Contributed papers presented at seminar held at Warsaw University, Poland, 8-9 September, 2000.

The paper presents an analysis of the anumāna chapter of Jayarāśi’s Tattvôpaplava-siṁha and the nature of his criticism levelled against the anumāna model. The results of the analysis force us to revise our understanding of Jayarāśi Bhaṭṭa as a sceptic. Instead, he emerges as a highly critical philosopher. In addition, the nature of Jayarāśi’s criticism of the anumāna model allow us to conclude that anumāna should not be equated with inference, but rather is its limited subset, and may at best (...) be rendered as ‘disputational inference’, ‘debational inference’ or even ‘dialogical inference’. Jayarāśi applies a range of logical laws which clearly represent patterns of what can be classified as a priori reasoning and analytical justifications for knowledge, which were traditionally not reckoned sound. Against the backdrop of Jayarāśi’s criticism of anumāna, the paper also attempts to provide an explanation to why Indian philosophy and logic did not develop any concept of proper symbols and variables. (shrink)

Contributed papers presented at seminar held at Warsaw University, Poland, 8-9 September, 2000.

The paper examines the Tattvôpaplava-siṁha of Jayarāśi Bhaṭṭa, and presents an analysis of his positive arguments that can be traced in the work. Despite the widely held opinion that Jayarāśi was a sceptic or held no positive opinions, the author concludes that, first, Jayarāśi does not fit a standard description of a sceptic. What may appear as an approach to philosophical problems, typical of a sceptic, turns out to be Jayarāśi’s particular method of critical examination on the part of a (...) rationalist. Second, a number of positive views Jayarāśi entertains can be identified in his work, and most of them overlap with much of the doctrine of the Cārvākas and Lokāyatas and materialist tradition recorded as early as the Sāmañña-phala-sutta. Therefore, Jayarāśi should be classified as a representative of the Cārvāka/Lokāyata tradition. (shrink)

Despite its importance, the work is rather secondary in the sense that it relies, for the most part, on the Buddhist logical legacy. The first extant commentary is the Nyayavatara-vivrti of Siddharsigani.

In the discussions concerning the date of Dharmakīrti, Jaina sources have never been seriously taken into account. They may, however, provide a valuable insight because Dharmakīrti both criticised and was criticised by Jaina thinkers. Two Jaina authors, Samantabhadra and Pūjyapāda Devanandin, may prove crucial in determining the actual dates of Dharmakīrti. The paper argues that Dharmakīrti directly influenced Samantabhadra in a number of ways, which sets the terminus ante quem for Dharmakīrti, and his traditional chronology has to be reconsidered in (...) the light of new findings. The paper suggests new dates for all the three authors. (shrink)

Two eight-century Jaina contemporaries, a Śvetāmbara philosopher Siddhasena Mahāmati and a Digambara Akalaṅka Bhaṭṭa revolutionised Jaina epistemology, by radically transforming basic epistemological concepts, which had been based on canonical tradition. The paper presents a brief historical outline of the developments of basic epistemological concepts in Jaina philolosophy such as the cognitive criterion and logical faculties as well as their fourteen typological models which serve as the backdrop of important innovations in epistemology introduced by Siddhasena, Pātrasvāmin and Akalaṅka. An important contribution (...) of these Jaina thinkers was to economize Indian logic and the rules of inference, first, by devising only one kind of logical reason called ‘inexplicability otherwise’, based on the single inseparable connection of the proving property with the inferable property, and, second, by limiting the necessary number of the members of the proof formula merely to two. These two innovations were related to the thinkers’ intention to devise a logic which would not primarily be based on empirical verification but its structural patterns would be valid irrespective of external observation. Further, the paper focuses on the nature of the epistemological shifts which Siddhasena and Akalaṅka introduced independently of each other and on the question how Siddhasena’s and Akalaṅka’s ideas were partly anchored in Buddhist concepts of the pramāṇa school of Diṅnāga and Dharmakīrti. With the Buddhist background, Siddhasena sought to define the criteria essential to distinguish true from false cognitions and to provide a novel classification of the pramāṇas. He can further be accredited with formulating the first Jaina descriptive definition of the cognitive criterion. The final section of the paper explains how Akalaṅka applies novel epistemological ideas, first, to construct realistic ontology and objectivity of both the external world and the cognising subject, and, secondly, to combat fundamental Buddhist concepts such as idealism and momentariness. (shrink)

The paper first proposes a new definition of religion which features a novel four-layered element and which does not involve any circularity ; thereby, it allows to clearly distinguish the phenomenon of religion from certain other worldviews, in particular from certain political ideologies. Relying on the findings, the paper develops two structural conceptual models which serve to describe religious and non-religious belief systems. Further, the definition and the conceptual models allow to establish a clear criterion to distinguish pivotal structural differences (...) between religious and non-religious belief systems. The criterion is based on the concept of two kinds of rationality: first-level and second-level rationalities. These will demonstrate to what degree religion can be a rational enterprise, and what role logic can play in it. The result is a clear-cut line in the structures of religious and certain consistent non-religious belief systems. (shrink)

Papers presented at the International Seminar 'Logic and Belief in Indian Philosophy : the Impact of Indian Thought in Asia and Europe', held at Bialowierza from 30 April to 5 May, 2006.

