several distinct features.

Peter Abelard

7. Theology

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Abelard holds that two things are the same in essence when they are numerically the same concrete thing (essentia), and essentially different otherwise. The Morning Star is essentially the same as the Evening Star, for instance, since each is the selfsame planet Venus. Again, the formal elements that constitute a concrete thing are essentially the same as one another and essentially the same as the concrete thing of which they are the formal constituents: Socrates is his essence (Socrates is what it is to be Socrates). The corresponding general thesis does not hold for parts, however. Abelard maintains that the part is essentially different from the integral whole of which it is a part, reasoning that a given part is completely contained, along with other parts, in the whole, and so is less than the quantity of the whole.

Peter Abelard

7. Theology

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Numerical difference does not map precisely onto essential difference. The failure of numerical sameness may be due to one of two causes. First, objects are not numerically the same when one has a part that the other does not have, in which case the objects are essentially different as well. Second, objects are numerically different when neither has a part belonging to the other. Numerical difference thus entails the failure of numerical sameness, but not conversely: a part is not numerically the same as its whole, but it is not numerically different from its whole. Thus one thing is essentially different from another when either they have only a part in common, in which case they are not numerically the same; or they have no parts in common, in which case they are numerically different as well as not numerically the same. Since things may be neither numerically the same nor numerically different, the question “How many things are there?” is ill-formed as it stands and must be made more precise, a fact Abelard exploits in his discussion of the Trinity.

Peter Abelard

7. Theology

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Essential and numerical sameness and difference apply directly to things in the world; they are extensional forms of identity. By contrast, sameness and difference in definition is roughly analogous to modern theories of the identity of properties. Abelard holds that things are the same in definition when what it is to be one requires that it be the other, and conversely; otherwise they differ in definition.

Peter Abelard

7. Theology

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Finally, things are the same in property when they specify features that characterize one another. Abelard offers an example to clarify this notion. A cube of marble exemplifies both whiteness and hardness; what is white is essentially the same as what is hard, since they are numerically the same concrete thing, namely the marble cube; yet the whiteness and the hardness in the marble cube clearly differ in definition—but even so, what is white is characterized by hardness (the white thing is hard), and conversely what is hard is characterized by whiteness (the hard thing is white). The properties of whiteness and hardness are “mixed” since, despite their being different in definition, each applies to the selfsame concrete thing (namely the marble cube) as such and also as it is characterized by the other.

Peter Abelard

7. Theology

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

The interesting case is where something has properties that “remain so completely unmixed” that the items they characterize are different in property. Consider a form-matter composite in relation to its matter. The matter out of which a form-matter composite is made is essentially the same as the composite, since each is the entire material composite itself. Yet despite their essential sameness, they are not identical; the matter is not the composite, nor conversely. The matter is not the composite, for the composite comes to be out of the matter, but the matter does not come to be out of itself. The composite is not the matter, since “nothing is in any way a constitutive part of or naturally prior to itself.” Instead, the matter is prior to the composite since it has the property priority with respect to the composite, whereas the composite is posterior to its matter since it has the property posteriority with respect to its matter. Now despite being essentially the same, the matter is not characterized by posteriority, unlike the composite, and the composite is not characterized by priority, unlike the matter. Hence the matter and composite are different in property; the properties priority and posteriority are unmixed—they differ in property.

Peter Abelard

7. Theology

abelard

First published Tue Aug 3, 2004; substantive revision Fri Aug 12, 2022

Now for the payoff. Abelard deploys his theory of identity to shed light on the Trinity as follows. The three Persons are essentially the same as one another, since they are all the same concrete thing (namely God). They differ from one another in definition, since what it is to be the Father is not the same as what it is to be the Son or what it is to be the Holy Spirit. The three Persons are numerically different from one another, for otherwise they would not be three, but they are not numerically different from God: if they were there would be three gods, not one. Moreover, each Person has properties that uniquely apply to it—unbegotten to the Father, begotten to the Son, and proceeding to the Holy Spirit—as well as properties that are distinctive of it, such as power for the Father, wisdom for the Son, and goodness for the Holy Spirit. The unique properties are unmixed in Abelard’s technical sense, for the Persons differ from one another in their unique properties, and such properties do not apply to God; the distinctive properties are mixed, though, in that God is characterized by each (the powerful God is the wise God is the good God). Further than that, Abelard holds, human reason cannot go; but reason validates the analysis (strictly speaking only a “likeness” or analogy) as far as it can go.

Abhidharma

1. Abhidharma: its origins and texts

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The early history of Buddhism in India is remarkably little known and the attempt to construct a consistent chronology of that history still engrosses the minds of contemporary scholars. A generally accepted tradition has it that some time around the beginning of the third century BCE, the primitive Buddhist community divided into two parties or fraternities: the Sthaviras (Pali, Theriyas) and the Mahāsāṅghikas, each of which thenceforth had its own ordination traditions. Throughout the subsequent two centuries or so, doctrinal disputes arose between these two parties, resulting in the formation of various schools of thought (vāda; ācariyavāda) and teacher lineages (ācariyakula) (Vin 51–54; Mhv V 12–13. See Cousins 1991, 27–28; Frauwallner 1956, 5ff & 130ff; Lamotte 1988, 271ff; Wynne 2019, 269–283).

Abhidharma

1. Abhidharma: its origins and texts

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

According to traditional Buddhist accounts, by the time the Mahāyāna doctrines arose, roughly in the first century BCE, there were eighteen sub-sects or schools of Sthaviras, the tradition ancestral to the Theravāda (“advocates of the doctrine of the elders”). The number eighteen, though, became conventional in Buddhist historiography for symbolic and mnemonic reasons (Obeyesekere 1991) and, in fact, different Buddhist sources preserve divergent lists of schools which sum up to more than eighteen. The likelihood is that the early formative period of the Buddhist community gave rise to multiple intellectual branches that developed spontaneously due to the geographical extension of the community over the entire Indian subcontinent and subject to the particular problems that confronted each monastic community (saṅgha). Each saṅgha tended to specialize in a specific branch of learning, had its own practical customs and relations with lay circles, and was influenced by the particular territories, economy, and use of language and dialect prevalent in its environment. Indeed, the names of the “eighteen schools” are indicative of their origins in characteristic doctrines, geographical locations, or the legacy of particular founders: for instance, Sarvāstivāda (“advocates of the doctrine that all things exist”), Sautrāntikas (“those who rely on the sūtras”)/Dārṣṭāntikas (“those who employ examples”),[1] and Pudgalavāda (“those who affirm the existence of the person”); Haimavatas (“those of the snowy mountains”); or Vātsīputrīyas (“those affiliated with Vātsīputra”) respectively. As noted by Gethin (1998, 52), rather than sects or denominations as in Christianity, “at least some of the schools mentioned by later Buddhist tradition are likely to have been informal schools of thought in the manner of ‘Cartesians,’ ‘British Empiricists,’ or ‘Kantians’ for the history of modern philosophy.”[2]

