Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction by Mark Siderits

Author:Mark Siderits
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Tags: Religion, Buddhism, Philosophy, ebook, Eastern
Publisher: Hackett Publishing
Published: 2012-01-09T05:00:00+00:00

6.4

We have been discussing the development of an Abhidharma ontology that is meant to replace both our common-sense conceptual scheme and the Nyāya system of categories. A key move in this development is the rejection of the idea of substance in favor of the idea of dharmas as property-particulars. But there is more to the rejection of substance than we have discussed so far. For the concept of substance has two distinct strands. One is the idea of substance as property-possessor. This is what is expressed in our use of the subject-predicate form. When we describe the pot, for instance, we say, ‘The pot is round’, first introducing the subject, the pot, and then predicating a property of it, being round. This idea is also expressed in the Nyāya claim that qualities, universals and individuators all inhere in substances. A second strand, though, is the idea of substance as something that endures. This is expressed in the ordinary use of the word ‘substantial’ to mean something that will last. We can also see it at work in the Nyāya claim that simple substances must be eternal. Now these two strands come together in the claim that substances persist through qualitative change. When we think of some one thing, the pot, as first being white and then later being red, we are thinking of the pot both as a property-possessor and as something that endures. It is by combining the two strands that we get a solution to the problem of change. We have to think of the pot as something that has a variety of properties, and we must also think of it as something that persists from one time to another, if we are to think of it as having the property of being white at one time, and then losing that property and acquiring the different one of being red at another time. Our discussion so far has focused on the rejection of substance as property-possessor. But when we employ the concept of substance, we are also committed to the view that at least some existing things endure. Abhidharma claims the only ultimately existing things are dharmas. We have seen that dharmas are not property-possessors. But might they endure?

To ask if dharmas could endure is not to ask if any dharmas could be eternal. Sautrāntikas deny this. (Theravādins and Vaibhāsikas allow a few minor exceptions.) They believe the Buddha was right to claim that everything is impermanent. But as we saw earlier (in Chapter 3), something might be impermanent and still last for some time. The question is whether dharmas could exist for more than a moment, whether they could persist from one moment to the next. We think of a pot as something that, while clearly impermanent, can last for a while. Abhidharma tells us there really is no pot, just the bundle of dharmas to which we have attached the convenient designator ‘pot’. Among these is the red color that comes into existence when the so-called pot is fired.

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