This post is part of a series discussing Arindam Chakrabarti’s Realisms Interlinked. The previous posts are available here, here and here.

The last chapter (chapter 16) of the second part is a discussion of the Nyāya theories for the existence of the self and it includes also discussions about the no-ownership theory (mental states don’t need to be *of someone*) and against physicalism (pp. 189–191). I especially enjoyed the discussion about the inner sense faculty (manas, already discussed in chapter 13) and its role as a connector among sense faculties. How else could we compare different sense data, given that sense faculties do not have autonomous agency and cannot communicate with each other? However, this seems to be a lot of burden placed on the shoulders of manas.  It seems straightforward to accept a sense-faculty for inner sensations, but how can one justify its extension to other functions? manas seems to grow to incorporate also what Sāṅkhya authors would have called a buddhi ‘intellect’. Can it do so and remain a sense-faculty? Can it really be responsible, e.g., for anuvyavasāya and *still* remain a sense-faculty?

Next, the third part (“Other subjects”) starts. In this third part, the book’s title (“Realisms interlinked”) increasingly looses its cogency and the book is more and more about “objects, subjects and other subjects”, including also less closely connected topics, such as the brilliant article on the ontology of shadows and Arindam’s theory of śabdapramāṇa —but Arindam waves them together nicely, e.g., by discussing how śabdapramāṇa is part of our acknowledging the existence of epistemic others, i.e., others we can learn from.

To be honest, I enjoyed the first part, but I enjoy even more this latter part, since it is more experimental and draws from more sources (whereas the first part was closer to keeping the Anglo-Analytic and Nyāya paradigms). For instance, the wonderful chapter 18, on the vocative reminded me of Martin Buber’s masterpiece, “I and Thou” and how relating to one by addressing them is different than discussing about them. The latter way to speak reifies them, the former means entering into a relation. Thus, whereas it is contradictory to say “I am now talking to God. I do not know whether They exist”, it is not meaningless to address God asking for faith, because addressing is not about existence, but about relation. 

As hinted at above, Arindam follows different philosophical inspirations in this part, starting with Abhinavagupta, whom, as discussed in a previous post, is also responsible for his moving beyond realism. We had already seen this influence at play, for instance in chapter 12, and within the third part again in chapter 17, while discussing how it is possible to know about the existence of others. The whole chapter discusses the arguments by analogy in Dharmakīrti and its critique by Strawson, which Arindam labels as “devastating”. Why so? The argument by analogy is, according to Arindam’s reading of Strawson, an induction. But how weak is an induction, if it is based on a single case? Moreover, according to Strawson, there is strictly speaking not even a single case the induction can be based on. In fact, predicates such as “happy” or “depressed” are completely different if they are experienced from within and attributed from the outside to other alleged subjects. And in which sense is a predicate a predicate if it is not predicable of others? Thus, for predicates to be predicates, they need to be applicable to more than one person, even if in one case through direct access and in the other through behaviour-observation. At this point, Abhinavagupta is ready to step in. But before getting to his solution as understood by Arindam, let me pause a little longer on why following Abhinavagupta.

Why would Arindam be ready to sacrifice direct realism and follow Abhinavagupta on this dangerous path? Because Arindam likes intelligent thinkers, but also because Abhinava allows for a rich conception of the ātman, which is dynamically evolving (against the permanent self of Nyāya and Vedānta), and can therefore be an agent and a knower of intentional contents (the Sāṅkhya and Advaita Vedānta subject could be aware, but of no contents, the Nyāya subject had knowledge as an additional quality). 

Thus, while holding Abhinavagupta’s hand, Arindam ends up coming out of the plains of naïve realism and ends up in transcendental idealism or panpsychism. And here comes the solution for the problem of the existence of other subjects. In Arindam’s words:

“Post-Cartesian Western thought finds the problem of the Other Mind challenging and the very presence of the Other existentially constraining and self-annihilating. Abhinavagupta, on the other hand, finds the You to be a foundational middle-reality between the pure Self and the apparent non-Self, in contrast and continuity with which the Self discovers its own playful knower-hood” (p. 202).