Abhidharma

1. Abhidharma: its origins and texts

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

It is customarily assumed that the multiple ancient Buddhist schools transmitted their own versions of Abhidharma collections, but only two complete canonical collections are preserved, representing two schools: the Sarvāstivāda, who emerged as an independent school from within the Sthaviras around the second or first century BCE, became dominant in north, especially northwest India, and spread to central Asia; and the Sinhalese Theravāda, a branch of the Sthaviras that spread out in south India and parts of southeast Asia. These two extant collections comprise the third of the “three baskets” (Skt., tripiṭaka, Pali, tipiṭaka) of the Buddhist canon. The exegetical traditions of the Sarvāstivāda and Theravāda understand their respective canonical Abhidharma to consist of a set of seven texts, though each school specifies a different set of texts. The Sarvāstivādin Abhidharma-piṭaka consists of the Saṅgītiparyāya (Discourse on the Collective Recitation), the Dharmaskandha (Compendium of Dharmas), the Prajñaptiśāstra (Manual of Concepts), the Vijñānakāya (Compendium of Consciousness), the Dhātukāya (Compendium of Elements), the Prakaraṇapāda (Literary Exposition), and the Jñānaprasthāna (The Foundation of Knowledge). These seven texts survive in full only in their ancient Chinese translations. The Theravādin Abhidhamma-piṭaka comprises the Dhammasaṅgaṇi (Enumeration of Dhammas), the Vibhaṅga (Analysis), the Dhātukathā (Discourse on Elements), the Puggalapaññatti (Designation of Persons), the Kathāvatthu (Points of Discussion), the Yamaka (Pairs), and the Paṭṭhāna (Causal Conditions). These seven texts are preserved in Pali and all but the Yamaka have been translated into English.

Abhidharma

1. Abhidharma: its origins and texts

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

Later generations composed commentaries on the canonical Abhidharma and introduced a variety of exegetical manuals that expound the essentials of the canonical systems. These post-canonical texts are the products of single authors and display fully developed polemical stances and sectarian worldviews of their respective schools. Much of the Theravāda Abhidhamma system is contained in Buddhaghosa’s comprehensive Visuddhimagga (The Path of Purification, fifth century CE). More direct introductory Abhidhamma manuals are Buddhadatta’s Abhidhammāvatāra (Introduction to Abhidhamma, fifth century CE) and Anuruddha’s Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha (Compendium of the Topics of Abhidhamma, twelfth century CE). The Sarvāstivāda tradition preserves in Chinese translation three different recensions of an authoritative Abhidharma commentary or vibhāṣā dated to the first or second century CE, the last and best known of which is called the Mahāvibhāṣā. The vibhāṣā compendia document several centuries of scholarly activity representing multiple Sarvāstivāda branches, most notably the Sarvāstivādins of Kashmir who are known as Sarvāstivāda-Vaibhāṣika. The Sarvāstivāda manual most influential for later Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism, however, is Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośa (Treasury of Abhidharma, fifth century CE). The Abhidharmakośa’s auto-commentary contains substantial criticism of orthodox Sarvāstivāda positions, which later Sarvāstivāda-Vaibhāṣika masters attempted to refute. Particularly famous in this category is the Nyāyānusāra (Conformance to Correct Principle) of Saṅghabhadra, a contemporary of Vasubandhu. This comprehensive treatise reestablishes orthodox Sarvāstivāda views and is considered one of the final Sarvāstivāda works to have survived.[3]

Abhidharma

1. Abhidharma: its origins and texts

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

In sum, the Abhidharma/Abhidhamma texts are by and large compositions contemporary with the formative period in the history of the early Buddhist schools, providing the means by which one group could define itself and defend its position against the divergent interpretations and criticisms of other parties. Although much of the Abhidharma mindset and something of its method draw on the Āgamas/Nikāyas, i.e., the collections of sūtras (Pali, suttas), the main body of its literature contains interpretations of the Buddha’s discourses specific to each school of thought and philosophical elaborations of selectively emphasized doctrinal issues. These continued to be refined by subsequent generations of monks who contributed to the consolidation of the two surviving Theravāda and Sarvāstivāda schools.

Abhidharma

1. Abhidharma: its origins and texts

1.1 Literary style and genre

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

Scholarly opinion has generally been divided between two alternative interpretations of the term abhidharma, both of which hinge upon the denotation of the prefix abhi. First, taking abhi in the sense of “with regard to,” abhidharma is understood as a discipline whose subject matter is the Dharma, the Buddha’s teachings. Second, using abhi in the sense of preponderance and distinction, abhidharma has also been deemed a distinct, higher teaching; the essence of the Buddha’s teachings or that which goes beyond what is given in the Buddha’s discourses, in a sense somewhat reminiscent of the term “metaphysics” (e.g., Dhs-a 2–3; Horner 1941; von Hinüber 1994). Buddhist tradition itself differentiates between the Sūtrānta and Abhidharma methods of instructing the teachings by contrasting the Sūtrānta “way of putting things” in partial, figurative terms that require further clarification, versus the Abhidharma exposition and catechism that expound the teachings fully, in non-figurative terms (A IV 449–456; Dhs-a 154). This coincides with additional distinctions the tradition makes between texts that have implicit meaning (Skt., neyārtha, Pali, neyyattha) versus those that have explicit meaning (Skt., nītārtha, Pali nītattha) (A I 60; Ps I 18), and texts that are expressed in conventional terms (Skt., saṃvṛti, Pali, sammuti) versus others that are expressed in ultimate terms (Skt., paramārtha, Pali, paramattha) (Vibh 100–101; Mp I 94–97).[4] From Abhidharma perspective, the sūtras were conveyed in conventional terms whose ultimate meaning required further interpretation.

Abhidharma

1. Abhidharma: its origins and texts

1.1 Literary style and genre

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The texts of the canonical Abhidharma are works that evolved over decades, if not centuries, out of materials already present in the Sūtra and Vinaya portions of the canon. This is evidenced in two characteristics of the genre that can be traced to earlier Buddhist literature. The first is the analytical style of the texts, which attempt to summarize meticulously the significant points of the Dharma and provide a comprehensive taxonomy of the mental and physical factors that constitute sentient experience. This analytical enterprise includes the arrangement of major parts of the material around detailed lists of factors and combinations of sets of their categories yielding matrices (Skt., mātṛkā, Pali, mātikā) of doctrinal topics. Already in the collections of the Buddha’s discourses, certain texts are arranged according to taxonomic lists, providing formulaic treatment of doctrinal items that are expounded elsewhere. Lists were clearly powerful mnemonic devices, and their prevalence in early Buddhist literature can be explained partly as a consequence of its being composed and for some centuries preserved orally.[5] For instance, one of the four primary Āgamas/Nikāyas, the collection of “grouped” sayings (saṃyukta/saṃyutta), groups the Buddha’s teachings according to specific topics, including the four noble truths, the four ways of establishing mindfulness, the five aggregates, the six sense faculties, the seven constituents of awakening, the noble eightfold path, the twelve links of dependent origination, and others. Similar taxonomic lists form the table of contents of the Vibhaṅga and Puggalapaññatti of the Theravāda and the Saṅgītiparyāya and Dharmaskandha of the Sarvāstivāda, which are structured as commentaries on those lists.

Abhidharma

1. Abhidharma: its origins and texts

1.1 Literary style and genre

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The second characteristic of Abhidharma literature is its bent for discursive hermeneutics through catechetical exposition. The texts seem to be the products of discussions about the doctrine within the early Buddhist community. Again, such discussions are already found in the Āgama/Nikāya collections (e.g., M I 292–305, III 202–257): they often begin with a doctrinal point to be clarified and proceed to expound the topic at stake using a pedagogical method of question and answer. The texts also record more formal methods of argumentation and refutation of rival theories that shed light on the evolution of the Abhidharma as responding to the demands of an increasingly polemical environment. The process of institutionalization undergone by Buddhist thought at the time and the spread of the Buddhist community across the Indian subcontinent coincided with a transition from oral to written methods of textual transmission and with the rise of monastic debates concerning the doctrine among the various Buddhist schools. Intellectual assimilation and doctrinal disputes also existed between the Buddhist monastic community and the contemporaneous Sanskrit Grammarians, Jains, and Brahmanical schools with their evolving scholastic and analytical movements, which must also have contributed to the Abdhidharma discursive hermeneutics and argumentative style. The dialectic format and the display of awareness of differences in doctrinal interpretation are the hallmarks of the Kathāvatthu and the Vijñānakāya. Later on, post-canonical Abhidharma texts became complex philosophical treatises employing sophisticated methods of argumentation and independent investigations that resulted in doctrinal conclusions quite far removed from their canonical antecedents.

