1996 Reviews

Review of Recognizing Reality, by Georges Dreyfus

Hackett, Paul G.

The two possible objects of a valid cognition ( pramana; tshad
ma) is the launching point for Georges Dreyfus's Recognizing Reality, an exploration of
fifteen hundred years of Buddhist epistemology beginning in India with the writings of
Dignaga and Dharmakirti, and continuing on in Tibetan intellectual circles up until the
present day. A revised presentation of what was originally written as his doctoral
dissertation, Dreyfus lays out the fundamental issues central to the Buddhist theory of
knowledge. He draws comparisons with non-Buddhist categories of thought subsumed
under the rubrics of "idealism" and "realism" and an assessment of their applicability to a
Buddhist context.