There is relatively little literature on Indian skepticism, with hardly any monograph on the subject comparable to, e.g., Julia Annas’ and Jonathan Barnes’ The Modes of Scepticism: Ancient Texts and Modern Interpretations, R.J. Hankinson’s The Sceptics: The Arguments of the Philosophers, a series of Richard H. Popkin’s monographs on the history of skepticism, or two recent competing volumes as collective efforts: The Oxford Handbook of Skepticism edited by John Greco and The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Scepticism edited by Richard Bett. (...) Therefore what promises to provide a survey of the skeptical tradition of South Asia should potentially be regarded as a milestone work in the... (shrink)

The paper analyses the beginnings of systematic ontology in Jainism, which appears to have began after first century CE, albeit certain ontology-relevant terminology in a nascent form was present earlier. A clear expression of systematic ontological reflection is the existence of models that organize ideas and categories in a more consistent conceptual scheme. Jainism follows similar developments that had earlier taken shape in in the early Buddhist Abhidharma, proto-Sāṁkhya-Yoga and proto-Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika. In addition, the paper argues that the models, five in (...) total, can be used as a methodological tool to distinguish various historical layers in early Jaina writings. (shrink)

The paper examines available references to the Ājīvikas that are often identified by scholars, notably by Basham, as genuine quotations from Ājīvikas’ lost works. In addition, the paper analyses some additional material not previously indentifed as possible quotations relevant to Ājīvikism. Unfortunately, none of such references seem to be genuinely derived from an Ājīvika source: All of such passages or verses previously considered genuinely taken from Ājīvika literature turn out to have been composed by non-Ājīvika authors and usually derive either (...) from Jaina works or from fables and narrative literature. There is no clear proof that the Ājīvikas developed their own Sanskrit literature, much less philosophical literature in Sanskrit. Further, the faithfulness and reliability of reports of the Ājīvikas and paraphrases of their views cannot be assessed with any certainty. (shrink)

This special issue of Journal of Indian Philosophy results from a thematic session on “Logic in the Religions of South Asia”, a separate section of the 2nd World Congress on Logic and Religion (held at the University of Warsaw, Poland, June 18–22 June, 2017). The papers address questions, discussed in philosophical thought in classical India, such as how religious practice could shape philosophical reflection on the relation between language and reality, whether there are necessary truths and whether a priori knowledge (...) is possible, the nature of some arguments for the existence of God, especially the argument from the causality of the universe, the problem of the validity of religious authority, the relation between logic and religious belief as well as language-related topics such as a theory of interrogatives expressing doubts and of declaratives expressing certitudes, both regarded as the verbal expression of cognitions. (shrink)

Even though globalization is not necessarily a modern phenomenon, quantitatively id does exceed anything which we could observe in the past. In its modern form it entails certain side effects and brings news risks which often involves direct encounters of people representing different or conflicting worldviews and systems of values. To speak of “a clash of civilizations” or “a war of civilizations” would be a misunderstanding, probably motivated politically. What is really pertinent is, however, the question to what extent conflicting (...) systems of values (i.e. people representing or subscribing to conflicting systems of values and lifestyles) can coexist or enter in a dialogue, which should be a requirement for any strategy to solve or manage a conflict. In this context, it proves extremely fruitful to distinguish two kinds of rationality: of the first and second level. Such distinction helps, first of all, to understand to what degree, e.g., deeply religiouspeople and secular scientists are rational, and in what context a dialogue or exchange of ideas between such divergent parties is possible. These results can easily be transferred onto a wide range of other conflicting systems of values. Further, the paper claims that it is not cultures or civilizations, the identity which being extremely complex, heterogeneous and multi-layered, as such enter into a conflict but cultural / civilizational subgroups. The conclusion is that a dialogue between two systems of values is in most cases possible, with one exception. (shrink)

Even though globalization is not necessarily a modern phenomenon, quantitatively id does exceed anything which we could observe in the past. In its modern form it entails certain side effects and brings news risks which often involves direct encounters of people representing different or conflicting worldviews and systems of values. To speak of “a clash of civilizations” or “a war of civilizations” would be a misunderstanding, probably motivated politically. What is really pertinent is, however, the question to what extent conflicting (...) systems of values (i.e. people representing or subscribing to conflicting systems of values and lifestyles) can coexist or enter in a dialogue, which should be a requirement for any strategy to solve or manage a conflict. In this context, it proves extremely fruitful to distinguish two kinds of rationality: of the first and second level. Such distinction helps, first of all, to understand to what degree, e.g., deeply religiouspeople and secular scientists are rational, and in what context a dialogue or exchange of ideas between such divergent parties is possible. These results can easily be transferred onto a wide range of other conflicting systems of values. Further, the paper claims that it is not cultures or civilizations, the identity which being extremely complex, heterogeneous and multi-layered, as such enter into a conflict but cultural / civilizational subgroups. The conclusion is that a dialogue between two systems of values is in most cases possible, with one exception. (shrink)

