This talk will present the philosophical debate between the Buddhist philosopher Dharmakīrti and the Jaina philosopher Akalaṅka regarding the nature, object, and structure of perception (pratyakṣa) qua source of knowledge (pramāṇa). We shall see that there are three main points of contention between Dharmakīrti and Akalaṅka: Is perception non-conceptual (Dharmakīrti) or conceptual (Akalaṅka) in nature? Does perception apprehend mental forms internal to awareness (Dharmakīrti) or mind-independent external objects (Akalaṅka)? And, is perception structured non-dualistically (Dharmakīrti) or dualistically (Akalaṅka)? We will examine each point of contention by (a) exploring the philosophical issue at stake, (b) reconstructing and analysing the arguments advanced by both philosophers for their respective positions, and (c) offering some initial evaluation of the arguments. The talk will conclude with some reflections on the respective philosophical merits of Dharmakīrti’s and Akalaṅka’s theories of perception as well as the historical significance of this Buddhist-Jaina philosophical debate. We shall see how Akalaṅka’s polemical refutation of Dharmakīrti leads him to a thoroughgoing perceptual conceptualism and a defiant common-sense realism, a distinctive combination of commitments not found in the works of his philosophical predecessors and contemporaries.

In what sense does the native of a speaker of a language know the language’s grammar, even with no formal schooling in the subject? According to some philosophers of language, this is due to the fact that there are two different levels of understanding, a deep grammar which maps onto our universal structures of understanding, and a surface grammar which expresses how this deep structure is realized in any particular language. The Jain philosophers of language Bhaṭṭākalaṅka and Yaśovijaya both offer accounts of verbal understanding which assume little more of a speaker’s inborn abilities other than a physical capacity for speech and claim that what may seem to be knowledge of a deep grammar may be explained through the structures of reality reflected in our understanding. In this light, this lecture offers to reconstruct an early modern Jaina critique of deep grammar.