किं स्वतः परतो वा प्रामाण्यम्?

किं प्रामाण्यं स्वतः, परतो वा उत्पद्यते, ज्ञायते च ?

सांख्यानां प्रामाण्याप्रामाण्यौ उभौ स्वतः । नैयायिकानां वैशेषिकानां च प्रामाण्याप्रामाण्यौ उभौ परतः । बौद्धप्रमाणवादिनां प्रामाण्यं परतः, अप्रमाण्यं तु स्वतः । मीमांसकानां तु प्रामाण्यं स्वतः, अप्रमाण्यं च परतः । इति चत्वारः पक्षाः ।

Let us organise more Saṃvādas! An Interview with Mrinal Kaul

I met Mrinal Kaul for the first time in December 2012, when he attended the Coffee Break Meeting on textual reuse in Indian Philosophical texts. Since then, I tried to have him collaborate to many of my projects, but always failed, since he is already very  busy with incredibly many others. You can read his blog here and find out something more about him on his Academia page. Once you have done this, add much more Sanskrit than you would believe, imagine a smiling, funny face and you will still have only a vague idea of him.

We don’t want people to withhold useful testimony (do we?)

Should we investigate about the epistemology of testimony in order to improve other people’s testimonial habits? If so, we should avoid too strict criteria, or people will withdraw precious testimonies for fear of not being justified in testifying about them. If, by contrast, the epistemology of testimony merely describes common testimonial norms, then, why does it have so high expectations? You can read my thoughts from the point of view of (Western) epistemology here.