Category Archives: Sanskrit Philosophy

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Sāṅkhya on śyena

The Sāṅkhya reached its acme before Mīmāṃsā and its position is therefore attacked as a useful departure point for deontic discussions, especially around the case of the śyena in Mīmāṃsā texts (in the following, I will refer to its representation in Veṅkaṭanātha’s TMK).

Interestingly, although the school accepted the authority of the Vedas, Sāṅkhya authors did not insist on their being necessarily consistent and instead highlighted that the prohibition to perform violence should not be overturned, not even in case of sacrificial violence. Accordingly, they understand the sequence:

  • 1. One should not perform violence on any living being
  • 2. If one desires to harm one’s enemy, they should sacrifice bewitching with the śyena

as implying that 1. invalidates 2. Interestingly, Sāṅkhya authors are ready to go as far as stating that this applies also to the following sequence:

  • 1. One should not perform violence on any living being
  • 3. One should sacrifice an animal within the agnīṣomīya sacrifice

Whereas all Mīmāṃsā authors agree that 2. should not be fulfilled (but out of different reasons than the one put forward by Sāṅkhya authors), no one among them would agree in extending this position to 3.

Sāṅkhya authors are therefore presupposing that Vedic commands do not necessarily form a consistent whole and, more importantly, that prohibitions are \emph{unrestricted in their application} (see TMK 5.78). This is connected to a point we will see developed by Maṇḍana, namely the incommensurability of the bad. Transgressing a prohibition involves accumulating pāpa, i.e., bad karman, and this bad output cannot be compensated by any good result one might gather. Prescriptions contrasting with prohibitions are automatically suspended, since prohibitions are unrestricted and always prevail. Only prescriptions not contrasting with prohibitions are valid.

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Changes and continuities in the practice of Sanskrit philosophical commentaries

What makes a text a “commentary”? The question is naive enough to allow a complicated answer.

In Sanskrit intellectual history there is not a single word for “commentary” and several words focus on different aspects (`bhāṣya’ for an extensive commentary spelling out aphorisms (MBh, ŚBh, ŚrīBh…), `vyākhya’ or `vyākhyāna’ literally meaning `explanation’ and often used as a synonym of bhāṣya when writing a subcommentary thereon, `vārttika’ originally for a concise commentary in aphoristic form (Kātyayana’s V), later for texts encompassing such form (NV), or written in verses (ŚV) or encompassing verses (PV, TV), `ṭīkā’ for a subcommentary (Bṛ, NVVTṬ…), `ṭīppaṇī’ for a commentary on only specific points here and there and so on, please read more in Preisendanz 2008 and Ganeri 2010). These plurality of words suggests (like the proverbial case of the many words for ‘snow’ in the Inuits’ language) a long familiarity with the practice of commenting, seen as entailing many different approaches to a text (or texts). (Btw: I am not at all claiming that this is unique to the Sanskrit world, don’t start telling me about many Latin words from glossa onwards).

Typically, these texts tend to focus either on the single text they are commenting on or on it together with the one this was, in turn, a commentary thereon (for instance, Vācaspati’s commentary on the NV, taking into account also the NBh and the NS). Another characteristic of such commentaries is that they will explicitly refer to texts of opposing schools, whereas they will just silently reuse texts of their own school, since they feel them as part of their own history, immediately recognisable to themselves and their audience.

Which kinds of texts would one comment upon?
1. In the standard case in philosophy, texts of one’s own school; but also
2. Authoritative (usually religious) texts that did not belong to one’s own tradition, but that one wanted to gain for one’s own tradition (for instance, Abhinavagupta’s commentary on the Paratriṃśikā).

What is the role of commentary in Sanskrit philosophy? It is the standard way of writing philosophy. There was a small number of aphoristic texts which did not present them as commentaries (but which often evoke other views and quote other authors), and starting possibly with Maṇḍana (8th c.) some monographs were written on specific topics, however, the practice of commentaries remained the standard and most common way of doing philosophy, enabling one to write about many topics. A common misunderstanding to be erased is therefore the equation of commentaries with non-original and pedantic work. This was most of the time not the case with philosophical commentaries.

