Digital Dictionary of Buddhism

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不極成

Pronunciations

Basic Meaning: unacceptable

Senses:

  • In Buddhist logic 因明  'not agreed upon,' or 'unaccepted.' (Skt. aprasiddha, asiddha). Aprasiddha is something that one of the disputants considers unacceptable as a premise, and thus cannot be used in an inference. For instance, a Sāṃkhya 數論 n cannot include ātman in a thesis or reason when arguing with a Buddhist, since the Buddhist would not accept any statement about an atman as valid—but the Sāṃkhyan could use it if debating another Hindu, or someone else who accepts the notion of atman as something to which valid predicates can be attributed. Similarly, as the Nyāyapraveśa points out, "a Buddhist asserting to a Sāṃkhyan, 'sound is perishable (vināśi, 滅壞)' " would be aprasiddha since the Sāṃkhyan would consider perishability inapplicable to sound, which they consider eternal. A prasiddha 極成 is what both disputants agree to accept as axiomatic for the sake of the arguments; aprasiddha is what they agree to exclude because one disputant finds it unacceptable. Fallacies in this category constitute the last four items of the nine fallacies of the proposition 宗九過. 〔因明入正理論 T 1630.32.11b26〕 [Dan Lusthaus, Charles Muller]
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    [Dictionary References]

    Fo Guang Dictionary 995

    Buddhist Chinese-Sanskrit Dictionary (Hirakawa) 0059

    Copyright provisions

    The rights to textual segments (nodes) of the DDB are owned by the author indicated in the brackets next to each segment. For rights regarding the compilation as a whole, please contact Charles Muller. Please do not reproduce without permission. And please do not copy into Wikipedia without proper citation!

    Entry created: 2007-02-17

    Updated: 2010-05-11