All are invited to the following Philosophy colloquium talk on 27th January 2025 at 16:40 in AC04 LR303. Refreshments will be served.
Title: Essential necessity and apprehension: what does sahopalambhaniyama prove?
Speaker: Serena Saccone
Abstract: The term sahopalambhaniyama, necessary/invariable co-apprehension, is related to a pivotal argument within the DharmakiÌ„rtian tradition intended to prove mere-cognition (vijñaptimaÌ„trataÌ„), in the specific sense of the non-difference between a cognition and its object. The locus classicus for such an argument is in PramaÌ„nÌ£avinisÌcaya 1.54ab by DharmakiÌ„rti. In that work, the sahopalambhaniyama is also related to the establishment of self-awareness of cognitions, insofar as they are verily devoid of an object and a subject. At the same time, some of the debates occurring in the 8th century seem to suggest at least the possibility of interpreting it in different ways. My paper aims at discussing some of the points emerging from an analysis of the PramaÌ„nÌ£avinisÌcaya itself, as well as the perspectives from the *BaÌ„hyaÌ„rthasiddhikaÌ„rikaÌ„ by SÌubhagupta and the TattvasamÌ£grahapañjikaÌ„ by KamalasÌiÌ„la.
Speaker Bio: Serena Saccone is an Associate Professor at the University of Naples “L’Orientale.” She worked for 6 years at the Academy of Sciences in Vienna. Her main area of research is the intellectual history of Buddhism, focusing on South Asian authors from the early medieval period, with a specific interest in epistemology, logic, and soteriology, as well as their interconnections. Saccone’s monograph, On the Nature of Things (2018), concerns the internal Buddhist debate on cognitions and their object in the eighth century. Her second book, Tantra and PramaÌ„nÌ£a. Studies in the SaÌ„ramañjariÌ„ (2023), co-authored with PeÌter-DaÌniel SzaÌntoÌ, deals with the interrelationship between Tantric Buddhism and the DignaÌ„ga-DharmakiÌ„rtian tradition of logic and epistemology. She has recently written also on the use of logic in scriptural commentaries.