However, the circumstances change with time (as to be expected) and if we look at commentaries post 13th c. the situation looks different.
I will focus on especially two aspects:

  1. 1. the relation between text and commentary
  2. 2. the relation between commentary and its sources

Concerning 1., many commentaries become increasingly not just about a single text (or a sequence of texts), but interact more with a network of texts (as I have discussed elsewhere in the case of Veṅkaṭanātha’s Seśvaramīmāṃsā, see Freschi 2018).
A very noteworthy case is that of the relation between the Advaitasiddhi and the Nyāyāmṛta. The latter is a very influential text of the Dvaita Vedānta school by Vyāsatīrtha, in some sense we could say that it is the text through which the Dvaita Vedānta becomes part of the mainstream philosophical discourse. How could this happen? Because Vyāsatīrtha took up Madhva’s (the founder of Dvaita Vedānta) central theses, but stripped them of Madhva’s idiosyncratic style and “repackaged” them in the powerful argumentative style of Navya Nyāya. Form is not only a matter of style when it comes to philosophical discourse and this change meant that Madhva’s core ideas and intuitions were now formulated in a strongly inferential form and made a really compelling case for their validity.

At this point, the Advaita Vedānta school could not continue to ignore Dvaita Vedānta. An Advaita Vedānta champion, Madhusūdana, took up the challenge and wrote a detailed response to the Nyāyāmṛta in the form of a detailed commentary (almost line-by-line) to it. This was not the kind of appropriation commentary I discussed above but rather a close rejoinder. At the same time, Madhusūdana needed to invoke his own set of authorities to join the discussion, thus contributing to the network-isaiton of the commentary.

Concerning 2., something I noticed in Veṅkaṭanātha’s commentaries is that they (against what I described above and in Freschi 2014) quote and mention people of Veṅkaṭanātha’s school and silently reuse opponents. Why so? It seems that quotations and reuse have shifted into a way to give prestige and authority to one’s position as part of the school, in a way that the reuse of opponents’ names and direct quotes would not be able to do.

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Thoughts on Arindam Chakrabarti’s Realisms Interlinked — 2

Almost all the chapters I will deal with in this second post (“Part 1″ in the book) are about a defence of objects. The next bunch of chapters will be about a defence of subjects and the last one will be about “other subjects”, meaning not just “other stuff” but also literally “other subjects”, like the ‘you’.

Basic thesis:
Arindam does not keep his card hidden. He speaks of a “suicidal movement of our thought about reality” “sloping from Naïve-realism to Absolute Skepticism through Idealism”, a suicidal movement that needs to be “blocked” (p. 75). It can be blocked, Arindam says, at three levels: 1. at a very early level, like Nyāya did (and Arindam wants to do), 2. by embracing some form of idealism while rejecting skepticism, 3. by embracing skepticism at the empirical level, but accepting the possibility of a mystical insight.

Methodology:
philosophia perennis: p. 101: ” ‘Contemporary; is a slippery word. Whether in language or in thought, those who worship what is current tend to ignore the timeless universal structures of human experience, thinking, and speech”
interaction with sources: ND asked in a meeting whether Arindam could have written the book by just “omitting the footnotes”, like Jan Westerhoff did with Madhyamaka philosophy. Now, my impression is that this is ethically unfair BUT ALSO impossible for Arindam’s book, since this is not based on a single argument (so that you can “delete” the footnotes), but rather on a dialogue among positions. It emerges from a tea-time-like conversation among colleagues in which it would be impossible to say “One might say that…” unless you specified which colleague is speaking, because their being a positivist or an idealist sheds a different light on their question. See, on this point, Arindam’s own perception of his contribution (p. 114): “In the context of the insightful infightings of the contemporary Western philosophers of language and the medieval Indian thinkers, I put forward my own conclusion about the meaning and reference of “I”.” We will see an example of this way of arguing already in chapter 6.

Defence of objects:
The main purpose of the first chapters is to go against idealism. Arindam presupposes that we can talk about “idealism” in general, as an over-arching category applicable to Berkeley, Śaṅkara and Yogācāra (and many more). However, behind this general framework, his discussions are more to-the-ground and focus on one specific speaker at a time.

