  The notion that cognition has its basis in the sense rather than the object is of tremendous philosophical import for the Sautrāntika and Yogācāra Schools, whose philosophical perspectives are best described as phenomenalism. Thus terms used to designate physical objects (viṣaya) are replaced with terms which designate cognitive aspects (ākāra).  For the Yogācāras in particular, the denial of the existence of external objects may be interpreted simply as a rebuttal of the tendency to assign ontological status to empirical objects outside, or independent of, the cognitive events in which they are instantiated (cf. Lusthaus 2002, 121), a view reminiscent of Berkeley's likeness principle. Similar reasons are at work in the Yogācāra perspective of epistemologists like Dharmakīrti, who take the view that consciousness is inherently intentional, a position which has been recently termed ‘epistemic idealism’ (which is contrasted with ‘external realism,’ presumably the position adopted by the Sautrāntikas) (Dunne 2004, 59; see also Dreyfus 1997; 2007). However, insofar as Dharmakīrti is primarily concerned with epistemological issues, his commitment to the notion that we are immediately aware of our cognitive states holds regardless of whether he adopts an idealist or a phenomenalist stance (cf. Arnold 2008, 5 and passim).