Natural Realism & Contact theory of Perception
Hari Kiran
Irene Galstian
Vaishnavi Nishankar
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Nagaraj Paturi
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Chittaranjan Naik
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Chittaranjan Naik
On Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 9:03:42 AM UTC+5:30, Nagaraj Paturi wrote:
I agree except the word 'guide'. Sri Chittaranjan Naik himself may not agree with that word.Yes, let us move towards interactive sessions with him.
On Thu, Nov 28, 2019 at 8:51 AM Vaishnavi Nishankar <r.vais...@gmail.com> wrote:
Namaste Hari Kiran ji,Many thanks to Indic Academy and therein Prof Nagaraj Paturi ji for your encouragement with regards to a paradigm-shifting endeavour by Shri Chittaranjan Naik ji by way of publishing his ground breaking work in establishing (should I say re-establising!) the प्रत्यक्षप्रमाण in the Indian theories of cognition through contact as the valid means of perception, taking head on with the western philosophical and scientific theories and pointing out their blind spots.I hope Indic Academy will also work on providing a platform for Chittaranjan ji, who has his expertise in both the western and Indian theories of knowledge, to interact with and guide both traditional and non-traditional scholars of Indian knowledge studies such that they trust Indian shaastras for their validity and soundness, and move it ahead in continuum as has been during the several centuries in the past, taking head on with the newer purva-pakshas from the western philosophy and sciences! To have such faith in our shaastras as Chittanranjan ji has, is quite infectious when we interact with him/his work!With warm regardsVaishnavi NishankarAdjunct FacultySchool of Vedic SciencesMIT ADT University, PuneMaharashtra, Bharatam
On Sun, 3 Nov 2019 at 05:16, Hari Kiran <kiran.v...@gmail.com> wrote:
--Pranaams to all,We are happy to announce the 8th book published by Indic Academy written by Chittaranjan Naik..Members of the list interested in reviewing the book for publication on www.indictoday.com may please write to us at nam...@indica.org.in and we will send you a review copy.RegardsHari
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Deva Pattanayak
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Chittaranjan Naik
"It would also mean that the finite time taken for light to travel from a distant star to our physical eyes is not part of the perceptual process and that the physical bodies we possess somehow do not interfere in the perceptual process." This is from Naik_ji 's writing.
I would like to clarify here that this statement was made in the context of Direct Realism and what it entails. For the thesis of Direct Realism to stand, we would need to posit a theory of perception in which the world would be transparently revealed to the percipient, that is, without the transforming mechanisms of the gross body interfering in the perceptual process.
It may be noted that the Indian theory of perception offers such a model.
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Deva Pattanayak
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Chittaranjan Naik
Namaste Sri Pattanayak-ji,
I read Boyer’s article. I will have to read it again to get a full grasp of the recent approaches in the philosophy of science that the author is referring to, but I believe my first reading is sufficient for me to make a broad comparison between the article and my book.
1. While Boyer’s article and my book both draw from Vedic sources in our endeavors to provide viable explanatory accounts of Direct Realism, the goals of the two are vastly different. The main goal of Boyer’s article seems to be to justify Direct Realism as a valid premise of science given that this premise has been challenged by both philosophy and the counter-intuitive theories of science itself which scientists have been compelled to build in the areas of Quantum and Relativity physics. The aim of my book is different. It is to establish Direct Realism as part of a larger enterprise aimed at reinstating the Vedic worldview in the contemporary world.
2. Boyer’s article does not attempt to remove the main hindrance that stands in the way of postulating a Direct Realism thesis in any meaningful manner: the almost ubiquitously held belief that our perception is occasioned by a stimulus-response process. For, as long as the physicalist stimulus-response theory of perception is held to be valid, it would logically result in a dualism of a phenomenal world and a non-linguistic world bereft of the datum of consciousness. The espousal of the stimulus-response model of perception would therefore logically lead to Representationalism (or Indirect Realism) and not to Direct Realism. This is not a problem with the Boyer article alone; I find it characteristic of all Western attempts to postulate Direct Realism, perhaps because the stimulus-response theory of perception is deeply ingrained in the Western tradition from the time of Aristotle. In consideration of this factor, my book makes the theory of perception the main focus of the book, or of the endeavor to posit Direct Realism. It addresses the very possibility of Direct Realism rather than focus on the ontological features of reality.
3. Boyer’s article tries to introduce Structural Realism / Ontic Structural Realism as possible avenues for postulating a kind of Direct Realism, the main argument for it being that even though scientific theories may not be able to speak validly about the descriptive aspects of reality, there is a structural continuity in science and, in consideration of the fact that scientific theories do work, it would be reasonable to assume that this structure represents a legitimate structure of reality. According to me, this argument does not hold because as long as the stimulus-response theory of perception is held to be valid, the reality that we can perceive, or form a conception of, would be a reality presented within a phenomenological enclosure having the brain as its physical substrate. The structure that Boyer talks about would then not be a structure of reality but a structure of the presentative field of the phenomenological enclosure correspondent to a structure in the non-linguistic external world. In other words, it would result in Indirect Realism and not Direct Realism.
4. Again, Boyer’s article does not mention whether it accepts Cartesian dualism or rejects it. It may be noted that both contemporary philosophy and science reject Cartesian dualism, so much so that to even speak of the self as a distinct substance has become anathema. It is for this reason that all speculations and explorations in the field of both philosophy and science predominantly look towards neuroscience for a solution to the ‘problem of consciousness’. Even Chalmers, who claims consciousness to be non-reductive, considers the physical universe to be a closed system (displaying causal closure) and says that we must look for the causal mechanisms of the subjective features of the field of consciousness in the physical substrate of the brain. According to me, it would be a futile exercise to attempt to incorporate the Three Levels of Vedic reality, as Boyer’s article attempts to do, into any theory of science without first addressing the question of whether the self is a distinct substance or not. The question of the unity of objects with a transcendental Consciousness arises only at the fourth level – the level of Turiya or linguistically at the level of Para-vak – whereas at the level of a transactional reality, reality does appear as a duality of conscious-self (purusha) and inert- matter (prakriti) and a theory that seeks to explain reality must address this level of reality too. Otherwise, to speak of incorporating Vedic conceptions of reality while remaining silent on the modern proclivity to reject Cartesian dualism would amount to a mere pretense. In my book (Chapter 4), I have explained why it is necessary to consider the self as a separate substance; while this may not constitute a formal proof of the existence of the self (I hope to take up that topic in my next paper/book), I have shown how by not considering the self as a distinct substance, it leads to all kinds of logical conundrums, essentially of the kinds that beset Representationalism.
