I just noticed that the one I published yesterday was my tenth post on Daya Krishna. Since I usually dedicate that many posts only to Classical Indian philosophers, this might demand some explanations. Why engaging with contemporary Indian philosophers? And why Daya Krishna in particular?
Category Archives: Philosophy
CfP: “Religion as a Colonial Concept in Early Modern History (Africa, America, Asia)”
Religion as a Colonial Concept in Early Modern History (Africa, America, Asia)
Call for papers for a special issue of Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni to be published in 2016
Some common prejudices about Indian Philosophy: It is time to give them up
Is Indian Philosophy “caste-ish”? Yes and no, in the sense that each philosophy is also the result of its sociological milieu, but it is not only that.
Is Indian Philosophy only focused on “the Self”? Surely not.
Is there non-processed perception? The McGurk effect
The McGurk effect is a well-known experiment in which, while hearing a given phoneme and seeing someone pronouncing another phoneme, we “hear” the second one instead of the first one, the correct one. This seems to mean that the auditory perception of a phoneme is already processed, it is savikalpa. Try the McGurk effect in the following video:
Now, the problem is that, after many trials, this does not work with me. I guess that this might have to do with the fact that I am not an English Native speaker and that, accordingly, I process the image of someone pronouncing the second phoneme in a non-automatic way (after all, /f/ as pronounced in my native language is probably not pronounced with the same lip movement).
What do you think, does it work with you? If yes or if no, what is your native language
Again on circumstances and desires
According to Mīmāṃsā authors, prescriptions do not apply sic et simpliciter to anyone. They apply to a selected group of addressees, who are identified through a nimitta ‘condition’. Accordingly, the standard form of a prescription is:
(A) The one who is desirous of heaven [substitute ‘heaven’ with any other goal] should sacrifice with the Darśapūrṇamāsa [substitute ‘DPM’ with any other goal].
Arthāpatti (postulation? cogent evidence? derivation?) in Kumārila
Kumārila dedicated to arthāpatti eighty-eight verses in his Ślokavārttika (which is a commentary on the epistemological section of the Śābarabhāṣya). One would expect that also his Bṛhaṭṭīkā, which comments on the same text, contained a portion on arthāpatti and this is indirectly confirmed by further evidences:
- The verse said to be extracted from the Bṛhaṭṭīkā in the Mānameyoda‘s section on arthāpatti (discussed here)
- Four verses on arthāpatti attributed by Śālikanātha* to the Vārttikakāra (i.e., Kumārila) but not found in his Ślokavārttika
All these texts agree, among other things, on a major distinction between inference and arthāpatti, namely the fact that the vyāpti, the ‘invariable concomitance’ between what will be known and its logical reason, is already at the epistemic disposal of the knower before the anumāna, whereas in the case of the arthāpatti the knower, so to say, discovers it “on the go”, at the time of reaching the result of the arthāpatti. In other words, one would not have been able to say beforehand that there is an invariable concomitance between the set of people who, being alive, are not at home, and the set of people who are out of their home, until one had reached the conclusion that Devadatta must be outside.
For further details, see Yoshimizu 2007 (in Preisendanz (ed.) Expanding and Merging Horizons).
*I am obliged to Kiyotaka Yoshimizu who kindly alerted me to these verses.
Necessity in Mīmāṃsā philosophy
Anand Vaidya has recently raised a very intriguing discussion on modality in Indian philosophy. His post started with the suggestion that modality is less central in Indian philosophy than it is in Western thought. In the comments, several scholars suggested examples hinting at reflections on modality also in Indian thought but, now that I think again about them, they mostly discussed the modality of possibility in Indian thought. What about necessity?
No, there is nothing vaguely related with anything else but Western philosophy. But, I guess, we have been spoilt by various mentions of other philosophical traditions in the previous months… and it would all be too easy if this could become the rule!
If you want to recommend posts for the next edition of the Carnival, please do so here.
A pathway through Kumārila’s Ślokavārttika, śabda-chapter, part 1
The chapter on śabda ‘language as instrument of knowledge’ within Kumārila’s Ślokavārttika is an elaborate defense of linguistic communication as an autonomous instrument of knowledge. Still, its philosophical impact runs the risk to go unnoticed because it is at the same time also a polemical work targeting rival theories which we either do not know enough or we might be less interested in, and a commentary on its root text, Śabara’s Bhāṣya on the Mīmāṃsā Sūtra. The chapter has also the further advantage that all three commentaries on it have been preserved. Thus, beside Pārthasārathi’s useful one, one can benefit also from Śālikanātha’s deeper one and from Uṃveka’s commentary, which is the most ancient, tends to preserve better readings of the text and is philosophically challenging.
The following is thus the first post in a series attempting a pathway through the chapter:
At the link above, Edward Feser discusses Nyāya arguments. He seems to rely mostly on K.K. Chakrabarti. Spotted some mistakes? Let me know in the comments, but then let us enjoy the fact that Feser manages to summarise in a clear and accessible way the argument and to discuss it along with Thomistic and Materialistic counter-arguments.