Why should philosophers study Indian philosophy?

If you have ever tried to ask a philosopher, why he never even tried to start reading about Indian philosophy, you surely know his/her answer: I have already too much to do with Western philosophy! (In the worst case, s/he might even just say "I have already too much to do with philosophy").

Here is how the scholar of Buddhist philosophy Jay Garfield replies to this argument (my emphasis):

3:AM: One of the issues you raise is the ethics of approaches to intellectual and cultural traditions less powerful and less respected than the Western ones. How should we think about this?
JLG: Easy. Suppose that someone argued that the philosophical curriculum in their college could not include any texts by women, because there are just so many important books by men, and not enough time to address all of them, let alone to go on to read stuff by women, or that the faculty is not expert in women’s philosophy. He would be howled down not on the grounds that there are indeed not too many books by guys, but that given a history of sexism, it is immoral as well as irrational to ignore the contributions of women in the curriculum. But people get away with saying that their department can’t offer courses that address non-Western philosophy because they are struggling to cover the “core,” that students have so much Western philosophy to learn that they don’t have time to read the non-Western stuff, and that there are no specialists in non-Western philosophy in the department. In the wake of colonialism and in the context of racism, the only legitimate response is to howl them down.

As far as I am concerned, I usually do not stress the fact that it is immoral, and that the West has a debt to pay because of centuries of racism. Rather, I tend to stress the fact that, as in the case of female philosophers, it runs against one's own interests to exclude from the philosophical debate so many important authors. If we want the discipline to advance, it would just be foolish not to take advantage of the many fresh insights we can gain from a different philosophical tradition.

What are your reasons when you explain why Sanskrit/Pāli/Tibetan/… philosophy/history/litetature/linguistics… have to be part of the normal curricula?

I am thankful to Justin Whitaker who, in this post, pointed to the interview. The full interview can be found here.

"How do you find ideas for your articles?"

from http://launchamerica.org

I  never had this problem. Rather, I often feel overwhelmed by the many ideas which, I fear, will remain orphan because I will die before having been able to dedicate some time and attention to them. But if I were to look at myself from without, I would answer the problem as follows:
I read many primary texts and since I focus on Sanskrit philosophy, they are by rule immediately able to let me look at old questions with new eyes (e.g., in the case of the epistemology of testimony), or to ask new questions altogether (e.g., how can an atheist school of thought accommodate belief in God?).
I get the same feeling whenever I am able to go back to Western texts with some distance, for instance, because they are chronologically, thematically or stylistically far away (e.g., reading Orthodox theology, or Augustine's dialogues, or some of Derrida…). With new questions and new ways to look at the world, I never had the problem to look for new ideas, rather, I have often the feeling of having too many for a single life (which does not mean that they are philosophically sound).
Discussing with colleagues and friends is also a constant source of inspiration.

UPDATE: I once asked this question to a senior and learned colleague, who seems to share my feeling, since he answered: "I do not look for ideas, they pursue me!" and then added "If this is not the case, just quit!".


What about you? Do new ideas follow you, no matter where you try to flee? Or do you actively look for them? And where?

This paper has been triggered by this one on the Philosophers' Cocoon.

Absence in Ontology and Epistemology: a new article

Nirmalya Guha has just published on the Journal of Indian Philosophy (2013, no. 41) an interesting article about "An Onto-Epistemic Analysis of Absence". Guha's article is clear and well-written and nicely separates ontology and epistemology. The ontological question about absence (abhāva) is, in Guha's formulation,

Is an absence ontologically different from its locus?

Whereas the epistemic question is:

Does a separate epistemic tool (pramāṇa) other than sense organs apprehend an absence?

Further, Guha draws a nice table summarizing the answers of Nyāya and of Bhāṭṭa and Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā to the two questions.
Last, he offers his own support to the Prābhākara view that absences are not ontologically different from their locus and that no separate epistemic tool is required to know them. In fact, he explains, the absence of X is real, but at the ontological level it is nothing but the presence of Y, W, Z. And for him "making ontology is making an inventory of the world. And my claim is that such an inventory does not need any absence". As for the epistemic question, no further instrument of knowledge is required, agrees Guha, although a further psychological process is in fact needed, to shift from one's perception of the floor to one's cognition of the absence of the pot on it. But, as with Prābhākaras, "Since no epistemic instruments capture x —rather they fail to capture x— when the subject cognises that 'x is absent from y', the cognition of absence is not caused by any epistemic factor. […] But cognizing absence is an introspection of some sort" (p. 127).
If you think that Guha's denial of a separate instrument of knowledge for seizing absences is parasitic on the denial of an ontological existence of absences, I think you are right. Guha argues as follows:

1. 1. no absence exists
2. 2. instruments of knowledge only grasp existing things
3. 3. thus, no distinct instrument of knowledge for absence exists

A different perspective is Kumārila's, according to whom absences do not exist ontologically as separate state of affairs, but are a modality seized by a distinct instrument of knowledge (the one which enables us to notice "my glasses are not on the desk!" instead of just seeing the desk's surface).

