Direct Sensory Awareness: A Tibetan View and a Medieval Counterpart

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Direct Sensory Awareness: A Tibetan View and a Medieval Counterpart

By A. Charlene McDermott

Philosophy East and West

Vol. 23, No. 3 (1973) pp. 343-360

Copyright 1973 by University of Hawaii Press

Hawaii, USA

P. 343

Rgyal-tshab on dbang po.hi mngon sum with Comparative Cross-References to Nicholas of Autrecourt's cognitio clara et evidens

I. Introduction
At first blush an examination of the common features of the epistemological theories of Nicholas of Autrecourt (the Parisian Master whose writings, allegedly evincing "vulpine subterfuge," were condemned in 1346) and Rgyal-tshab (the late fourteenth to early fifteenth century Tibetan philosopher whose glosses on Dharmakiirti's logical writings are the most profoundly original in the entire Tibetan tradition) would appear to have as much point as an inquiry into the teeth of a crow. [1] And since, until recently, all that popular imagination could attach to Nicholas' fractured reputation was the epithet "the medieval Hume," [2] this investigation, if not a mere Sisyphean caprice, might then seem to be still another (albeit more exotic) contribution to the current spate of rapprochements and pseudo-rapprochements between the Humean and Buddhist theories of knowledge. [3] Now, while it is true that Nicholas' philosophical explorations do lead him to a Hume-like rejection of the standard proofs for causality, substance, and (some would say) the soul, [4]

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Author's Note: The research for this study was supported by an NEH Younger Humanistic Fellowship.

1. A kaakadantapariik.saa (Nyaayabindu of Dharmakiirti with Dharmottara's commentary, Theodore Stcherbatsky's Sanskrit ed., Bibliotheca Buddhica VII, 2.22-23) is, qua investigation of unexisting teeth, paradigmatic of futility. In referring to this passage, Rgyal-tshab also cites such an investigation as wholly devoid of purpose, "rog gi so tog pa ltar dgos pa cung zad kyang med na," p. A5-3 of Rgyal-tshab's rigs thigs .hgrel ba or Nyaayabindu commentary. Hereafter cited as RTG.

2. J. Lappe's Nicolaus von Autrecourt vol. 4 (Munster: Beitraege zur Geschichte der philosophie des Mittelalters, 1908) and J. R. O'Donnell's "The Philosophy of Nicholas of Autrecourt and His Appraisal of Aristotle," Mediaeval Studies 4 (1942): 97-125, have helped to clear Nicholas' name of over five hundred years of accumulated esclandre. Since then, even though we possess only fragments of many of Nicholas' writings, his much maligned doctrines have begun to receive the attention they deserve. See, for example, J. Weinberg, Nicolaus of Autrecourt ( Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1948); E. Moody's translation of Nicholas' letters to Bernard of Arezzo in Herman Shapiro, ed., Medieval Philosophy: Selected Readings from. Augustine to Buridan (New York: Modern Library, 1964), pp. 510-526; T. K. Scott, "Nicholas of Autrecourt, Buridan and Ockhamism, "Journal of the History of Philosophy" 9 (1971); 15-41; L. Kennedy, R. Arnold, and A. Millward, The Universal Treatise of Nicholas of Autrecourt, Medieval Text in Translation, no. 20 (Milwaukee, Wisc.: Marquette University Press, 1971), a translation of Nicholas' chief extant work, the so-called Exigit Ordo (see footnote 9).

3. See L. Stafford Betty's "The Buddhist-Humean Parallels: Postmortem," Philosophy East and West 21, no. 3:237-253. While I generally share Mr. Betty's misgivings about the value of cross-cultural errantry, I list as mitigating circumstances in this particular instance: (1) a bumper crop of prima facie similarities; (2) beyond a certain point, some metaphysical tenets supervenient in Nicholas' writings which are antithetical to those of Dharmakiirtian Buddhism; (3) the need to dispel my puzzlement over Nicholas' seeming abrupt volte-face.

4. Of greater significance than these similarities, it seems to me, is the fact that Nicholas, as a tireless pursuer of William of Ockham's premises to their (unsettling) logical consequences, stands to the Ockhamist tradition in much the same relationship as Hume does to the Locke-initiated British empiricism. Nicholas has also been misleadingly dubbed an "Ockhamist." He is not really an Ockhamist any more than he is a Humean. For one thing, Nicholas subscribes to a theory of real Platonic essences, while Ockham is a nominalist. Other differences between their philosophies emerge in part. IV herein.

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it is equally true that Nicholas' soteriological motives, his methods of training definitions and conducting analyses, and his ultimate conclusions, are a far cry from anything to be found in Hume and, in many respects, are tantalizingly close to those of the Buddhist logicians.

The Rgyal-tshab-Dharmakiirti theory of direct awareness (mngon sum) is the focal point of this article. References to Nicholas are parenthetical inserts, which function primarily to set Rgyal-tshab's thoughts in clearer relief and to enliven my novitiate as an interpreter of Tibetan Buddhist logic. Nor is what follows more than a first step at exploit ion, thus neither exhaustive nor conclusive; it is a collection of disjecta membra severed from the corpus of a translation and analysis of Rgyal-tshab's RTG. [5]

Rgyal-tshab says on B3-6 to A4-1 of RTG:

As gold which is burned, pierced and beaten, so is the word of the Buddha, which is clarified if well expanded [upon]. Not because of devotion [alone] is it rendered acceptable. Thus it is said. Rather, it is purified in [the course of] a logical investigation of the real efficacy of things in the first and second sections which treat of objects of cognition, and further [purified] in [relation to] the chapter which teaches about that which transcends ordinary empirical cognition. [6]

In the above, just one version of the well-known Buddhist requirement that canonical writings be subjected to a three-fold testing, there is implicit a distinction between:

(1) discourse whose subject matter is amenable to verification by ordinary empirical means of cognition: (a) direct or unmediated (Tib. mngon sum, Skt. pratyak.sa) [7] or (b) indirect or inferential (Tib. rjes su dpag pa, Skt. anumaana);

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5. Herein, Rgyal-tshab makes frequent allusions to Dharmottara's commentary and to the more extensive treatments of the same epistemological themes found in Dharmakiirti's Pramaa.navini`scaya. The Nyaayabindu and the Pramaa.navini`scaya, taken together with Dharmakiirti's master work, the Pramaa.navaarttika, are said to comprise the body of a theory of mains of cognition (Tib. tshad ma, Skt. pramaa.na); four minor treatises of Dharmakiirti are regarded as its clarificatory limbs, ("lus de dag gi cha shas gsal bar byed pa ni," RTG A3-2.), making a total of seven treatises on the means of valid cognition (Tib. tshad ma sde bdun po). See p. 73 of F. Lessing and A. Wayman, Mkhas Grub Rje's Fundamentals of the Buddhist Tantras (The Hague: Mouton, 1968) for the position of these "logical" treatises in relation to the other Buddhist `saastras.

