A group blog of scholars exploring Indian philosophy
The title of this post is a reference to a “common-sense” principle that might be called skhalīya-nyāya, since it is attributed to an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (and because it tends to trip people up…) But the Continue reading “Words mean what they mean”
We all know that for Dignāga the meaning of a word is apoha ‘exclusion’. But how does one seize it and avoid the infinite regress of excluding non-cows because one has understood what “cow” means? Kataoka at the last IABS Continue reading How exactly does one seize the meaning of a word? K. Yoshimizu 2011 (and Kataoka forthc.) on Dignāga and Kumārila
I am currently attending the IABS conference in Vienna. I am trying to keep the few of you who could not come updated through my impressions of the talks at my personal blog. I will cross-post here the posts which Continue reading First day at the IABS: Apoha in Dignāga according to Kataoka
In his contribution to a recent symposium (Does Asia think differently? –Symposium zu Ehre Ernst Steinkellners), as well as in many other publications of him (e.g., Langage et Réalité: sur un épisode de la pensée indienne, 1999), Johannes Bronkhorst answered Continue reading On the (alleged?) Indian lack of distinction between linguistic and external reality
I hope that I can start a series on “keywords” here—those seemingly-simple terms which, although they don’t really belong to a technical philosophical vocabulary, do a lot of heavy lifting in a wide range of philosophical discourses. One could think Continue reading Keywords: Bhāvaḥ
What do nouns mean? And what is the difference between nouns and verbs? Pūrva Mīmāṃsā authors are rightly known as having conceived the first textual linguistics in South Asia. In this sense, their theory differs from the Vyākaraṇa one, as Continue reading What is the difference between nouns and verbs (according to Mīmāṃsā authors)? Diaconescu vs. Clooney
Who are the opponents in Kumārila’s Ślokavārttika (henceforth ŚV), chapter on sentence-meaning? And did the ŚV set the standard for all further discussions on the topic?
We are very happy to be hosting the Philosophers’ Carnival here for the first time and hope that readers will not feel too much baffled by the Indian philosophy milieu. Here is our selection of this month’s philosophical blogs: Epistemology Continue reading 163rd Philosophers’ Carnival
Who invented the apoha theory? If you, like me, are prone to answer “Dignāga” and to add that Dignāga (as shown by Hattori) was inspired by Bhartṛhari’s theory and that Dharmakīrti and Dharmottara later fine-tuned Dignāga’s one, you are ready Continue reading Who invented the apoha theory? On Kunjunni Raja 1986
Who is the most productive scholar on Indian Philosophy? Kei Kataoka is surely in the top-10 (have a look at his publications here).