I blame the British Empiricists.

I bang on like an untethered gate about Idealism and Realism but I take consolation in the fact that I am in good company. Practically all philosophers have spurned Idealism even if like a mutating virus it comes on in waves weakening as they put about their noxious fumes. Even so, some philosophers share Kant’s dismay at the lack of proof for an external world and take pains to work abstruse demonstrations which commit the usual error. They attempt to move from an inner conviction to an outer reality. That can be about God for Descartes and Berkeley. Like the writer to the editor ‘I blame the parents’ or The British Empiricists in the case of the inner turning to found an outer reality. Following them one is balked from the world by the direct acquaintance with our sensations merely and their cause devolves into an inference. Occasional error damns us as though not knowing everything were to condemn to universal ignorance. My philosophic chums of the moment are Etienne Gilson and Thomas Reid, champions of common sense. Can you prove causality? Can you prove the excluded middle? Are there limits to demonstration? For them common sense is not folk epistemology though it may require work to show its depth. Guided by Gilson’s ‘Thomist Realism’ I and Reid’s ‘Intellectual Powers’ I follow that trail. Sankara the advaitin has words on that topic addressing the Buddhist vijnanavadin (subjective idealist).

“So also it has to be admitted that the regularity in the simultaneous appearance of the cognition and its object is owing to the relation of causality between them and not owing to their identity.” (B.S.Bh - commentary on the Vedanta Sutras)

There is much more to say on this but why is it important? In a nutshell: de-incarnation is a very subtle and powerful mind virus.

Dharmakirti, an Idealist?

Professor Birgit Kellner in her discussion of the idealism of Dharmakirti, and if indeed he was one offers this citation from his Pramanavarttika in which, at least to my mind, he appears to be one and virtually ready to be snagged by the crozier of Bishop Berkeley.

If cognition has the form of the object, what evidence is there for the external object?39 If cognition is without the form of the object, how could
it be an experience of that object?
If cognition’s having the nature of awareness is not conditioned by resemblance, then that nature of awareness is established of the cognition
just from cognition itself (svata eva). What is then contributed by an external object?

(from: dharmakirti idealism

This does not seem so far away from the position that Shankaracarya impugns in Brahma-Sutra-Bhasya II.ii.28.

Gaudapada takes a Berkeleyan Turn

In accord with the perception of its cause, knowledge is supposed to be based on external objects. But from the standpoint of reality, it is held that the external cause is no cause. (G.K. IV.25)

There is an intimation here of the advanced position of what I have been calling 'non-numerical identity' between the object and the vritti. An object in this sense is not the cause of itself. The initial stage is of course the classical causal therory of perception.

Meaning : "The Chitta (mind) does not touch the object ; for that reason only it does not touch the Arthabhasa (the reflection or appearance of an object). For, Padartha (an object) is verily Abhuta (not really existing) ; therefore, apart from it Arthiibhasa also does not exist." (Translation or import of 4: 26 Gaudapada Karikas from The Essence of Gaudapada by Sri S.S.S.)

"Consciousness has no contact with objects; so also it has certainly no contact with appearances of objects. For according to the reason adduced, an object has no existence, and an illusory object is not separate from the awareness". (Swami Gambhirananda trans. Advaita Ashrama pub.)

Gaudapada is here ascribing an Berkeleyan turn to the Vijnanavadin and in the subsequent verse takes their position to its inevitable conclusion:

Consciousness does not ever come in contact with external objects in all the three states. There being no external objects how can there be any base false apprehension of it.

In Sankara's own critique of the Vijnanavadin position he uses that point. (cf. B.S.B. II.ii.28) In his commentary on the Mandukya Karika of Gaudapada he states:

The text starting with, "In compliance with the perceptions of its cause, Knowledge" (IV.25) and ending with the previous verse, which represents the view of the subjective idealists among the Buddhists, is approved by the teacher (Gaudapada) in so far as it refutes the view of those who believe in external objects. Now he makes use of that very argument (of the idealists) as a ground of inference for demolishing their own points of view:

Hence consciousness has no birth, and things perceived by it do not pass into birth. Those who perceive the birth of that consciousness, may as well see footmarks in space itself. (G.K. IV.28)

The upshot is that nothing gives rise to consciousness. Consciousness always is - unborn or ajati. Even if wholly wrong the vijnavadin is half right.a

Shankara, Buddhist Idealism, Hume, Zombies and Asif the Great Prestidigitator.