6. "bsregs bcad brdang ba.hi gser bzhin du. legs par brta gsal ba yi bka.h. blang bar bya yi gus phyir min. zhes gsungs pa ltar. gzhal bya.hi gnas dang po gnyis dngos po stobs zhugs kyi rigs pas dpyad pa dag par byed pa dang. shin tu lkog gyur ston pa.hi skabs la yang."

7. The three empirical subspecies of mngon sum are listed later.

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(2) discourse about that which, while transcending such means (Tib. shin tu lkog gyur, Skt. atyantaparok.sa), must nonetheless conform to minimal standards of consistency, in that there cannot be a blatant contradiction between it and the empirically given. [8]

A similar and oft expressed need for rigorous scrutiny is to be found in Nicholas' works. For while he exhorts us in the Exigit Ordo (p. 187, 33-4) to hold to the law of Christ (in view of the shifting sands of probability on which philosophical truth rests), [9] later in the same treatise we find the following assertion: "God knows not from love of glory [have I been motivated to rectify erroneous opinions], but because I believe that through a search based on principles, truth will reign in the soul and there will not be room for falsehood any longer." [10] These remarks (representative of similar assertions In the Exigit Ordo) are perfectly compatible with one another (nor does their combined effect justify reproach on grounds of cynicism or subterfuge). They merely point to a hierarchical ordering of means to essentially spiritual ends. Taken in juxtaposition with Rgyal-tshab's comment earlier, they provide some indication of the fact that we have here a pair of thinkers whose philosophizing is perennial rather sciental, to adopt Conze's useful terminology. [11]

No overtones of credulity or illogicality ought to be read into this characterization. On the contrary, both Nicholas and Rgyal-tshab are interested in squaring the domain of the empirically cognizable with all that lies beyond its limits. They share a healthy regard for the utility of analytic techniques

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8. For apprehending at least part of what lies beyond the ambit of ordinary experience, special variety of mngon sum is required. This is called yogic direct awareness or yogic "intuition" (Tib. rnal .hbyor mngon sum). On the basis of this intuition, one can then go on to deduce the fact of the absence of contradiction.

9. "Adhaereamus quoque legi Christi..." The pagination is that of the only extant Latin edition of the work published by J. O'Donnell in "Philosophy of Nicholas of Autrecourt," Mediaeval Studies I (l939): 179-280. Although the treatise is entitled Incipit Tractatus Universalis Magistri Nicholai De Ultricuria ad Videndum an Sermones Peripateticorum Fuerint Demonstrativi, it is usually referred to as the Exigit Ordo, its first three words being "Satis exigit ordo..."

10. "Scit Deus non amore gloriae, sed quia credo quod per inquisitionem ex principiis regnabit veritas in anima et amplius non erit locus falsitati." True, in this context his critical fire turns out to be directed toward Aristotle, but Nicholas does not hesitate to subject the doctrines of his fellow believers (especially Aquinas and Ockham -- see Exigit Ordo 259, 266, and 267) to the same careful examination.

11. "Until about 1450, as branches of the same 'perennial philosophy,' Indian and European philosophers disagreed less among themselves than with many of the later developments of European philosophy." E. Conze, "Buddhist Philosophy and its European Parallels," Philosophy East and West 13, no. 2 (Apr. 1963): 9-23. Conze goes on to define "perennial philosophy" as a doctrine holding that there is a hierarchy of persons, a hierarchy of levels of reality, a transempirical wisdom, and an authoritative basis for true teaching which "legitimizes itself by the exemplary life and charismatic quality of its exponents" (cf., Conze, p. 12).

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(within their proper sphere of application) and both adhere to well-defined standards of consistency. For the Buddhist logician, all tshad mas, or means of valid cognition, must ipso facto yield noncontradictory certitude, else they are self-vitiating and therefore not means of cognition at all. [12] Likewise for Nicholas, the principle of noncontradition is the basis for all empirical means of attaining cognitive certitude. [13] Moreover (and this, though not a great deal more, Nicholas holds in common with the Ockhamist tradition), even God cannot abrogate the law of noncontradition. [14] It is an interlevel law, binding on what is transempirically apprehendable, at least to the minimal extent that nothing in the supernatural order can stand in contradiction to what is correctly given in the natural order. A similar requirement pervades Dharmakiirti-based Buddhist thought. [15]

II. Definitions of Terms
The remainder of our discussion moves chiefly on an empirical plane, [16] (Tib. .hjig rten), on what Rgyal-tshab would call tha snyad, or the level of ordinary thinking and speaking. We shall concentrate on (a) the direct -- in contradistinction to (b) the indirect or inferential -- means of cognition, [17] with a further restriction to the specifically sensory mode of direct awareness. First Rgyal-tshab adverts to Dharmakiirti's Pramaa.navini`scaya, which gives the following definiens (Tib. mtshan nyid) for mngon sum in general as definiendum (Tib. mtshon bya):

Because one is obliged to accept as explained that direct awareness (mngon sum) is cognition free from conceptual construction, apprehending what is capable of being commingled [that is, "of coalescing with a verbal designation," to use Stcherbatsky's words], arising from fixed propensities [Tib. bag chags, Skt. vaasanaa], having the purpose of attaining non-contradictory [Tib. mi slu ba, Skt. avisa.mvaadin] certainty... [18]

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12. "des na tshad ma ni. yul dus rnam pa .hgal ba la mi slu bar .hgyur mi srid par shes par bya.ho." RTG A.7-2.

13. See E. Moody's translation of Nicholas' letters to Bernard in H. Shapiro, Medieval Philosophy, pp. 517-518.

14. "Deus autem potest omne illud facere quod fieri non includit contradictionem." Ockham's Le Tractatus de principiis theologiae, Attribue a G. d'Occam, L. Baudry, ed., (Paris: J. Vrin. 1936), p. 46.

15. See RTG A11-5. See also, Theodore Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic, 2 vols. (reprint ed., New York: Dover, 1962), 1:77.

16. Level I as delineated on pp. 344-345.

17. For the Buddhist logicians, as is well known, there are only two means of valid cognition: direct awareness (or mngon sum) and inference (rjes su dpag pa). About one-fifth of the Nyaayabindu (cum Dharmottara's .tiikaa is given over to the former, while the remainder of the treatise deals with the latter. In RTG, the proportions are one-third and two-thirds, respectively.

