As is the case with most pre‐modern philosophers of India, very little historical information is available about Bhartṛ‐hari. There are many interesting legends, some turned into extensive plays and poems, current about him. However, it is impossible to determine on their basis even whether there was only one philosopher called Bhartṛ‐hari. The appellation “philosopher” could unquestionably be applied to the author or authors of at least two Sanskrit works that are commonly ascribed to Bhartṛ‐hari.

This is a translation of the chapter on perception by Kumarilabhatta's magnum opus, the Slokavarttika , which is one of the central texts of the Hindu response to the criticism of the logical-epistemological school of Buddhist thought. It is crucial for understanding the debates between Hindus and Buddhists about metaphysical, epistemological and linguistic questions during the classical period. In an extensive commentary, the author explains the course of the argument from verse to verse and alludes to other theories of classical (...) Indian philosophy and numerous other technical matters. Notes to the translation and commentary go further into the historical and philosophical background of Kumarila's ideas. The book provides an introduction to the history and the development of Indian epistemology, a synopsis of Kumarila's work and an analysis of its argument. It is a valuable contribution to the field of Indian philosophical studies. (shrink)

The pūrvapakṣa of the Śūnyavāda chapter of Kumārila’s Ślokavārttika (vv. 10-63) is the longest continuous statement of a Buddhist position in that work. Philosophically, this section is of considerable interest in that the arguments developed for the thesis that the form ( ākāra ) in cognition belongs to the cognition, not to an external object, are cleverly constructed. Historically, it is of interest in that it represents a stage of thinking about the two-fold nature of cognition and the provenance of (...) the ākāra that is clearly more advanced than Dignāga but not quite as sophisticated as Dharmakīrti. In particular, although one may see an anticipation of Dharmakīrti’s famous sahopalambhaniyama argument in this text, it is not yet fully spelled out. (shrink)

This is a translation of the chapter on perception of Kumarilabhatta's magnum opus, the Slokavarttika, one of the central texts of the Hindu response to the criticism of the logical-epistemological school of Buddhist thought. In an extensive commentary, the author explains the course of the argument from verse to verse and alludes to other theories of classical Indian philosophy and other technical matters. Notes to the translation and commentary go further into the historical and philosophical background of Kumarila's ideas. The (...) book provides an introduction to the history and the development of Indian epistemology, a synopsis of Kumarila's work and an analysis of its argument. (shrink)

This essays considers the hypothesis that Indian epistemology does not clearly recognize, let alone emphasize, an intellectual faculty that apprehends intelligible things, such as essences or “truths of reason,” or elevate knowledge of such things to a status higher than that of sense perception. Evidence for this hypothesis from various sources, including Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Nyāya, and Buddhist logic-epistemological writings, is examined. Special attention is given to a passage from Kumārila’s _Ślokavārttika_, _Pratyakṣasūtra_ chapter, where he argues that the senses directly perceive (...) existence. Kumārila’s view is contrasted to Plato’s, in the _Theaetetus_, that existence is the object, not of the senses, but the soul (_psychē_). (shrink)

: Claus Oetke, in his "Ancient Indian Logic as a Theory of Non-monotonic Reasoning," presents a sweeping new interpretation of the early history of Indian logic. His main proposal is that Indian logic up until Dharmakirti was nonmonotonic in character-similar to some of the newer logics that have been explored in the field of Artificial Intelligence, such as default logic, which abandon deductive validity as a requirement for formally acceptable arguments; Dharmakirti, he suggests, was the first to consider that a (...) good argument should be one for which it is not possible for the property identified as the "reason" (hetu) to occur without the property to be proved (sadhya)-a requirement akin to deductive validity. Oetke's approach is challenged here, arguing that from the very beginning in India something like monotonic, that is, deductively valid, reasoning was the ideal or norm, but that the conception of that ideal was continually refined, in that the criteria for determining when it is realized were progressively sharpened. (shrink)

This essay considers why English-speaking scholars have been inclined to engage Indian philosophical materials “philosophically,” as opposed to purely historically. That is to say, they have tended to ask questions about the philosophical significance and even validity of the theories they encounter in Indian philosophical writings, often approaching them critically in the way philosophers assess contemporary philosophical ideas. I first attempt to explain how this phenomenon has come about. Then I attempt to justify the philosophical approach to the study of (...) Indian philosophical texts by showing how it complements, in various ways, the historical-philological study of these materials. (shrink)

