Quick summary of Maṇḍana’s view on sacrificial duties

We concluded today a great workshop on Maṇḍana’s Vidhiviveka and these are my first comments on what we could establish. My deepest gratitude goes to all participants. (For more on the workshop, read here: https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/event/workshop-maṇḍana-on-ritual-duties/) Structure: vv. 2.1–2.6: Maṇḍana’s siddhānta Continue reading Quick summary of Maṇḍana’s view on sacrificial duties

General and specific rules in Mīmāṃsā?

What happens when commands clash? A standard devise to deal with the topic is the idea of taking one as a general rule and the other as a specific one. In Sanskrit, these are called, respectively, utsarga and apavāda. Mīmāṃsā Continue reading General and specific rules in Mīmāṃsā?

Maṇḍana’s intellectual theory of motivation

Maṇḍana’s thesis is an answer to the problem of how to identify the core of a prescription. What makes people undertake actions? Kumārila’s śabdabhāvanā theory and Prabhākara’s kāryavāda had already offered their answers. Maṇḍana expands on Kumārila’s intuition about human Continue reading Maṇḍana’s intellectual theory of motivation

Fixed duties require less care in their performance than optional ones (Maṇḍana’s view)

Maṇḍana reforms Mīmāṃsā philosophy of action and deontic by saying that one undertakes actions only because one believes them to be the means to a desired output. A problem Maṇḍana needs to face is the following: If the performance of Continue reading Fixed duties require less care in their performance than optional ones (Maṇḍana’s view)