5. My book does not attempt to delve into the ontological features of reality as Boyer’s article does. The main reason for it is that I find the ontology already provided in the Indian tradition to be comprehensive. For example, the twenty-four tattvas of Samkhya provide the basic material constituents of the universe, the seven categories (or padarthas) of Nyaya explain the irreducible logical compositions of the complex objects that constitute the furniture of the world formed through admixtures of the twenty-four tattvas of Samkhya, and Vedanta provides the nature of a Transcendental Reality and its relation to the universe and to the conscious beings that inhabit the universe. I do not believe that the scientific model is anywhere close to providing such a comprehensive view of reality.
6. Boyer’s article tries to incorporate the Vedic conception of Three Levels of Reality without consideration of the praxis of the Vedic logical tradition. For example, he refers to the problem of defining what individual objects are, or of identifying what the thingness of a thing is, but these kinds of problems are really self-inflicted problems inasmuch as they arise from the Western tradition (i.e., since the time of Descartes and British Empiricism) having rejected the categories. Even though the categories of Aristotle – the Predicamentia, as they were called – were not as well defined, or as well argued for, as the padarthas of the Indian tradition were, they had still provided a logical foundation to explain how ‘thingness’ may be apprehended but the rejection of the categories has left the Western tradition – and unfortunately the field of contemporary discourse which follows in the footsteps of the Western tradition – without a foothold to comprehend even basic things like object-hood, etc. If we are to truly draw from the Indian Vedic tradition, we cannot afford to ignore the padarthas which form the bedrock of the Indian logical tradition. In my book, I have included a section (in Chapter 4) on the categories (padarthas), and, in Chapter 8, I have argued from a logic based on the categories to counter the main objections raised against Direct Realism.
7. While Boyer mentions Logical Positivism and Kuhnian revolution in his article, he doesn’t seem to consider the ramifications that the work done by the Logical Positivists and Thomas Kuhn would have on the attempts to incorporate Vedic conceptions in a unified theory of science. Both the Logical Positivists and Kuhn held that the empirical observations of science are theory-laden by the symbolic framework within which scientists operate and that when the basic parameters of the symbolic framework change, it would result in the rise of a new paradigm that would be incommensurable with the old paradigm. According to me, it is naïve to undertake a project to combine Vedic conceptions of the universe with those of science without first ascertaining whether the two paradigms are commensurate with each other. Indeed, in my book (Part II of the book) , I have shown that the scientific experiments conducted to measure the velocity of light with respect to an observer are theory laden with the assumptions of the physicalist framework of science, primarily with the assumption that a measuring instrument is equivalent to an observer, and that the velocity of light measured between an object and the observer is false. The measured velocity of light is actually the velocity of light between one object (the source of light) and another object (the object illuminated by the source of light) and not between an object and the observer as is believed by scientists. I have proposed a new experiment in (Part II of) my book to actually verify whether the observation of an event in space is instantaneous or whether it occurs after a time-lapse.
8. The entire phenomenon of paradigms and the incommensurability problem is, according to me, a result of the Western tradition not having a culture of pramanas. I believe there is a good opportunity here for the scholars of the Indian vidyas, especially Nayyayikas, to put the entire framework of science under the lens of scrutiny of a philosophical investigation based on the principles and methods of Nyaya Shastra. I am convinced that if this is done, it will not only give rise to a new discipline – which we may call the Nyaya Philosophy of Science – but also demonstrate that the Indian logical tradition is not dead, that it has the potential to forge new frontiers of knowledge.
I would have been more comfortable if someone else had provided the comparison between my book and that article, but yours was a reasonable request all the same as it allows me to let the members of this forum know where I am coming from in writing the book. Thank you for showing interest in my book.
Regards,
Chittaranjan
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Achyut Karve
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Nagaraj Paturi
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Chittaranjan Naik
On Tuesday, December 3, 2019 at 9:41:43 AM UTC+5:30, Nagaraj Paturi wrote:
Sri Achyut-ji,This discussion is about Pratyaksha as a PramaaNa. How it works.Specifically , it is about the process of perception.How the senses come to know of sense-objects ? Do they actively take initiative to detect the objects or passively receive the light, sound etc. from the source ?Please limit the discussion to those aspects only.
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Veeranarayana Pandurangi
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Chittaranjan Naik
Chittaranjan Naik
Namaste,
I do not believe the implications of establishing the Indian Contact Theory of Perception has been fully recognized in academic circles today. The implications are staggering. They are of such proportions as to cause a radical change both in our scientific worldview as well as philosophical worldview. The kind of theory of perception we hold to be true radically impacts both the field of science as well as that of philosophy. In this post, I shall briefly point out the impact that it would have on the relativity theory of science.
In the contact theory of perception, perception occurs through contact of the senses with the object, i.e., at the instant of perception there is conjunction of the sense and the object. Thus, the object that is perceived would be existent at the instant of its perception because there cannot be contact or conjunction of the senses with an object that is non-existent. But this directly contradicts the commonly held belief that the distant stars we perceive are perceived as they had existed many years ago and that the star may not even be existent at the time it is perceived.
Also, in the Indian contact theory of perception, when two objects or events are perceived simultaneously, it would imply that the existences of the two objects, or the occurrences of the two events, are simultaneous at the instant they are perceived. If this should be so, it would mean that major parts of Einstein’s Relativity Theory would have to be re-written. The determinate nature of the simultaneity of the existence of two objects, or of the occurrence of two events, would directly challenge the relativity of simultaneity hypothesis of Einstein’s theory. In Einstein’s theory of relativity, it is impossible to determine the simultaneity of two events in space because of the impossibility of being able to synchronize two spatially separated clocks. Also, the simultaneity that an observer perceives cannot be imputed to events in space on account of the different finite times that light would take to reach the observer from the respective spatial locations of the events / objects.