Next come chapters 19 and 20, which discuss the epistemology of testimony. Arindam is here preaching to the convert when it comes to me, but let me repeat that unless we accept testimony, we have no way to ensure knowledge of basic facts, like our name and date of birth. Arindam also convincingly shows that testimony cannot be reduced to inference (pp. 217–8). Can the Nyāya theory of śabdapramāṇa, which is based on descriptive language, work also in the case of prescriptive language. As a Mīmāṃsaka, I am biased against it, but also Arindam’s reconstruction seems to allow for some doubts (“You are a person who is qualified by the agency to do X” does not seem tantamount to “do X!” —the prescriptive character appears to be just missing).

A last word on chapter 21, which is one of the best pieces of writing by Arindam in general and which allows me to go back to a point I discussed in the second post of this series, namely Arindam’s way of doing philosophy through a dialogue with other authors. In chapter 21 Arindam mentions a sentence by Wittgenstein. The interesting point is that the sentence looks trivially true. It says: “In paintings darkness *can* also be depicted as black”. No source is given, and I don’t know Wittgenstein good enough to be able to identify and reproduce the original German and check whether there is any additional shade of meaning, but as it stands, the sentence looks banal. However, Arindam is able to go deeper and disagree with the ontological theory about shade it presupposes. The key point that became clear to me only at this point is that Arindam is a great philosopher because (or also because) he is a great interpreter. He is able to let sentences by Nyāya philosophers (or by Leonardo, Turner or Goethe) disquiet him, and then keeps on thinking about them until he can identify what they implicitly presuppose, spell it out, and continue thinking philosophically about them until he can elaborate a theory that answers all the objections he has contemplated and taken seriously.

Within his commentary on PMS 1.1.5, Veṅkaṭanātha discusses conflicts among different sources of linguistic communication, e.g., the Vedas and the Buddhist canon, or the Vedas and the Dharmaśāstras.

The second way is much trickier, because since the time of Kumārila every Mīmāṃsaka agrees that recollected texts such as Dharmaśāstras are also based on the Veda. Hence, how is contradiction at all possible? And, if there is any, how to deal with it?

The subcommentary by Uttamur T. Vīrarāghavācārya is worth quoting extensively:

Recollected texts and directly heard sacred text are either about something to be done or about a state of affairs (tattva). In the first case,
one experiences here and there an option among actions due to a specific sacred text and a specific recollected text [prescribing two different courses of actions].
Then, there is indeed option [between the contradictory commands], because one postulates (sambhū-) also a sacred text being the root for the recollected text which points to actions contradicting the available sacred text (so that the contradiction is no longer between an available sacred text and a recollected one, but between two sacred texts).

smṛtyāgamayor […] kāryaviṣayakatvaṃ vā, tattvaviṣayakatvaṃ vā. ādye, kriyāvikalpasya śrutibhedena smṛ[ti]bhedena ca tatra tatra darśanāt pratyakṣaśrutiviruddhakriyāparasmṛtimūlabhūtaśruter api sambhāvitatvāt vikalpa eva.

I should add that only the first case (ādya) is addressed, because so does the main text (the Seśvaramīmāṃsā). Anyway, the concluding line is more complicated:

But, since on an optional matter one handles as one wishes, they prefer only the sacred text which is presently available —this [approach] is different than that.

paraṃ vikalpitasthale yathāruci anuṣṭhānāt pratyakṣaśrutam eva rocayanta ity anyad etat.

Now, a couple of things puzzle me here. First, what is the causal connection between the first clause and the second one? Why is it that if one handles as one wishes, one prefers the directly available sacred text? Second, what it meant by anyad etat?

Do readers have any suggestion?

