In memoria, Raniero Gnoli (1930-2025)

I met Raniero Gnoli for the first time at the beginning of my university career, when I started attending his class on Abhinavagupta’s commentary on the Paratriṃśikā. I had only had one year of Sanskrit and I spent each class taking as many notes as possible, which I then re-read in the following days, trying to reconstruct the translation of a text that was way beyond my competence.

Raniero Gnoli had published his translation of Abhinavagupta’s commentary in 1985, but had decided to get back to it and while reading it with us (he did most of the reading) he partly revised his previous understanding. I was impressed by how learned he was, by how he seemed to understand Sanskrit without any difficulty (for instance, if he ever hesitated about a word, he would mentally check its usages in other Sanskrit texts he seemed to know almost by heart and thus understand it better), but also by his willingness to revise his previous understanding and to let us look at how he engaged with his past self and with Abhinavagupta himself.

The following year he read with us a Sanskrit text together with its Tibetan translation (he knew Tibetan, but refused to use the contemporary Tibetan pronunciation and would just pronounce “rgyu” and the like as if they were Sanskrit words, namely as र्ग्यु). During my first 1–2 years he was also the director of the Department of Oriental Studies (the name might have been different at that point, I am no longer sure) and I asked him his advice about what to specialise on. I told him that I was also thinking about Indian art and archaeology. His answer was clear-cut, namely that Chineses excelled in art, Indians not so much. There was thus no point in specialising in it. (I don’t know whether he said it as a test or a form of upāyakauśalya, but it did the trick.)

For many years to follow, Raniero Gnoli had stopped teaching at the University, but would still welcome us in his castle to read Sanskrit together. “We” means the students of Sanskrit at that point, a group of undergraduates who were still struggling with even simple Sanskrit. It took us years to get better, but he welcomed us at all stages. He read with us whatever we asked him to read, from the Nyāyabhāṣya (which was understandable for us, hence it made us overconfident) to Prajñākaragupta’s commentary on Dharmakīrti (too difficult for us!).

Although he was among the most productive scholars imaginable, always studying new things (often unheard for, such as how to execute the “punto Milano” embroidery), he appeared to always have time for reading Sanskrit with us. For the first months, he just read himself, then at a certain point he must have understood (how? Out of our pupils’ movements?) that we had become good enough and just asked us to translate (I was shocked, but it worked) and then corrected us. We could come for weeks in a row with the same text or just show up with a new text, he was open to everything.

He had strong opinions about Sanskrit philosophy and seemed to be guided by a crystal clear intellect. This must have been the reason he could recognise the philosophical genius of Abhinavagupta at a time virtually no one had even noticed him. For instance, he is the origin of the translation “aesthetic experience” for rasa, thus understanding what was at stake with Abhinavagupta’s insistence on it, at a time when other translators still spoke of “juice” or the like. Similarly, Gnoli would have definite opinions about how to put together a critical edition (which needs to be “critical” and not a mere collation) and about priorities for the discipline. Once, for instance, we asked him what prompted him to prepare the critical edition of the Pramāṇavārttika+svavṛtti. He said that it was needed.

After reading, he would chat with us for a while. We got to know about his journeys through India, often looking for stones (like a certain lumachella) or manuscripts, or about his Greek literature exams during his university studies, or about Tucci’s eating restrictions. He was the kind of superior being who does not need to show their superiority, since it is apparent, and he was therefore humble, often wearing old and worn trousers and even making fun of himself. For instance, when he turned 70 Raffaele Torella put together two volumes in his honour (“Le parole e i marmi”) and organised a small ceremony for him once the volumes were published. Gnoli started his speech saying that it was nice to feel younger (since the volumes ended up being published two years after his 70th birthday) and later commented with us that the whole ceremony had been a “preview” of his funeral —little did he know that he would have lived and worked for further 23 years.

Personally, my debt towards him is inextinguishable. I learnt most of what I know about Sanskrit philosophy from illustrious teachers, and Raffaele Torella and Raniero Gnoli were not only the first ones, but two absolute models of scholarship. I can’t fathom how much good karman I must have accumulated in the past to have been worthy of reading with them, learning from their pāṇḍitya, which was so deep it looked spontaneous, and even listening to their fearless way of expressing ideas —very different from what many describe as “typical Academia”.