Abhidharma

1. Abhidharma: its origins and texts

1.1 Literary style and genre

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

Abhidharma literature, then, arose from two approaches to discussing the Dharma within the early Buddhist community: the first intended to summarize and analyze the significant points of the Buddha’s teachings, the second to elaborate on and interpret the doctrines by means of monastic disputations (Bronkhorst 2016, 29–46; Cousins 1983, 10; Dessein 2016, 4–7; Gethin 1992b, 165; Gethin 2022, 227–242).

Abhidharma

1. Abhidharma: its origins and texts

1.2 Abhidharma exegesis: from Dharma to dharmas

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The Buddha’s discourses collected in the Āgamas/Nikāyas analyze sentient experience from different standpoints: in terms of name-and-form (nāma-rūpa), the five aggregates (Skt., skandha, Pali, khandha), the twelve sense fields (āyatana), or the eighteen sense elements (dhātu). All these modes of analysis provide descriptions of sentient experience as a succession of physical and mental processes that arise and cease subject to various causes and conditions. A striking difference between the Sūtrānta and the Abhidharma worldviews is that the Abhidharma reduces the time scale of these processes so they are now seen as operating from moment to moment. Put differently, the Abhidharma reinterprets the terms by which the sūtras portray sequential processes as applying to discrete, momentary events (Cousins 1983, 7; Ronkin 2005, 66–78).

Abhidharma

1. Abhidharma: its origins and texts

1.2 Abhidharma exegesis: from Dharma to dharmas

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

These events are referred to as dharmas (Pali, dhammas), differently from the singular dharma/dhamma that signifies the Buddha’s teaching(s). The Āgamas/Nikāyas use the form dharmas to convey a pluralistic representation of encountered phenomena, i.e., all sensory phenomena of whatever nature as we experience them through the six sense faculties (the five ordinary physical senses plus mind [manas]). The canonical Abhidharma treatises, however, draw subtle distinctions within the scope of the mental and marginalize the differences between multiple varieties of mental capacities. Within this context, dharmas are seen as the objects of a specific mental capacity called mental cognitive awareness (Skt., manovijñāṇa, Pali, manoviññāṇa) that is considered the central cognitive operation in the process of sensory perception. Mental cognitive awareness is a particular type of consciousness that discerns between the stimuli impinging upon the sense faculties and that emerges when the requisite conditions come together. Dharmas are not merely mental objects like ideas, concepts, or memories. Rather, as the objects of mental cognitive awareness, dharmas may be rendered apperceptions: rapid consciousness-types (citta) that arise and cease in sequential streams, each having its own object, and that interact with the five externally directed sensory modalities (visual, auditory, etc.) of cognitive awareness. The canonical Abhidharma texts portray dharmas, then, as psycho-physical events with diverse capacities by means of which the mind unites and assimilates a particular perception, especially one newly presented, to a larger set or mass of ideas already possessed, thus comprehending and conceptualizing it.[6]

Abhidharma

1. Abhidharma: its origins and texts

1.2 Abhidharma exegesis: from Dharma to dharmas

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

Ultimately, dharmas are all that there is: all experiential events are understood as arising from the interaction of dharmas. While the analogy of atoms may be useful here, dharmas notably embrace both physical and mental phenomena, and are generally understood as evanescent events, occurrences, or dynamic properties rather than enduring substances.[7] The Abhidharma exegesis thus attempts to provide an exhaustive account of every possible type of experience—every type of occurrence that may possibly present itself in one’s consciousness—in terms of its constituent dharmas. This enterprise involves breaking down the objects of ordinary perception into their constituent, discrete dharmas and clarifying their relations of causal conditioning. The overarching inquiry subsuming both the analysis of dharmas into multiple categories and their synthesis into a unified structure by means of their manifold relationships of causal conditioning is referred to as the “dharma theory.”

Abhidharma

2. The dharma taxonomy: a metaphysics of experience

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The Abhidharma attempts to individuate and determine the unique identity of each dharma yield complex intersecting taxonomies of dharmas organized by multiple criteria or sets of qualities. Abhidharma texts of different schools proposed different dharma taxonomies, enumerating a more or less finite number of dharma categories. It is important to remember, though, that the term dharma signifies both any category that represents a type of occurrence as well as any of its particular tokens or instances. The Theravāda introduced a system of eighty-two dhamma categories, meaning that there are eighty-two possible types of occurrence in the experiential world, not eighty-two occurrences. These are organized into a fourfold categorization. The first three categories include the bare phenomenon of consciousness (citta) that encompasses a single dhamma type and of which the essential characteristic is the cognizing of an object; associated mentality (cetasika) that encompasses fifty-two dhammas; and materiality or physical phenomena (rūpa) that include twenty-eight dhammas that make up all physical occurrences (Abhidh-av 1). All the eighty-one dhamma types in these three broad categories are conditioned (saṅkhata). Conditioned dhammas arise and cease subject to numerous causes and conditions and constitute sentient experience in all realms of the round of rebirth (saṃsāra).[8] The eighty-second dhamma that comprises the fourth category is unconditioned (asaṅkhata): it neither arises nor ceases through causal interaction. The single occurrence in this fourth category is nirvana (Pali, nibbāna).

Abhidharma

2. The dharma taxonomy: a metaphysics of experience

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The Sarvāstivāda adopted a system of seventy-five basic types of dharmas organized into a fivefold categorization. The first four categories comprise all conditioned (saṃskṛta) dharmas and include, again, consciousness (citta, one single dharma); associated mentality (caitta, encompasses forty-six dharmas); and physical phenomena (rūpa, eleven dharmas); but also factors dissociated from thought (cittaviprayuktasaṃskāra, fourteen dharmas). The last category is mentioned neither in the sūtras nor in the Theravāda lists, but is found predominantly in northern Indian Abhidharma texts of all periods. The specific dharmas included within it vary, but they are all understood as explaining a range of experiential events, being themselves dissociated from both material form and thought. The fifth category in the Sarvāstivāda taxonomy, that of the unconditioned (asaṃskṛta), comprises three dharmas, namely, space and two states of cessation (nirodha), the latter being a term that connotes the culmination of the Buddhist path (Cox 1995; 2004A, 553–554).

Abhidharma

2. The dharma taxonomy: a metaphysics of experience

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The Abhidharma analyzes in great detail each of these categories, thus creating relational schemata whereby each acknowledged experience, phenomenon, or occurrence can be determined and identified by particular definition and function. Especially important is the analysis of consciousness or citta, on which much of Abhidharma doctrinal thought is built. Consider the Theravāda analysis of consciousness, whose basic principles are shared with the other Abhidharma systems.

