Abstract
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).
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Notes
The words yukti and tarka, however, come close.
Usually translated as thought and understanding. Thought is discursive; it is described as proceeding from hypotheses to conclusions and is generally interpreted to be mathematical or deductive reasoning. Understanding is the grasping of “unhypothetical first principles,” i.e. the forms, and is non-discursive or intuitive. If the forms are simple, then knowledge of them, by means of noûs, must be acquaintance-like, though at Republic 532a Plato explains that such knowledge is the culmination of dialectic, which involves discussion and argument. It is clear, nevertheless, that in the case of noēsis one has to do with an intellectual intuition, not a sensory one. The interpretation of noûs in Aristotle is a much vexed issue in Ancient philosophy. One of its manifestations is the immediate (i.e., non-discursive), intellectual comprehension of the first principles or premises of demonstative knowledge (epistēmē), which arises out of an inductive process (epagōgē).
Popkin 1966: 65.
Prior to Kant this function would have belonged to “reasoning” (ratio, dianoia), which was often translated into German as Vernunft! Kant, however, assigned to Vernunft the cognition of ideas independently of sense experience – which was roughly the function of intellectus and noûs in ancient times – thereby effectively reversing the received meanings of these terms (i.e., Verstand and Vernunft). Cf. Oehler 1997: 62–65. Since it is the understanding, Verstand, in Kant that grasps a priori truths, I have identified it as another manifestation of the faculty Descartes talked about as “intellect” or “intellection.”
Moreover, while it is no longer in vogue to use the expression “analytic truth” other terms seem to have replaced it. For instance, instead of saying “x is y” is an analytic truth, one may say, “x is constitutive of y.” Thanks to one of the reviewers for pointing this out.
E.g., by articulating the notion that for one’s conclusion to be certain one’s premises must be equally or more certain.
The full complement of Nyāya reasons for inferring the existence of Īśvara is found at Nyāyakusumāñjali 5, kā 1. All reasons listed there appear to represent a posteriori arguments.
Such as “the mountain” in the stock example of inference: “the mountain possesses fire because it possesses smoke.”
See e.g. Vādanyāya 2, 1–5 (Much 1991: I.2/II.4).
The example he gives in his Vādanyāya is the following: To establish the vyāpti that everything that exists (sat) or is man-made (kṛtaka) is perishable one reasons: “If everything that exists or is man-made were not perishable, then because that which is not momentary is incapable of causal efficacy either gradually or all at once (kramayaugapadbhyām), it would be non-existent due to being excluded from the defining characteristic [of existence], namely capacity for causal efficacy” (2, 2–4 [Much 1991: I.2/II.4]). This clearly is another inference based on the premise: whatever has causal efficacy must be momentary. In his Pramāṇavārttika he proves this premise, the so-called doctrine of momentariness, on the basis of what appear to be a priori considerations. What is not momentary cannot have causal efficacy either gradually, because that would involve some change in its nature over time, or at once, because then, insofar as it is by nature an agent in a single moment, it would constantly be exercising its causal efficacy. Thanks to Isabelle Ratié for reminding me of the PV passage.
See Aristotle An. Post. I.2: “If, then, knowing is the sort of thing we assumed it is [namely, explaining why something must be the way it is and not otherwise], demonstrative knowledge must also be derived from things that are true, primary, immediate, better known than, prior to, and explanatory of the conclusion…. [The conclusions] must be true, then, because we cannot know what is not [true]. They must be derived from [premises] that are primary and indemonstrable” Cohen, Curd, and Reeve 2005: 678. An. Post. I.6: “We must … lay it down as a principle that demonstration is of what is necessary and that what is demonstrated cannot be otherwise. It follows, then, that this deduction must be derived from necessary premises” Cohen, Curd, and Reeve 2005: 684.