Chapter 6 (pp. 65–75) focuses on how other idealists defeated idealism. It starts with 4 points in favour of idealism (in its Yogācāra fashion), namely:

  • 1. mid-sized objects lead to antinomies because they have parts (this will be refuted through the assumption of samavāya, p. 87);
  • 2. an object cannot be at the same time the cause of cognition and the thing featured in it. Atoms, for instance, cause the cognition, but don’t feature in it. Chairs etc. feature in the cognition, but don’t produce it.
  • 3. the well-known sahopalambhaniyama (discussed in a previous post).
  • 4. the argument from dreams shows that it is possible to experience objects without their mind-independent existence (this will be the topic of chapter 8).

Then, Arindam moves to Śaṅkara’s refutation of the Yogācāra position. For instance, how can something inner and mental *appear as* external, if we have never encountered anything external to begin with? How could we feign the external? (This is connected with the dream argument, as we will see below). Arindam suggests that Kant would be less vulnerable to this objection, since he could say that there is a specific function of our cognitive apparatus responsible for projecting things as external.

Arindam here reads Śaṅkara (and Kant) as accusing the Yogācāra of confusing the “phenomenal with the illusory” and he reads therefore Kant as an idealist who confutes idealism through the introduction of phenomena.
Here, by the way, Arindam attacks the Yogācāra because of a lack of distinction between saṃvṛtisat `conventionally real’ AND other forms of unreality. One should have been more nuanced, he thinks, in distinguishing between 1. what is phenomenal, 2. what is absolutely impossible (triangular flavours driving furiously) and 3. what is the result of illusions, dreams and illusions error. (By the way, Arindam’s first book was on absence, so let us consider him an expert here).

Arindam uses again Kant as an idealist defeating idealism when he uses him in order to justify the possibility of permanence of objects over time, given that we perceive ourselves as changing over times, something must remain stable so as to appreciate the change. But time is the form of our inner experience, so that no permanent element can be detected inside, unless through a comparison with something outside. (Arindam himself is not completely convinced by this argument, p. 73).

Chapter 7 focuses again on the sahopalambhaniyama problem and replies that “difference […] tolerates relatedness” (p. 79). It is true that we access objects through the mind, but this does not mean that they don’t exist also independently of it. Arindam takes advantage here of a characteristic of the English language (and of many others) and insists on paying attention to the `of’ when we speak of a `cognition *of* blue’: “I cannot experience or imagine a tree unless it is made as an object of some kind of awareness, but there is as much difference between the tree and my awareness of the tree as there is between the tree and its roots and branches. Inseparability does not mean identity” (p. 90).
It is a priori impossible to demonstrate the existence of uncognised things, but the very fact that everything is knowledge-accessible, says Arindam, presupposes that it really existed prior and independently of being cognised (p. 81). As suggested in a previous post, this thesis is closely linked with the one about how cognitions are never self-aware.
This chapter also gives Arindam a chance to discuss how he sees Nyāya realism. The objective world of Nyāya is a “world for the self”, that exists to enable selves to suffer and enjoy, thus different from the Cartesian dualism (where selves don’t really interact with matter) or from the world of imperceptible quarks in contemporary physics (p. 81).

Chapter 8 is about the Dream argument: How can we recognise something as a dream unless we wake up?

Chapter 9 on the Accusative is a good chance to discuss Arindam’s use of linguistic arguments. For some decades people working on Sanskrit philosophy thought that the linguistic turn was going to be the way Sanskrit philosophy could finally be vindicated. After all, did not Sanskrit philosophers understand ahead of time that the only way to access reality is via cognitions and that cognitions are inherently linguistics? Thus, analysing language is the best approach to reality after all. This dream was somehow scattered when philosophy of language became less popular in Anglo-Analytic philosophy. Still, Arindam has already explained that following contemporary fashions is not the only thing that counts. Hence, he could nonetheless write a fascinating chapter (chapter 10) on the reference of `I’, moving from Wittgenstein to Abhinavagupta. The main problem is what is the reference of `I’ (is it the ahaṅkāra? The ātman? Is it an empty term, because the very fact that it cannot go wrong means it cannot be correct either).

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Thoughts on Realisms interlinked by Arindam Chakrabarti 1/

Author: A philosopher of two worlds, pupil of amazing scholars of Nyāya and of Analytic philosophy, completely accomplished in both worlds in a way which is hard to repeat

—Book: It puts together Arindam’s research of 27 years. Thus, it is a collection of articles, but very well edited together, possibly because they deal with a topic very much at the heart of Arindam’s global philosophical enterprise, one that I am going to discuss below.