Comments?
Regards,
Chittaranjan
Chittaranjan Naik
With the sole exception of the ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles (494 - 434 BC), the Western tradition has consistently held that we perceive objects through a stimulus-response process. The Indian tradition, on the other hand, has, just as consistently, held that we perceive objects on account of the contact of the senses with objects. The different approaches adopted by the two traditions for explaining perception are not trivial – they symbolize the vastly different worldviews of the two traditions so much so that a debate between the two theories of perception – the stimulus-response theory and the contact theory – would constitute nothing less than a clash of civilizations.
In the Indian tradition, perception (pratyaksha) is considered as a pramaana. It has the capacity to reveal objects ‘just as they are’. How does the Indian tradition explain such transparency of perception? For, as long as we are possessed of a body, the transformative mechanisms of the body would prevent the objects from being presented to our sensorium in their true forms; they would be presented, instead, as colored by the perceptual instruments and the transformative mechanisms that we are endowed with. How then does the Indian tradition hold that perception is a pramaana, a means to knowing objects ‘just as they are’ or in their true forms? How does the process of perception in which the sense organs (indriyas) reach out to the objects ensure that perceptual transparency is maintained?
I have argued in the book that perception is inherent to the self and that in reality there is no intermediate perceptual mechanism involved in perceiving objects because we are not embodied beings. The whole phenomenon of embodiment is a myth arising out of primordial avidya as laid out in Vedanta, or mithya-jnana as it is called in the Nyaya texts. The theory of perception does not explain a ‘real process’; it explains a perceptual process as it appears through the lens of mithya-jnana that presents, at once, a sense of embodiment and a spectrum consisting of the subtle-body and gross-body. It is the ‘mechanistic appearance of this spectrum’ during the process of perception that constitutes the perceptual process as described in the Indian texts. Since the entire process is a process that appears through the lens of mithya-jnana, there really is nothing that stands between the perceiving subject and the object perceived. The self is in reality epistemically open to the world. The transparency of perception is thus explained.
Regards,
Chittaranjan
G S S Murthy
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and also my Sanskrit blog :
Bijoy Misra
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Chittaranjan Naik
Namaste Sri Murthy-ji,
I am happy you brought up the topic of experiment because the second part of my book, titled 'The Simultaneity Experiment', describes an experiment to adjudicate between the two competing theories. The experiment was first conceived in the year 2010 during a discussion held in the Advaitin Yahoogroup on the topic of perception. In the year 2017, i wrote it down in the form of a formal research paper with the intention of presenting it in a seminar that was planned to be held under the banner of ICPR. But the planned seminar never took place, and the paper has now become Part II of my book.
Let me clarify however that the experiment is not meant to verify the operative aspects of the contact theory of perception because the subtle sense organs (indriyas) that are said to participate in the process of perception are not gross physical objects, so their presence, or their operations, cannot be verified by empirical means. What the experiment seeks to achieve is to verify which of the empirical results as expected from the two competing theories would be shown to be correct. In the stimulus-response theory, perception would occur after a time lapse, i.e., after the signals from the objects have arrived at the gross physical sense organs are transmitted to the brain and then presented as a percept. In the contact theory of perception, there being conjunction of the subtle sense organ with the object, there would be no such time lapse. The presence or absence of time-lag is what the experiment seeks to verify.
The experiment would require a large flare to be created in outer space of such magnitude as to make it visible to the naked eye when seen from the earth. The perception of the flare would have to be with the naked eye without there being any intervening instruments – not even a telescope – in between the percipient and the object / event. I have argued in the book that the presence of an intervening telescope would not amount to a perception of the target object but would constitute an inferential cognition inasmuch as what is seen in the telescope would be a virtual image from which the presence of the target object would be inferred using the vyapti ‘where there is an image in the telescope there is a corresponding object in space’. In other words, what is perceived would be the hetu and the target object in space would be the sadhya; it is therefore important that the flare should be perceived with the naked eye alone.
I have discussed this experiment with some well-known traditional scholars, including the eminent scholar Sri Mani Dravid Sastrigal, but I feel there needs to be a more formal discussion / debate conducted via articles published in academic journals before we can take further steps towards conducting the experiment. Also, the feasibility of conducting the experiment has to be ascertained both from the point of the technological prowess we currently possess and from the point of the limitations that would be imposed on it by the laws of physics.
Regards,
Chittaranjan
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Chittaranjan Naik
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G S S Murthy
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Chittaranjan Naik
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Chittaranjan Naik
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Bijoy Misra
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Chittaranjan Naik
Chittaranjan Naik
The proposition forming the basis for this experiment is that if there should be a visible event in space, the event would be perceived instantly by the conscious agent (observer) whereas the light from the event would take a certain finite time to travel to another object in space. Thus, if the visual event were to be a large visual flare in space, the human observer would perceive the flare instantly, i.e., as soon as it occurs in space, and would perceive an object located spatially at a certain distance from the flare getting lit up or illuminated by the flare after a finite time interval has elapsed. If the second object (i.e., the one illuminated by the light) were to be substituted by a measuring instrument placed next to the observer’s physical body, then the measuring instrument would register the event after a certain time-lapse whereas the human observer would have perceived the flare instantly (without any time-lapse between the occurrence of the flare in space and its perception by the observer).
Taking a concrete illustration, a visual event occurring in space at a distance of 100 miles from the observer’s body would be perceived instantly by the observer whereas a measuring instrument placed next to the body of the observer would register the visual event only after light has reached it, i.e., after a time interval of 0.000054 seconds (taking the velocity of light to be 1,86,000 miles / second).
