Response: Polemics? Who Cares!?

Abstract

This is a reflective response to the articles in this special issue, “Tibetan Polemics as Genre.” It argues that just as we might use polemics as way to think through Tibetan texts, we can use these texts as a way to think through the scholar’s use of polemics. The response illustrates that by paying close attention to a debate between Go rams pa (1429–89) and Tsong kha pa (1357–1419), the scholar gains a greater sensitivity to perspective, both to the multiple perspectives Tibetan authors are seeking to address and that they themselves inhabit and to the scholar’s own perspective and the decision to approach a work as polemical. This call for perspectivalism reveals that the question of whether a work is polemical is ill-formed and flat-footed. Rather, the genre of polemics is simply one hermeneutic tool that allows for a particular type of interpretation. It would be foolish to assume the utility of this lens affords some ultimate claim about the text itself or that no other interpretation is necessary. Polemics denotes a useful tool but never the be-all and end-all of the text as a whole. These concluding thoughts offer helpful advice for how to nuance the study of polemics successfully without having to jettison the category.