—Target reader: A Mark Siderits, i.e., someone who is completely committed to the project of “fusion philosophy” (more on that below), who is able to roam around Sanskrit texts and is committed to Anglo-Analytic philosophy AND to its confidence in neurosciences. Thus, this target reader, unlike in Sanskrit philosophy, demolishes the idea of a stable unified subject, but believes in the world of atoms and mind-independent objects of hard sciences. This point is crucial to explain why Arindam often explains how denying the subject *will* lead to denial of the object as well, rather than explaining that denying the object will lead to denying the subject (as it would happen in Sanskrit philosophy and European one).

—Topic: Arindam is an outspoken realist. He grounds his realism in the self-evident reality of hard sciences, based on which we cannot be illusionists nor idealists. However, he also claims that one cannot be a realist about objects without being also a realist about subjects AND even about universals and relations (!). So, basically if you want to be a good scientist, you are committed to defend also a robust understanding of the subject and you can’t avoid defending also universals and relations, such as inherence. Once you open the door a little bit and allow for the idealism / not realism about universals, you WILL UNAVOIDABLY end up undermining the whole realist enterprise.

—Methodology: I spoke already about “fusion philosophy”. This is not comparative philosophy, insofar as what Arindam does is not a descriptive comparison nor a detached description of two or more comparable points of view. Rather, he has a problem he cares about (realism) and uses the best possible arguments to drive his point home. And he finds the best arguments in Nyāya and in contemporary anglo-analytic philosophy, with some addition of neuro-sciences, but also of other philosophical traditions. They are anyway all subservient to finding the truth. There is no interest in being complete or exhaustive, nor in exploring different points of view as a good thing in itself. This also explains why Arindam does surprisingly little to justify his methodology and espouses some possibly naïve terminological choices, such as speaking of “Indian vs Western philosophy”. 

—”Object”: not just atoms, but also mid-sized objects, like the ones we encounter every day, chairs etc. Here the key is its persistence through time (via re-identificability at different moments of time) of the object, which is invariably linked to the persistence through time of the subject.

—”Subject”: Which subject is Arindam defending? One that is the complex knower of Sanskrit philosophy, i.e., the unified knower who is able to perceive with different sense faculties and remember and is then able to desire and act based on what they cognised. Against Hume and the Buddhist and neuro-scientific idea that it is enough to have unrelated sensations + a superimposed sense of their unity.

—”Universals”: You cannot be a realist, says Arindam, unless you are also a realist about universals. You need universals to recognise things as tokens of a certain type. And, since Arindam is the intelligent crazy person he is, he adds a great example: A piece of music exists independently of its specific realisation. Similarly, a universal exists independently of its specific instantiations. Now, you might say that it’s hard to be a realist about universals, since these are products of our mind. No, replies Arindam basing himself on P.K. Sen. If you think that you can’t perceive universals, it means that you have a wrong theory of perception. He therefore welcomes conceptual perception and expert perception as evidences for the perceptibility of universals.

—”Properties”: This includes also universals and what Sanskrit philosophers call upādhis ‘pseudo-universals’, such as generalisations

—Indefinability of truth: Arindam defends the Nyāya precept according to which it is possible to uphold simultaneously these two things:

A. Everything that exists is *in principle* knowable

B. Not everything that is knowable is known at any point of time

Why is this important? Because if existence and knowability are invariably connected, then Dharmakīrti’s argument about the sahopalambhaniyama is doomed to failure.

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Preliminary thoughts on truth and justification in U.T. Vīrarāghavācārya —UPDATED

U.T. Vīrarāghavācārya’s Sūkṣmārthaṭīkā defines `validity’ (prāmāṇya) as “the fact of being about a thing (viṣaya) appearing in the cognition in the same way in which it exists” (ad 1.1.5, p. 77 1971), thus showing an awareness of the distinction between the knowledge-independent real thing and its representation in knowledge. If the two correspond, there is knowledge.

Contrary to the common use of the word viṣaya (see Freschi, Keidan), Vīrarāghavācarya appears to denote the knowledge-independent real thing as viṣaya. This thing is said to specify (viśeṣaṇa) a cognition when this is about it. In the case of a valid cognition, the viṣaya specifies the cognition which appears as specified by that viṣaya.

