In a Double Way: Nāmarūpa in Buddhaghosa's Phenomenology
Maria Heim, Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad
Philosophy East and West 2018 DOI: 10.1353/pew.2018.0098 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Citations | 5 |
| Key points | Argues that Buddhaghosa's use of nāma-rūpa in the abhidhamma is not a reductive ontological division of the human being into mind and body but a contemplative structuring of phenomenology, an analytic of how experience is undergone. Proposes that this analysis has a clarificatory purpose not tied to espousing any particular view of reality, and compares it with the Western phenomenological tradition's predominantly metaphysical teleology. |
Abstract
Thus one should define, in a double way, name and form in all phenomena of the three realms…" --Visuddhimagga XVIII.24In this paper, we want to bring together two issues for their mutual illumination: (i) the particular use of that hoary Indian dyad, "nāma-rūpa", literally, "name-and-form by Buddhaghosa, the influential 5 th c Theravāda writer, to organize the categories of the abhidhamma, the canonical classification of phenomenal factors (dhammas) and their formulaic ordering; 1 and (ii) an interpretation of phenomenology as a methodology.We argue that Buddhaghosa does not use abhidhamma as a reductive ontological division of the human being into mind and body, but as the contemplative structuring of that human's phenomenology.This phenomenological methodology expressed in his application of nāma-rūpa is expressed as a set of contemplative practices; we compare this approach to some of the processes explicated within the 20 th c Western Phenomenological tradition's predominantly metaphysical teleology.We suggest that Buddhaghosa's use of nāma-rūpa should be seen as the analytic by which he understands how experience is undergone, and not his account of how some reality is structured.We can learn from Buddhaghosa something about both how experience is to be analyzed, and how that analysis has a clarificatory purpose not tied to the espousal of any particular 'view' of reality. Phenomenology and metaphysicsThis paper is not about metaphysics, although it draws attention to how it depends on what one says metaphysics is not.Modern Western philosophy has tended to proceed through claims to break with the entire history of philosophy.As Kant pointed out, Hume said both that "metaphysics couldn't possibly exist" and that metaphysics and morals are the most important branches of learning.2 Kant himself asked whether "metaphysics was possible at all" ( § 4); he answered in the affirmative but only after re-defining what it could possibly be.In the Phenomenological tradition, Husserl and Heidegger, Sartre, Derrida and Levinas, all battle with the relationship between metaphysics and phenomenology, their understanding of each shifting with their argument for an original understanding of metaphysics.3 We do not intend to engage with that history and the validity of successive judgments (is metaphysics about "presence" and was Husserl committed to it, while Derrida broke free of it as he claims?and so on), let alone with the even more complex question of how to read "metaphysics" in the context of Indian thought.But we start with what we hope is a plausible if diffuse stipulation: metaphysics is about how things are and come to be what they are (on whatever construal of "things" and "is"); in short, it is concerned with questions of existence, while a metaphysical argument is one directed towards determining how those things are what they are.By "ontology," we mean the articulation of the structure of entities such as objects and relations.An ontology is, in this sense,
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