18. "nges par mi slu bar khas len dgos pa.hi bag chags brtan pa las byung ba.hi .hdres rung .hdzin pa.hi rtog pa dang bral ba.hi shes pa mngon sum du bshad pa ltar khas len dgos pa.hi phyir ro" RTG B11-2 to B11-3. This, is a Yogaacaara-oriented definition. Note that "mi slu ba" (here translated as "noncontradictory") is not to be equated, as it is by certain commentators, with "ma .hkrul ba," which figures in the definition immediately following this one. The former means literally "not misapprehending the putative object of cognition," and hence constitutes a. requirement to which all tshad mas or means of valid cognition must necessarily conform. The latter, meaning "nonillusory," ought not to be included in a proper definition of the tshad ma direct awareness, at least according to Dignaaga and his followers (see footnote 20).

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Elsewhere in the Pramaa.navini`scaya (252 b3) and again in the Nyaayabindu (page 6.15 of Stcherbatsky's Sanskrit edition, Bibliotheca Buddhica VII; page 1.8 of the Tibetan translation in the same series) a slightly different and streamlined form of the definition of mngon sum is given as follows: "Direct awareness is free from conceptual construction and non-illusory." [19] Still more succinct is the definition framed by Dharmakiirti's predecessor and spiritual father Dignaaga, which, of course, omits even the qualification non-illusory. [20]

The explication of direct sensory awareness now emerges as just one from among a tetrad of special subcases of mngon sum. [21] ("mngon sum de ni chos can rnam pa bzhi ste..." RTG A13-2 to A13-3).

(i) As for dbang po.hi mngon sum or direct sensory awareness, in anticipation of a fuller discussion presented (after we merely note here that this subspecies of direct awareness is said to be "that which assesses outward appearances (Skt. ruupa), etc." [22]

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19. "de la mngon sum ni rtog pa dang bral zhing ma .hkhrul ba.ho. (In Sanskrit this reads: "tatra pratyak.sam kalpanaapo.dhamabhraantam.")

20. See the penetrating discussion on the controversies engendered by Dharmakiirti's addition (at least for purposes of discussion in Nyaayabindu, Ch. I) of the characteristic "non-illusory" to Dignaaga's definition of direct awareness, in Masaaki Hattori, Dignaaga on Perception, Harvard Oriental Series, no. 47 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), pp. 96-97. (Some might even deem it an atavistic addition, for the reason that the characteristic "nonillusory" was first mentioned by Dignaaga's predecessor Asa^nga.) The crux of the matter is that for philosophers of a more pronounced Yogaacaara persuasion, all empirical knowledge is, in the long run, illusory, being engendered by a beginningless transcendental illusion (Tib. phug gyi .hkhrul ba, Skt. mukhyavibhrama). But some philosophers feel that the distinction between ordinary empirical illusions and this pervasive primordial illusion is worth stating explicitly, and with it the demand that valid direct empirical knowledge be free of errors due to temporary causes (Tib. phral gyi .hkhrul ba, Skt. pratibhaa.sikii bhraanti).

21. N.B: A division into four subspecies is made but only relative to a certain purpose, (RTG A13-4). By way of contrast, in contemporary Western (nonphenomenological) philosophical circles, a discussion of ordinary sense perception would exhaust the topic of direct awareness. Note that while Buddhist treaties on direct awareness often include an etymological analysis of pratyak.sa (the Sanskrit equivalent of the term), Dharmottara cautions us against utilizing this unduly restrictive description (namely, "that which occurs in close connection with each sense faculty") as the basis for an adequate definition of the word, as indeed some of the non-Buddhist philosophical schools have done.

22. gzugs la sogs pa .hjal ba.hi dbang po.hi mngon sum" RTG B10-3.

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Next, Rgyal-tshab, following Dharmakiirti, lists two kinds of interior direct awareness.

(ii) yid kyi mngon sum (This is sometimes translated as "mental sensation.") It is a "second-order" awareness, the attempt to treat systematically the cognizer's felt awareness of his awareness of an "external" object. Since neither Rgyal-tshab nor Dharmottara before him attempts to prove its existence, it has the status of a mere theoretical construct. As an intended bridge between the intuitive or sensory and the conceptual, it is the functional analog of Kant's "schematism," and, like the Kantian device, it probably engenders more problems than it solves. [23]

(iii) rang rig mngon sum or so-called self-awareness, is the direct apprehension of one's mental states of anger, desire, pleasure, pain, and the like. [24]

Finally, we merely mention the fourth item in Rgyal-tshab's catalog:

(iv) rnal .hbyor mngon sum, extraordinary or Yogic direct awareness, so-called yogic intuition, which, though it is a bona fide species of direct awareness, [25] lies beyond the scope of our present investigation. Turning now to Nicholas, for whom clear and evident cognition constitutes the grounds for certitude, [26] we find the following classification of objects amenable to evident cognition (whereas, in the essentially similar scheme immediately above, Rgyal-tshab lists means of valid cognition).

(iv') That which can be known with the certitude provided by faith, along

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23. See T. Stcherbatsky's Buddhist Logic, vol. 2, appendix III, "The Theory of Mental Sensation," which includes heuristic diagrams and Tibetan and Sanskrit source materials (translated into English) on mental sensation.

24. The mesmerizing effect of figurative language (namely, consciousness as a self-illuminating lamp) here stands as an obstacle, at least so it seems to me, to the construction of adequate theories of both (ii) and (iii). For criticism in another vein, see N. J. Shah Akala^nka's Criticism of Dharmakiirti's Philosophy. (Ahmedabad: Lalbhai Dalpatbha Institute of Indology, 1967), especially pp. 200-228.

25. For more on the Buddhist characterization of yogic intuition as a type of mngon sum or pratyak.sa, see J~naana`sriimiitra's Yoginir.nayaprakara.na, J~naana`sriimitranibandhaavali, Patna: Kashi Prasad Jayaswal Research Institute, 1959, pp. 333-343.

26. For example, "Cum aliquis habet cognitionem claram et evidentem complexi quod sic habeat et etiam percipit se habere talem cognitionem claram et evidentem, tunc dicit quod est certus" Exigit Ordo, 235 (12-14). See also Exigit Ordo 235 (25-38). N.B.: There seems to be a progressive weakening of the import of what it means to be certain. Scott in his "Nicholas of Autrecourt, Buridan and Ockhamism," p. 23) notes that "certitude, meaning" justified true belief, "appears to have been synonymous, in Nicholas' earlier writing, with "knowledge," in the strictest sense of the word. Later, however, "certitude" seems to mean mere "justified belief," which Nicholas concludes is the most our unaided natural reason can afford us. More about this in our examination of Nicholas' "probabilism" below.