Now, what happens in case of invalid cognitions? Can it be that the knowledge-independent thing has no impact at all on the invalid cognition? Vīrarāghavācārya distinguishes therefore between the prakāra `mode’ of cognition, i.e., the apparent content of it, the viṣeṣaṇa `specification’ of the cognition, and the viṣaya `knowledge-independent thing’. Suppose two people see a piece of mother-of-pearl on the beach and one of the two mistakes it for silver. Both have in front of them the same viṣaya, which influences (viśiṣ-) the cognition in the same way. However, the prakāra of the cognition is different, being in one case mother-of-pearl and in the other silver. In other words, we have valid cognitions when the prakāra appearing in the cognition is about the viṣaya and invalid cognitions when the viṣaya does not appear in the cognition as its viśeṣaṇa.

Thus, an erroneous cognition is prompted by a certain viṣaya (e.g., mother-of-pearl) and has a different prakāra (e.g., silver), but it continues to be determined by its viṣaya. Why not just speaking of viṣaya and prakāra? Possibly because the viṣaya belongs to the ontological field, whereas the way it affects cognitions is via its determining them (viṣeṣyakatva).

The latter term needs to be introduced in order to avoid the naïve assumption that the cognition represents directly the external object. prakāra and viṣaya are connected via the fact that a viṣaya determines the cognition, which therefore displays the resulting prakāra.

Last, U.T. Vīrarāghavācārya also speaks of characteristic (dharma) and characteristic-bearer (dharmin). The dharma is the presentation-mode of a certain external object. In this sense, the dharma-dharmin pair on the ontological level corresponds to the prakāra-viṣaya one on the epistemic one. A correct cognition recognises as its prakāra the same dharma which actually inheres in a given dharmin.

At this point one might wonder whether the picture of the SĀṬ corresponds broadly to an externalist account. In fact, it mentions an external check (the correspondence between the viṣaya and the prakāra) for truth. However, such account of truth is only normatively relevant. For all practical purposes, truth does not need to be ascertained. U.T. Vīrarāghavācārya is an upholder of intrinsic validity and, hence, the externalist account of truth is accompanied by an account of justification which requires neither external nor internal reasons.
There is also something else which is interestingly new with respect to the Seśvaramīmāṃsā account of epistemology, namely the link between access to cognitions and justification of validity (and here I would be glad to read your thoughts!). In fact, first U.T. Vīrarāghavācārya says that validity is intrinsic because a knower grasps at the same time what appears as the content of a cognition and the cognition’s determining factor. Then, his Naiyāyika opponent retorts that validity is extrinsic, because what appears as the content of a given cognition is not the same thing as what appears once one thinks about the cognitive event.

Then, U.T. Vīrarāghavācārya replies that this is not a real problem, since it is enough for justification that what appears at the metalevel is connected to what appears in the cognition, thus pointing to svataḥprāmāṇya vs parataḥprāmāṇya as being about cognition-objects and their representations at a meta-cognitive level. If the two happen to diverge, then, it appears, an additional step of external justification is needed.

In other words, the picture gets more complex once one adds to the above quasi-externalist account of truth the awareness of validity (see next posts) and U.T. Vīrarāghavācārya seems more open to the Nyāya point of view than Veṅkaṭanātha.

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Studying Sanskrit philosophy as an undergraduate —UPDATED

First, some perspective: “Wikipedia’s list of ancient Greek philosophers (seemingly based on Anthony Preus’ books) lists 316 authors –of many of them not a single work survived. How many works and authors do you think are covered by the label ‘Sanskrit philosophy’?” When I asked this question in class, I got answers ranging from 5 (!) to 312 authors. Karl Potter’s Bibliography of Indian Philosophy (by no means complete) lists 9,631 authors.

A further important point in this connection: Sanskrit philosophy does not only deal with “religious topics” (although religion is discussed in it!). There is a big emphasis on philosophy of language and epistemology, plenty of ontology and logic and then many other philosophical discussions (the only topics being relatively neglected are political philosophy, as well as philosophy of race, of gender etc.).

Thus, we are dealing with a world, geographically, chronologically and culturally comparable with “European philosophy” (400 BCE–1900 CE). Thus, just like no one would expect you to master the latter after a term, so don’t expect that a class will be enough to master “Sanskrit Philosophy”.