Abhidharma

2. The dharma taxonomy: a metaphysics of experience

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The epitome of the operation of consciousness is citta as experienced in the process of sensory perception that, in Abhidharma (as in Buddhism in general), is deemed the paradigm of sentient experience. Citta can never be experienced as bare consciousness in its own origination moment, for consciousness is always intentional, directed to a particular object that is cognized by means of certain mental factors. Citta, therefore, always occurs associated with its appropriate cetasikas or mental factors that perform diverse functions and that emerge and cease together with it, having the same object (either sensuous or mental) and grounded in the same sense faculty. Any given consciousness moment—also signified by the very term citta—is thus a unique assemblage of citta and its associated mental factors such as feeling, conceptualization, volition, or attention, to name several of those required in any thought process. Each assemblage is conscious of just one object, arises for a brief instant and then falls away, followed by another citta combination that picks up a different object by means of its particular associated mental factors.

Abhidharma

2. The dharma taxonomy: a metaphysics of experience

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The classic Abhidhamma scheme as gleaned from the first book of the Abhidhamma-piṭaka, the Dhammasaṅgaṇi, and as organized by the commentarial tradition describes eighty-nine basic types of consciousness moments, i.e., assemblages of citta and cetasika (Dhs Book I; Vism XIV 81–110; Abhidh-av 1–15; Abhidh-s 1–5). It classifies these basic citta types most broadly according to their locus of occurrence, beginning with the sense-sphere (kāmāvacara) that includes forty-five citta types, most prominently those that concern the mechanics of perception of sensuous objects; next come eighteen form-sphere (rūpāvacara) consciousnesses that concern the mind that has attained meditative absorption (jhāna); followed by eight formless-sphere (arūpāvacara) consciousnesses that constitute the mind that has reached further meditative attainments known as formless states; finally, there are eighteen world-transcending (lokuttara) consciousnesses that constitute the mind at the moment of awakening itself: these have nirvana as their object. Within these four broad categories many other classifications operate. For instance, some dhammas are wholesome, others unwholesome; some are resultant, others are not; some are motivated, others are without motivations. These attribute matrices, writes Cox (2004A, 552), form “an abstract web of all possible conditions and characteristics exhibited by actually occurring dharmas. The individual character of any particular dharma can then be specified in accordance with every taxonomic possibility, resulting in a complete assessment of that dharma’s range of possible occurrences.”

Abhidharma

2. The dharma taxonomy: a metaphysics of experience

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

Various scholars have argued that this system reflects a dynamic conception of dharmas: that Abhidharma understands dharmas as properties, activities, or patterns of interconnection that construct one’s world, not as static substances (e.g., Cox 2004A, 549ff; Gethin 1992A, 149–150; Karunadasa 2010, Ch. 4; Nyanaponika 1998, Ch. 2 & 4; Ronkin 2005, Ch. 4; Waldron 2002, 2–16). The Abhidharma lists of dharmas are “explicitly open” and reflect “a certain reluctance and hesitancy to say categorically that such and such is the definitive list of dharmas” (Gethin 2017, 252), leaving room for continued debates about what is and is not a dharma. For the Abhidharma, as for Buddhism in general, the limits of one’s world are set by the limits of one’s lived experience, and the causal foundation for lived experience is the operation of one’s cognitive apparatus. According to the Buddhist path, the nature of lived experience as based on one’s cognitive apparatus is to be contemplated by investigating the very nature of one’s mind through the practice of meditation. From this perspective, Abhidharma represents the theoretical counterpart to the practice of meditation. Within this context of Buddhist practice, dharmas are distinct (but interrelated) functions, energies, or causally significant aspects—in this sense “components”—of consciousness moments.

Abhidharma

2. The dharma taxonomy: a metaphysics of experience

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The categorial analysis of dharmas is therefore a meditative practice of discernment of dharmas: it is not intended as a closed inventory of all existing dharmas “out there” in their totality, but rather “has a dual soteriological purpose involving two simultaneous processes” (Cox 2004A, 551). First, as “evaluative” analysis, the dharma typology maps out the constituents and workings of the mind and accounts for what makes up ordinary wholesome consciousness as opposed to the awakened mind. For instance, consciousness types that arise in a mind that has attained meditative absorption become increasingly refined and may never involve certain tendencies or defilements that might potentially occur in ordinary (even wholesome) consciousness. To watch dharmas as dharmas, writes Gethin (2004, 536), “involves watching how they arise and disappear, how the particular qualities that one wants to abandon can be abandoned, and how the particular qualities that one wants to develop can be developed. Watching dhammas in this way one begins to understand […] certain truths (sacca)—four to be exact—about these dhammas: their relation to suffering, its arising, its ceasing and the way to its ceasing. And in seeing these four truths one realizes the ultimate truth—dhamma—about the world.”[9]

Abhidharma

2. The dharma taxonomy: a metaphysics of experience

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The second, “descriptive” soteriological process involved in the categorization of dharmas reveals the fluid nature of sentient experience and validates the fundamental Buddhist teaching of not-self (Skt., anātman, Pali, anatta). The increasingly detailed enumerations of dharmas demonstrate that no essence or independent self could be found in any phenomenon or its constituents, since all aspects of experience are impermanent, arising and passing away subject to numerous causes and conditions. Even the handful dharmas that are categorized as unconditioned (that is, having no cause and no effect) are shown to be not-self. The practice of the discrimination of dharmas thus undermines the apparently solid world we emotionally and intellectually grasp at that is replete with objects of desire and attachment. “Try to grasp the world of the Dhammasaṅgaṇi, or the Paṭṭhāna,” Gethin notes (1992B, 165), “and it runs through one’s fingers.”

Abhidharma

2. The dharma taxonomy: a metaphysics of experience

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

Nevertheless, the very notion of the plurality of dharmas as the building blocks or the final units of analysis of sentient experience signifies a considerable shift in the Buddhist understanding of dharma. Abhidharma thought was gradually drawn into espousing a naturalistic explanation of dharmas as the fundamental constituents of the phenomenal world, increasingly associating dharmas as primary existents. The category of the unconditioned within the dharma taxonomy also asserted the possibility of enduring or permanent dharmas, in contrast to all other dharmas that arise and cease through causal interaction. The Abhidharma exegesis, then, occasioned among Buddhist circles doctrinal controversies that could be termed ontological around such issues as what the nature of a dharma is; what, in the internal constitution of a dharma, makes it the very particular it is; the manner of existence of dharmas; the dynamics of their causal interaction; and the nature of the reality they constitute. The distinctive principles and their ensuing ontological interpretations constructed by the Buddhist schools were largely shaped by a radical construal of impermanence as momentariness.

Abhidharma

3. Time: from impermanence to momentariness

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

Both the Sarvāstivāda and the post-canonical Theravāda constructed a radical doctrine of momentariness (Skt., kṣāṇavāda, Pali, khāṇavāda) that atomizes phenomena temporally by dissecting them into a succession of discrete, momentary events that pass out of existence as soon as they have originated. Albeit not a topic in its own right in the Buddha’s discourses, the doctrine of momentariness appears to have originated in conjunction with the principle of impermanence (Skt., anitya, Pali, anicca). This idea is basic to the Buddha’s empirically-oriented teaching about the nature of sentient experience: all physical and mental phenomena are in a constant process of conditioned construction and are interconnected, being dependently originated (e.g., A I 286; M I 230, 336, 500; S II 26, III 24–5, 96–9, IV 214). The Suttanta elaboration on these three interlocking ideas results in a formula (A I 152) that states that conditioned phenomena (Skt., saṃskārā, Pali, saṅkhārā) are of the nature of origination (uppāda), “change of what endures” (ṭhitassa aññathatta), and dissolution or cessation (vaya). This formula is known as the “three characteristics of what is conditioned” (tisaṅkhatalakkhaṇa). The Sarvāstivāda-Vaibhāṣika introduced four characteristics of conditioned phenomena: origination, endurance, decay, and dissolution. These are classified under the dharma category of “factors dissociated from thought.”