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with what will be given in the "beatific vision" in the life to come, together correspond very roughly to what is cognizable by Yogic intuition in the Buddhist system. [27]

Regarding the so-called certitude of evidence (the tha snyad level of part II), Nicholas informs us that "the following are evident, properly speaking:

(a') as concerns the incomplex [corresponding to what is apprehended by mngon sum in the Buddhist listing],
(i') sensible objects,
(ii") and (iii') conscious acts;

(b') as for the complex [the analog to what is cognized by indirect or inferential means in Buddhist logic], analytic principles and their logical consequences." [28]

More about (a')-(i') in part III (a')-(ii') and (iii') are one's interior awarenesses of his own cognitive and emotive acts. [29] (b') need not detain us further, save to remark that Nicholas circumscribes the class of valid inferences much more narrowly than does Rgyal-tshab-Dharmakiirti. [30]

The above conspectus does nor pretend to have established a point-for-point correspondence of detail between the epistemological theories of Rgyal-tshab and Nicholas. Rather, it is an overview, which shows the broad general agreement of their definitions to this point (and since Nicholas' are the most rudimentary of the two, he cannot be said to agree explicitly with Rgyal-tshab, or to disagree for that matter, on certain important but subordinate matters).

One final general comment. As concerns the matter of errors which occur in cognizing sensible objects, Nicholas' views are closer to those of Dignaaga than they are to those of Rgyal-tshab-Dharmakiirti. [31]

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27. One very obvious difference, among many others I cannot, here detail, is that the beatific vision, unlike Yogic intuition, is unavailable to us in statu viae. For an appraisal of the rule of faith in Nicholas' life and work see J. R. O'Donnell, "The Philosophy of Nicholas of Autrecourt," Medieval Studies 4 (1942).

28. "Haec vero proprie sunt evidential: objecta sensibilia, actus quos [experimur] in nobis, et hoc quantum ad incomplexa; quantum vero ad complexa principia nota ex terminis et conclusiones dependentes ex eis." Exigit Ordo 235 (6-9).

29. There are many allusions in the Exigit Ordo to acts in ourselves cognizing the cognizing, for example on 235 (12-14) and 246 (30-31). Weinberg's Nicolaus of Autrecourt contains a critical evaluation of interior awareness. See especially pp. 22-30 and pp. 102-113.

30. A valid inference is, for Nicholas, ultimately reducible to the principle of noncontradiction (see Weinberg's summary of Nicholas' second letter to Bernard of Arezzo, pp. 17-18). This corresponds to what the Nyaayabindu refers to as an inference in which the probandum is connected with the probans by reason of their self-identity (Tib. rang bzhin, Skt. svabhaava). But there is no analog in Nicholas' theory for inference based on a causal connection between probandum and probans (see Nyaayabindu, p. 21.17).

31. According to one interpretation of Dignaaga, errors accrue only to the perceptual judgment which follows in the wake of direct sensory awareness, as, for example, in the case of a coiled rope mistakenly adjudged to be a snake. The sensory awareness itself is cognitively neutral, properly speaking. It is neither erroneous nor nonerroneous because not within the range of applicability of the predicate pair "erroneous-non-erroneous" (see M. Hattori, Dignaaga on Perception, pp. 95-97). Nicholas concurs with this "generation of vipers" approach to the problem. [See Exigit Ordo, pp. 230-232. Note especially the top of page 230, where Nicholas says: "From the preceding, therefore, the proposed conclusion seems probable, that while acts of judging and assenting may be false, acts of appearing may not ultimately be so." ("Ex praedictis igitur videtur probabailis conclusio proposita ut licet actus judicandi et assentiendi stent cum falsitate, actus ultimate apparentiae non.")] Dharmakiirti would insist that, in addition to the possibility of erroneous judgments, errors can also occur on the level of pure sensation. When it comes to the matter of oneiric awareness, both the Exigit Ordo and the Nyaayabindu (cum commentary) mention, but fail to explain satisfactorily, the difficulties involved in distinguishing dream from veridical sensations. (see Exigit Ordo 229 (40-50) and 231 (21-24); see also Stcherbatsky's Buddhist Logic, p. 9.)

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Picking up the main thread of our investigation, let us attempt to refine the definition given earlier. Later in part III, we shall clarify it further by means of an illustrative example (Tib. mtshon gzhi). For Rgyal-tshab-Dharmakiirti, only the first indeterminate moment of direct awareness, the initial registering or taking account of data, puts us in touch with reality; for its object is the momentary fluxion of energy (Tib. rang gi mtshan nyid, Skt. svalak.sa.na), which alone is ultimately real, according to Buddhist logic. [32] As such, mngon sum comprises the cognitive foundation upon which subsequent constructive judgmental synthesis can proceed. [33] And the specifically sensory variety of direct awareness, qua "concept-free nonillusory cognition apprehending outward appearances" ("rtog pa dang bral zhing ma .hkhrul ba gzugs .hdzin dbang po.hi shes pa...," [34] is the logical prerequisite for our determinate perceptual judgments, which, in turn constitute the groundwork of human knowledge.

[Rgyal-tshab goes on to detail the resolution of the process of apprehension into a tripartite set of conditions, namely, the very aspect (Skt. aakaara) of the object, the specific sensory capacity to apprehend the object, and consciousness itself.] [35]

In the Ockhamist tradition, from which Nicholas takes his inspiration (and departure), we find an almost verbatim agreement with the foregoing description. "An actus apprehensivus must precede an actus iudicativus, thus showing that intuitive cognition (which is an actus apprehensivus) is the basis for our assent to judgments..." [36] And intuitive cognition, in Ockham's view,

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32. See RTG A16-1 to A16-6. "mngon sum rnam pa bzhi po de.hi gzung yul ni chos can. rang gi mtshan nyid yin te..."

33. See Nyaayabindu, 12.14-19 (Tibetan trans., p. 49).

34. RTG B13-3.

35. See RTG B13-3A to B13-4. "de ma thag rkyen gsum gis lag rjes gsum ga skyed mod kyi rang rang gi thun mong ma yin pa.hi lag rjes ni. rim pa bzhin du yul gyi rnam pa.hi cha dang. yul .hdzin nus kyi cha dang myong ba.hi cha rnams so."

