Rationalist-Irrationalist Dialectic in Buddhism: The Failure of Buddhist Epistemology By W. J. Whitman The problem of the one and the many is the core issue at the heart of all real philosophical and theological debates. It does not matter whether you are looking at Greek thinkers like Parmenides, Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus or if you are looking at Asian philosophers like Krishna and the Buddha. The central concern in all of philosophy is this one question: how does unity (the one) relate to diversity (the many)? We look at an individual human and identify him as a person. Nevertheless, we know that he is a composite creature. His body is composed of many different particles, cells, and organisms. What is the unifying principle? Why do we recognize the individual man as a unified person? Why is he not just a clump of matter? We perceive that both similarity (the one) and difference (the many) are necessary in order for us to think logically about the world around us. Even in common speech we differentiate between general/universal categories and particular/concrete instances of the general thing e.g. we distinguish between treeness in general and the particular tree that we are dealing with. We must maintain both principles the principle of the one and the principle of the many together if we are to continue to speak in any rational way. If we throw out the general categories, then we cannot say anything. What use would it be to talk about a tree if we had no agreement as to the essence of treeness in general? If this particular tree does not have something in common with all other trees, then it is quite irrational to refer to it as a tree. Yet if we throw out the particulars and only affirm the general category, we are led into an equally absurd position; for then we cannot distinguish this tree from that tree. It would then be impossible for me to say this tree has good fruit but that tree does not. So it appears that we must affirm the equal ultimacy of the one and the many. We cannot neglect or reject either principle without becoming totally irrational lunatics. This problem of the one and the many is quite important epistemologically because human knowledge comes from compare-and-contrast analyses. When we learn about something new, we compare it to other things that are similar (the one) and contrast it against things that are different (the many); and through this compare-and-contrast analysis we can come to understand something about the nature of the new object. If a system of thought is capable of affirming the equal ultimacy of the one and the many without confusing the two principles, then that system of thought is compatible with human logic. If that system of
though confuses the two principles by identifying them or by rejecting one of them, then that system of thought is incompatible with human logic. In essence, all systems of thought that do not affirm the equal ultimacy of the one and the many are manifestly irrational. It is my personal opinion that the Eastern Orthodox worldview is the only position in the world that does consistently maintain the equal ultimacy of the one and the many. The Orthodox worldview may be briefly summed up thus. There is an Absolute Rationality behind the universe. This Absolute Rationality is called God. God is simultaneously one and many: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Trinity, one in essence and undivided. 1 God is one in essence but three (many) persons. The Absolute Rationality is not first one and then three, but always one and three simultaneously. Neither principle is to be exalted above the other. The unity and the multiplicity are equally basic to His being. God eternally knows Himself through an eternal compare-andcontrast analysis by virtue of analyzing the similarities and differences within His own being. He does not, however, come to know Himself in time, as if He had to examine Himself and acquire knowledge; rather, being beyond time (i.e. eternal), He eternally knows Himself through an eternal analysis, so that the knowledge is eternal rather than temporal. His knowledge of Himself was not acquired temporally, but has always existed. God planned out and designed all of creation in His mind before He created the world. Within God s own mind He created categories within which particulars are classified. He dreamt up the general and the particular. He invented the category of treeness. This Triune God called this world into being in an act of will: He willed the world into existence. He created the world and all of the particular things in it. He created the individual trees, which are classified according to the categories that previously existed within the Divine Mind. The one and the many are equally ultimate because they are equally basic within the most absolute and ultimate entity, God. The epistemological categories of the one and the many in the lower world rest upon their foundation in the higher world, within the mind of God. When we think rationally about things in this world, we are not thinking about them for the first time we are merely thinking God s thoughts after Him. In other words, we are not looking at all the particular trees and then abstractly creating the category of trees by generalization; rather, we categorize trees within their genus according to a preconceived concept we place the particular tree within the category of treeness which already exists because God has created it within His own mind. We think analogically. The temporal one and 1 The Prayer of the Proskomide in the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom
many in this world relates analogically to the eternal one and many in the mind of God; and the eternal conceptual one and many within the mind of God is contingent upon the eternal ontological One and Many within the Trinity itself. Thus we conclude that all human cognition and predication rests solely on the Ontological Trinity as its sure foundation. And, as I said before, Orthodoxy is the only worldview that maintains the equal ultimacy of the one and the many, thereby affirming the validity of human rationality. The failure of Buddhist epistemology can easily be perceived when one contrasts it to the success of Christian epistemology. This is the reason that I have started a tract on Buddhist epistemology by first elaborating upon Christian epistemology. Buddhists, like all non-christians, do not affirm the equal ultimacy of the one and the many. Instead, they exalt the principle of the one and neglect the principle of the many. What s worse is that Buddhism goes so far as to assert that there is absolutely no difference between the one and the many. Buddhism makes the two principles identical. It affirms the principle of the one to such an extent that it unites the many to the one in a relationship of identity. This, as I noted above, leads to utter irrationalism. Human logic rests firmly upon the distinction between the one and the many. If the two principles are confused in any way, then communication, predication, and rational thought become impossible. The Zen Buddhist thinker Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki makes it clear that this one-and-many problem is a central concern of Buddhism. In fact, he asserts that passing from thinking in terms of the many (vijñāna) to thinking in terms of the one (prajñā) is quite essential for enlightenment. He writes: For INTUITION, Buddhists generally use prajñā and for reason, or discursive understanding, vijñāna. Vijñāna and prajñā are always contrasted. To divide is characteristic of vijñāna, while with prajñā it is just the opposite. Prajñā is an integrating principle The ātman is a unifying principle, and the idea is that, as long as all dharmas are conceived without any reference to that which unifies them, they are just disconnected parts, that is, they are non-existent. Prajñā is needed to make them coherent, articulate, and significant. Vijñāna without prajñā kills; it works for individualization, and, by making each individual disconnected with others, vijñāna
makes them all impermanent. It is by prajñā that all dharmas are observable from a unitive point of view and acquire a new life and significance. That prajñā underlies vijñāna, that it is what enables vijñāna to function as the principle of differentiation, is not difficult to realize when we see that differentiation is impossible without something that works for integration or unification. The dichotomy of subject and object cannot obtain unless there is something that lies behind them, something that is neither subject nor object; this is a kind of field where they can operate, where subject can be separated from object, object from subject. If the two are not related in any way, we cannot even speak of their separation or antithesis. There must be something of subject in object and something of object in subject which make their separation as well as their relationship possible. 2 So far Suzuki-sama, our expert in Buddhist epistemology, has not said anything controversial. All philosophers are agreed with him up to this point. We all agree that both unity and diversity similarity and difference are necessary in order for us to speak about things in any meaningful way. But Buddhist epistemology goes astray when it turns around and asserts: Prajñā is the ultimate reality itself 3 It fails to present a coherent epistemology precisely because it exalts the principle of the one (prajñā) over the principle of the many. In fact, it exalts the one to such an extent that it negates the many as a distinct principle. But as our minds always demand an interpretation, we may say this: not unity in multiplicity, nor multiplicity in unity; but unity is multiplicity and multiplicity is unity. In other words, prajñā is vijñāna, and vijñāna is prajñā; only this is to be immediately 2 Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki, Reason and Intuition in Buddhist Philosophy, I-II (in The Japanese Mind: Essentials of 3 Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki, Reason and Intuition in Buddhist Philosophy, IV (in The Japanese Mind: Essentials of