Abhidharma

3. Time: from impermanence to momentariness

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The Buddhist schools used the characteristics of conditioned phenomena as a hermeneutic tool with which to reinterpret impermanence in terms of momentariness. The Sarvāstivāda-Vaibhāṣika proposed a fully-fledged doctrine of momentariness according to which all physical and mental phenomena are momentary. The Sarvāstivādins use the term “moment” (kṣaṇa) in a highly technical sense as the smallest, definite unit of time that cannot be subdivided, the length of which came to be equated with the duration of mental events as the briefest conceivable entities. There is no Sarvāstivādin consensus on the length of a moment, but the texts indicate figures between 0.13 and 13 milliseconds in modern terms (Gethin 1998, 221; von Rospatt 1995, 94–110). This usage presupposes an atomistic conception of time, for time is not reckoned indefinitely divisible. Indeed, the term kṣaṇa is often discussed in juxtaposition to the concepts of material atoms and syllables, which are likewise comprehended as indivisible.

Abhidharma

3. Time: from impermanence to momentariness

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

Within the Sarvāstivāda framework, material reality (rūpa-dharma) is reduced to discrete momentary atoms, and much attention is drawn to ontological and epistemological questions such as whether sense objects are real at any time, or whether atoms contribute separately or collectively to the generation of perception. Atomic reality is understood as constantly changing: what appears to us as a world made up of enduring substances with changing qualities is, in fact, a series of moments that arise and perish in rapid succession. This process is not random, but operates in accordance with the specific capability and function of each atom. The spirit of this atomistic analysis of material reality applies equally to mental reality: consciousness is understood as a succession of discrete consciousness moments that arise and cease extremely rapidly.[10] Thus, the ratio of change between material and mental phenomena in any given moment is one to one: they occur in perfect synchronicity (Kim 1999, 54). On this point the Sautrāntika agreed with the Sarvāstivāda.

Abhidharma

3. Time: from impermanence to momentariness

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The Sarvāstivādins (“advocates of the doctrine that all things exist”) were unique in their stance that the characteristics of conditioned phenomena exist separately as real entities within each moment. Their claim, then, is that all conditioned dharmas—whether past, present, or future—exist as real entities (dravyatas) within the span of any given moment. This induced a host of problems, one of which is that the Sarvāstivāda definition of a moment is difficult to reconcile with its conception as the shortest unit of time (von Rospatt 1995, 44–46 & 97–98). The Sarvāstivāda replies to this criticism by stating that the activities (kāritra) of the four characteristics of conditioned phenomena are sequential: the limits between the birth and dissolution of any event are referred to as one moment. This solution, however, implies that a single event undergoes four phases within a given moment, which inevitably infringes upon its momentariness (Cox 1995, 151; von Rospatt 1995, 52ff).

Abhidharma

3. Time: from impermanence to momentariness

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The Theravādins created their own distinct version of the doctrine of momentariness. They do not seem to have been as concerned as the Sarvāstivādins with the ontology and epistemology of material and mental realities per se. Rather, they were more preoccupied with the psychological apparatus governing the process of cognizing of sense data, and hence with the changing ratio between material and mental phenomena. The Yamaka of the canonical Abhidhamma offers what is probably the first textual occurrence of the term “moment” (khaṇa) in the sense of a very brief stretch of time that is divided into origination and cessation instants (Kim 1999, 60–61). Relying on the three characteristics of conditioned phenomena, the Pali commentaries later present a scheme wherein each moment of every phenomenon is subdivided into three different instants of origination (uppādakkhaṇa), endurance (ṭhitikkhaṇa) and cessation (bhaṅgakkhaṇa) (Spk II 266; Mp II 252). These are three phases of a single momentary phenomenon defined as one single dhamma or consciousness moment. A dhamma occurs in the first sub-moment, endures in the second, and ceases in the third (Karunadasa 2010, 234ff). The commentarial tradition thus analyzes phenomena temporally by dissecting them into a succession of discrete, momentary events that fall away as soon as they have originated in consciousness. As one event is exhausted, it conditions a new event of its kind that proceeds immediately afterwards. The result is an uninterrupted, flowing continuum (santāna) of causally connected momentary events. These succeed each other so fast that we conceive of the phenomena they constitute as temporally extended.

Abhidharma

3. Time: from impermanence to momentariness

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The Theravādins use the term khaṇa as the expression for a brief instant, the dimension of which is not fixed but may be determined by the context. For example, cittakkhaṇa refers to the instant taken by one mental event. In this basic sense as denoting a very brief stretch of time, the term “moment” does not entail an atomistic conception of a definite and ultimate, smallest unit of time, but leaves open the possibility that time is infinitely divisible (von Rospatt 1995, 59–60 & 94–95). Here the three moments of origination, endurance, and cessation do not correspond to three different entities. Rather, they represent three phases of a single momentary phenomenon and are defined as one single consciousness moment: a dhamma occurs in the first sub-moment, endures in the second sub-moment and perishes in the third one. In this way, the Theravādins avoided some of the difficulties faced by the Sarvāstivāda-Vaibhāṣikas, of how to compress the characteristics of the conditioned into one single indivisible moment and of how to account for their ontological status. The Theravādins also claimed that only mental phenomena are momentary, whereas material phenomena (e.g., common-sense objects) endure for a stretch of time. The Theravādin commentarial tradition subsequently elaborated on this proposition and produced a unique view of the ratio between material and mental phenomena, asserting that a material phenomenon lasts for sixteen or seventeen consciousness moments (Kv 620; Vibh-a 25–28; Vism XX 24–26; Kim 1999, 79–80 & §3.1).

Abhidharma

3. Time: from impermanence to momentariness

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

Despite their different interpretations of the concept of momentariness, the early Buddhist schools all derived this concept from the analysis of impermanence in terms of the dynamics of dharmas qua physical and mental events. The equation of a moment with the duration of these transient events as extremely short occurrences—even the shortest conceivable—led to the direct determination of the moment in terms of these occurrences. Yet the doctrine of momentariness spawned a host of problems for the Buddhist schools, particularly with regard to the status of the endurance moment and to the explanation of continuity and conditioning interaction among the dharmas (see section 5 below). If dharmas go through an endurance phase or exist as real entities within the span of any given moment, how can they be momentary? And if experience is an array of strictly momentary dharmas, how can continuity and causal conditioning be possible?

Abhidharma

3. Time: from impermanence to momentariness

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

One might argue that the conceptual shift from “impermanence” to “endurance” is a result of scholastic literalism and testifies to the Abhidharma tendency towards reification and hypostatization of dharmas (Gombrich 1996, 36–37, 96–97 & 106–107). Nevertheless, the object of the doctrine of momentariness is not so much existence in time or the passage of time per se, but rather, in epistemological terms and a somewhat Bergsonian sense, the construction of temporal experience. Instead of a transcendental matrix of order imposed on natural events from without, time is seen as an inherent feature of the operation of dharmas. The doctrine of momentariness analyzes dharmas as they transpire through time: as psycho-physical events that arise and cease in consciousness and, by the dynamics of their rise and fall, construct time. The sequence of the three times is therefore secondary, generated in and by the process of conditioned and conditioning dharmas. In fact, the conceptual shift from the principle of impermanence to the theory of momentariness is a shift in time scales. While the Sūtrānta worldview interprets the three times as referring to past, present, and future lives, the Abhidharma sees them as phases that any conditioned dharma undergoes each and every moment. Impermanence marks dharmas over a period of time, but is also encapsulated in every single consciousness moment (Vibh-a 7–8; Sv 991; Vism XIV 191; Collins 1992, 227).