36. S. Day, Intuitive Cognition, A Key to the Significance of the Latter Scholastics, (New York: Saint Bonaventure University Press, 1947), p. 146. In Ockham's own words, "omnis actus iudicativus praesupponit in eadem potentia notitiam incomplexam terminorum quia praesupponit actum apprehensivum, et actus apprehensivus respectu alicuius complexi praesupponit notitiam incomplexam terminorum..." from the Prologue to Ockham's Ordinatio T, 1-7, p. 18, quoted by Day on p. 151.

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constitutes our means of apprehending individual existences; it yields our sole access to "the existential qualifications of things, their hic et nunc." [37] Now while Nicholas' positive theories have to be gleaned piecemeal from contexts primarily polemical, [38] it is clear from the passage quoted in footnote 31, that Nicholas, too, distinguishes an act of judging from what he terms "an act of appearing." Moreover, at least, insofar as Nicholas views "the means of judging to be the appearances themselves ... this foundation [of judging, that is to say, a change in form in the appearances...," [39] he is in agreement, mutatis mutandis, with Rgyal-tshab and with Ockham. For, as is noted on page 231 (7)-(8) of the Exigit Ordo, "we can state nothing with certainty unless in relation to the light or appearance in our possession." [40]

Besides putting sensation in a privileged position psychologically (a move which would be scored by twentieth century Gestalt theorists), the Buddhists (and the "Ockhamists" as well) are open to the charge of mythologizing, in that they tacitly regard "perceiving as a process, the mechanics of which includes sensation." [41] This, by conjuring up dubious metaphysical happenings, is an irritant to the ontological sensibilities of contemporary Anglo-Saxon linguistic philosophers. [42]

Though the mngon sum chapter of the Nyaayabindu and the gloss on it in the RTG are often more than merely suggestive of the above, they do admit of

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37. Ibid., p. 149. (It goes without saying that "individual existence" in Ockham's sense is not to be equated with the Buddhist rang gi mtshan nyid, but an elaboration of their differences would require a lengthy discussion.) Day emphasizes on p. 173 that "intuitive cognition is not a judgment about a thing's existence. It is the kind of simple apprehension of a thing which enables us to assent to a judgment about that thing's existence" (italics mine).

38. As is evident from its proper name (see footnote 9), the Exigit Ordo is a critique of the Peripatetic (or Aristotelian) philosophy. To sort out Nicholas' own ideas, one is therefore obliged to wade through dialectical arguments, protestations of piety, and lamentations of the friends of truth who, engaged in the enterprise of criticism are attacked by men "armed as if for mortal combat" Exigit Ordo 181 (25).

39. "medium judicii essent ipsae apparentiae ... ista radix, scilicet deformitas in apparentia..." Exigit Ordo 240 (25-28).

40. "Nihil enim certitudinaliter possumus enuntiare nisi relatione luminis vel apparentiae quae penes nos sunt" Exigit Ordo 231 (7-8).

41. David W. Hamlyn, Sensation and Perception (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961), p. 197.

42. Gilbert Ryle and Ludwig Wittgenstein are the seminal thinkers most influential in giving impetus to this demythologizing trend in recent Western philosophizing. Not without some perverse satisfaction one notes that Ryle, having exorcised all manner of metaphysical ghosts, is a self-confessed failure at providing an adequate spectre-free alternative explanation of perception. He seems to have thrown out the baby in favor of a tepid pool of behavioristic bath water.

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an expurgated interpretation: that is, Dharmakiirti's theory can be regarded as a plausible operationalist's working model, a consistent reconstruction of what it means to experience objects. As such, it does not comprise a reduplication, moment for moment, of psychologically isolable events. Instead it delineates the logically significant aspects of perceiving -- whence, to be in a state of awareness is no more than to be disposed to perform linguistic acts. [43]

III. Distinctness and clarity
Rgyal-tshab, following Dharmottara, introduces still further distinctions under the rubric of mngon sum. [44] First he differentiates between mngon sum tshad ma and mngon sum bcad shes. For an understanding of these terms, one must look to the requirement that a tshad ma or means of valid cognition (Skt. pramaa.na) yields knowledge which is "fresh" (Tib. gsar du) in the sense that what it purports to apprehend must not already have been apprehended. [45] Taking this condition in a strict sense, as Rgyal-tshab does, only the first moment of mngon sum (as in, for example, sensing a patch of blue) is properly mngon sum tshad ma. [46] Only then is blueness apprehended de novo and, in the wake of what has been thus received, we are able to circumscribe the "here and now," the receiving itself being a cutting off or excising (Tib. bcad pa, from which comes bcad shes or "cut cognition"), the morass of potential errors to which we are prone.

All succeeding awarenesses of that blue can now be appropriated into what

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43. "... in having been apprehended as capable of coalescing with a verbal designation" ("brjod pa dang .hdres rung ba .hdzin par .hgyur la." RTG A12-6 to B12-1). See Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic 2:19. See also B. K. Matilal, Epistemology, Logic, and Grammar in Indian Philosophical Analysis (The Hague: Mouton, 1971), pp. 37-38.

44. For his help in clarifying the material discussed in the next few pages, as well as for his detailed and patient explanations of the more refractory passages throughout RTG, I am deeply indebted to Geshe Sopa of the Department of Indian Studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He is, of course, not responsible for any errors which appear here.

45. See, for example, RTG B8-6. On "anadhigataartha gant.r pramaa.nam" see, too, Hattori's Dignaaga Perception, page 82. See also the Jaina philosopher Akala^nka's critical remarks on the subject of pramaa.na as apprehending the hitherto unapprehended, pp. 225-226 of Shah's Akala^nka's Criticism of Dharmakiirti's Philosophy.

46. See RTG A8-6 ff. At this juncture, the interpretation of Rgyal-tshab and Dharmottara diverges from those of some of the other commentators, the most notable of whom in the Tibetan tradition is Mkhas-grub. Perhaps the most obvious alternative to Rgyal-tshab's view that suggests itself is the following: since, in the strictest possible sense, each single moment of sensation (be it initial or subsequent) is engendered by a uniquely different rang gi mtshan nyid, each such moment can also be regarded, with the utmost propriety, as yielding knowledge "afresh." Cf., pp. 188-189 of Shah's Akala^nka ... We shall not attempt to list, let alone to solve, the problems engendered either by this view or by Rgyal-tshab's theory.

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will comprise the "same" stream of sensations, with a distinct conceptual construction to be subsequently imposed upon them; but it is clear that the sequence of awarenesses which succeeds the initial awareness is not, strictly speaking, a sequence of tshad mas at all. How could it be, when its components merely serve to cognize what has already been cognized? And yet these components are preconceptual, free of any admixture of determinate construction (Tib. rtog pa, Skt. kalpanaa). [47] They are therefore, at least in Rgyal-tshab's view, mngon sum moments. [48] Hence Rgyal-tshab classifies them as instances of mngon sum bcad shes (cut cognition) rather than full-fledged mngon sum tshad mas.

