Milinda’s Questions

This is by the Dalai Lama:

The reason why we find so much discussion of epistemology, or how to define something as a valid cognition, in Buddhist writings is because all our problems, suffering and confusion derive from a misconceived way of perceiving things. This explains why it is so important for a practitioner to determine whether a cognitive event is a misconception or true knowledge. For it is only by generating insight which sees through delusion that we can become liberated.

Even in our own experience we can see how our state of mind passes through different stages, eventually leading to a state of true knowledge. For instance, our initial attitude or standpoint on any given topic might be a very hardened misconception, thinking and grasping at a totally mistaken notion. But when that strong grasping at the wrong notion is countered with reasoning, it can then turn into a kind of lingering doubt, an uncertainty where we wonder: “Maybe it is the case, but then again maybe it is not.” That would represent a second stage.

When further exposed to reason or evidence, this doubt of ours can turn into an assumption, tending towards the right decision. However, it is still just a presumption, just a belief. When that belief is yet further exposed to reason and reflection, eventually we could arrive at what is called ‘inference generated through a reasoning process’. Yet that inference remains conceptual, and it is not a direct knowledge of the object.

Finally, when we have developed this inference and constantly familiarized ourselves with it, it could turn into an intuitive and direct realization - a direct experience of the event. So we can see through our own experience how our mind, as a result of being exposed to reason and reflection, goes through different stages, eventually leading to a direct experience of a
phenomenon or event.

I suppose it’s commendable that His Holiness tries to make complex teachings from the Buddhist tradition accessible to a wide Western audience without getting too much into the technicalities of Sanskrit and Tibetan terminology and the like. Something like this, though, just begs for a more sophisticated explanation. “An inference generated through a reasoning process”: that’s got to be a translation of some technical term in Sanskrit. And there are some readers, like me, who would be benefitted by knowing what it is.

Still, let’s try to decipher what’s going on here. The text describes several stages in an epistemic process. Seems to me that they are:

Stage 1: X believes that p.

Stage 2A: X thinks of reasons why p might not be the case; that is, X entertains one or more beliefs q, each of which entails the falsity of p.
Stage 2B: X withholds judgment on the truth of p (X thinks “p might or might not be the case.”).

Stage 3: X assumes that q.

Stage 4: X arrives at good (inferential) reasons for believing that q.

Stage 5. X directly perceives the truth of q.
Religion and Philosophy