Abhidharma

4. Intrinsic nature: between categorization and ontology

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

To preserve the principle of impermanence and explain continuity and causal conditioning in ordinary experience, the Buddhist schools introduced novel interpretations of the nature of dharmas. At the heart of these interpretations is the concept of intrinsic nature (Skt., svabhāva, Pali, sabhāva) that plays a major role in the systematization of Abhidharma thought, is closely related to the consolidation of the dharma theory, and is regarded as that which gave an impetus to the Abhidharma growing concern with ontology.

Abhidharma

4. Intrinsic nature: between categorization and ontology

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The term svabhāva/sabhāva does not feature in the sūtras/suttas and its rare mentions in other Sarvāstivāda and Theravāda canonical texts offer no account of dharma as defined by a fixed intrinsic nature that verifies its real existence.[11] This situation changes significantly in the post-canonical literature, in which svabhāva becomes a standard concept extensively used in dharma exegesis. A recurring idea in the exegetical Abhidharma literature from the period of the early vibhāṣā compendia onward is that dharmas are defined by virtue of their svabhāva. For instance, a definition transmitted in the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya reads: “dharma means ‘upholding,’ [namely], upholding intrinsic nature (svabhāva),” and the Mahāvibhāṣā states that “intrinsic nature is able to uphold its own identity and not lose it […] as in the case of unconditioned dharmas that are able to uphold their own identity” (Cox 2004A, 558–559). Similarly, a definition prevalent in Theravādin Abhidhamma commentaries is: “dhammas are so called because they bear their intrinsic natures, or because they are borne by causal conditions” (e.g., Dhs-a 39-40; Paṭis-a I 18; Vism-mhṭ I 347). The commentaries also regularly equate dhammas with their intrinsic natures, using the terms dhamma and sabhāva interchangeably. For example, the Visuddhimagga proclaims that “dhamma means but intrinsic nature” (Vism VIII 246), and the sub-commentary to the Dhammasaṅgaṇi indicates that “there is no other thing called dhamma apart from the intrinsic nature borne by it” and that “the term sabhāva denotes the mere fact of being a dhamma” (Dhs-mṭ 28 & 94; see also Karunadasa 2010: Ch. 1).

Abhidharma

4. Intrinsic nature: between categorization and ontology

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

These commentarial definitions of dharmas as carrying their intrinsic natures should not be interpreted ontologically as implying that dharmas are substances having inherent existence. The Pali commentaries, cautions Gethin (2004, 533), “are often viewed too much in the light of later controversies about the precise ontological status of dharmas and the Madhyamaka critique of the notion of svabhāva in the sense of ‘inherent existence.’” In fact, defining dharmas as bearing their intrinsic natures conveys the idea that there is no enduring agent behind them. Adding that dharmas are borne by causal conditions counters the idea of intrinsic natures borne by underlying substances distinct from themselves. Just as dharmas are psycho-physical events that occur dependently on appropriate conditions and qualities, their intrinsic natures arise dependently on other conditions and qualities rather than on a substratum more real than they are (ibid; Karunadasa 1996, 13–16; Nyanaponika 1998, 40–41).

Abhidharma

4. Intrinsic nature: between categorization and ontology

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

We must also note that the context within which dharmas are rendered in terms of their intrinsic natures is that of categorization, where multiple criteria and qualities are applied to create a comprehensive taxonomic system that distinguishes the particular character of any given dharma. Cox (2004A: 559–561) has shown that in the early period of northern Indian Abhidharma texts, as represented by the Śāriputrābhidharmaśāstra and portions of the Mahāvibhāṣā, the concept of intrinsic nature develops within the context of the method of inclusion (saṃgraha), that is, the process by which the inclusion of dharmas within a specific category is to be applied. Dharmas are determined (pariniṣpanna) by the intrinsic nature that defines them and hence should not be considered to possess a separately existing intrinsic nature. “‘Determination’ implies two further features of dharmas […] First, just as categories in a well-structured taxonomic schema are distinct and not subject to fluctuation, so also dharmas, as ‘determined,’ are clearly and unalterably discriminated: they are uniquely individualized and as such are not subject to confusion with other dharmas. [Second,] determination by intrinsic nature undergoes no variation or modification, and hence, dharmas, which are in effect types or categories of intrinsic nature, are established as stable and immutable” (ibid, 562). In the early Sarvāstivāda exegetical texts, then, svabhāva is used as an atemporal, invariable criterion determining what a dharma is, not necessarily that a dharma exists. The concern here is primarily with what makes categorial types of dharma unique, rather than with the ontological status of dharmas.

Abhidharma

4. Intrinsic nature: between categorization and ontology

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

Nevertheless, from the foregoing categorial theory, the mature Abhidharma drew ontological conclusions with regard to the reality of dharmas. This transition in the conception of dharma coincided with an inherent ambiguity in the term svabhāva, which is grounded logically and etymologically in the term bhāva that came to denote “mode of existence” (ibid, 565–568). In the vibhāṣā compendia and contemporaneous texts, “the explicit emphasis upon categorization per se recedes in importance as the focus shifts to clarifying the character and eventually the ontological status of individual dharmas. Accordingly, the term svabhāva acquires the dominant sense of ‘intrinsic nature’ specifying individual dharmas […] And determining individual dharmas through unique intrinsic nature also entails affirming their existence, as a natural function both of the etymological sense of the term svabhāva and of the role of dharmas as the fundamental constituents of experience. This then leads to the prominence of a new term that expressed this ontological focus: namely, dravya” (ibid, 569). Dravya means “real existence” and, within the Sarvāstivāda framework, dharmas that are determined by intrinsic nature exist as real entities (dravyatas), as opposed both to composite objects of ordinary experience that exist provisionally and to relative concepts or contingencies of time and place that exist relatively. The presence of intrinsic nature indicates that a dharma is a primary existent, irrespective of its temporal status, namely, whether it is a past, present or future dharma, and hence the Sarvāstivāda declaration that “all things exist.”

Abhidharma

4. Intrinsic nature: between categorization and ontology

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The Theravāda rejected the Sarvāstivāda ontological model, claiming that dhammas exist only in the present. But the Theravāda Abhidhamma shares with the Sarvāstivāda the same principles of dhamma analysis as a categorial theory that individuates sentient experience. Here, too, the taxonomic function of sabhāva gave rise to ontological connotations of existence in the characterization of dhammas. As the final units of Abhidhamma analysis, dhammas are reckoned the ultimate constituents of experience. “There is nothing else, whether a being, or an entity, or a man or a person,” a famous Pali commentarial excerpt proclaims (Dhs-a 155).[12] While this statement is meant to refute the rival Pudgalavāda position of the reality of the person by insisting that there is no being or person apart from dhammas, there emerges the idea that the phenomenal world is, at bottom, a world of dhammas: that within the confines of sentient experience there is no other actuality apart from dhammas and that what constitutes any given dhamma as a discrete, individualized particular is its intrinsic nature. The Theravāda elaborates on the concept of sabhāva in juxtaposition to its theory of momentariness, and it acquires the sense of what underlies a dhamma’s endurance moment and as a point of reference to the moments of origination and cessation. Before a dhamma eventuates it does not yet obtain an intrinsic nature and when it ceases it is denuded of this intrinsic nature. As a present occurrence, though, while possessing its intrinsic nature, it exists as an ultimate reality and its intrinsic nature is evidence of its actual existence as such (Dhs-a 45; Vism VIII 234, XV 15). One commentarial passage even goes so far as naming this instant “the acquisition of a self” (Vism-mhṭ I 343).