Note in passing a certain resemblance between a given mngon sum tshad ma and its associated sequence of subsequent mngon sum bcad shes' on the one hand, and what John Locke, in his Essay, calls a "distinct idea," on the other. [49] Earlier in the same passage, Locke refers to a "clear idea" as "that whereof the mind has such a full and evident perception, as it does receive from an outward object operating duly on a well-disposed organ." Locke's differentiation of the parameter of clarity from that of distinctness noted earlier, is relevant to Rgyal-tshab's introduction of still another way of classifying mngon sums, which we shall now consider. [50]

On B8-2 of the RTG, after having first alluded to the Pramaa.navini`scaya's treatment of the topic, Rgyal-tshab again subdivides mngon sums into two species, this time as follows: (1) those sufficient in themselves to yield certainty (ran las nges), and (2) those to which certainty accrues only in conjunction with other additional mngon sums (gzhan las nges). Species (1) mngon sums are those in which a single apprehension, no doubts attending it, suffices as a foundation for cognitive certainty.

To exemplify species (2) mngon sums, Rgyal-tshab speaks of an obscurely

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47. "No scholar explains it as pervasion by conceptual construction of cut cognition" ("bcad shes la rtog pas khyab par bshad med do." RTG B8-1 to B8-2). That is, not all "cut cognition" involves conceptual construction. According to Geshe Sopa, this means that, although a similar subdivision (namely, into bcad shes and tshad ma) can be made under the heading of inference (rjes su dpag pa), we are here dealing with a noninferential, preconstructive variety of bcad shes or cut cognition. Stcherbatsky vacillates in his discussion of the term. See his Buddhist Logic 1:71 and his Buddhist Logic 2:21 ff.

48. See the definitions in part II herein.

49. A "distinct idea" is defined as "that, wherein the mind perceives a difference from all others." An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 2 vols., ed. Alexander C. Fraser, (New York: Dover, 1959), 2, chapt. 29, sect. 4.

50. In connection with this, see also E. Husserl's discussion of the self-evidence of clearness as contrasted with the self-evidence of distinctness, in his Formal and Transcendental Logic, trans. D. Cairns (The Hague: Mouton, 1969). An in-depth comparison of Husserlian phenomenology with Buddhist epistemology has already been recommended by the late S. Schayer.

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seen distant fire whose image or sensory reflex (Tib. snang ba, Skt. pratibhaasa) [51] stands in need of clarification. Additional mngon sums enable us to "zero in," as it were, on the fire, each succeeding sense-datum tending to greater and greater clarity (Tib. gsal ba, Skt. sphu.tatva) asymptotically, until our initial doubts are completely assuaged. [52] The final goal of this process is a "rang las" situation. If achieved, this last self-sufficient seeing, since it will yield a clear image of the fire, will be a de novo awareness [53] (the earlier mngon sums having been a mere obscure apprehension) of the fire. And, as a de novo direct awareness, the terminal rang las mngon sum will also be a mngon sum tshad ma, [54] and not just a mngon sum bcad shes.

Turning to a seemingly very similar examination of variations in clarity in Nicholas, the question of whether the same thing ("whiteness" is the example given in the Exigit Ordo) cm be seen both clearly and obscurely is raised by him and answered in the negative. [55] To comprehend the significance of Nicholas' conclusion, the ambiguity in the phrase "same thing" (res eadem) must first be resolved.

One may use the word "thing" in order to refer to: (1) an existence outside the mind (the Scholastics term this esse subjectivum -- "subjective" or "existential being"); (2) an existence for and to the mind (in Scholastic terminology this is esse objectivum -- "objective" or "representative being"). [56]

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51. Though not all snang bas are sensory, we here emphasize that the discussion is again moving on a preconstructive level. We have not yet encapsulated our sensory intake within a conceptual framework. Put in other words, we have merely a sequence of snang bas engendered by mngon sum and have not yet affixed a rtog pa or concept, to the sequence (cf. Nyaayabindu, p. 13 and Stcherbatsky's Buddhist Logic, p. 35). [Note that a corresponding bifurcation (into rang las and gzhan las) is not made in the case of inferential or indirect cognition, that is, all inferences are "rang las nges."]

52. "rang las nges dang gzhan las nges gnyis yod la. de yang rnam nges las. mngon sum yang ni don med na. mi .hbyung las tshad ma nyid. .hbrel pa yi ni rang bzhin de. rgyu yin pas na gnyis ka mtshungs zhes bshad pas rang gi gzhal bya.hi don med na. rang nyid mi .hbyung ba rang stobs kyis nges par byed na. rang nges dang gzhan stobs kyis nges par byed pa gzhan nges te. dper na rgyang ring po.hi mer snang gi kha dog dmar .hbar ba .hjal ba.hi dbang po.hi mngon sum tshad ma de snang ba la the tshom ma skyes pa.hi snga rol tu nges pa .hdren pas khyab la. mer snang ba de snang ba ltar gyi don me med na rang nyid mi .hbyung ba la the tshom ma drangs pa.hi snga rol tu nges pa drangs na rang nges dang. the tshom .hdren na gzhan nges so" RTG B8-2 to B8-5.

53. Since a clear apprehension cannot, under pain of contradiction, be identical with an obscure apprehension, this last seeing cannot be a case of merely apprehending what has already been apprehended.

54. See part III herein.

55. "Propono hoc problema an res eadem omnino possit videri clare et obscure ... est igitur conclusio prima quod cognitio clara et obscura numquam possunt esse respectu ejusdem rei" (Exigit Ordo 238 (17-26)). Weinberg points out (p. 195 of his Nicolaus of Autrecourt) that the posing of this question is for Nicholas closely connected with the problem of evidence.

56. See Exigit Ordo 243 (19-26).

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In what follows, we shall use the terms "subjective" and objective" in this special technical sense.