In designing a practical experiment, considerations of errors of measurement need to be taken into account. If a human being were to register the time when he perceives the visual event, he would have to record it by pressing some kind of key or button on a time-registering device, such as a stop-watch, to register the time-stamp of the perception of the event. However, such registration of the time-stamp would be subject to human errors arising out of the latency of the human bodily mechanisms, i.e., the time delay occurring from the cognitive episode in which the perception occurs to the initiation of the person’s volition to press the device-key and the inertial time delays of the motor mechanisms of the bodily organs before the device-key is actually pressed. Human errors of the order of 0.5 seconds, or even of 1 second, cannot be ruled out in registering the perception of the visual event. Thus, even though the perception of a visual event may occur instantly, it would be registered with a time-stamp that would be 0.5 seconds or 1 second later than the occurrence of the event. In the case of the visual event, occurring 100 miles away from the observer as illustrated above, the perception would thus be recorded approximately 0.5 seconds to 1 second after the event has occurred (assuming instant perception of the event) whereas an instrument which senses it later in time (i.e., after the light from the source has reached it) would have an earlier time-stamp, i.e., a time-stamp that is only 0.000054 later than the occurrence of the event. In other words, the fact that the event was perceived instantly would be masked by the measurement error of 0.5 seconds to 1 second because the magnitude of the error is far greater than the magnitude of the time taken by light to travel from the source to the measuring instrument. For the error of measurement to be made ineffectual, the visual event would have to be generated so far away in space that the time taken by light from the event to reach the measuring instrument on earth would be sufficiently greater than the human error in registering the time so that the error would be negligible in relation to the time taken by light to travel to the measuring instrument.
I would consider that the generation of the visual event at a distance of 4 light-seconds from the earth would be sufficient to clearly distinguish the time difference between the time an observer perceives it and the time it gets recorded by a measuring instrument. One is tempted to consider a greater distance in order to make the human error truly negligible but it would then entail that the magnitude of the flare would have to be of such a high order that the entire experiment may become infeasible. For, the further away from the earth the flare is created, its magnitude would have to be that much exponentially greater to make it visible to the naked eye on earth. Even a time-lapse of 4 seconds requires the flare to be created at a distance of 7,44,0000 miles from the earth. We would need to detonate a very powerful nuclear device to generate a visual flare at this distance in outer space to make it of the magnitude required for it to be visible to the naked eye on the earth. If we could have a more controlled experimental environment in which the human error can be restricted to say 0.5 seconds, then perhaps a distance of something like 4,64,000 miles with an expected time-lapse of 2.5 seconds may be sufficient and the reduction in distance would make the experiment so much more feasible. In any case, even if the experiment should not be feasible today, the possibility of it being conducted in the future should not be ruled out; we may therefore be granted some indulgence in proposing the experiment considering that the implications of its outcome, if it turns out to be as expected, would be far reaching and indeed no less paradigm changing than the one that changed the face of science at the beginning of the twentieth-century. Our primary interest however is in re-instating perception as a valid means of knowledge (pramana) in the contemporary world.
Chittaranjan Naik
On Wednesday, December 11, 2019 at 6:39:21 PM UTC+5:30, Bijoy wrote:
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Bijoy Misra
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Chittaranjan Naik
The Simultaneity Experiment would be conducted along the following lines:
i) A space vehicle would be launched from a launch station on the earth carrying a payload consisting of a powerful nuclear explosive capable of generating a flare in space that would be visible to the naked eye at a distance of 4,64,000 miles.
ii) The payload comprising the nuclear explosive device and its housing would be put into orbit around the earth at a radius of 4,68,000 miles from the centre of the earth, i.e., at a distance of 4,64,000 miles from the surface of the earth.
iii) There would be an earth station at a select location comprising (a) human observers to record the perception of the flare, and (b) measuring instruments to record the sensing of light signals that arrive from the flare. There would be 4 to 5 human observers in order to insulate the experiment from accidental aberrations in registering the time of perception by any single observer. Likewise, there would be 4 to 5 measuring instruments to record the time-stamps when light signals from the flare arrive at the earth station so as to provide a good degree of fault-tolerancy of measurement.
iv) The measuring instruments may be large-format cameras equipped with very long focal length telescopic lenses so that the field of coverage is limited to the area in which the flare would occur. The sensors of the cameras would need to have the required sensitivity to record the available light from the flare without having significant noise intrusion. Ideally the sensitivity of the camera sensors should be of the same order as the sensitivity of the human visual sense. The cameras would be set to burst exposure mode to record 100 images per second providing a measurement accuracy of 0.01 seconds for the time-stamps of the images recorded (this accuracy would be more than adequate for our purpose).
v) The clocks in all the time-recording devices, for both human observers and measuring instruments, i.e., cameras, will be synchronized to show the same time at any instant.
vi) The nuclear device would be triggered to explode and create a powerful flare at a pre-decided time. The pre-decided time would be determined by the coincidence of the times when the satellite would be directly above the earth-station and when it would be night-time at the earth station so that the flare would be seen by the human observers in the night-sky, directly above the earth-station.
vii) The count-down for the creation of the flare shall begin 10 to 20 seconds before the nuclear device is exploded and the cameras shall be activated to start recording the night-sky in burst mode at 100 exposures per second.
viii) The human observers would register the perception of the flare by pressing a key or button on a digital stop-watch.
ix) The burst mode recording by the cameras shall continue until the flare subsides. The time-stamp of the frame in which the image of the flare first appears would be considered as the time of sensing of the flare by the instrument.
The readings taken by human observers and those taken by measuring instruments would be segregated into two groups after aberrant readings, if any, are discarded. The readings for each group will then be aggregated for the purpose of drawing the conclusion.
If there should be a difference of the order of 1.5 seconds or more between the aggregated readings of human beings and the aggregated readings of the measuring instruments, the indirect perception hypothesis would have been falsified. If there should be no significant difference in the readings of the two groups, the status quo would remain.
G S S Murthy
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Chittaranjan Naik
Dear Sri Bijoy Misra-ji,
There is a general confusion to think that Indian tradition is relativistic.
There is no such confusion in my mind. The Indian tradition is an intellectual tradition aimed at obtaining yathartha-jnana and the science of logical discourse by following which one may obtain it is given by Nyaya Shastra also called Tarka Shastra.
Indian empiricism has an
element of intuition and psychic energy built in to the theory.
The Indian system cannot be called empiricism. There is no such division as a-prior reasoning and a-posteriori reasoning in the Indian tradition (as there is in the Western tradition).