Varieties of instruments of knowledge — a conceptual hoax?

Is a single source of knowledge (pramāṇa) sufficient enough to generate a piece of cognition (jñāna), or is cognition the result of a complex whole, where different pramāṇas can only artificially be distinguished?  Or, is the very notion of sources of knowledge only a post-cognitive analytical convention? 
For me, it seems to be the last one.  During the cognitive process the very source of cognition is in a state of confusion (since the cogniser is busy cognising the object, and is not in a position to analyse the source of it).  Epistemologists only engage in a postmortem of this “cognitional complex”, i.e. the end-product.   
Pratyakṣa, Anumāna, Upamāna, Śabda, Arthāpatti – all these share a common property of being a pramāṇa; as such these are mere classifications made by epistemologists for the sake of convenience, and there is only one pramāṇa or pramāṇaikatva (again this very notion of pramāṇa is a convention subscribed to by epistemologists).  These pramāṇas can be artificially abstracted from the whole of a cognitive act, just as one can abstract elements such as pitch/sonority/aspiration/occlusion, etc. from a phoneme, although these elements are never perceived separately when one hears a word.  Such classifications again are made by attaching preference to a particular pramāṇa over others in accordance with the immediacy of the particular pramāṇa concerned. 
Thus, when we say, ayaṃ ghaṭa ityatra pratyakṣapramāṇasya upayogo bhavati, we are not denying the role of other cognitive elements, which one could analytically classify as śābdajñāna, upamānajñāna, etc., but which are inextricably melted together; however, merely because of the immediacy of the contact of my eye with the jar, I am only giving preference to it over others.  But this in no way amounts to a negation of the role of other pramāṇas.  Underlying all this, is the suggestion that the discovery of sources of knowledge – one or many, giving preference to one of them over the others, etc. are all an epistemologist’s attempt to understand a “cognitional complex” (= the end product of an act of cognition) within his self-devised analytical framework of sources of knowledge.

[This is a guest-post by Sudipta Munsi, whom you can follow also on his blog here]

A beginner's guide to the Coffee Break Project

The Coffee Break (henceforth CB) Project is led by young researchers located in Italy or in other European countries who aim at a new concept of scholarly exchanges. In this sense, the name "Coffee Break" aims at highlighting the possibility of a real conversation, as it happens during coffee breaks, although often not during standard conferences. The CB Conferences are indeed chances for dynamic interactions and exchanges regarding methodologies, open problems and perspectives.
The field of investigation of the researches fostered by the CB Project is the Indian subcontinent, although comparisons with other parts of the world are welcome and the panels organised in the CB conferences always focus on specific problems and topics and not just on a mere geographic area. Similarly, the study of Classical India is not separated from that of contemporary India, and a multi-disciplinary approach is promoted as the key to the investigation of each cultural phenomenon.

Activities of the CB project
The members of the Coffee Break Project have organised five Coffee Break Conferences, plus a Coffee Break meeting, hosted by prestigious universities and research institutes in Italy ("Sapienza" University of Rome; National Museum of Oriental Art "Giuseppe Tucci", Rome; University of Turin; Torino World Affairs Institute, Turin; University of Cagliari) and financed by research centres in Italy and in Europe ("Sapienza" University; University of Turin; Torino World Affairs Institute; University of Cagliari; National Museum of Oriental Art "Giuseppe Tucci"; Italian Association of Sanskrit Studies; Institute of the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna).
Researchers from Europe (Austria, France, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, UK), India and USA have participated to our meetings and to the ensuing volumes of proceedings.

As an instance, the 2013 CB conference in Turin is articulated into eigth panels: The Philosophy of testimony, International relationships, Metrics and phonology, Labour questions in neoliberal India, Cultural astronomy, Gods in space, Sociocultural constructions of sexuality, Change of paradigms and mechanical (re)discoveries: Manuscript and print cultures across Asia.
The general purpose is that of an open discussion which should enable the participants to see India as not an "exotic" Other but as the necessary complement of Ourselves and the Others.