But that all his arguments, though otherwise intended, are, in reality,
merely sceptical, appears from this, /that they admit of no answer and
produce no conviction./ Their only effect is to cause that momentary
amazement and irresolution and confusion, which is the result of scepticism.

(from Hume’s Enquiry re Berkeley:Enquiry)



Hume as an idealist was himself on quaking ground so he may have been looking to his own defence. Is this central notion that external reality is at best an inference from inner experience quite so bafflingly irrefutable? Shankara has in my view good counters to the classical moves. In this case the position he impugns is that of Buddhist absolute idealism which shares a family resemblance to Mediate Realism or Representationalism or Phenomenalism etc. This epistemological virus is constantly morphing and it is likely that it may become current again. Philosophers are great sheep and it takes only a few notable thinkers to espouse a position to make it respectable.

Shankaracarya and Absolute Idealism (from B.S.B. II.ii.28)

Vijnavadin: Well, I do not say that I do not perceive any object, but all that I hold is ‘that I do not perceive anything apart from the perception.
Vedantin: Yes, you do speak like that, since you have no curb) to your mouth; but you do not speak logically, for some­thing other than the perception has to be admitted perforce, just because it is perceived. Not that anybody cognizes a perception to be a pillar, a wall, etc., rather all people cognize a pillar, a wall, etc. as objects of perception. And it is for this reason that all people understand those others (viz the Buddhists) as really assuming the existence of an external thing even while they deny it by saying, “That which is the content of an internal awareness appears as though external”. For they use the phrase “as though” in the clause “as though external” just because they too become aware of a cognition appearing externally in the same way as is well known ‘to all people, and yet ‘they want to deny any external’ object. Else why should they say, “as though external”? For ‘nobody speaks thus: “Vistumitra appears like the son of a barren woman”. Accordingly, those who accept truth to be just what it is actually perceived to be, should accept a thing as it actually reveals itself externally, and not “as ‘though appearing outside”.
Buddhist. Since no object can possibly exist externally, I come to ‘the conclusion that it appears as though it is outside.
Vedantin. This conclusion is not honest, since the possibility or impossibility of the existence of a thing is determined in accordance with ‘the applicability or non-applicability of the means of knowledge to it, but the applicability or non applicability of the means of knowledge is not ascertained in a accordance with the possibility or impossibility (of the thing) What is known through any one of the means of knowledge, direct perception etc., is possible, and what cannot be through any one of these means of knowledge is impossible. In the case under discussion, the external things are known individually by the respective means of knowledge; so how can they be declared to be impossible by raising such alternatives as different, non-different, etc. For external things are perceived as a matter of fact. It is wrong to say that external things do not exist merely on the ground that cognition is seen to have the likeness of an object, because the very likeness of an object is not possible unless the object itself be there, and also because the object is cognized outside.

I have been down this road before a few times and different features of the terrain strike my eye each time. Here I note the element of retorsion applied to as though outside . You cannot claim likeness to a position that you think is baseless or of which no exemplars exist. Unless you first know what outside means you cannot use it as a point of similitude. If this 'outside’ is not a possible knowledge you can have nothing to say about it.

Shankara analyses this notion of possibility which is the vital centre of idealism:
Since no object can possibly exist externally, I come to ‘the conclusion that it appears as though it is outside.

He sees it as arising out of a transcendental epistemology, an account of how things must be or how knowledge as such is structured. Existing is existing for us. Outside of this no existence is possible. Shankara dismisses this account of possible existence as merely a epistemological fiat that has no connection to empirical practice. In the normal way we declare that something is possible if the valid means of knowledge are applicable to it. The special use of ‘possible’ which is ontologically prior so to speak to the empirical is not justifiable.

This rebuttal can be applied to the ‘if conceivable then possible’ line of argument that introduced philosophical zombies. The means of knowledge that could be applied to zombies that would establish their possibility as an actuality is mysterious. The zombie is supposed to have pain but to have no consciousness of pain. This seems incoherent and contrary to our normal conception of pain or the function of pain in sentient creatures. Perhaps this whole discussion hinges on the misleading closeness of the meaning of ‘conceivable’ and ‘possible’.