ABSTRACTI believe that Jonardon Ganeri, in his essay ‘Mental Time Travel and Attention’ together with his book The Self, develops a plausible and attractive account of the self as a mere ‘sense of ownership’ that accompanies our experiences or a ‘discrete cognitive system whose function is to implicate the self in the content of memory,’ but which needn't refer to anything. Objections that might be raised from a Strawsonian perspective are not, I believe, decisive. Nevertheless, even though Ganeri makes ingenious (...) use of Indian sources in working out this proposal, he chooses not to discuss what I take to be the most intriguing idea of Indian philosophers about the self. Philosophers from various Indian traditions argue that the ‘self’ as ordinarily experienced, that is, the finite ‘living’ self consisting of the body and cognitive and emotional faculties, is not what one really is. Rather, there is a reality beyond this self, which emerges when one steps away from or ‘abandons’ it. I suggest that an experience of this higher or ‘true’ Self or reality that lies beyond the self could still be accommodated within a naturalistic framework. (shrink)

Our response to this symposium on our 2006 paper centers on three questions. First, what motivations exist in the political wild, and do our experimental manipulations realistically capture them? We agree that strong accuracy motivations are likely (but not certain) to reduce biases, but we are not at all confident that the real world supplies stronger accuracy motivations than our subjects received. Second, how can we square our findings of stubbornly persistent beliefs and attitudes with the well-established literatures on framing (...) and persuasion, which find political opinion to be more malleable? We argue that our John Q. Public theory of political information accounts for both persistence and persuasion and explains when we should expect one or the other. Citizens will be more responsive to contextual information or persuasive appeals when prior feelings are weak, knowledge is sparse, and information is encountered outside of awareness. Resistance to information or arguments is most likely when prior feelings are strong, attitudes are embedded within dense knowledge networks, and appeals are consciously perceived. Third, is belief persistence driven by feelings and emotions, as we claim, or is it more the result of a conviction that one's priors are accurate? We suggest that the distinctions that stand behind this question are suspect. We see in some of our commentators a tendency to align accuracy motivation, central processing, and cognition on one side of the dual-processing framework, with directional motivation, peripheral processing, and feelings on the other side. On the contrary, we argue that beliefs in the truth of one's priors often result from feelings and wishes and are themselves sources of motivated bias in processing new information. Moreover, directional motivations are also often a source of central processing, so it is not easy to disentangle these processes. (shrink)

Our response to this symposium on our 2006 paper centers on three questions. First, what motivations exist in the political wild, and do our experimental manipulations realistically capture them? We agree that strong accuracy motivations are likely (but not certain) to reduce biases, but we are not at all confident that the real world supplies stronger accuracy motivations than our subjects received. Second, how can we square our findings of stubbornly persistent beliefs and attitudes with the well-established literatures on framing (...) and persuasion, which find political opinion to be more malleable? We argue that our John Q. Public theory of political information accounts for both persistence and persuasion and explains when we should expect one or the other. Citizens will be more responsive to contextual information or persuasive appeals when prior feelings are weak, knowledge is sparse, and information is encountered outside of awareness. Resistance to information or arguments is most likely when prior feelings are strong, attitudes are embedded within dense knowledge networks, and appeals are consciously perceived. Third, is belief persistence driven by feelings and emotions, as we claim, or is it more the result of a conviction that one's priors are accurate? We suggest that the distinctions that stand behind this question are suspect. We see in some of our commentators a tendency to align accuracy motivation, central processing, and cognition on one side of the dual-processing framework, with directional motivation, peripheral processing, and feelings on the other side. On the contrary, we argue that beliefs in the truth of one's priors often result from feelings and wishes and are themselves sources of motivated bias in processing new information. Moreover, directional motivations are also often a source of central processing, so it is not easy to disentangle these processes. (shrink)

Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition. This reissue makes the first edition once again available for scholars and serious students of Rawls's work.

Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition.

John MacFarlane explores how we might make sense of the idea that truth is relative. He provides new, satisfying accounts of parts of our thought and talk that have resisted traditional methods of analysis, including what we mean when we talk about what is tasty, what we know, what will happen, what might be the case, and what we ought to do.

For this second edition, the editors have returned to Austin's original lecture notes, amending the printed text where it seemed necessary.