Buddhist Fictionalism

Buddhist global fictionalism?

“…All intentional experience involves unreal projections and all language and conceptualization, which can pertain only to such experience, turns out also to be empty. D’Amato's () account of Buddhist global fictionalism is made with respect to Yogācāra and thus targets this ineffabilist form of anti‐realism.…”

“…In understanding Buddhist conventional discourse on the model of fictional discourse, proponents of Buddhist fictionalism would appear to be in good company. D’Amato () argues that the fruitful adoption of fictionalist accounts by contemporary anti‐realists to explain discourse involving disputed entities such as numbers, sets, universals, moral properties, unobservables in science, possible worlds, etc. suggests that such an approach in the Buddhist context is promising.…”

“…The key features of this grounding that differentiate it from reductionist or supervenience accounts are its irreducibility and contingency; there is an element of construction and creativity in generating fiction that fictionalist accounts retain and that distinguishes them from alternatives. However, when these creative activities are normatively constrained, they do not ‘float free,’ as D’Amato (, p. 415) has suggested. They are tethered to a non‐fictional domain that normatively constrains discourse with respect to the target fictionalist domain.…”

“…In recent years several scholars, notably Jay Garfield (), Mark Siderits (, ), Mario D’Amato (), and Andrea Sauchelli (), have argued that the best way to understand the Buddhist notion of conventional truth ( saṃvṛtisat/saṃvṛtisatya ) is as a form of fictionalism . These scholars, each focusing on different Buddhist philosophical traditions, draw on contemporary arguments made by fictionalists to argue that the anti‐realist elements in Buddhist thought can be, and perhaps even historically were, treated in a similar fashion.…”

Some remarks on a problem in Madhyamaka philosophy of language

“…6. ), “The Madhyamaka understanding of emptiness […] entails that everything is a conceptual fiction.” (Siderits, , p. 115), “[T]he Prāsaṅgika philosopher would work out the Madhyamaka rejection of intrinsic nature ( svabhāva ) by adopting a fictionalist approach to all conventional domains of discourse.” (D'Amato, , p. 416), “[A]lthough the pan‐fictional theory was not held only by Madhyamikas [… ] I will be offering an interpretation which is most in keeping with the Madhyamika position as I understand it.” (Crittenden, , p. 323).…”