According to Nicholas, we can have a multiplicity of "objective" whitenesses, gradated according to clarity, and these will comprise the experiential stream corresponding to a single "subjective" whiteness. Hence, concentrating on the subjective being of whiteness, a clear whiteness may, in a sense, be said to be "contained in" an obscure whiteness. But, when it comes to the "objective" being of whiteness, numerically one and the same appearance of whiteness to a mind may not be both clear and obscure. [57]

This much has a familiar ring. However, Nicholas' manner of relating the succession of objective whitenesses to a single subjective whiteness is a radical inversion of that of Rgyal-tshab; that is to say, the two philosophers provide very different answers to the question of how to justify the move from that which appears in sensation to the full-blown object which transcends mere appearances. [58] For Nicholas, there would seem to be a permanent extramental essence of whiteness which is capable of engendering in the mind a succession of qualitatively different -- in this case more or less clear -- fluxions of awareness; [59] whereas for the Buddhist, the apparent "external" unchanging whiteness is reducible to a mere fictitious construct, a summation of all the elements of a given series of perspectivistic presentations.

The Realist-Idealist dialog has been reiterated tiresomely often. What makes this instance of it worthy of note is the seeming abruptness of Nicholas' departure for the Realist camp, in view of his apparent affinities with Dharmakiirtian Buddhism outlined earlier. Even more surprising, Nicholas' conclusion above that whiteness of degree of clarity x (wx) cannot, while retaining its identity, become whiteness of degree of clarity y (wy), derives not (as we should expect) from the principle of noncontradiction. [60] Instead, to support the above conclusion, Nicholas invokes the here gratuitous Platonist assumption that there probably are not only unchanging "external" qualitative natures or universals, but also tandem sets of permanent "objective" contents. [61] In other words, Nicholas rests his case on the degree of probability

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57. For an excellent and thorough analysis, see chapter 12 of Weinberg.

58. Here one must concede that merely to pose this as a fundamental epistemological question is, perhaps, "to let the fly into the fly-bottle;" but since our purpose is primarily expository, and not critical, this is not the place to question the questions.

59. See, for example, Exigit Ordo 243 (36-40). See also Weinberg, pp. 210-211.

60. Which principle, as will be recalled from p. 346 is regarded by Nicholas as the cornerstone on which all empirical certainty is grounded.

61. On this hypothesis, so the argument would seem to go, wx remains eternally what it is at the present moment, as also does wy. All that changes is the fact of wx's presence at one time to one mind, at another to another, at still a third time conjointly to both these minds, and then again to several other minds simultaneously, etc. (Chapter 12 of Weinberg's book also contains a critique of some of the many difficulties inherent in Nicholas' position.)

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that can be attached to a doctrine of the eternity of things, [62] where the catalog of things includes, for him, atoms of matter, minds, and mental contents.

Now, in the treatises of the Buddhist logicians, ratiocination along very similar lines takes one back, not to the allegation that a single whiteness is everlastingly what it now is; on the contrary and much more plausibly, each whiteness is for Rgyal-tshab-Dharmakiirti, in the final analysis, a uniquely emergent, evanescent surge of self-annihilating mental energy. Why, then, when his writings are in general a model of healthy circumspection, does Nicholas succumb to such transparently specious reasoning and why does he attempt to render the doctrine of the eternity of things even probable? Second, what is the import of Nicholas' use of the term "probable"? And finally, why does he feel the need to preface the body of his mature statements on the nature, content, and scope of empirical knowledge with this modal qualifier?

IV. Conclusion
Before we can answer these questions, a digression is needed to provide additional background. The late medieval tendency to emphasize divine omnipotence is especially pronounced in the Ockhamist tradition, and its epistemological repercussions had already sufficed, at the time of Nicholas' writing, to place the seeker of empirical knowledge in general in a state of embarrassment, not to say sweet anomie. For an omnipotent God obviously has the ability (among innumerable others) to cause an awareness of an object in the human mind, without there being any object. [63] What then is to count as reliable evidence for the existence of things, if not the data of sense? Ockham avoids sounding the final knoll for human knowledge by distinguishing between kinds of awarenesses, among them a special variety of awareness which he terms "intuitive cognition." [64] For brevity, I merely quote Scott's lucid summary of Ockham's view:

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62. "That all things are eternal is true, in the sense that they are continually being produced, whether in this place or another, in this subject or another." ("Quod continue producerentur sive in hoc loco sive in alio, sive in hoc subjecto sive in alio, et sic est verum quod omnes res sunt aeternae" Exigit Ordo 248 (13-15)). The general import of this doctrine is that the apparent generation, corruption, augmentation, etc., of things, at bottom involves no real process. Rather, change is supposedly explicable in terms of the local "motion" of atoms, such "motion" being no more than a Zeno-like sequence of arrests at different positions Exigit Ordo 200 (48)-201 (9), 205, and 224 (1-30). But the marriage between the hypothesis of the eternity of things and an Ockhamist theory of relations proves to be singularly unfelicitous; Nicholas' attempt to explain motion and change thereby leads to an impasse.

63. This celebrated discussion -- due in its most influential version to Ockham himself -- is referred to by the numbers of the medieval philosophical establishment as "the problem of the intuitive cognition of non-existents."

64. See part II herein.

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It is true that God can cause any awareness without an object, and he may, in this way lead me to believe what is not the case. But he cannot make evident, what is not the case, since every evident judgment is true. And this is explained by the fact that there is a special kind of awareness that is the basis of all and only evident judgments. Thus if the awareness caused directly by God is an intuitive cognition, then any judgment made will he evident and so true. If the awareness is not intuitive cognition, then the judgment may be false, but it will not be evident. And since evident and non-evident judgments are introspectively distinguishable, the danger of God's deceiving is thus eliminated. [65]

The upshot of Scott's analysis (both in the article here cited and in his earlier "Ockham on Evidence, Necessity and Intuition," Journal of the History of Philosophy 7 (1969): 27-49) is that while Ockham's reasoning cannot, as might at first seem to be the case, be dismissed out of hand, it can (and must) be dismissed in the long run. (For Ockham does not really succeed in justifying even the ordinary man's alleged knowledge of a common, unvarnished variety of extramental existence, much the less in providing that warranty for the philosopher's assertion of probable eternal existence which instigated our present quest.) To be quite specific, Nicholas feels (and the astute philosophical critic will be quick to agree with him) that Ockham has not provided cogent enough reasons for subscribing to a theory of intuitive cognition as a special self-certifying type of awareness. [66] Hence Ockham's solution to the problem of justifying knowledge claims must be rejected.

And attempts by followers of Ockham to secure the foundations of empirical cognition fare even less well. For example, to the fact of the occurrence of a particular awareness to some mind, the Ockhamist Bernard of Arezzo would append the supposition that the uniform course of natural processes obtains. (The rider "ex suppositione communis cursus naturae" is commonly enough used by other medieval philosophers as well.) In other words, Bernard wants us to assume God's nonintervention in our everyday cognitive transactions. But even granting that what Bernard presumes is true, Nicholas points out that, in the total absence of any evidence on its behalf, he could not know it to be so. Hence any chain of reasoning in which this obdurately problematic assumption figures as a premise, even if it be conjoined with the true proposition that an awareness of an object has occurred, cannot possibly lead to an apodictically certain conclusion that such an object exists. The gap between what appears in sensation and what is, turns out to be immeasurably wider than had been supposed -- perhaps unbridgeably wide, as Nicholas sometimes seems to fear.

