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Plamen
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 Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 12:53 pm Post subject: Indian Theories of Error |
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This is the starter topic of the forum on Indian Theories of Error. Probably the best introduction to this form is the book of Prof. Bijayananda Kar, excerpts of which I am going to post here.
My General Editor's Note:
| Quote: | East and West, philosophical epistemology has succeeded in developing a sense of veridical infallibility. Episteme and prama which have given their names to the corresponding theories do, even from etymological point of view, denote a piece of true knowledge, a cross-section of the absolute world of cognitive validity, independently of the question whether that world is ontologically real or not. But how could one be sure that his ideal constructions representing the epistemic reality, supposedly reflecting all that surrounds us, have ihe characteristics of adequacy (pramanya)!
There are two generally accepted ways, both in European and Indian philosophy, to make oneself confident with the gnoseologiВcal veridicality of his mental images. The first one is to analyse the noematic structures within the cognitive cycle - in, or without any, connection with their real intentional correlates in the physical and social world outside the cognising self. Following this way, we might be landed either in objectivist representationism coupled with greater or lesser degree of praxeological optimism or in a kind of self-evidentialism supported by personal belief, some social habit or scientific consensus. Both results, however, bring home the general Aristotelian idea of adaequatio intellectu cum re. The other way is to explore the noetic mechanism with the help of which truth comes to be manifested as a self-consistent phenomenon of knowledge. The crucial point here is not the objective adequacy but, to much greater extent, the cognitive error, whereby the former is frequently viewed as a function of the latter.
Dr. Kar's enquiry into the most subtle structures of Indian theory of knowledge does unequivocally demonstrate that any fruitful approach to the problem of error should take into account the positive, as well as the negative aspects of the above-mentioned ways of theoretically representing error. Anyway, apart from the sound philological footing, any relevant study of the subject wishВing to be successful should perform, at the very outset, a kind of phenomenological-psychological reduction in order to "withdraw" all psychological elements and attitudes from the working field of theoretical analysis. All Indian theories of error, in the creative representation of Dr. Kar, are shown to be radically transcending the bar of uncritical psychological realism. In this sense, their first characteristic is transcendental. Their second charВacteristic is logical because all of them are dealing with the problem of judgement, though on a much higher level (as compared to the traditional subject-predicate prepositional logic) requiring a kind of post- predicative, or meta-predicative analysis of the very state of predication (visesanata). What Indian philosophers are most interested in is the post-predicative judgemental form of erratic propositions rather than the material content of these propositions. Indian theory of error, therefore, is transcendental-logical as a whole.
Another important issue that follows from Dr. Kar's prolific study of Indian philosophical eristics is that any attempt to read in it the logic of sense-data empiricism imposes upon us the burden of the unwarranted psychologism. Thus far, the research of Dr. Kar is perspicuously phenomenological, rather than analytical in the traditional second-positivist and post-positivist sense of the word. It analyses away all psychological, naturalistic and plain-empirical impediments that prevent us from seeing the virtual transcendenВtal-logical nature of almost all Indian theories of error and, along with this, the true nature of Indian epistemology altogether. It is this ability of the problem of error to make manifested the apodictic nature of Indian epistemology, or - to use the ellyptic translation of the term saksatkaratva - to phenomenalise it in the transcendenВtal-logical sense of the word, that constitutes the indubitable philosophical significance of Dr. Kar's Indian Theories of Error. In any case, it is a book to be read and re-read.
- Delhi, 1990 |
Excerpts from the Foreword of Prof. Ganeswar Misra
| Quote: | Dr. B.Kar has examined the theories of error in Indian philosophy with the new techniques of linguistic and conceptual analysis. He has very successfully pointed out the distinction beВtween psychological, metaphysical and logical questions which get mixed up in philosophical discussions and create confusion. AcВcording to him a psychological theory of error offers a causal explanation on the basis of physical and physiological conditions. But a metaphysical theory revises the concept in such a manner that all judgements become entitled to be called true or all of them are classified as false. A logical theory, on the other hand, aims at a strict, rigorous definition of the concept of error by assigning to it proper place in the system of concepts and shwoing the similarity with and contrast from its logical neighbours. But the logical theory adopts a material mode of speech for a formal question. As a result formal explanations of logical questions appear as factual theories.
Having thus formulated the criterion of his analysis, he then proceeds to clear another ground of confusion and very successВfully points out that the Khyativadas in Indian philosophy are not offering an account of the metaphysical nature of the object of erroneous perception but are attempting to offer an analysis of erroneous judgements. According to him an erroneous judgement is a case of mispredication and is not the case of a strange metaphysical entity appearing as the object of erroneous percepВtion. These theories are not discussing the referent of a predicate expression but are trying to determine the nature of mispredicaВtion. Hisdistinctionbetween predicate and predicationcontributes to clarity in this field. According to him a predicate qua predicate does not refer to anything and hence cannot refer to a strange entity which is the object of false perception. |
Here is the chapter on
Buddhist Theories of Error, pp. 68-94
Members have to login to read the fulltext article. |
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Plamen
Age: 54 Gender:
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Joined: 30 Sep 2005
Posts: 159
Location: Sofia
784.58 points
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| Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2005 1:17 pm Post subject: Introduction |
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A standard Nyāya definition of error pictures it as a knowledge that is featuring a content wich in fact is lacking (tadābhavati tat-prakārakam jñānam bhramaḥ).
What follows is the introduction of Dr. Kar to his book Indian Theories of Error, summarizing all basic theories of error in India. |
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