apprehended and not after a tedious and elaborate and complicated process of dialectic. 4 Buddhism fails to present a coherent epistemology because it ultimately denies the distinction between the epistemological categories of the one and the many. Therefore it can only ever lead to an agnostic position, with the adherent proclaiming I do not know. The monk wants to find out what the master will say concerning the relationship between the one and the many, between prajñā and vijñāna. To apprehend this no amount of philosophical argument helps, leading only to further confusion. Instead of indulging in epistemological procedures, I do not know sums up the essence of prajñā-intuition. The point is to understand what is not understandable, to know what is unknowable, wherein prajñā-intuition really consists. 5 The Buddhist cannot comprehend the relationship between the one and the many. Consequently, upon his own presuppositions he cannot know anything about anything. Again, Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki cites Seisho of Reiinzan monastery as saying, you erroneously see differences and unities where there are no differences and no unities. Just at this very moment your immediate apprehension of the mind is imperative, and then you will realize that it is vast emptiness and that there is nothing to see, nothing to hear. 6 Here we have stumbled upon the rationalist-irrationalist dialectic of which Cornelius van Til has warned us. We may understand this rationalist-irrationalist dialectic like this: there is a thesis, against which is asserted an antithesis. The thesis can be any particular proposition and the antithesis is a contradictory proposal. Within the Christian worldview, we would see these two things as contradictory and conclude that one of them is false. This is not necessarily the case in the non-christian worldview. The non-christian worldview may take the thesis (true 4 Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki, Reason and Intuition in Buddhist Philosophy, II (in The Japanese Mind: Essentials of 5 Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki, Reason and Intuition in Buddhist Philosophy, V (in The Japanese Mind: Essentials of 6 Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki, Reason and Intuition in Buddhist Philosophy, V (in The Japanese Mind: Essentials of
statement) and the antithesis (false statement) and combine them together into a synthesis (a totally irrational statement). This process of asserting a thesis, setting up an antithesis, and finally arriving at a synthesis is called dialectic. All non-christian worldviews involve this sort of dialectical way of thinking. Truth is not a coherent concept within most non-christian worldviews because the non-christian holds to a relativistic view and believes that two contradictory statements can be equally true. Because Buddhism boils down to this sort of rationalist-irrationalist dialectic, it is self-contradictory and self-refuting. The self-contradictory nature of Buddhist epistemology comes out clearly in the statement of Suzuki that follows: To understand the staff in the vijñāna way of thinking will allow only one of the two, negation or affirmation, and not both at the same time. It is different with prajñā-intuition. It will declare the staff to be a staff and at the same time not to be one. Vijñāna wants everything to be clear-cut and well defined, with no mixing of contradictory statements, which, however, prajñā nonchalantly overrides. Prajñā-intuition precludes [an antithesis of subject and object in the world of plurality]. No distinction is allowed here between the one and the many, the whole and the parts. When a blade of grass is lifted the whole universe is revealed there. Paradoxical statements are therefore characteristic of prajñā-intuition. As it transcends vijñāna, or logic, it does not mind contradicting itself; it knows that a contradiction is the outcome of differentiation, which is the work of vijñāna. Prajñā negates what it asserted before, and conversely; it has its own way of dealing with the world of dualities. The flower is red and notred; the bridge flows and not the river; the wooden horse neighs; the stone maiden dances. 7 7 Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki, Reason and Intuition in Buddhist Philosophy, I-II (in The Japanese Mind: Essentials of
The Buddhist rejects Christian logic. Christian logic says that A is A and that A is not non-a. This is commonly called the law of non-contradiction, but Francis Schaeffer calls this the logic of antithesis. The thesis (assertion) and the antithesis (contradiction) are incompatible and irreconcilable. Truth and falsehood are at odds with one another. Suzuki makes it quite clear that Buddhism rejects this type of logic. He writes: But prajñā, being the law of identity itself, demands no transferring from subject to object. Therefore, it swings the staff; sometimes it asserts; sometimes it negates and declares that A is not-a and therefore A is A. This is the logic of prajñāintuition. 8 According to the anti-christian logic of the Buddhist system, it is entirely possible for totally contradictory statements to be equally true. It is not just asserted that there are paradoxes it is not just stated that seemingly contradictory things can both be true but that two assertions that are actually contradictory can both be true. This is an absolute absurdity. There is a reason that modern science began in Christian lands. Science is based upon the presupposition that there is a difference between the true and the false. Historically, most non-christian civilizations have rejected that presupposition. Science as we know it is not even possible upon the religious presuppositions of the Far East. All the scientific achievements in the Far East are founded upon borrowed capital from the Christian worldview. 8 Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki, Reason and Intuition in Buddhist Philosophy, VI (in The Japanese Mind: Essentials of