Gustav Chun-Ying Wang,‎

佛家哲學與康德哲學不約而同地要求著我們一方面必須被限制在制約著一切可能現象的自然因果律當中，卻又同時要求著我們可以從這個制約當中追尋精神上的解脫。這個不相容卻又互為需要的一種特殊依存關係，在佛家，我們有「輪迴」與「涅槃」；在康德，我們有「自然」與「自由」。康德堅信先驗認識論是解釋這個關係的必要途徑，但是這個立場顯然難以輕易為後人所理解，以至於直到現在哲學家們仍然必須很努力來為康德辯護。另一方面，佛家哲學探討認識論是否構成恰當的手段來釋開這個關係，而不同的看法導致大乘佛教分裂為中觀學派與瑜伽行學派，而中觀學派又分裂為自續與應成兩派。 在康德學與佛學傳統中對知識論的一般理解，因為傾向于將認知系統理解為本體地運作在時間當中，於是導致上述難題不易辨清。本文嘗試展示對知識論的本體價值預設是理解康德先驗觀念論的障礙，也造成知識論，特別是陳那所提出的反實在論知識論，在佛家解脫計劃中地位未定的原因。本文也嘗試透過解除對認知系統的本體論預設建立本文所謂的「批判知識論」，進而分別地在兩個傳統中為知識論的地位辯護。這包含著我們在自然因果關係之外，還需要一個另外的他種因果關係（自由的因果），不論就文獻來說，或者就哲學系統來說。自由因果只確立認知的因與一切可能認知之間的關係，而自然的因果只在認知的結果之中有效卻不可能對認知的因有效。雖然這兩種因果關係彼此獨立地作用，它們在所有可能認識的實現之中形成一個形式的統一。這兩種因果關係的正交，明確地將一個個人的自由狀態（反身地正在認知中）與被限制狀態（反身地被認知）區分開來； 更甚，其空內積，也就是這兩種因果關係對彼此的無效，造就了一切可能被實現的認識之中，「理想」與「現實」這兩個向量空間的可能性， 也因此拱起了一個單一的「經驗」世界。In Buddhism and in Kant, there exists a common quest for an incompatible yet harmonious mutual dependence between the constraining of all possible phenomena within the bounds of natural causality and the spiritual liberation from such causal chains: saṃsāra v...

If one wants the empirical reality, one has to (1) admit freedom (viz., self-awareness in Dignāga) and (2) give up the world in itself as ultimate cause (viz., Nāgārjuna). Then, one has to admit (1) epistemology is prior to ontology and (2) practice (freedom) is prior to theory (cognitive reality). Such priority should be on behalf of truth and we the best can only adopt it as an attitude; we should not take it in time (in reality/convention/appearance) or in logic. When one is in a moral situation or in the dying breath, if one could persist and stay also in freedom in stead of only in reality (the object-oriented desire), that must be much nicer, both on behalf of ethics and soteriological concerns, not for the sake of faith or ideal only. Life-and-death, or fear, etc., are resulting cognitions; freedom and each of them, distinct from each other though, do not contradict each other; they do not remove each other. To misidentify resulting cognitions as the cause of human being is the root of all fears and vexations. To put freedom and phenomenal causal exhaustion in the same field of force and make them contradictory is one of the most troublesome, rooted confusions in humanity.

"This short essay as a report of a part of one philosophical investigation that takes Dignāga, a Buddhist Epistemologist in 5th- and 6th-century India, and Immanuel Kant, a modern continental philosopher (1724 – 1804) as resources, especially relying on their methods and core ideas, to engage in their treatises of “self-awareness” with a focus on the problem whether the immediacy of self-awareness is intuition. This investigation will try to answer to the problem by putting the issue in radical epistemology.

The essay tries to clarify the relation between the immediacy of self-awareness and perception by means of the self-knowledge that is produced in the self-investigation of the consciousness. The findings are demonstrated in a philosophical engagement with Dan Arnold's research report (2010), which centers on the philosophical questions resulting from Dignāga's theory of svasaṃvitti, and included its continuation via Candrakīrti, Dharmakīrti, Prajñākaragupta, Dharmottara, etc. The essay particularly focuses on Candrakīrti's critics on Dignāga and thereby indicates the critical role of “mental perception” in the resolution to these questions. Then, this essay tries to suggest that Arnold's treatise could be furthered by introducing the methods of radical epistemology.
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In Buddhism and in Kant, there exists a common quest for an incompatible yet harmonious mutual dependence between the constraining of all possible phenomena within the bounds of natural causality and the spiritual liberation from such causal chains: saṃsāra vs. nirvāṇa in Buddhism and nature vs. freedom in Kant.  Kant believes that transcendental epistemology is necessary to resolve said paradox, and this position has proven so incomprehensible for later thinkers that philosophers nowadays still feel compelled to defend Kant. Meanwhile, in Buddhism, debates continue to rage on whether epistemology constitutes a proper means to explain the dependence, and such debates have resulted in the split of Mahāyāna Buddhism into Madhyamaka and Yogācāra, and subsequently Madhyamaka into Svātantrika and Prasaṅgika. 

The mainstream understanding of epistemology in the philosophical traditions of Kant and Buddhism is problematic because the cognitive system is understood to be operating ontologically in time.  I shall attempt to demonstrate that the ontological assumption in the mainstream understanding is the root cause for both the difficulty in appreciating Kant's transcendental idealism and the indeterminable position of epistemology in Buddhism, especially Dignāga's anti-realistic epistemology.  I will also defend epistemology by denying the ontological attribution to the epistemic system and by establishing what I term “critical epistemology.”  This entails focusing on the need for an additional, distinct kind of causality (the causality of freedom) on top of the natural causality in both traditions, be it textually or philosophically.  The causality of freedom only necessitates the cause of cognition and its relation to all cognitions, whereas the causality of nature is only effective in the results of cognition but never on the cause of cognition.  Although the two kinds of causality operate independently, they constitute a formal unity in the realization of every possible cognition.  The orthogonality between the two kinds of causality sharply distinguishes the free (reflexively cognizing) status from the constrained (reflexively cognized) status of a person; furthermore, its empty inner product, i.e., the empty impact these two kinds of causality exert upon each other, makes sense of each vector subspace (dimension), namely ideality and reality, in all possible realized cognitions, thus culminating in a single world of “experience.”

The task consists of two parts. Part One develops a counter-exposition of Kant’s theory of free play, an exposition from the productive side of beauty rather than the appreciation. This part offers materials from Kant’s theory of art, genius and aesthetic ideas. Part Two focuses on the notion of imagination. From the three different patterns of association of this power (constrained particular associations in cognition, universal associations in theoretical and moral reflections, and aesthetic association in aesthetic reflection) an interrelation among three forms of mental determination (particular determinations, universal determinations and aesthetic determination) that structuralize the schematic form of every instance of consciousness is developed. Furthermore, the communication of aesthetic ideas between a genius and his or her animatee is used to deduce the universality of such a structure consists of three forms of determination, and such communications as commonplace phenomena and the existence of geniuses are used to deduce the existence of the structure. At the end, more comprehensions about consciousness, subjectivity, freedom and humanity are anticipated with the critique of such a structure.