Growing ambitions: Philosophy of ritual/deontics and philosophy of religion

What I today call philosophy of ritual comprises a complex set of philosophical approaches seeking to solve questions and problems arising in connection with ritual. Different philosophers of ritual aim at reconstructing rituals in a highly structured, rigorous manner, curbing religious metaphors to the strict discipline of their linguistic analysis. As a result, they examine religious texts according to exegetical rules to extract all meaning and intelligibility from them. Another set of philosophical questions connected with rituals concerns duty. How are duties conveyed? How can one avoid contradictions within texts prescribing duties? I started using deontic logic, as initially developed by G.H. von Wright, to formalise contrary-to-duty situations and think about commands, especially thanks to the collaboration with the amazing Agata Ciabattoni and her brave team at the Theory and Logic Group of the TU in Vienna. Ciabattoni had not heard of logic apart from the Euro-American mathematical logic. Before meeting her, I had not heard, let alone worked on intuitionistic logic nor on fuzzy logic. By joining forces, we could explore new formalisations to make sense of seemingly puzzling texts (see mimamsa.logic.at). Working with people outside one’s comfort zone is demanding, since one cannot assume any shared research background and needs to explain each element of one’s research. However, exactly this deconstructive operation means that one needs to rethink each step analytically, often being able to identify for the first time problems and resources one had overlooked. For instance, our ongoing work on permissions in ritual is going to highlight the advantages of the Mīmāṃsā approach in denying the interdefinability of the operators of permission, prescription and prohibition and thus avoiding the ambiguity of the former (which in common linguistic use as well as in much Euro-American deontic logic can mean “permitted, but discouraged”, “permitted and encouraged” as well as “permitted and neutral” and in Euro-American deontic logic even “permitted and prescribed”). By contrast, permissions in Mīmāṃsā are always “rather-not” permissions, whereas what is encouraged though not prescribed is rather covered by different operators. Within the next weeks, I plan to put the finishing touches and submit to a publisher a first book dedicated to deontics and philosophy of ritual not in the Euro-American or Chinese worlds. The book, entitled Maṇḍana on Commands, aims at providing both scholars of philosophy and of deontics in general a comprehensive access to the thought and work of a key (but unacknowledged) deontic thinker and his attempt to reduce commands to statements about the instrumental value of actions against the background of its philosophical alternatives. I plan to continue working on deontics and philosophy of ritual with an intercultural perspective and with cross-disciplinary collaborations. Within Philosophy of Religion, I aim primarily at using an intercultural perspective to rethink the categories of “god” and the connected category ofatheism”. Scholars who have not thought critically about the topic, might think that there is only one concept of “god” that is discussed within philosophy, and that this is the omnipotent and omniscient Lord of rational theology, whose existence is necessary and independent of anything They created. But this is not the case in European philosophy (especially in the parts of it which have been more influenced by Jewish philosophy) and it is certainly not so outside of European philosophy. For instance, Tamil and Bengali philosophers of religion will think about and worship a personal and relational God, one for whom existence is not intrinsically necessary, but dependent on His (Her) relation to His (Her) devotees. Similarly, looking at Buddhist authors allows one to see how atheism can be constructed in a religious context, namely as the negation of one (or multiple) concept(s) ofgod”, typically focusing on the negation of mythological deities and the contradictions they entail. I plan to submit a project on new ways to conceptualise atheism from an intercultural perspective and to continue working on the concept of a relational God, deriving my inspiration especially from Medieval Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta theologians like Veṅkaṭanātha.

Growing ambitions…

More than a decade ago, I wrote that I aspired at “making Indian philosophy part of mainstream philosophy”. I still do, but with more far-reaching goals and an evolved methodology. Let me explain: In the past, I focused on recognized areas of philosophy to which Sanskrit philosophy has contributed in a significant manner. Philosophy of language, one of the main realms of philosophy in the Sanskrit cosmopolis, comes to mind, as does epistemology of testimony. I aimed at showing how both fields would benefit from philosophical contributions coming from outside the Euro-American worlds by expanding philosophers’ understanding and interpretations.

Today, however, my scholarly ambitions go further. Rather than simply broaden extant concepts, I work to help readers rethink the core of what makes “philosophy” by looking at what different traditions consider “philosophical”. For instance, ritual is not generally considered worthy of philosophical investigation, even during a time in which philosophy constantly expands to, e.g. “philosophy of biology” and “philosophy of sex”. However, many Sanskrit, Jewish and Chinese authors have spent thousands of years and of pages to think about rituals as complex systems requiring internal consistency and principled justification.
Accordingly, I strive to convince philosophers and readers of the philosophical value of speculations on ritual and on duty as found in the Mīmāṃsā school of Sanskrit philosophy, in the Talmud hermeneutics or around the concept of li in Confucian philosophy, and to therefore establish “philosophy of ritual”. Similarly, within philosophy of religion, I see my work on various sources as contributing especially to the rethinking of central categories that are taken for granted by the field, such as that of the notion of God as an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent being and the notion of “atheism” as equivalent to non-religiosity.

Methodologically speaking, I work on primary texts, predominantly in Sanskrit, but also in Maṇipravāḷam, Tamil and Tibetan, and I believe in looking at their history as key to a philosophical engagement with such texts. Without their historical context, texts risk being misunderstood and “domesticated” into something their readers consider more plausible because they are familiar with it. Examining their history, by contrast, helps me preserving their philosophical originality, even when it may be disruptive. One might object that linguistic and cultural competence cannot be a requirement for philosophical work, since otherwise one would need to master “all languages”, which is impossible. My answer to that is my insistence on collaborations. It is unlikely that my knowledge of Japanese or Bantu will ever be enough to read Japanese or Bantu philosophy, but I will remain open to collaborations working on it. I don’t work on 17th c. Mexican culture, but I can collaborate with scholars working on Juana Inés de la Cruz’ epistemology and we can mutually profit from each other’s work.