Abhidharma

5. Causation: existence as functioning

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The Abhidharma’s ontological investigations occasioned a host of doctrinal problems that became the subject of an ongoing debate among the Buddhist schools. One primary controversy centered on the principle of impermanence: if all phenomena are impermanent, the Sautrāntika challenged the Sarvāstivāda and the Theravāda, then dharmas must be changing continuously and can neither exist in the past and future nor endure for any period of time, however short, in the present. On the other hand, the systematic analysis of experience in terms of momentary dharmas required the Abhidharma to provide a rigorous account of the processes that govern psychological and physical continuity. What fuels these processes is causal interaction, but the very notion of causation is allegedly compromised by the theory of momentariness. If causes, conditions, and their results are all momentary events, how can an event that has ended have a result? How can an event that undergoes distinct stages of origination, endurance, and cessation in a brief moment have causal efficacy? Notwithstanding their doctrinal differences, both the Sarvāstivāda and the Theravāda Abhidhamma had to confront these challenges, and they did so by formulating complex theories of immediate contiguity that grant causal efficacy.

Abhidharma

5. Causation: existence as functioning

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The Sarvāstivāda developed an analysis of causal conditioning in terms of intricate interrelations among four types of condition (pratyaya) and six types of cause (hetu). As documented in the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya (AKB 2.49) based on canonical texts including the Vijñānakāya, the Prakaraṇapāda, and the Jñānaprasthāna, the four conditions are: 1) root cause (literally “cause as condition,” hetupratyaya), reckoned the foremost in inciting the process of fruition and origination; 2) immediate antecedent, which holds between a consciousness moment and its immediately preceding moment in that consciousness series; 3) object support, which applies to all dharmas insofar as they are intentional objects of consciousness; and 4) predominance, which facilitates sensory discriminative awareness, e.g., the faculty of sight’s predominance over visual cognitive awareness. The six causes are: 1) instrumentality (kāraṇahetu), deemed the primary factor in the production of a result; 2) simultaneity or coexistence, which connects phenomena that arise simultaneously; 3) homogeneity, explaining the homogenous flow of dharmas that evokes the seeming continuity of phenomena; 4) association, which operates only between mental dharmas and explains why the elements of consciousness always appear as assemblages of mental factors; 5) dominance, which forms one’s habitual cognitive and behaviorist dispositions; and 6) fruition, referring to whatever is the result of actively wholesome or unwholesome dharmas. The four conditions and six causes interact with each other in explaining phenomenal experience: for instance, each consciousness moment acts both as the homogenous cause as well as the immediate antecedent condition of the rise of consciousness and its concomitants in a subsequent moment.[13]

Abhidharma

5. Causation: existence as functioning

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

Underlying this analysis of causal conditioning is the notion of existence as efficacious action, or karma. Karma, a fundamental principle in Buddhist thought from its inception, is what fuels the repetitive experience in saṃsāra, the round of rebirth.[14] In Abhidharma exegesis, the efficacious action or distinctive functioning of dharmas is understood predominantly as causal functioning. For the orthodox Sarvāstivāda-Vaibhāṣika, the existence of dharmas as real entities (dravyatas) is determined by both their intrinsic nature and particular causal functioning. Intrinsic nature, however, is an atemporal determinant of real existence. What determines a dharma’s spatio-temporal existence is its distinctive causal functioning: past and future dharmas have capability (sāmarthya) of functioning, while present dharmas also exert a distinctive activity (kāritra). Present activity is an internal causal efficacy that assists in the production of an effect within a dharma’s own consciousness series. It is this activity that determines a dharma’s present existence and defines the limits of the span of its present moment. Capability, by contrast, is a conditioning efficacy externally directed towards another consciousness series: it constitutes a condition that assists another dharma in the production of its own effect (Cox 2004A, 570–573; Williams 1981, 240–243). A dharma’s present activity arises and falls away, but past and future dharmas all have potential for causal functioning and exist as real entities due to their intrinsic nature. For the Sarvāstivāda, this model—which insists on constant change within the limits of the present moment and implies the existence of dharmas in the three time periods—preserves both the principle of impermanence yet explains continuity and causal efficacy.

Abhidharma

5. Causation: existence as functioning

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The Sarvāstivāda-Vaibhāṣika distinction between a dharma’s activity and capability implies that each dharma or consciousness moment effects the next moment within its series, but it can also act as a contributory condition towards producing a different sort of effect. Activity engenders the next moment within a dharma’s series, while capability generates a different effect and explains the causal efficacy of past dharmas. Williams (1981, 246–247) helpfully notes that we may render this “horizontal” and “vertical” causality, within a consciousness series and transcending it respectively. For example, an instant of visual awareness horizontally produces the next moment of visual awareness and may or may not, depending on other factors such as light and so on, vertically produce vision of the object. “It follows that to be present is to have horizontal causality, which may or may not include vertical causality—a fact which serves to remind us that we are dealing here with primary existents which are frequently positioned within the system in terms of what they do” (ibid). Thus activity or horizontal causality—a dharma’s function of precipitating the next moment of its own consciousness series—individuates that dharma as a particular event of its kind. A dharma’s capability or vertical causality, by which it facilitates the occurrence of other dharmas outside its consciousness series, locates it within the web of interrelations that connects it with the incessant rise and fall of other dharmas, and hence further individuates it as that very particular dharma by manifesting its unique quality and intensity of operation.

Abhidharma

5. Causation: existence as functioning

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The Saturāntika and the Theravāda developed alternative theories of causal conditioning in conjunction with their rejection of the Sarvāstivāda ontological model and their claim that dharmas exist only in the present. The Sautrāntika explained causal interaction among past and future dharmas by reference to the idea of “seeds” (bīja), or modifications in subsequent dharma series. The Sautrāntika theory of seeds is the precursor of two extremely important concepts of later Mahāyāna Buddhist thought, namely, the Yogācāra’s concepts of “store consciousness” (ālayavijñāna) and of Buddha-nature (tathāgatagarbha) (Cox 1995, 94–95; Gethin 1998, 222). The Theravāda theory of causal conditioning, as set out in the Paṭṭhāna, proposes a set of twenty-four conditional relations (paccaya) that account for all possible ways in which a phenomenon may function in conditioning the rise of another phenomenon. The twenty-four conditional relations are: 1) root cause (hetupaccaya); 2) object support; 3) predominance; 4) proximity; 5) contiguity; 6) simultaneity; 7) reciprocity; 8) support; 9) decisive support; 10) pre-existence 11) post-existence; 12) habitual cultivation; 13) karma; 14) fruition; 15) nutriment; 16) controlling faculty; 17) jhāna – a relation specific to meditation attainments; 18) path – a relation specific to the stages on the Buddhist path; 19) association; 20) dissociation; 21) presence; 22) absence; 23) disappearance; 24) non-disappearance.[15] The majority of the Theravāda twenty-four conditions have counterparts in the Sarvāstivāda theory and both systems show various other parallel interests and points of resemblance. The likelihood, then, is that the two systems originated before the two schools separated and continued to evolve after their separation (Conze 1962, 152–153; Kalupahana 1961, 173).