Thus the importance of "the problem of the intuitive cognition of nonex-

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65. Scott, "Nicholas of Autrecourt, Buridan and Ockhamism," p. 18.

66. That is, Nicholas does not recognize a pedigreed variety of awareness. See Scott, "Nicholas of Autrecourt, Buridan and Ockhamism," p. 29.

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istents" for the subsequent history of philosophy -- quite apart from its spawning sundry attempted solutions, including Nicholas', which we shall review below -- is its function as an entering wedge for an endless swarm of extremely corrosive doubts about the very possibility of human knowledge. Though these are less dramatically stated than the supernaturally triggered misgivings which preceded them, they are the more pervasive and drastic, as if by way of compensation. And Nicholas is confronted with the inescapable possibility that all human sensibilia lack extramental correlates. The Buddhist logician ruminates on this possibility, teaches himself to savor it, and finally elevates it to the status of a crowning insight, the while he rejoices at having depilated the metaphysician's whiskery tangle of ontological flotsam. Nicholas, apprehensive as Ockham and Bernard before him, constructs a rickety bridge of probability, the strongest link unaided natural reason can provide between mental contents and their supposed noumenal correlates. One man's pis aller is another man's praj~naa.

However, and this is perhaps the major point of our whole comparative investigation, the basis for Nicholas' probabilistic construction is not an essential epistemological difference between himself and the Buddhist logicians, but a looking-glass reversal by him of what the Buddhists would regard as ultimate values. That is, Nicholas and Rgyal-tshab differ first and foremost on the level of "final" and not merely "formal" or logical causes [67] -- and only because of a difference on the former level does a difference on the latter level manifest itself.

Full well realizing that adequate evidence is no more forthcoming for him than it was for his Ockhamist predecessors, Nicholas nonetheless asserts as probable ("probable" in the mere sense of being worthier of assent than its contradictory opposite) the following: If we are to have any certitude about things, then "what appears is, what is evident is true." [68] That this proposition is more probable than its denial, can be derived from the faith-given principle of the Good. For, "since falsehood is the evil of the intellect, the complete goodness of the universe would have to be denied if the human desire to know were eternally thwarted. The probable bases of a theory of knowledge just as of metaphysics are thus the principles of the Good." [69] Likewise, concerning the special problem of the eternity of things, to which we are finally in a position to return, Nicholas himself says: "In considering this matter, it was necessary for me to resort to a final cause and to show that it is better to say that a thing is eternal and that, so saying, greater perfection is attributed

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67. These terms are here used in the Aristotelian sense. Cf. Exigit Ordo 204 (1-10).

68. Exigit Ordo 228 (5-6). Recall Nicholas' list of things that are evident on pp. 10-11 (see Weinberg's discussion, pp. 176-193).

69. Weinberg, p. 193.

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to the universe; and since it is not impossible, it ought to be stated, it being at least more worthy of assent than its opposite." [70]

The concept of the good, as Nicholas declares in Exigit Ordo 196 (37-38), is fundamental to his system; it is the pivotal point on which his philosophizing turns and the point of departure wherefrom that philosophizing transcends itself. Moreover, as Weinberg notes on page 127, Nicholas also maintains as probable that "whatever the appetite desires is good without qualification and not merely an apparent good, for just as the method of proving that something is true is its very appearance, so the method of proving that something is good is the act of appetition" (Exigit Ordo 234).

Contrast this with Dharmakiirti-Rgyal-tshab for whom the paternalistic perfectionism of Nicholas' God is utterly lacking, and for whom a primordial art of appetition is the progenitor of sa.msaara, its nescience and its pain are alike. In the full light of a bodhisattva's intuition, the point is not to explain the empirical world (and our cognition of it); the point is rather to sweep it away as so many cobwebs which accrue to our fiction-making process of conceptualization (RTG A4- 3 "rtog pa.hi dra ba rnams bsal cing").

A few last words remain to be said about the precise nature of Nicholas' probabilism. Again, we turn to Weinberg.

The method of probable argument ... had its historical roots in the attempt to protect Faith against the specious claims of reason. For Nicholas of Autrecourt, a proposition is probable when it is not known to be either true or false. (a) In itself any proposition may be simply true or false, or again, necessarily true or necessarily false. (b) If a proposition is probable, therefore, it is probable relative to the permanent or temporary limitations of our earthly state ... (c) A mental attitude of partial belief is associated with a probable proposition ... This attitude of partial belief results from, and is commensurate with, the degree of persuasiveness of the probable argument. (d) The degree of probability can be determined by an intelligent lover of truth if he hears the evidence on both sides of a question with a completely unprejudiced mind. [71]

Note that Nicholas makes no claims for most of what he says beyond mere probability, the Exigit Ordo itself being no more than an object lesson in rendering Aristotelian conclusions less plausible by setting up beside them more probable alternatives. And these alternatives are to be assimilated, not as metaphysical ultimates, but as the constituent parts of a radical cure, each functioning as a partial antidote to the pernicious influence of Aristotle. Thus, what

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70. "In hujus rei consideratione oportuit me recurrere ad causam finalem et ostendere quod melius est dicere res aeternas et quod perfectio major attribuitur sic dicendo universo, et cum illud non sit impossible dicendum est, saltem ei magis assentiendum quam opposito" Exigit Ordo 204 (5-9).

71. Page 126. See also Exigit Ordo 187 (30-34); 188 (10-15); 203 (20-25) and 204 (12-14).

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Nicholas really purports to be is a tactician, and not the creator of a full-fledged and self-consistent system. With this in mind, his philosophizing is perhaps not so uncongenial to Buddhism, after all. To adapt an old adage, for Nicholas empirical truth can, in a sense, be led wax-nosed whichever way religious expediency demands. Naagaarjuna-like, Nicholas sets up, then sublates positions and counterpositions, and the best that can be said in any given case is that one conclusion (for example, his own doctrine of the eternity of things) is relatively more sound than another; [72] but, in the long run, nothing from the realm of provisional truth is left securely standing.

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72. Another example of a hypothesis that Nicholas states as probable is not without interest to students of Buddhism and of Berkeley's idealism, namely, that the different objectives of minds all refer to one and the same "subjective" being. Exigit Ordo 262 (4-17).