Topic modeling—a text‐mining technique often used to uncover thematic structures in large collections of texts—has been increasingly frequently used in the context of the analysis of scholarly output. In this study, we construct a corpus of 19,488 texts published since 1971 in seven leading journals in the field of bioethics and philosophy of medicine, and we use a machine learning algorithm to identify almost 100 topics representing distinct themes of interest in the field. On the basis of intertopic correlations, we (...) group the content‐based topics into eight clusters, thus providing a novel, fine‐grained intellectual map of bioethics and philosophy of medicine. Moreover, we conduct a number of diachronic analyses, examining how the “prominence” of different topics has changed across time. In this way, we are able to observe the distinct patterns in which bioethics and philosophy of medicine have evolved and changed their focus over the past half a century. (shrink)

Predictive processing (PP) has been repeatedly presented as a unificatory account of perception, action, and cognition. In this paper, we argue that this is premature: As a unifying theory, PP fails to deliver general, simple, homogeneous, and systematic explanations. By examining its current trajectory of development, we conclude that PP remains only loosely connected both to its computational framework and to its hypothetical biological underpinnings, which makes its fundamentals unclear. Instead of offering explanations that refer to the same set of (...) principles, we observe systematic equivocations in PP‐based models, or outright contradictions with its avowed principles. To make matters worse, PP‐based models are seldom empirically validated, and they are frequently offered as mere just‐so stories. The large number of PP‐based models is thus not evidence of theoretical progress in unifying perception, action, and cognition. On the contrary, we maintain that the gap between theory and its biological and computational bases contributes to the arrested development of PP as a unificatory theory. Thus, we urge the defenders of PP to focus on its critical problems instead of offering mere re‐descriptions of known phenomena, and to validate their models against possible alternative explanations that stem from different theoretical assumptions. Otherwise, PP will ultimately fail as a unified theory of cognition. (shrink)

Samuel J. Wheeler defends Wittgenstein's criticism of Cantor's set theory against the objections raised by Hilary Putnam. Putnam claims that Wittgenstein's dismissal of the basic tenets of this set theory concerning the noncountability of the set of real numbers was unfounded and ill‐conceived. In Wheeler's view, Putnam's charges result from his failure to grasp Wittgenstein's intention and, in particular, to consider the difference between empirical and logical impossibility. In my paper, I argue that Wheeler's defence is unsuccessful and, at the (...) same time, that Putnam's objections go too far. (shrink)

Citizen identification systems (known also as ‘ID card systems’, or ‘national identity management systems’, even though those definitions are not identical) are receiving a mixed acceptance, with their privacy, security and usability being criticised, specifically in the UK. This paper investigates whether it is possible to improve social acceptance of such systems in cases where they are incompatible with the perceived value of privacy, but without significantly changing their original architecture. The paper analyses requirements using four different scenarios that address (...) long-term privacy issues. Relatively small alterations to such systems are suggested that may significantly improve their adoption. (shrink)

The widespread idea that infinitesimals were “eliminated” by the “great triumvirate” of Cantor, Dedekind, and Weierstrass is refuted by an uninterrupted chain of work on infinitesimal-enriched number systems. The elimination claim is an oversimplification created by triumvirate followers, who tend to view the history of analysis as a pre-ordained march toward the radiant future of Weierstrassian epsilontics. In the present text, we document distortions of the history of analysis stemming from the triumvirate ideology of ontological minimalism, which identified the continuum (...) with a single number system. Such anachronistic distortions characterize the received interpretation of Stevin, Leibniz, d’Alembert, Cauchy, and others. (shrink)

The article presents a thought experiment aimed at indicating a possibility for thinking education beyond the logic of progress. In its first part, the argument reconstructs the entanglement of the modern idea of progress (as found in Francis Bacon and Comenius) and education, while tracking down the specific coupling of obedience and conquest at work. Through such an analysis a link between the ideas of progress and of emancipation is determined, which leads to the acknowledgement of the difficulty of the (...) task of imagining education outside of the logic of progress. In the second part an attempt is made to match this task by suggesting that when studying with a teacher, the logic of progress is deactivated. A phenomenological analysis of the practices involved in studying with a teacher points to a specific way of living together that such a collective study involves. This way of living together is formed by continual exercises in the humble equality realized through shared attention to something worthy of study: this stems from attentiveness to what exists, and it develops an attitude of care and respect for being as such. (shrink)