In Buddhism the word prajñapti traditionally refers to unreal objects, which are referents of names without any real referents. The word was important because Buddhists thought the realisation of the status of some unreal objects (primarily one’s own substantial self as a basis for personal identity) is a condition for attaining nirvāṇa. The tendency to consider objects called prajñapti to be products of intentional acts of consciousness is not unexpected. However, the objects created by acts of consciousness were not clearly distinguished from acts of consciousness themselves, names and their meanings, or real compositions of dharmas. Sarvastivadins gave some class of prajñapti objects a special mode of being, which is equivalent to that of Ingarden’s purely intentional objects. The Theravadin thinker Anuruddha II distinguished between attha-paññattis and names and understood the first as objects created by acts of consciousness. Attha-paññattis should not be identified with purely intentional objects because they were not clearly contrasted with cognitive acts creating them. According to Nāgārjuna every object is prajñapti because it is unavoidably a product of an act of consciousness. It is an effect of imposition of some concept on cognitive data. Acts of consciousness, conceptualization and language create false impression of reality unless we clearly know they are essentially defective and the way they are defective. The view of Nāgārjuna seems to be a result of his processual beliefs about reality.
This article examines contradictions between the theory and practice of comparative philosophy in a global world. Aristotle and Plato had different approaches to these “contradictions” that show a “discrepancy” between these two classical thinkers. The topic unaddressed by Plato is taken up in the topos of Nāgārjuna, the great ancient logi-cian of ontology in Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy (the 3rd century AD). The “contra-diction” is a principle that have/had profound influence on creative thought in East Asia. Nishida, the founder of the Kyoto School (20th century), established his philo-sophy through the principle of “Absolute Contradictory Self-Identity.” This principle may stimulate reflection upon our digitally connected contemporary global world, and the chaos it has to face.
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