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On the absence of ethics in Indian philosophy

a small addendum

Every year, when I introduce Indian philosophy to my students, I deal with the problem of the alleged absence of ethics from it. I basically deal with this absence in multiple ways:

  • First, and more important, I point out that “philosophy” is not a natural type. There is no binding reason why something should a priori belong to philosophy and, in fact, historically, different texts have been considered philosophically relevant or not (from the Suttanikāya to the Presocratics, from St. Augustin to Levinas, from Nietzsche to Th. Bernhard and G. Leopardi). Hence, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with a philosophical tradition developing more, say, philosophy of language and less, say, ethics, or vice versa. That we think that there are “core” disciplines within philosophy is only the result of specific historical circumstances.
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Atheism in Europe? Blame it on theism!

Hyman's analysis and some interesting Indian parallels

Gavin Hyman explains in his 2007 contribution to Martin’s Cambdride Companion to Atheism as well as in his 2010 A Short History of Atheism that atheism is always the refusal of a given form of theism. In particular, in European history, atheism is the refusal of theism as conceived in modern times, with God as one “thing” among others. This claim might raise the eyebrows of readers of Julian Baggini, who in his 2003 Atheism. A very short introduction maintained that atheism is independent of theism, since it is tantamount to naturalism. The two claims are, however, less far than it might look like.

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Positive and negative apparatus

A younger colleague made me aware of the fact that the distinction might not be obvious for everyone. Hence, here is a short summary:

A positive apparatus is an apparatus where you find all information about each and every single witness (each manuscript you checked and possibly each relevant edition). A negative apparatus is one in which you only show variants which diverge from the reading you selected in the main text.

As a very easy example, suppose you are putting in the main text the following reading: yan nehāsti na tat kvacit and have only three manuscripts, namely A, B and C.

positive apparatus = lemma: kvacit variants: A, B: kutracit. C: kvacit.
negative apparatus: lemma: kvacit. variants: A, B: kutracit.

I (with many others) recommend a positive apparatus. Why?

  • With a negative apparatus, you risk to loose track of the one or the other manuscript.
  • With a negative apparatus, you don’t know whether a given manuscript is not mentioned because it agrees with the main text or because, e.g., the relevant folio was missing.

Still, a positive apparatus is not really handy if you have, say, over ten manuscripts. Many editors introduce therefore the siglum “Σ” (or anything similar) meaning “All the other manuscripts”. In the previous example:

lemma: kvacit. variants: A, B: kutracit. Σ: kvacit.

What do other readers use or prefer?

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Positive and negative atheism

Michael Martin elaborates on positive atheism vs negative atheism and explains that the former is the positive belief that there are no god(s), whereas the latter is just the absence of belief in any god(s). He then adds:

These categories should not be allowed to mask the complexity and variety of positions that atheists can hold, for a given individual can take different atheistic positions with respect to different concepts of God. Thus, a person might maintain that there is good reason to suppose that anthropomorphic gods such as Zeus do not exist and therefore be a positive atheist with respect to Zeus and similar gods. However, he or she could, for example, be only a negative atheist with respect to Paul Tillich’s God. In addition, people can and often do hold different atheistic positions with respect to different conceptions of a theistic God. For example, someone could be a positive atheist with respect to Aquinas’ God and only a negative atheist with repsect to St. Teresa’s God. (Martin 2007, p. 2)

Martin does not discuss the case of a person convinced that there is, for instance, no Zeus while they believe in the Christian God, possibly because he considers this just a case of inner-antagonism among theists. The phenomenon might be, however, more interesting than that, since it might have rather to do with a belief in a completely different kind of god. This is particularly evident in the case of Indian atheists who might be positive atheists regarding Īśvara or devatās, but then believe in brahman or in a personal god.

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A quote from the Mahābhārata on sphoṭa?

Within a discussion on the sphoṭa in the Seśvaramīmāṃsā, Veṅkaṭanātha adds a quote he ascribes to the Mahābhārata. The quote is found in a different form in other printed works by Veṅkaṭanātha and in the various manuscripts of the Seśvaramīmāṃsā. However, I could not identify anything similar in the Mahābhārata itself.

The SM 1902 edition reads:

sphoṭas tvaṃ varṇasaṃghasthaḥ iti mahābhāratavacanam

The Mahābhārata statement “You are the sphoṭa, which is present in the conjunction of phonemes”.

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Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions: Call for papers for the 2019 Symposium

I received the following announcement from Brian Black:

We invite proposals for papers for the 43rd Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions, which will be hosted by Lancaster University, 12-14 April 2019.

The theme this year is ‘gender’. Our purview includes both religions of South Asian origin wherever in the world they are being practised, and those of non South Asian origin present within South Asia. We welcome papers based upon all research methods, including textual, historical, ethnographic, sociological and philosophical.

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Can you guess what manuscripts say?

A debate on sphoṭa

I am editing a portion of the Seśvaramīmāṃsā on a linguistic controversy about what is the vehicle of meaning. As often the case in Indian philosophy, an upholder of the sphoṭa theory speaks and says that the sphoṭa is the vehicle of the meaning, as hinted at by our own intuition that we understand a meaning śabdāt, i.e., from a unitary linguistic unit, not from various phonemes. The opponent replies saying that no independent sphoṭa exists independently and above the single phonemes, like no unitary assembly (pariṣad) exists independently of the single people composing it. The Sphoṭavādin replies that phonemes are unable to convey the meaning either one by one or collectively (because they never exist as a collective entity, given that they disappear right after having been pronounced.