286 NONMONOTHEISTIC CONCEPTIONSsubject/content in structure – it includes “the making of distinctions” –
and any such experience is (it is claimed) inherently unreliable. Such later
critics as Ramanuja and Vadarija turn the latter claim against its author.
In moksha or enlightenment experience, one is supposed to learn that one
is identical to qualityless Brahman. While this is not viewed as being like
learning that seven and five are twelve, or that Alaska and Hawaii are US
states – it is an experience said to be life-changing, transforming,
accompanied with calm and bliss and freedom from desire, and the like –
still it is a matter of coming to see some alleged truth. Enlightenment
experience is supposed to confirm core Advaita doctrine. Suppose it does
so; then it is a matter of someone learning something – a subject/
consciousness/object or else a subject/content experience. If all
experiences with such structures are unreliable, so is enlightenment
experience. On the other hand, if enlightenment experience is reliable,
then other experiences possessing a similar structure can be reliable, and
all sensory and introspective experience provides evidence against the
claim that only qualityless Brahman exists. Should it be replied that
enlightenment experience has no object and no content, then it cannot be
the case that it confirms some doctrine rather than some other.
“Contentless and objectless experience” describes no possible experience,
and if it did describe any experience, such an experience would not be
evidence for Advaita versus Jain, Buddhist, monotheistic, or other
religious claims.
Jain-type appeals to experience
Both Jain and Buddhist traditions appeal to introspective experience as
evidence for, or confirmation of, their particular doctrines of what a person
is. From a Jain perspective, “introspective experience” here means “self-
awareness” or “awareness of one’s mental states,” irrespective of how those
states are elicited or understood. Jain enlightenment experience is taken to
have the same structure, and to reveal the same substantival being, that is
encountered in ordinary everyday self-consciousness. The Buddhist
tradition typically takes ordinary self-awareness to be deceptive and
restricts its appeal to enlightenment experiences and experiences that occur
to those trained in meditative traditions. Philosophers – of whom David
Hume is the most famous – claim that the most ordinary of introspective
experiences confirm the same view as that which the Buddhist derives from
esoteric experiences. In what follows, then, we will simply speak of
introspective experiences, not limiting ourselves to those which are
meditative or religious. As the dispute is cross-cultural, we may as well see