Uttamur T. Vīrarāghavācārya discusses the reasons for having to deal with epistemology while trying to understand dharma in the context of PMS 1.1.3: We need to deal with epistemology because there are too many disagreements about what dharma is and how to know it. Here he summarises the Lokāyata position:

The position of the Lokāyatas is [as follows]. In ordinary experience (loka), there should not be distinction between what follows the rules (nyāyya) and what does not, or not (there should be a distinction)*.
The [condition for knowing] about dharma, adharma, etc. does not exist at all.
Since it (dharma) is understood in each time different ways by the upholders of the various opinions (mata), only its absence is apprehended.
Therefore, the condition of what should be investigated?

like nyāyyānyāyyavibhāgo mā bhūt, mā vā. dharmādharmādikaṃ nāsty eva. tattanmatasthair anyathānyathā tadabhyupagamāc ca tadabhāva eva pratīyate. ataḥ kasya niṃmittaṃ parīkṣyam iti lokāyatamatasthitiḥ.

*I am puzzled by the mā vā. If this reading of the subcommentary by Uttamur T. Vīrarāghavācārya is correct, the Lokāyata position is described as altogether sceptical. They do not even maintain that there can be no distinction between nyāyya and anyāyya. How would you interpret the mā vā?

—distinguishing between understanding the meaning of a sentence and knowing it to be true

—assuming a non-committal understanding of the meaning of a sentence

—understanding fitness as a requirement for the sentence meaning (yogyatā) as limited to the lack of obvious inconsistencies and not as regarding truth

—(possibly) assuming that the meaning of a sentence is not an entity out there (since there is no out-there entity in the case of false sentences), but rather a mental one

If you are now inclined to say that Indian authors on a whole could not answer yes to the question in the title, read the following sentence by Veṅkaṭanātha:

śaśaviṣāṇavākyād api bodho jāyata eva

Also out of the sentence claiming that hares have horns (e.g., out of an obviously false sentence), an awareness does indeed arise (SM ad 1.1.25, 1971 edition p. 114).

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!

Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsā authors do not agree with this analysis if applied to ordinary language which, they state, can also convey the description of states of affairs, but they agree that Vedic sentences only convey prescriptive contents.

This thesis has important epistemological and logical outputs. Epistemologically, it implies that the Veda is an instrument of knowledge only in relation to duties. By contrast, sense perception, inference, etc. only convey knowledge about what exists. Therefore, the knowledge of duties conveyed by Vedic sentences cannot be falsified by sense-perception, inference, etc., which convey a completely different set of contents. Therefore, since duties cannot be known through any other instrument of knowledge but the Veda, the Veda remains unfalsifiable.

From the point of view of deontic logic, the Mīmāṃsā analysis differentiates between prescriptions (vidhi) and prohibitions (niṣedha). These are distinguished on the basis of their leading or not to fruits and not on the basis of their linguistic form.

Mīmāṃsā authors developed the above theory also in opposition to Vedānta authors, who claimed that the Veda conveys descriptive contents about the brahman and the ātman.

Mīmāṃsakas subscribe to the idea that words convey word-meanings, and thus refute the Bhartṛharian holism. The relation between a word as meaningful unit and its meaning is fixed, as it is proved by our common experience of words, and it cannot be denied in favour of a view focusing on the text as a whole and rejecting without compelling reasons our prima facie experience of words as meaningful units.

