Designation and Ontological Commitment in Sellars and Prasangika Madhyamika

Abstract

The Prasangika Madhyamika system of Buddhist philosophy claims that the basis upon
which we designate an object is never the object designated, even in cases in which
the designation is truly made. This claim leads to their doctrine of “two truths”:
ultimate truth and conventional truth. Both the claim and the doctrine have
interesting similarities to views advanced by Wilfrid Sellars, particularly his
distinction between the scientific and the manifest image. I explore some of
these.