Further info on the CB project and on the past and future conferences can be found here.

PhD and Post-doc position in the history of Sanskrit sciences

(The following application regards positions as PhD students or Post- Docs in Paris).

The great majority of mathematical texts known from the ancient and medieval Indian subcontinent are chapters in theoretical treatises on astral sciences written in Sanskrit. Are these mathematics different from the mathematics found elsewhere in the Indian subcontinent and not related to astral science? What was the relation between the chapters on mathematics and the computations and algorithms expounded in other chapters of the same treatise? How were these mathematics related to mathematical tools used in the wider realm of the astral corpus (in horoscopy, astrology...). For example a research proposal could aim at tracing and characterizing the use of similar algorithms, like the Rule of Three, the Pythagorean theorem, rules to derive and interpolate Sines, algorithms to solve indeterminate problems, or others, in different parts of a treatise, or else across different texts by a same author. Were there mathematical practices that were standard in astral science and not found in mathematical chapters and vice-versa?

More generally, any research project that would help understand the specificities of mathematical activities adhering in one way or another to astral sciences, by contrast to other mathematical practices attested to in the Indian subcontinent, and/or involve sources in Indian languages that are not Sanskrit would be welcomed.

Applicants are expected to mention specific sources and topics on the basis of which they intend to explore these questions.

The deadline for applications is: June 21, 2013 (for the position to be taken up as of September 1, 2013 or as early as possible thereafter). Short-listed candidates will be informed at the beginning of July 2013 and phone or Skype interviews are expected to take place during the first week of July 2013.

The scholarship is granted for one year. Pending positive evaluation, the doctoral scholarship is renewable for two additional years and the post-doctoral scholarship is renewable for one additional year. The monthly stipend amounts to about 1400 euros for the doctoral scholarship and to about 2000 euros for the post-doctoral scholarship (amounts to be updated at the contract signing). It includes social security benefits and retirement provisions. In the case of a doctoral scholarship, the recipient, under the supervision of Agathe Keller, will have to achieve a degree of the academic institution the SAW project is affiliated to.

Applications should be sent to the SAW Project Director Karine Chemla by email only: chemla@univ-paris-diderot.fr. It is recommended to request an email acknowledgement of receipt.

Information on the SAW project is available online at http://www.sphere.univ-paris-diderot.fr/?-ERC- Project-SAW-&lang=en

Does one study out of desire? Aristotle and Veṅkaṭanātha

A brahman must learn by heart the Veda and study its auxiliaries (metrics, astrology —to know when to perform a certain ritual—, etc.). But does he have to also dwell in it and investigate further beyond its sheer phonic form? And, if there is no duty to do it, why do people nonetheless start studying Mīmāṃsā (defined as the study of the meaning of the Veda)? Veṅkaṭanātha's answer, in his Seśvaramīmāṃsā (ad MS 1.1.1) and in the Śatadūṣaṇī is clear: out of desire (rāga). He thus replies to opponents who claim that the duty to learn the Veda extends beyond its phonic form and includes the Mīmāṃsā. Thus, Aristotle's approach ("Human beings naturally love to know") triumphs and the stereotype of an Indian adversion to desire is —once again— to be at least rediscussed:

To begin with, the study of the whole Veda, together with its auxiliaries and with the Brahmasūtra is established, be it promoted by the injunction to study (as claimed by the Bhāṭṭas) or by the one to teach (as claimed by the Prābhākaras). Also the investigation about its meaning regards the whole [Veda], be it promoted by an injunction (as claimed by the Bhāṭṭas) or by one's desire (as explained in the Seśvaramīmāṃsā), since there is nothing hindering the one or the other (injunction or desire).

[Objection:] There might well be no hindrance to the promotion [of the study of the meaning of the Veda] by a prescription, but there is certainly a hindrance to the promotion by [one's] desire [to know the meaning of the Veda], because it is incongruous that one undertakes an activity as long as there is desire.

[Reply:] It is not so, because both the [following] options (vikalpa) are not possible: Is [desire to know it] an hindrance in the investigation about the brahman, or is it [an hindrance in the investigation] about ritual action (karman)? Not the first one, because a human being desires all four human aims (i.e., pleasure, success, dharma and liberation) [and not just the first three], and because there is no contradiction if, in [their] sequence, one [also] enjoys [them]. […]
(Śatadūṣaṇī 3)

Thus, desire is legitimate and legitimated, even within Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta… 

For further posts on Veṅkaṭanātha see this one (and its links).