Given that one can thus establish that words are meaningful, what exactly do they convey?
Mainstream Mīmāṃsā authors claim, against Nyāya ones, that words convey universals, while sentences convey particulars. This is, again, confirmed, by our common experience, in which words figure again and again denoting the same element recurring in several particular items, namely their underlying universal aspect. However, this thesis implies that words would never be able to convey a complex state of affairs on their own accord, and would therefore be almost useless. By contrast, a complex state of affairs (viśiṣṭārtha in the Mīmāṃsā jargon) is conveyed by a sentence. This means that the sentence-meaning is more than the sheer sum of word-meanings. The process of sentence‐signification, leading from word‐meanings to the sentence‐meaning, is distinctly explained by the two main Mīmāṃsā schools, Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsā and Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā. Both schools agree on the basic tenets seen so far, but they differ on the path leading from the words’ signification of universals to the sentence’s signification of a particular state of affairs. According to Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsā authors, words conclude their function in denoting their own universal meanings. These, in turn, get connected into a complex sentence meaning through proximity, semantic fitness and syntactic expectancy. These three criteria correspond to the requirement of being uttered one after the other with no intervening time (unlike in the case of the words “a cow” and “runs” pronounced on two different days), being semantically fit to connect (unlike the words “watering” and “with fire”) and being linkable through syntactic expectancy (as in the case of a verb and its arguments). One might (as did Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā authors) object that in this case the sentence meaning would no longer be conveyed directly by words, but rather by their meanings. Bhāṭṭa authors reply that even the sentence meaning is a function of words, via their meanings. They therefore distinguish a direct denotation (abhidhā) of words, through which universals are denoted, and a secondary signification (lakṣaṇā), through which complex sentence meanings are conveyed.

By contrast, Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā authors, and especially Prabhākara’s main commentator, Śalikanātha, state that words get connected and denote the specified sentence meaning only once connected. This assures that the sentence meaning can be said to be linguistically conveyed, since there is not the intermediary step of word-meanings, something very important for the Mīmāṃsā epistemology of linguistic communication as a distinct instrument of knowledge. However, Prābhākara authors have to explain the fact that the own meanings of single words appear to have a role to play in the process, since there is an invariable concomitance between knowing the words’ individual meanings and knowing the sentence’s one. This tension between the opposing risks of atomism and holism is dealt with differently by various authors, who usually call for the memory of the individual word-meanings to play a role in the process. Words would accordingly cause one to remember their own meanings, get related to one another and then denote the complex sentence-meaning.

In its full-fledged form, the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta (henceforth VV) is a Vedāntic school, thus one which accepts the authority of the Upaniṣads, the Brahmasūtra and the Bhagavadgītā and which recognises a form of God as brahman (on the various ways of understanding God in India, see here). The full-fledged VV accepts also further groups of texts, namely on the one hand the Pañcarātra (a group of Vaiṣṇava texts prescribing personal and temple rituals, see Leach 2012, and, here) and on the other the Tamil devotional poems collected in the Divyaprabandham.

In the following, I will first deal with the tenets of the school in its mature form, as found in the writings of Veṅkaṭanātha, and then show how the situation I had just depicted has not been the only one throughout the complex history of the school.

Ontology
The school’s ontology is perhaps its most distinctive contribution. The VV accepts both monism and direct realism. The monist aspect has to do with the fact that the brahman is conceived as the only independent entity. It exists in a way which even transcends the opposition between being and non-being (sat-asatoḥ param, in Rāmānuja’s parlance). Conversely, the world as we know it is, against Advaita Vedānta and Buddhism, real and not illusory, so that our cognitions of it are epistemologically sound. Yet, the world exists insofar as it is a specification of the brahman. The brahman is the whole of which any element of the world, conscious beings and inert matter, are an attribute. Therefore, the brahman exists in a specified (viśiṣṭa) manner. This ontological Weltanschauung rests on the negation of a strict distinction between substance and qualities. Unlike in Nyāya, VV considers qualifications to be qualifiers not because of their own nature, but only according to the changing point of view. For instance, a given form qualifies a body, which, in turn, qualifies a self, which, again, qualifies the brahman. The only thing which cannot qualify anything else, since it is itself the ultimate point of rest of all qualifications is the brahman. In this sense, the bodies of conscious beings are at the same time qualifications of their selves (which can therefore make them act) but also, ultimately, of the God-brahman (which can, through them, experience the world).