For one cannot infer that something is a Śiṃśapā from the fact that it is a tree, but only that it is a tree from the fact that it is a Śiṃśapā, and such a one-way pervasion relation can be determined only by observation. See Gillon and Hayes 1991: 56. This led them to claim, p. 56, that Dharmakīrti’s theory of inference is “essentially circular”: a “natural connection” (svabhāvapratibandha), whether of causation or identity, is the basis of a pervasion relationship. Yet both kinds of natural connection are relevant in inference “only in the case of properties between which there is a known pervasion relation” (p. 57).
E.g., Nyāyasūtra 1.1.5: “Next [after perception] is inference of three types, which is preceded by it, [namely] pūrvavat, śeṣavat, and sāmānyato dṛṣṭam.” See also NBh 183, 1–4 (ad Nyāyasūtra 1.1.3): “And knowledge (pramiti) has perception as its goal (pratyakṣaparā). Someone who, from the statement of a reliable person, cognizes an object he wants to know, desires to know it [further] by means of an inferential mark as well. And that which has been inferred from seeing an inferential mark, he desires to see by means of perception. Once the object has been apprehended by perception, the desire to know ceases.”
NM I, 314, kās. 193–195.
NM I, 319.
yogipratyakṣakalpaṃ yauktikaṃ sambandhagrāhi pratyakṣam, NM I, 320.
NM I,322–323.
The word yauktika used in connection with the “yoga-like” perception postulated by “the others” could conceivably mean not merely “posited by rational necessity” but “deriving from reasoning,” that is, precipitated somehow by a process of reasoning (yukti). Both readings are consistent with the passage in question (NM I, 320), though the former is more plausible. Thanks to Isabelle Ratié and Arindam Chakrabarti for discussing this passage with me. (They are not inclined to agree with my interpretation.)
There is a tendency in recent Aristotelian scholarship, especially among those who are inclined to place more emphasis on naturalistic aspects of his thought, to blur the distinction between noûs and the empirical process of induction that is traditionally thought to lead up to it. See Lesher 1973. But scholars of Aristotle sometimes seem to forget that he was a student of Plato. The Platonic connotations of noûs, as a kind of intellectual intuition, must have rung loudly in his ears.
Biardeau 1957 argues, in a study of the practice of definition in Indian philosophy, that Indian philosophers do not make a distinction between essential and accidental properties. A proper definition is one that is neither too broad nor too narrow; in other words, the main Indian requirement for a proper definition (lakṣaṇa) is just that it should be extensionally adequate.
Pratyakṣa 156–170.
Taber 2005: 112–118.
Theaetetus 185a-186b; Plato 1990: 316–317.
See the discussion of the types of samāpatti, Yogasūtra(bhāṣya) 41–49. In the introduction to Yogasūtra 43 the Bhāṣyakāra states that nirvitarkā samāpattiḥ is “the highest perception” (paraṃ pratyakṣam). At Yogasūtra 49 the insight (prajñā) that arises in nirvicārā samāpattiḥ is said to be “truth-bearing” (ṛtaṃbharā).
See Inden 1986.
For instance, in the first chapter of Beyond Good and Evil, “On the Prejudices of Philosophers,” or throughout Twilight of the Idols.
Obviously, I have greatly simplified matters. The statements I have made could only be adequately developed and justified in a monograph. It is only hoped that, in this raw form they will not seem utterly preposterous to the reader.
Pramāṇasamuccaya 2.5 (Hayes 1989: 238), NBh 565–570 (2.1.68).
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Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Philosophy Department of the University of Hawai’i, Manoa, in March, 2009, as part of the Rama Watumull Visiting Collaborative Lecturer Series, and the American Oriental Society meeting, Albuquerque, NM, March, 2009. I would like to thank Isabelle Ratié for offering many helpful suggestions that led to significant corrections and improvements.
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Taber, J. Some Remarks on the Apparent Absence of a priori Reasoning in Indian Philosophy. J Indian Philos 50, 785–801 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10781-022-09523-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10781-022-09523-3