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Foundations of Dharmakirti's Philosophy. By John D. Dunne. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004. Pp. xvii t 467. $39.95.
Foundations of Dharmakirti's Philosophy, a substantial revision of John Dunne's doctoral dissertation, is a well-documented and clearly argued book. It satisfies a longstanding need for students to have recourse to a single comprehensive analytical and history-based account of the basic ideas of the South Asian Buddhist philosopher Dharmakirti (seventh century C.E.), since it is devoted to explaining them in analytical terms with the help of a critical use of its earliest South Asian commentators, Devendrabuddhi (ca. 675 C.E.) and Sakyabuddhi (ca. 700 C.E.). The main body of the book contains four basic chapters, to which an introduction and conclusion are added, along with an appendix of translations. There is a bibliography of the primary sources consulted and secondary sources cited, as well as an excellent index. Since it is impossible, in the brief space of this review, to discuss the details of Dunne's exposition and argument, I will summarize most of the main topics he discusses so that readers relatively new to the subject may appreciate the breadth and depth of this introduction to Dharmakirti's philosophy.
In the introduction (pp. 1-13) Dunne tells us that the aims of the book are to explain "the content and style of Dharmakirti's reasoning" and to help develop a scholarly consensus on the interpretation of Dharmakirti's philosophy by setting out and attempting to resolve the most basic questions about its ontology, logic, and epistemology. The first aim is satisfied in the main body of the book while the second is satisfied not only there but also in its 665 footnotes, many of which are quite lengthy. The first chapter provides a contextual overview of Dharmakirti's philosophy; the second, third, and fourth chapters include carefully constructed resolutions of the most difficult issues that scholars have raised about it; and the appendix of translations includes translations of texts whose meanings are discussed in the book.
Dunne tells us that the difficulty of explaining Dharmakirti's philosophy is due not only to its elements being so tightly intertwined that an account of each part presupposes a familiarity with others, but also to the many different ways it can be, and has been, interpreted. It is in...