ARGUMENTS (2) 285says that you are in or having the quality that the associated religious
tradition says that you have.
A caveat
While the arguments presented thus far have a certain force, and are
eminently defensible, they do not discuss the actual contexts in which one
finds the other side presented. In discussing these matters still further, it
will be useful to consider first the Advaita Vedanta appeal to experience as
evidence, and then the Jain and the Buddhist appeals. The critique of the
Advaita appeal that one finds readymade in Indian thought is straight-
forward and decisive. The latter two appeals in particular are very like
positions taken outside of any religious context, and are best seen in a
cross-cultural context.
Advaita appeal to enlightenment experience
Shankara rightly held that we do know that we exist and that we have
certain properties. Chandra can know that he now exists, and that he is
conscious now – and thus he can know that For all X, if X lacks properties,
then X is not me. Further, Chandra can know that there are things that he
does not know, and if there cannot be things that Brahman does not know
(and this is supposed to be a necessary truth – at least it is supposed to be a
necessary truth that “not knowing something” cannot be properly ascribed
to Brahman), then Chandra can know that he is not identical to Brahman. If
one knows both I exist, and have P and There is an item – namely, X – that
(if it exists) lacks P, then one can properly infer to I am not X. Hence the
Advaita Vedanta claim – its reading of the Upanishadic passage “Thou art
That” – is not true. Similarly, on Shankara’s own view, if Chandra sees an
elephant, Chandra sees a mind-independently existing large grey or albino
mammal, so there are mind-independently existing large grey or albino
mammals. But Brahman is not any sort of mammal at all, and so even if
Brahman exists, Brahman does not exist alone.
Shankara is of course aware of such objections, and while Ramanuja,
Madhva, and other Vedantins make them because they believe that
Shankara has no adequate answer, the answer that he has should be noted.
The answer^14 is that enlightenment experience trumps or “sublates” all
other sorts of experience, and enlightenment experience is self-
authenticating. Further, each sensory or introspective experience is self-
defeating, because it is either subject/consciousness/object or else