Knowledge

Abstract

This chapter carries out a detailed analysis of Dharmakīrti’s definitions of the term pramāṇa. After elucidating his definitions and subsequent Indian interpretations of them, it is argued that we can characterize the standard post-Dharmakīrtian account of knowledge as a novel, truth-tracking cognition. The second half of the chapter explores how this Buddhist account of knowledge compares to analyses of knowledge in the contemporary analytic tradition of epistemology. It is argued, for example, that the Buddhist account cannot be assimilated to analyses of knowledge that appeal to justification, nor to standard versions of reliabilism. Instead, it more closely resembles the theory of knowledge defended by David Armstrong.