India · c. 480–1200 CE in India; continued in Tibet
Buddhist epistemology (Pramāṇa school)
There are only two valid means of knowledge: perception, which grasps unique particulars, and inference, which works through general concepts.
What counts as valid knowledge, and how does sound reasoning work?
Public debates between Buddhists, Nyāya logicians and Mīmāṃsakas required shared rules of proof. Dignāga, working from Yogācāra and earlier Nyāya logic, reorganised the field around valid cognition (pramāṇa); Dharmakīrti deepened it about a century later.
Perception is free of concepts and reaches only momentary particulars; concepts work by exclusion (apoha)—‘cow’ means ‘not non-cow’—so universals are mental constructions, not real things. A valid inference needs a reason present in the subject, present in similar cases and absent from dissimilar ones, and Dharmakīrti grounds that necessity in real relations of identity and causation.
- Only two means of knowledge: perception and inference.
- Universals are conceptual exclusions, not real entities.
- Valid cognition is what reliably guides successful action.
It set the agenda for Indian epistemology for centuries—Nyāya and Mīmāṃsā wrote against it—and remains central to Tibetan monastic education; in China its logic became known as yinming.
Thinkers
c. 480–540DignāgaFounder of Buddhist logic and epistemologyc. 600–660 (some scholars: mid-6th century)DharmakīrtiBuddhist logician whose theory of knowledge dominated Indian debateKey texts
Where it came from
Grew out ofYogācāraDignāga and Dharmakīrti worked largely within Yogācāra (and Sautrāntika) assumptions, grounding knowledge in momentary perception.Reacted against
Nyāya–VaiśeṣikaDignāga criticised Nyāya’s four means of knowledge and its realist universals, cutting the list to perception and inference.
What it led to
Opposed byNyāya–VaiśeṣikaLater Naiyāyikas such as Uddyotakara and Udayana defended real selves, universals and God against Dignāga and Dharmakīrti.