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    Carmelics

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    Perspectives
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    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that The Yogācāra dream argument fails to establish the non-existence of external objects

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Dream-consciousness and similar states have dharmas as their objects (ālambana)
      ?

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    • 2.Dharmas are based on intrinsically real conventional objects
      ?

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    • 3.Dharmas are the repeated impressions of objects previously experienced, analogous to memory
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Dream content exhibits systematic coherence and narrative structure that requires no external causal grounding to explain its phenomenal character.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.Vasubandhu's own Viṃśikā concedes that dream objects lack causal efficacy (arthakriyā), yet still grants them representational content, undermining the inference from content to external cause.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 3.If impressions (vāsanā) suffice to generate fully determinate perceptual-seemings in dreams, the Yogācāra position regressively presupposes the very external objects it claims to eliminate.
      ?

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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Dignāga's ālambana-parīkṣā establishes that the causal and representational roles of a perceptual object can be filled by internal mental factors alone, making the dream analogy self-undermining as an argument for idealism.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.The Sautrāntika critic (as reconstructed by Dharmakīrti in Pramāṇavārttika) correctly notes that systematically correlated dream experiences across sentient beings demand a mind-independent explanatory basis that pure vijñāna-streams cannot supply.
      ?

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