Abhidharma

5. Causation: existence as functioning

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

Their differences notwithstanding, both the Sarvāstivāda and the Theravāda theories of causal conditioning are based on the notions that dharmas are psycho-physical events that perform specific functions, and that to define what a dhamma is requires one to determine what it does (Gethin 1992A, 150). It turns out, then, that the relative positioning of each dharma within a network of causes and conditions is, first and foremost, a means for its individuation. Only in a subsidiary sense is this network an analysis of causal efficacy. What reappears here is the categorial dimension of the dharma analysis qua a metaphysical theory of mental events in terms of sameness of conditional relations. Analogous to the space-time coordinate system that enables one to identify and describe material objects, the network of conditional relations may be seen as a coordinate system that locates within it any given dharma, implying that to be a dharma is to be an event that has a place in that web of relations—an idea reminiscent of Donald Davidson’s principle of sameness of causes and effects as a condition of identity of events (2001 119–120 & 154–161). Two dharma instances of the same type would fit into the web of causal conditions in exactly the same way, but would then be distinguished as individual instances on the grounds of their unique degrees and modes of causal efficacy.

Abhidharma

6. Epistemology: Perception and the theory of the consciousness process

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

In attempting to account for what effects liberating insight and what makes up the awakened mind, Abhidharma inquiries extended into the field of epistemology. We have seen that the Abhidharma’s analysis of sentient experience reveals that what we perceive as a temporally extended, uninterrupted flow of phenomena is, in fact, a rapidly occurring sequence of causally connected consciousness moments or cittas (i.e., assemblages of citta and caitta/cetasika), each with its particular object. The mature Abhidharma thus assimilates the analysis of phenomena-in-time-as-constituted-by-consciousness with a highly complex description of the consciousness process, dissolving the causal relations between ordered successions of consciousness moments into the activity of perception. As previously noted in section 2, for the Abhidharma, as in Buddhist epistemology in general, sensory perception is the paradigm of perceptual, sentient experience. Like every instance of consciousness, sensory perception is intentional, encapsulated in the interaction among the sense faculties, their corresponding types of discriminative consciousness, and their appropriate sense objects. Different Buddhist schools, however, held different positions on the distinctive nature of perceptual experience, and on the specific roles of the sense faculties and status of sense objects in it. The Theravāda Abhidhamma and the Sarvāstivāda-Vaibhāṣika both espouse a view that proposes a direct contact between perceptual consciousness and its sense objects, the latter being understood as sensibilia, for what we perceive are not objects of common sense but their sensible qualities. We may characterize this view as phenomenalist realism (Dreyfus 1997, 331 & 336).

Abhidharma

6. Epistemology: Perception and the theory of the consciousness process

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The Theravāda Abhidhamma sets out its theory of the consciousness process (citta-vīthi) in its commentaries and manuals, mainly in the works of Buddhaghosa, Buddhadatta (5th century CE), and Anuruddha (10th or 11th century CE), based on earlier descriptions in the Dhammasaṅgaṇi and the Paṭṭhāna (Vism XIV 111–124, XVII 126–145; Dhs-a 82–106 & 267–287; Vibh-a 155–160; Abhidh-s 17–21). The theory is not separate from the dhamma taxonomy and the analysis of citta as previously outlined in section 2. Rather, in congruency with the notion of existence (whether categorial or ontological) as functioning, it analyzes sensory perception as resulting from particular functions that are performed by the eighty-nine citta types revealed by the foregoing taxonomy. According to this analysis, the specific functions in the consciousness flow occur at particular instants of that continuum, as the normal flow of consciousness involves the mind picking up and putting down sense objects by means of successive sets of associated mental factors. The result is a fairly static account of mental and material phenomena as they arise in consciousness over a series of consciousness moments.[16]

Abhidharma

6. Epistemology: Perception and the theory of the consciousness process

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

Restricting the account to the consciousness process of ordinary beings, two types of process are described: five-sense-door processes (pañcadvāra) and mind-door processes (manodvāra). These may occur in succession, or mind-door processes may occur independently. Five-sense-door processes account for sensory perception as information is directly received from the fields of the five physical sense faculties. Mind-door processes internalize the information received through the sense faculties and characterize the mind that is absorbed in thought or memory. Objects at the “door” of the mind, which is treated in Buddhist thought as a sixth sense faculty, may be past, present, or future, purely conceptual or even transcendent. Normally, however, the object at the mind door will be either a past memory or a concept. If there is no perceptual activity, as is the case in deep, dreamless sleep, the mind is in a state of rest called inactive mode (bhavaṅga). Throughout one’s life, the same type of citta performs this function of the inactive mind that is the natural mode to which the mind reverts. The mind switches from its inactive mode to a simple mind-door process when a concept or memory occurs and no attention is directed to the other five sense fields. The simplest mind-door process is a succession of the following functions: 1) adverting to the object of thought: a function that lasts one moment and becomes internalized as an object support; 2) impulsion: occurs for up to seven moments and performs the function of the mind’s responding actively to the object with wholesome or unwholesome karma; 3) retaining: holding on to the object of the consciousness process for one or two moments.

Abhidharma

6. Epistemology: Perception and the theory of the consciousness process

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The mind switches from its inactive mode to any of the five-sense-door processes when an object occurs at the “door” of the appropriate sense faculty. This process of sensory perception involves a greater number of functions: 1) disturbed inactive mind: a function that arises due to the stimulus of the sense object. It lasts for two moments, during which sensory contact takes place, i.e., a physical impact of the sense object on the physical matter of the appropriate sense faculty; 2) adverting: lasts one moment, during which the mind turns towards the object at the appropriate sense “door;” 3) perceiving: lasts one moment and is the sheer perception of the sense object with minimal interpretation; 4) receiving: lasts one moment and performs the intermediary role of enabling transit to and from the appropriate discriminative consciousness, whether visual, auditory, etc.; 5) investigating: lasts one moment and performs the role of establishing the nature of the sense object and of determining the mind’s response to that object that has just been identified; 6) impulsion: same as in the mind-door process; 7) retaining: same as in the mind-door process. As an example, visual perception involves not only seeing itself, but also a succession of moments of fixing of the visual object in the mind, recognition of its general features, and identification of its nature. In both the mind-door and five-sense door processes, the sense faculty and its sense object condition the arising of a present moment of a corresponding apprehending consciousness, that is, perception here is modeled on simultaneous conditioning. And in both the mind-door and five-sense door processes, when the retaining function ceases, the mind reenters its inactive mode.

Abhidharma

6. Epistemology: Perception and the theory of the consciousness process

abhidharma

First published Mon Aug 16, 2010; substantive revision Wed Jun 1, 2022

The consciousness types that perform most of the functions that make up the mind-door and the five-sense-door processes fall into the category of resultant cittas, that is, those that are the result of past actively wholesome or unwholesome consciousness. This means that the experience of the sense data presented to one’s mind is determined by one’s previous actions and is beyond of one’s immediate control. Whenever one remembers or conceptualizes, sees, hears, smells, tastes, or touches something that is desirable or pleasing, one experiences a result of previous wholesome consciousness. And vice versa with objects that are undesirable or unpleasing and previous unwholesome consciousness respectively. Only in the final stage of the consciousness process, when the mind has chosen to respond actively to its object in some way, actively present wholesome or unwholesome consciousness operates and constitutes karma that will bear future results. The Abhidhamma thus “provides an exact small-scale analysis of the process of dependent arising” (Gethin 1998, 216).