Are you allowed to perform a malefic sacrifice? If you are, then it seems like the Veda contradicts itself, since elsewhere it prohibits violence. If you are not, why not, given that such sacrifices are prescribed in the Veda?
Category Archives: logic
Who studied Mīmāṃsā deontics?
Since Mīmāṃsā (both in its Bhāṭṭa and in its Prābhākara subschools) focused primarily on the exegesis of the prescriptive portion of the Vedic Sacred Texts, the Mīmāṃsā texts offer richly developed discussions of deontic issues, both from a linguistic and from a logic point of view. Unfortunately, the lack of philosophically accessible translations has made most of such discussions remain confined to Sanskritists.
Possible applications of Mīmāṃsā deontics: on Chaudhuri and Vardi
There are fields in which the contribution of applied ethics and deontics are more than needed, such as that of the programming of artificial intelligence connected to robots which might interact with human beings. Chaudhuri and Vardi (their article can be downloaded here) quote the following case:
Helmut Krasser, the Rebel Sanskritist —UPDATED
Photo by Birgit Kellner
I met Helmut Krasser during my Erasmus year in Vienna, back in the Nineties. We sat together (meaning that he, Horst Lasic and Ernst Steinkellner prepared and led the meetings whereas I and other people tried to follow and to add minor points from time to time) at the Academy, reading Jinendrabuddhi’s commentary on Dignāga’s Pramāṇasamuccaya.
Was Yāmuna the real founder of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta? (On Mesquita 1971 and 1973)
Yāmuna (967–1038 according to Mesquita 1973) is one of the chief figures of the philosophy later known as Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta. In fact, to me one of the most intriguing questions regards his role in the formation of this school. It is only with Rāmānuja (who lived two generations after Yāmuna) that the school becomes clearly Vedāntic and it is not by chance that it is only Rāmānuja who decided to write a commentary on the Brahmasūtra.
Do you think that Sanskrit is hard? Have a look at what our fellow logicians are doing! —On Srinivasan and Parthasarathi 2012
This article uses Mīmāṃsā tools for a non-exegetical purpose, i.e., in order to build a system of representations of imperatives. The purpose of the system is even further away, since it regards Artificial Intelligence. In fact, the authors start with the (evident, but often overlooked) observation that we communicate with computers mostly through imperatives and not assertive statements (do this, then if x, then do z…).
Before “Classical Indian Philosophy”: the influence of the Sāṅkhya logic UPDATED
We discussed already on this blog about how our conception of “classical Indian philosophy” is contingent and historically determined. For instance, if you were to ask me what “classical Indian philosophy” for me means, I would at first answer with “debate between Nyāya, Mīmāṃsā and Buddhist Pramāṇavāda”. However, as soon as one throws a closer look at the texts, one sees how this balance was precarious and how the debate had different protagonists at different times.