Theology
The VV’s ontology is distinguished from pantheism because of two reasons: 1. The brahman goes, as already hinted at, also beyond being. 2. The brahman is conceived not just as an impersonal Being, but rather as a personal God. In this sense, the VV finds a philosophical way for incorporating the religious dimension of bhakti into an onto-theology of Vedāntic type. The brahman is therefore declared to be equivalent not to a generic omniscient God, but rather with a personal form of God, called Viṣṇu, Kṛṣṇa or Nārāyaṇa.

God is invariably a cogniser. Knowledge is considered a substance, as in Vedānta and against Nyāya, but Yāmuna defines God’s knowledge as dharmabhūtajñāna `knowledge which has become a characteristic’, thus highlighting how knowledge behaves as a quality of God. Moreover, the two are said to be inseparably connected and cannot be known one independently of the other. In other words, God could never be imagined to be without cognition, whereas cognition needs a knower. It also invariably needs an object (i.e., it is intentional), against the Advaita Vedānta idea of a content-less awareness as the nature of brahman.

Such a personal God can be reached through a personal kind of devotion, called bhakti, which is the culmination of the previous salvific ways taught by Pūrva and Uttara Mīmāṃsā, namely karman (ritual acts) and jñāna (knowledge of the self).

Free will
Due to the personal nature of God, His co-presence in each body does not mean that human and other conscious beings are not free. Rather, they are the ones who carry the moral responsibility of their acts, just like the co-owner of a field who decides to sell it and just seeks for the other co-owner’s consent carries the responsibility for the selling (the simile is Rāmānuja’s). This freedom is the direct result of God’s free decision to restrict His possibility to hinder or alter their decisions.

Epistemology
The VV school adopts the Mīmāṃsā epistemology. Therefore, it accepts the intrinsic validity of cognitions as a basis for the reliability of the Vedas and of other sacred texts and recognises perception, inference and linguistic communication as the main instruments of knowledge. As for inference, it denies the possibility of inferring a God, who can only be known through the sacred texts. Veṅkaṭanātha reframes linguistic communication as the communication coming from a non-faulty source, thus accommodating both sacred texts (which have no source at all, since they are not authored) and worldly communication if coming from reliable speakers.

History of the school
As already hinted at, the school has experienced a complex evolution. The teachers recognised as its first exponents are Nāthamuni (–970? according to K. Young) and his grand-son Yāmuna (967–1038 according to Mesquita 1973). Of the first, no works are extant, but out of their titles one can speculate that they dealt with Yoga and Nyāya. Later hagiographical sources credit him with the finding of the Divyaprabandham. Yāmuna’s works are partly extant and attest of a complex and brilliant mind, who probably moved from Nyāya (his early work are open to the possibility of inferring the existence of God) to Vedānta. The next teacher, Rāmānuja (traditional dates 1017–1137), is usually considered the founder of the school as it is known today and is clearly a Vedāntin (his main works are a commentary on the Bhagavadgītā and his opus magnum, a commentary on the Brahmasūtra called Śrī Bhāṣya). However, in Rāmānuja’s works there is hardly any mention of Pañcarātra and no mention at all of the Divyaprabandham and of its contents. The tradition recognises Pirāṉ Piḷḷāṉ, the author of the first commentaries (in Tamil) on the Divyaprabandham as Rāmānuja’s direct disciple and he is surely the first one to introduce Rāmānuja’s theology in the interpretation of these poems. The confluence of the two Vaiṣṇavisms (Rāmānuja’s Vedāntic one and the Divyaprabandham’s devotional one) finds a further point of balance in Veṅkaṭanātha (also known as Vedānta Deśika, traditional dates (1269–1370), who wrote in both Tamil and Sanskrit and tried to systematise the school’s various elements. The later interpreters of the school, however, considered him as the exponent of one sub-school (the Vaṭakalai) opposed to the other (called Teṅkalai and whose foundation was later attributed to Piḷḷai Lokācārua, 1205–1311).

cross-posted on the Indian Philosophy Blog, where you can also read some interesting comments.