In a nutshell: Invest some time with the topic and make fun of whoever among your colleagues thinks that Sanskrit philosophy is a smaller field than “Philosophy of the young Wittgenstein”.

Second, why should you at all want to undertake such a journey? For a few reasons: 1. Sanskrit philosophy (like other philosophical traditions) will enrich you with a treasure-house of new questions and answers. 2. No matter what you will specialise in, having a perspective from far away will shatter your prejudices and make you aware of your unconscious biases.

Third, what does it take? Will you need to learn the relevant languages? Will it be hard? Answer: It will be hard, because philosophy is hard. If it looks easy, you are not trying hard enough. But it should not be harder than any other philosophical tradition, apart from extra-philosophical elements, such as getting accustomed to the idea that male names end with -a. You do not need to learn the relevant languages, although I will encourage you to learn Sanskrit if you will decide to specialise in the field in three years.

Forth, should you decide to specialise in a historically underrepresented philosophical tradition, let me warn you about something else. You will be “hireable” by departments of areal studies (and/or religious studies) as well as of philosophy. This is due to the fact that in the last decades scholars of Sanskrit philosophy have not been mainly hired by philosophy departments, but often by “Asian studies” or “Religious studies” ones. (I will not discuss the reasons for such historical circumstances.) This also means that you will end up having to convince two different sets of people that you are a serious scholar. You will need to show that you are accurate and sensitive to the context when talking to the first group of colleagues, while at the same time needing to show to your philosophical colleagues, every year again, how philosophically cool is what you are doing.

The UofT is not like that, so I routinely forget and am chilled again when colleagues point out that it is not at all obvious that there is “philosophy” outside of the Euro-American world, see below for a nice example (I don’t want to engage with mean or plainly racist cases):

To summarise: If you’ll specialise in Sanskrit philosophy, you will be cheered up by a vibrant community (it’s a small world, apart from India, so we are all very welcoming), and you’ll have the wonderful experience of being a pioneer in many respects (there are literally MILLIONS of texts which expect to be properly studied!). But, you’ll have to learn to deal with objections like the ones I mentioned above.

Colleagues and students: What did I forget?

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Preliminary thoughts on divine omnipresence

Within the paradigm of rational theology (in my jargon, God-as-Lord or Īśvara), can God have a form and a body?… Do They need one?

Possible arguments in favour of Their having a body: 

—Yes! They need it to exercise Their will on matter (and, as Kumārila explained, matter does not obey abstract will)

—Yes! They need it so that we can revere Them.

The second argument does not count (it’s part of the God-as-Thou level), but the first seems powerful enough. If God did not have a body, They would have no influence on the world. Do They need a body in order to be omnipresent? And which kind of body? Surely not a limited one (as a deity could have it), since this would limit Their action (They could act only where the body is). Instead, They need to be omnipresent.

Which kind of body could be omnipresent? What would this entail?

In fact, most rational theologians I am aware of speak of God as being omnipresent, in a non-material way, but still as being able to interact with matter at will (so Udayana). Thus, as typical of the God-as-Lord, God is more-than-human, but very close to humans.

However, time and again theologians came to a different solution to God’s body, one which brings them close to the third concept of God, the impersonal Absolute. These theologians think of God’s body as omnipresent and yet material, because it is all that exists.

This all brings me to a more general question: Can there be omnipresence without a (limited) body?

This seems to demand from us a category jump. Because we need to put together presence in space (usually connected with extended bodies) and absence of a body (if conceived as extended in a limited space). 

I can think of at least three solutions:

1. space does not exist for God and is just a category conscious beings superimpose on the word (e.g., Kant, I am not aware of this solution prior to Kant)

2. pantheist version (God is the world) (e.g., Spinoza, Bruno, Rāmānuja)

3. God has something akin to a subtle body, which is omni-pervasive (vibhū) (Nyāya) 

The third case is often said to be a characteristic shared by God and souls (Augustine, Nyāya).

Yet, the souls’ omnipresence seems to be very different from God’s one (possibly because of some additional limitations due to their embodiment, the original sin etc.) 

