Buddhist Non-conceptualism: Building a Smart Border Wall

Abstract

Ever since Dignaga drew his bright line between conceptually mediated inference (anumana) and concept-free perception (PS 1.3c), there have been efforts to erase it and make cross-border traffic in concepts (vikalpa) perfectly legitimate.¹ If we understand conceptualization as a mental operation of abstraction that yields knowledge of general, repeatable features or commonalities and facilitates such cognitive operations as categorization, inference, and analogical thought, then we can add Kant to the list of prominent critics of Dignaga's border wall. Here I shall first describe how this wall was built, then present some of the cracks that soon appeared. I then explore some ways of resolving the tension between Dignaga's strict dichotomy and its critics, both classical and more recent.