Indian logic is based on the seven categories (padarthas) namely dravya, guna, samanya, vishesha, karma, samavaya and abhava and on the pramanas. Indian logic is not based on intuition but on cognition and the removal of hindrances to get to right cognition. The objects of cognition may be physical objects, metaphysical objects (tattvas such as samanya, etc) or psychic objects like mind.
We don't have a science for intuition yet.
Nyaya is a science of cognition and cognition may include extra-ordinary things of the kind that people ordinarily call 'intuitive knowledge'.
.
Please read Ramanujan-Hardy letters.
Okay, but i would say reading Nyaya shastra would give us a better grasp of the Indian logical tradition.
You should study Charaka well to appreciate the role of
mind in the overall analysis.
The Charaka Samhita says that one should be well-versed in Nyaya to understand the science presented in its pages.
It is not all object space!
Agreed. As i said above, it consists of the seven padarthas.
Let me also request you to operate with scholarly arguments than using arbitrary qualifiers.
Frankly i do not know which of my statements you are alluding to. If you anytime feel that my reasoning is not correct you may take the liberty to point it out to me.
Regards,
Chittaranjan
Chittaranjan Naik
On Wednesday, December 11, 2019 at 8:00:18 PM UTC+5:30, Megh Kalyanasundaram wrote:
Thank you! 🙏
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Chittaranjan Naik
Bijoy Misra
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Chittaranjan Naik
V Subrahmanian
I have argued in the book that perception is inherent to the self and that in reality there is no intermediate perceptual mechanism involved in perceiving objects because we are not embodied beings. The whole phenomenon of embodiment is a myth arising out of primordial avidya as laid out in Vedanta, or mithya-jnana as it is called in the Nyaya texts. The theory of perception does not explain a ‘real process’; it explains a perceptual process as it appears through the lens of mithya-jnana that presents, at once, a sense of embodiment and a spectrum consisting of the subtle-body and gross-body. It is the ‘mechanistic appearance of this spectrum’ during the process of perception that constitutes the perceptual process as described in the Indian texts. Since the entire process is a process that appears through the lens of mithya-jnana, there really is nothing that stands between the perceiving subject and the object perceived. The self is in reality epistemically open to the world. The transparency of perception is thus explained.
Regards,
Chittaranjan
Chittaranjan Naik
V Subrahmanian
We do not know the 'svarupa' of moksha, liberation, in Nyaya darshana. Whether there will be perception involving seer, seeing and seen, in the state of liberation as per this darshana is to be studied.The Nyaya texts that i have read are silent on this aspect. The position of Samkhya seems to be quite close (though not same) to that of Advaita Vedanta. Prakriti is seen even after obtaining jnana due to the force of prarabda but once prarabda runs out, prakriti ceases to dance for purusha because her task is done.
S Venkatraman
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Chittaranjan Naik
Chittaranjan Naik
Sir,--I'd like to buy your work as an ebook, since no libraries or bookstores I have access to have a hard copy.Would this be possible?Best wishes,Irene
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Irene Galstian
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Irene Galstian
On Friday, December 13, 2019 at 7:31:47 AM UTC, Chittaranjan Naik wrote:
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Chittaranjan Naik
R Balagopal
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Chittaranjan Naik
Nagaraj Paturi
Inter-textual criticism
Reader-response criticism
Mimetic criticism
Symbolic/Archetypal criticism
Feminist criticism
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Chittaranjan Naik
Namaste Prof Paturi-ji,
In this post, I shall submit my thoughts on the idea of bringing the concepts of philosophy of science to bear upon Indology, or more properly on to a critique of Indology.
Though the notions of paradigm, paradigm-shift and incommensurability arose in the context of the philosophical study of science, there is no reason why they would not be applicable to any discipline of human knowledge that seeks to explain reality, or some aspect of reality, whether it be science, philosophy, social sciences, etc, in as much as a paradigm invariably consists of an explanatory framework based on certain parameters that form the underlying basis of the framework. And when these parameters change so radically that the very judgmental criteria of the explanatory framework change, it would result in the birth of a new paradigm that would be incommensurable with the old one.
The notion of paradigm has its origin in the philosophical movement known as ‘verificationism’ attributable to a group of philosophers, scientists and mathematicians of the early twentieth-century called the Logical Positivists. The project undertaken by the Logical Positivists for determining a set of objective verification criteria for the theories of science had to be given up as a futile endeavor because there was no way in which the verification criteria could be made free of the a priori symbolic framework within which scientists operated. It was the failure of this project more than anything else that led Thomas Kuhn to propose the notion of a paradigm wherein it is not the objective truth of a theory that determines its standing as an accepted theory but it is its acceptance by the scientific community as a provisional best explanation model for that aspect of reality that the theory seeks to explain that lends to it the status of an accepted scientific theory. It is this notion of a theory understood not as theory pointing to the truth of reality, or to the truth of that aspect of reality that the theory purports to explain, but of it being a provisional best-explanation model within a situational predicament in which the objective truth of a theory cannot be spoken about meaningfully, that underlies the notion of a paradigm.
The historical events that led to the inability of the Western tradition to speak meaningfully of an objective truth did not begin with the Logical Positivists. It was a problem that had already become endemic in Western philosophy since the time of Descartes and British Empiricism. For, until then, it was assumed that the correspondence theory of truth would hold valid. But, if one couldn’t speak of the perceived world as the real world, how indeed would one be able to substantiate the correspondence theory of truth? If the world were merely mind as the Idealists thought, how may there be an external world with which one’s conceptions may correspond? Or, if, as Locke thought, the world we perceive consists of secondary qualities as brought forth to our sensorium in accordance with the senses we are endowed with and the primary qualities of objects are something we can never know, or even form a conception of, how may one meaningfully speak of correspondence of our conception with objects or their properties thereof? Those who had until then considered the perceived world to be the real world came to be called ‘Naïve Realists’ and it was no more possible for philosophers to naively hold that the conception of truth pointed to the correspondence of our conceptions with the external objects of the world. The Western philosophical tradition hasn’t been able overcome this problem so far. The result of it has been a rather fruitless endeavor to redefine the meaning of the word ‘truth’. Today, this has led to philosophers positing more than ten theories of truth, such as the coherence theory of truth, the pragmatic theory of truth, the semantic theory of truth, the deflationary theory of truth, the consensus theory of truth, the constructivist theory or truth and many other theories of truth, but we are no closer to defining truth now than we were three hundred years ago. It is against this backdrop – of the inability of Western philosophers to define what truth is - that we must look at the genesis of the concepts of paradigm, paradigm-shift and incommensurability. Indeed, we may say that the overarching paradigm of all Western disciplines of knowledge is characterized by a tenuous foundation in which the meaning of word ‘truth’ is not fixed and remains as a floating symbol.