What else can we say about Their omnipresence? It needs to be complete in each instance. God cannot be present for, e.g., 1/1.000.000.000.000 in the tree in front of my window, since this would entail the risk of Them exercising only a small amount of power on the tree. Moreover, They would be “more” present in bigger objects and less present in small ones! Thus, God needs to be completely present in each atom though being at the same time distributively present in the whole sum of all atoms. This again, calls for a category jump and not just a more-than-human body, since even a subtle matter extending all over the space will not be at the same time completely present in each atom. 

Thoughts and comments are welcome. Please bear with me if I am late in reading comments after the term starts again, on Monday.

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General and specific rules in Mīmāṃsā?

What happens when commands clash? A standard devise to deal with the topic is the idea of taking one as a general rule and the other as a specific one. In Sanskrit, these are called, respectively, utsarga and apavāda. Mīmāṃsā authors have, however, other devices.

For instance, Kumārila, discusses the prohibition to perform violence and its seeming conflict with the ritual prescription to perform ritual killing within a given sacrifice.
See his Commentary in verses (Ślokavārttika), chapter on Injunction (codanā), vv. 223—224:

तेन सामान्यतः प्राप्तो विधिना न निवारितः ||
फलांशोपनिपातिन्या हिंसायाः प्रतिेषेधकः |
“Therefore the prohibition to killing, obtained in general applied and not stopped by another injunction, prohibits the killing when it pertains to the fruit-portion |

Is this a case of a general rule overturned by a specific one (as claimed in Kei Kataoka 2012, Is Killing Bad?)?

If it were so, we would have the general prohibition to perform violence (F(violence)/T) being overruled by the more specific obligation to perform ritual killing in a specific setting:
F(violence)/T
O(violence)/sacrifice for Agni and Soma

However, this is not the solution adopted by Kumārila. Rather, Kumārila’s point is that the original prohibition to perform violence should be reconfigured as a prohibition regarding only violence as the result of the action, and not regarding instrumental violence.

That is, according to Kumārila, the Vedic prohibition to perform violence should not be read as
F(violence)/T
but as
F(violence as a result)/T
which does not conflict with (instrumental violence)

Comments, as usual, welcome!

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Why do people respond to commands?

Why do people obey to commands? Because they are immediately inclined, in a behaviourist way, to obey? Or because they realise that the action commanded is an instrument to the realisation of a coveted goal? Or are there further explanations?

This question has been debated at length in Sanskrit philosophy, oscillating especially among three main positions. I discussed these positions with some accuracy in previous posts, but this time I would like to try a bird-eye view about what is at stake.

On the one side, Maṇḍana claimed that the only motivator for undertaking actions is the awareness of the fact that the action to be undertaken is the means to obtain a desired goal. On the other, Prabhākara’s followers claimed that we immediately obey to commands because we feel enjoined, and only later analyse what is being asked and why. The role of the mention of the listener’s desire in commands such as “If you want to lose weight, try this shake!” is not meant to say that the enjoined action is an instrument to realise the desired output. Rather, the mention of the desire is meant for the listener to understand that they are the person addressed by the prescription. It picks up the person, who immediately relates with their own desires, but does not describe the existence of an instrumental relation between enjoined action and result. The last position can be connected to Bhartṛhari’s pratibhā theory. As depicted by Maṇḍana, this is a general theory about meaning, which includes both commands and descriptive sentence. According to it, human as well as non-human animals have innate inclinations which make it possible for them to perform activities they could have never learnt but are still able to perform, such as swimming or breastfeeding in the case of a baby. The pratibhā theory can be extended to commands which one would respond to because of an innate inclination.

Maṇḍana’s theory has the clear advantage of being a reductionist theory. By following it, one does no longer need an ad hoc semantic theory for commands, which can be reduced to descriptive sentences explaining the relation between the action enjoined and the expected output. Similarly, Maṇḍana provides a single theory covering all aspects of motivation to act, both in the case of commands and in the case of autonomous undertakings of action. In all cases, one is motivated to act because one thinks that the action is the instrument to get to the expected result. What are the disadvantages of this theory? First of all, Prābhākaras have a point when they describe our first response to commands. We immediately feel enjoined even before starting to analyse the action we have been required to perform. Secondly, Maṇḍana’s theory might have problems when it comes to people who know what would be best for them, but still don’t act. Can this all be explained just in terms of desires and instruments?

As declared at the beginning, the above is my attempt to give a short overview of the debate. Comments are welcome!