QuestionsCan we be certain of anything?The poisoned arrow
Can we be certain of anything?What escapes words

The poisoned arrow

The parable of the poisoned arrow

Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) c. 480 BC · c. 400 BCTeaches that what we call "self" is made of passing elements, with no permanent self (anatta). His exact dates are debated.
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What it claims

The Buddha teaches only what liberates (suffering, its origin, its end, the path) and leaves unanswered the questions on the world's eternity, the soul and the afterlife.

Why

A wounded man who demands answers before being treated dies before getting them: some questions do not lead to liberation.

In short

"The poisoned arrow" is an argument by Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) (Culamalukya Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya 63) on the question "Can we be certain of anything?" (answer: what escapes words). Its claim: The Buddha teaches only what liberates (suffering, its origin, its end, the path) and leaves unanswered the questions on the world's eternity, the soul and the afterlife. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P4). AskPhilosophy presents 2 objections, 1 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Culamalukya Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya 63
Valid with an implicit premise

The monk Malunkyaputta grows impatient: the Buddha has never said whether the world is eternal or finite, whether soul and body are the same, or what becomes of an awakened one after death. He demands an answer, or he will leave the community. The Buddha answers with an image: a man is struck by a poisoned arrow. If he refused to have it removed until he knew who shot it, what caste the shooter was, or what wood the bow was made of, he would die first. The unanswered questions are of this kind: holding a view on them does not remove birth, old age, death or sorrow. The Buddha teaches only what serves to leave suffering. This is not a refusal to think: it is a sorting, by usefulness for liberation. The text justifies the silence by usefulness, not by a limit of language; but another sutta (Aggivacchagotta, Majjhima Nikaya 72) adds that the awakened one after death cannot be described, like a fire gone out of which one cannot say where it went. A text of the Pali canon, written down centuries after the Buddha.

P1We are already struck by suffering, old age and death, as the man is already struck by the arrow. The urgency is to get out of it.
P2On the questions of the world's eternity, its size, soul and body, or the fate of the awakened one after death, holding a view does not remove birth, old age, death or sorrow.
P3These questions are not beneficial for the life of liberation: they do not lead to disillusionment, peace or awakening.
P4 · implicit premiseIt is better to devote oneself to what is useful for liberation, and leave unanswered what is not.
The Buddha teaches only what liberates (suffering, its origin, its end, the path) and leaves unanswered the questions on the world's eternity, the soul and the afterlife.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Analogy.

Objections

2

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

M
Malunkyaputta (in the sutta itself) 450 BC · attacks the conclusion

The monk answers in advance with an argument of honesty: if the Buddha knows, let him say; if he does not know, it is enough to say "I neither know nor see". Not answering at all lets one think the teacher is hiding something.

a defender replies
The Buddha (same sutta) defender of the argument · 450 BC
The Buddha does not say he is ignorant. He recalls that he never promised to answer these questions in exchange for the monk's life, then says why he does not: they do not help liberation. The monk, he adds, risks dying before getting his answers.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Our summary: in the text, the answer is about usefulness, not ignorance. Scholars discuss whether the silence means "I do not know", "it cannot be said" or "it is of no use".
E
Evan Thompson (Why I Am Not a Buddhist) 2020 · attacks premise 3

This philosopher criticizes "Buddhist modernism", which presents Buddhism as a rational practice, almost a science, free of metaphysics: Buddhist texts are no less metaphysical than those of other religions, and nirvana or awakening are beliefs about salvation, not testable hypotheses. Applied to the parable (our reading): judging a question "useless for liberation" already presupposes a doctrine of liberation.

no reply
We have not yet found a direct reply by Buddha) in the texts.
The debate goes on (our summary) Our summary: the sutta does not answer this modern objection. It leaves unanswered the afterlife of the awakened one, but other canon texts teach rebirth, which feeds the debate.