The situation with Indology is no different than it is with science or with any other disciple of knowledge that operates within the overarching paradigm of contemporary Western tradition. And it is this overarching paradigm that provides Indology with the license to ignore the goal of Indian vidyas, which is the obtainment of knowledge of truth, or yathartha-jnana as it is called in the Indian tradition, and to impugn to the authors of the texts of these vidyas extraneous motives which have no basis in the vidyas themselves. It has resulted in shifting the focus of the study of texts from philosophy to the philosopher and towards ascribing ulterior motives to the philosophers’ statements.
Seen from the standpoint of the Indian tradition, the failure of Western philosophy to sustain the correspondence theory of truth is attributable to the tradition lacking a culture of pramanas. The Indian tradition suffers from no such lacuna. There is in the Indian tradition no reason to discard the correspondence theory of truth because it has a robust theory of perception that maintains coherence with reality as it is naturally perceived. To treat the Indian vidyas, which are built on the foundations of a healthy and robust theory of truth, on par with contemporary knowledge disciplines and subject them to analyses from a Western explanatory framework set within an overarching paradigm in which the very meaning of truth is called into question is quite ludicrous. The judgmental criteria of the framework of Indology are incommensurable with those of the ‘paradigm’ of Indian knowledge systems. While Western philosophers have been reduced to speak of private ‘ontological commitments’ instead of the truth, those belonging to the Indian tradition may quite legitimately speak of the truth. In such a scenario, asking the Indologists to interpret the texts of Indian vidyas would be like asking the monkeys to interpret the texts of physics or mathematics. At the risk of sounding candidly uncharitable towards the Indologists, I would quote Jesus’ words from the Bible:
“Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” (Mathew 7.6)
The ideas presented here are just some nascent ideas in my mind. They will need to be worked out more cogently and in much more detail but I believe that it would be worthwhile to undertake a critical analysis of the field of Indology using the concepts of paradigm and incommensurability.
Regards,
Chittaranjan
Chittaranjan Naik
Irene Galstian
Achyut Karve
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Amith Vikram D
If you read the preface, Chittaranjan ji has broken down the complex Vedic framework and made it easier for even the first time reader to comprehend the vast subject. However, that doesn't reduce his arguments to being merely dogmatic. He has challenged the contemporary view in the most civilized way possible, in spite of the Vedic worldview being on the receiving end from a long time. It's purely a debate. And the civility lies in countering it with arguments, if so capable. Due to the lack of any framework, the entire philosophical tradition of the west becomes nothing but mere skepticism.
Regards
Amith
Chittaranjan Naik
I am worried more about the minds in the East really. We have many scholars among us but very few philosophers. Indian philosophies have got fossilized at the beginning of the seventeenth century and we need new scholar-philosophers who can resurrect them and breathe new life into them.
Irene Galstian
Irene Galstian
Chittaranjan Naik
"There it was too that I picked up the word 'Superman' and that man is something that must be overcome, that man is a bridge and not a goal; counting himself happy for his noontides and evenings, as a way to new dawn ...."
"I taught them all my art and aims: to compose into one and bring together what is fragment and riddle and dreadful chance in man -
" as poet, reader of riddles, and redeemer of chance, I taught them to create the future, and to redeem by creating -- all that was past.
"To redeem that part of mankind and to transform every 'It was', until the will says: 'But I willed it thus! So shall I will it -'
"this did I call redemption, this alone did I teach them to call redemption.
"Now I await my redemption - that I may go to them for the last time.
"For I want to go to men once more: I want to go under among them, I want to give them, dying, my richest gift!"
Chittaranjan Naik
Irene Galstian
Kalicharan Tuvij
1) Advaita in particular, and vedAnta in general, cannot lay claim to be representatives of Hinduism. However, if such impressions are given, then no discussions can take place (i.e. people just let you be).
2) So, success or failure of Advaita etc in coming to terms (or not) with modern Science has no bearing whatsoever on the state or wellbeing of Hinduism in general.
3) Coming from non-vedantic standpoint (shared with the majority of Hindus), Advaita to me is a mere sect of Hinduism (empirically known, Yes?) involved in brahm(an) bhakti.
4) The point above has traditionally led the expectation that an Advaitin should rather observe a vow of silence, not quite what is observed in the modem day affiliates (i.e. Advaitins being the most vocal; Kaliyuga effect?).
5) A sect is like a tool tailored for a particular task. Brahm(an) bhakti is not meant to be misused like this.
6) All the above is in addition to basic errors in understanding the technicalities (makes one angry) as pointed to by a member who is an astrophysicist.
7) So my heartfelt best wishes to modern Advaitins in their struggles against "Western tradition" on one hand and "less enlightened Hindus" on the other.
Irene Galstian
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Chittaranjan Naik
Namaste Sri Kalicharan-ji,
I enjoyed reading your post. Most of the points you make deserve to be discussed in a separate thread of their own; I will here comment on only one point which I see to be having relevance to this thread.
....success or failure of Advaita etc in coming to terms (or not) with modern Science has no bearing whatsoever on the state or wellbeing of Hinduism in general.
The goal of Advaita is liberation through the acquisition of Self-Knowledge. In science, there is no such thing as the self, and the consciousness which Advaita holds to be the essential nature of the self is considered to be a product of the physical brain. Thus, according to science, all our experiences would have neural processes of the brain as their substrate. Now, this would lead to interesting conclusions such as the one reproduced below from the Journal of Neuropsychiatry, Vol 24, Issue 4, Fall 2012:
“The authors have analyzed the religious figures Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and St. Paul from a behavioral, neurologic, and neuropsychiatric perspective to determine whether new insights can be achieved about the nature of their revelations. Analysis reveals that these individuals had experiences that resemble those now defined as psychotic symptoms, suggesting that their experiences may have been manifestations of primary or mood disorder-associated psychotic disorders.”