The last twenty-six months within the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto have made me better aware of the obstacles that prevent many colleagues from using philosophical sources that are not yet “mainstream”, such as the fact that not enough philosophically-informed translations are available, and that not enough work has been done to enucleate the contribution of single philosophers (many colleagues are still under the impression that there were just “schools” of Sanskrit and Chinese philosophy, and that there is a single pre-contemporary Africana philosophy, without individual contributions). I have consequently doubled my efforts as an interpreter of philosophy in both directions.

On helping and being a teacher as an egoistic pleasure

I don’t like writing about myself, but the following lines might be useful. At once it dawned on me that many misunderstandings around me are caused by a simple fact: I enjoy helping other people.

It’s not just that I think it is my duty to help them, I also enjoy seeing them happier and I relish their progresses. The moment in which a student, whom I accompanied in their first steps in Sanskrit (or) philosophy first corrects me (usually tentatively and almost embarassed) is my moment of glory.

If I were to read with a group of people, I would enjoy helping the one who is doing their best, but still struggling. I know that others would just prefer to go on and don’t like having people keeping the pace slow. They are right in many senses (there would be otherwise no advancement of knowledge!). Still, I like helping the slow-paced ones. In many cases, I also discover that I can understand things better while explaining them. In others, I realise that the passage was not as straightforward as I thought and that the person being seemingly “slow” was just being more accurate and insightful. Thus, I have also selfish reasons for helping.

If I were to lead a reading group, I would like people to join knowing that they might start at “K” level and leave at “12” level and that they will be helped by me and the others first and will have to help the new ones later.

This being said, I am aware of the fact that not everyone is like that. Probably, because some are not like that, they cannot understand me (like I might have troubles understanding them) and ascribe me obscure motives. This is not the case. I am not accusing/blaming/reproaching anyone. I am just trying to be useful.

3:AM interviews on South Asian philosophy SECOND UPDATE

Most readers will already be familiar with the deep and entertaining interviews of the 3:AM Magazine. Here I would like to express my kudos to Richard Marshall and the 3:AM project for their inclusion of scholars working on South Asian philosophy within their interviews.
Unless I missed someone, here is a list of the interviews relevant for South Asian philosophy (broadly conceived):

Philosophy of action

In case you missed it, I would like to recommend a website on philosophy of action which is a great single go-to page for almost anything related to the topic. It offers links, biographies, encyclopedic entries, essays, videos and learning materials on various facets of philosophy of action. It has also a section on job vacancies and one with short interviews with scholars working on philosophy of action. It is learned and enjoyable and the same time, a great achievement.

The semantic development of tantra and prasaṅga

A review of Freschi Pontillo 2013

A review of our 2013 book on the evolution of the semantics of tantra and prasaṅga by Émilie Aussant can be read on the Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics (link here).

Many thanks are due to Dr. Aussant for her ability to explain in a few sentences the broad context (the Sanskrit śāstra tradition and its ability to encode as many aspects of life as possible), the narrow one (metarules for the interpretation of sūtras) and the specific topic of tantra and prasaṅga.

You can read more on tantra and prasaṅga in my previous blog, here and here. A short version of the book is available on Academia.edu, here.

Open access papers on philosophy of language etc.

For a lucky coincidence, two long term projects of mine reached completion almost at the same time.

You can therefore read on the 2017 issue of the Journal of World Philosophies the (Open Access) papers on philosophy of language which are the result of a project led by Malcolm Keating and myself (see here). I am grateful to the journal’s editor, Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach for her help and support throughout the process.

On the 2017 issue Kervan you can read the lead papers on epistemology of testimony, printed cultures and conceptualisation of sexuality which are the result of the 2013 Coffee Break Conference held in Turin and edited by Daniele Cuneo, Camillo Formigatti and myself. I am grateful to the journal’s editor, Mauro Tosco for his help and support throughout the process.

Enjoy and please let me know your comments and criticisms!

Project on deontic logic in Mīmāṃsā

Why is it interesting to deal with Mīmāṃsā deontics?

Most deontic theories conflate two different approaches:

—ethics

—deontics

The Mīmāṃsā approach is interesting exactly because it separates the two. In other words, suppose we say that a person O(p) because p is good or because it is God’s will etc. In this case, you are using your ethical (and metaphysical) assumptions to ground the validity of your deontic statements. By contrast, Mīmāṃsā authors analyse deontic statements on their own. Just like they analyse the epistemic validity of statements independently of the authority of their authors, so they analysed the deontic validity of statements independently of a further background.

This does not mean that it is ethically good to bring to poverty all human beings. In fact, if you do that, you are surely transgressing the prohibitions to harm human beings and will get negative consequences (=negative karman) out of it, but you do not need ethical presuppositions to make sense of the Mīmāṃsā theory.

For some news on my newly approved project on deontic logic in Mīmāṃsā, please read its website, here.