Hello all,
The Yogachara school maintains that consciousness alone is real and the external world does NOT exist. Vasubandhu was a Yogachara Buddhist-idealist. He authored "20 verses on consciousness-only" which is an interesting read in itself. In that, he uses the following argument in an attempt to establish that the external world does not exist.
(1)In cognitive experience, for instance in dreams, the objects we experience appear "as external".
(2)What appears "as external" does not truly exist. For instance, the dream experience is sublated by waking experience.
(3)The waking experience is a cognitive experience.
(4)What appears "as external" in waking experience, therefore, does not exist.
Advaitins themselves are anti-realist, and thus it is interesting to see how they would respond to the above argument. The following argument is advanced to point out the mistake with the above argument.
(a)A horse is a 4-legged animal.
(b)A horse does not have horns.
(c)A cow is a 4-legged animal.
(d)Therefore, a cow does not have horns.
Clearly, the above is fallacious. Why? The concept of "horn"hood is unestablished. It would not remain unestablished if one were to see a horned cow. What is intended to be established is whether cows have horns or not. Hence, one cannot observe similarities between cows and horses on other issues and conclude that the similarities extend to the possession of horns also. Likewise, the Yogachara Buddhist should clearly explain what it means to say that something appears "as external". Merely observing the similarities between the waking state and the dreaming state, he cannot hastily conclude that they are similar with respect to the lack of existence of external objects.
Note that the Advaitin's position is that the existence of the external world can neither be proven to be true or false. It is inexplicable. We can assume it exists for epistemic advance (for the sake of discussion, debates, argumentation, scripture, etc.) but it is sublated by Brahman knowledge. An analogy provided by the Advaitin regarding the usage of scripture for soteriological purposes is that one needs a thorn to remove another thorn. Once the other thorn is removed, both thorns can be discarded.
Beginning Brahmasutra Bhashya 2:2:29 are other arguments by Shankara.
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