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Authors

Ajay K. VERMA

Abstract

The first noble truth in Buddhism points toward a purely phenomenal experience. Though purely qualitative in nature, the experience of suffering has an existential aspect. As stated in the second noble truth, suffering has a cause that relates to our situatedness in the world. Notwithstanding, the cause of suffering has to be something external to the mental state of suffering itself. Some of the more recent studies on mental states suggest two different positions on the nature of mental states. One may view mental states as self-referential, reflexive and purely qualitative in nature; alternatively, one could view them as transitive as pointing towards something external, beyond and other than themselves in terms of their cause or the like. The former of these positions is known as internalism, while the latter is named externalism. Nyāya school of Classical Indian Philosophy presents a unique position in this regard. They view pain and pleasure as objects of cognition rather than their content. As such, an act of perception becomes a mere transitive act, a mere operator or the lowest common denominator of all mental acts without having content in themselves. Buddhist logician, however, views mental states as pure qualitative states. As such, they seem to embrace internalist position regarding mental states. This paper attempts to demonstrate that this position if prescribed to Buddhism, renders their second noble truth problematic.

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