What is said of Jesus, Abraham and Moses could well have been said of those people who have had yogic experiences or the Advaita experience of liberation. And at the point of death of the physical body, there would be neither liberation (in the form of videha-mukti) nor any storage of merits and demerits to be carried over to a future birth. Instead, consciousness and the stream of conscious experience that characterized the experience of this life would be switched off - ‘pouf’, just like that.
Sir, do you still believe that the success or failure of Advaita etc in coming to terms (or not) with modern Science would have no bearing whatsoever on the state or well-being of Hinduism?
Regards,
Chittaranjan
Irene Galstian
Kalicharan Tuvij
enjoyed reading your post.
The goal of Advaita is liberation through the acquisition of Self-Knowledge.
In science, there is no such thing as the self, and the consciousness which Advaita holds to be the essential nature of the self is considered to be a product of the physical brain.
Thus, according to science, all our experiences would have neural processes of the brain as their substrate.
Now, this would lead to interesting conclusions such as the one reproduced below from the Journal of Neuropsychiatry, Vol 24, Issue 4, Fall 2012:
“The authors have analyzed the religious figures Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and St. Paul from a behavioral, neurologic, and neuropsychiatric perspective to determine whether new insights can be achieved about the nature of their revelations. Analysis reveals that these individuals had experiences that resemble those now defined as psychotic symptoms, suggesting that their experiences may have been manifestations of primary or mood disorder-associated psychotic disorders.”
What is said of Jesus, Abraham and Moses could well have been said of those people who have had yogic experiences or the Advaita experience of liberation.
And at the point of death of the physical body, there would be neither liberation (in the form of videha-mukti) nor any storage of merits and demerits to be carried over to a future birth. Instead, consciousness and the stream of conscious experience that characterized the experience of this life would be switched off - ‘pouf’, just like that.
Sir, do you still believe that the success or failure of Advaita etc in coming to terms (or not) with modern Science would have no bearing whatsoever on the state or well-being of Hinduism?
Chittaranjan Naik
Namaste Sri Kalicharan-ji,
Thanks. But also let us take care not to extend discussing these specific points indefinitely (gives me shivers; old memories with Vedanti-s).
Well, you have got into it now, shivers or no shivers. J
The goal of Advaita is liberation through the acquisition of Self-Knowledge.
The goal of Hinduism, however, is: Completeness.
Are you disputing that the goal of Advaita is liberation / Self-knowledge?
Advaita is a sect catering such specific needs within Hinduism.
Advaita is not a sect catering to some ordinary specific needs. It is Para Vidya, the Highest of all vidyas among the fourteen vidya-sthanas (Chaturdasa vidyas) that confer knowledge of dharma and it caters to the ultimate goal of all human life, moksha, which is the fourth of the purusharthas.
In science, there is no such thing as the self, and the consciousness which Advaita holds to be the essential nature of the self is considered to be a product of the physical brain.
Advaita doesn't seek to explain anything,
It does. Please look up the prasthana-trayi texts. It seeks to explain the nature of Brahman, the relation between Brahman and the self and the relation between Brahman and the world.
whereas science seeks to explain things (to predict and exploit behaviour). Therefore both, understandably, make use of different tools.
The problem we are trying to address is about those areas of knowledge that science encroaches upon without the tools it uses giving it the warrant to do so.
Thus, according to science, all our experiences would have neural processes of the brain as their substrate.
Science has made no such claim that it has understood brain processes.
We are not discussing the claim of science with respect to it having understood brain processes but about the claim of science that the brain is to be regarded as the physical substrate of consciousness and conscious experience.
Also, the claims of science are always in the form of best-explanation models which are held to be provisionally true until a better model comes along. It is an approach that is called ‘positivist’. Within such a scheme, science does claim that consciousness is dependent on neural processes of the brain even though it may not claim to have provided an accurate explanation of all brain processes.
Now, this would lead to interesting conclusions such as the one reproduced below from the Journal of Neuropsychiatry, Vol 24, Issue 4, Fall 2012:
“The authors have analyzed the religious figures Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and St. Paul from a behavioral, neurologic, and neuropsychiatric perspective to determine whether new insights can be achieved about the nature of their revelations. Analysis reveals that these individuals had experiences that resemble those now defined as psychotic symptoms, suggesting that their experiences may have been manifestations of primary or mood disorder-associated psychotic disorders.”
Note the words "may have been".
The point to be considered is that science thinks the physical world forms a causal closure, so any explanation it provides for consciousness and conscious experience will have to have the physical brain as the substrate from which a causal explanation can come. The words “may have been” merely indicate that scientists think they are proceeding in the right direction.
What is said of Jesus, Abraham and Moses could well have been said of those people who have had yogic experiences or the Advaita experience of liberation.
Yogic experiences are unique and robust experiences (often gifting a lasting siddhi), whereas Advaitic experiences are common (in varying degree) to all genuine affiliates of that sect.
Additionally there are statistical phenomena (inevitable rarities) such as a Ramakrishna in the debauchered backwaters of India, or a Jesus in the badlands of the world, etc.
These are just assertions; they don’t have the power to ether reject the claims of science or to provide a justification for the assertions made.
And at the point of death of the physical body, there would be neither liberation (in the form of videha-mukti) nor any storage of merits and demerits to be carried over to a future birth. Instead, consciousness and the stream of conscious experience that characterized the experience of this life would be switched off - ‘pouf’, just like that.
Science is agnostic about these.
If science is agnostic about consciousness, then why does it invest so much time and effort in neuroscience for seeking an explanation for consciousness?
Science is not agnostic about consciousness, it is positivist and it operates under the premise that the physical world forms a causal closure.
So the problem is not with science, the problem is with armies of slaves that think killing people in the name of ideologies causes liberation.
This comment is irrelevant to our discussion.
Regards,
Chittaranjan
R Balagopal
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Amith Vikram D
I am submitting the review of the book in this forum if that okay. Hope this is useful -
I would caution the reader to not be intimidated by the title of the book, for it may appear to be a micro-analysis of a subject matter that is far from interesting. That is primarily because of our preconceived notion that, perception is a universally settled matter and there could be no possibility of any contrary view pertaining to the matter. This book, from the very first sentence, takes off at a tremendous pace - as it is nothing short of a compelling intellectual thriller! The preface of this book is an inseparable portion as it lays down the sophisticated framework of the Vedic worldview. It has been broken down is such a way that even a first time reader would be able to grasp the subtlety of the subject matter, which otherwise requires a sharp intellect and years of study to comprehend.
There have been no attempts to question the validity of the western academic tradition whether it be of philosophical or scientific in nature. The philosophical skepticism of the west, over the years have inevitably overlapped into the scientific methodology, as demonstrated in this book, owing to the lack of a sophisticated framework in either of the systems. The philosophical skepticism has transformed into scientific skepticism, because of which ‘science’ is still incapable of explaining the hypothesis it postulates. So, it is apparent that we are not obligated to accept without questioning, the contemporary worldview held by scientists.
The author challenges the contemporary view of science at its most vulnerable point - the theory of perception. The Vedic philosophical worldview has been dismissed with contempt by both philosophers and scientists - ironically, without countering it. It might seem to be very strange that the author uses the same framework of Pramanas that is used in Vedic philosophies to counter the scientific worldview and yet upholds a theory, which is consistent - epistemologically, ontologically and metaphysically. Furthermore, this is one of the key points of this book which has a much larger implication, which the reader will discover towards the end of the book.
Most contemporary scholars of Indian philosophical tradition often claim that Vedas are scientific, but only superficially, without offering anything in support, thus reducing such claims to be a mere rhetoric. Consequently, academicians and scientists may dismiss such claims as pseudo-science. The author on the other hand takes the bull by the horns and thereby dismisses the scientific theories as unreasonable and establishes the conformity of the Vedas with Truth and not with unvalidated scientific theories.
The author, like a seasoned commander of an army, proceeds to strike at the heart of the dogmatic scientific theories which have been taught to us as gospel truth, with incisive precision. By using familiar terminologies and a straightforward style of writing, the author distills his enormous scholarship and makes it easy for even a layperson to easily read and comprehend. There is no prior understanding of either Indian or western philosophical systems necessary for the reader. This book can be classified under one of the unputdownables as mysteries of esoteric subjects like Shabda pramana are unravelled gradually and breaks the shackles of blind belief. It can be read in a single sitting, however, the mysteries unravelled will compel you to stop and ponder. Our whole worldview is turned upside down as it decimates the misconceptions and lays bare the shallowness of theories which are not supported by proper framework.
The sixth chapter of the book will not only put the lay reader in awe but even the experts in the field of Vedic philosophy. The stimulus theory that the brain processes the neural signals from the eye - falls flat and even the view of science on consciousness breaks apart, thus marking a paradigm shift.
The author clarifies, that although it is indeed a paradigm shift, the Vedic worldview has always upheld this in their Darshanas.There are severe and far reaching implications on not only the contemporary scientific views but also on contemporary views on Vedic Darshanas. The author has comprehensively proved that the lag or delay in perception is untenable and that, perception is immediate as per the contact-theory of perception, which the author proposes. If you think I have spoiled the book for you, wait till you read the sixth chapter. But the extent of the implication does not stop there because, while explaining the contact theory of perception, the author has brought into the discourse, the entire Vedic framework along with its darshanas. So what is the greater implication?
We have all witnessed the emphatic way in which the scientific community has upheld the absence of the role of a sentient being on the pretext of negation of causality. So the narrative is reduced to scientists vs philosophers or science vs religion. Chittaranjan Naik bravely confronts this atheistic worldview which none of the philosophers including Vedic scholars have done until now. The author handles the most difficult topic of the law of causality in such a pragmatic way that it conforms to both reason and methodology. While the law of causality is determined to be only apparent and not absolute, the final conclusion is radically opposite to the atheistic worldview and instead emphatically declares the self-luminous sentient being as the absolute.
Notwithstanding this disruption in contemporary theories, many Vedic philosophers too, will be obliged to defend their philosophical positions as the author sticks to one particular darshana thus giving the contact theory of perception a level of consistency and coherence. This book poses an immediate threat to The departure from a cognitive nature of Vedanta to an empirical one among contemporary Vedantins. To further break it down, it upholds the validity of Shruti pramana. The arguments in this book can be compared to the mimamsakas of antiquity, who rescued the validity of Shruti pramana from the vitanda of logicians. It is for this reason that this book is of paramount importance, even without the artificial marketing gimmicks employed. A truth seeker, will certainly cherish the wisdom in this book, whether one agrees with the author or not.
Chittaranjan Naik
Namaste Irene-ji,
I agree with you that it is not surprising to know that the scientists who think the Vedas are primitive and tribal also think that Jesus, Moses, etc were psychotics. If it were a matter of merely what the scientists think, it would have hardly mattered to Hinduism but when these kinds of thoughts are presented as part of the body of human knowledge that reigns supreme in the world today, namely science, it does have a deleterious effect on the practice of Hinduism because the vast majority of people in the world, including Hindus, take these scientific hypotheses and theories to be true, even unquestioningly true. I shall briefly try to make explicit how it affects Hinduism, or the practice of Hinduism.
Hinduism consists of two broad paths; they are known as the paths of pravritti-dharma and nivritti-dharma. Nivritti-dharma is the path of knowledge and it is characterized by renunciation. Pravritti-dharma is the path of action and it is characterized by action impelled by desire for objects. These two paths are interlinked inasmuch as it is the pursuit of pravritti-dharma, the path of righteous action, that leads to the attainment of mental purity and confers the necessary qualifications to be able to pursue the path of knowledge in a manner that will bear fruition.
A person who is on the path of knowledge (nivritti) is not affected by what scientists think or by the scientific theories prevailing in the world. By virtue of possessing the necessary qualifications for pursuing the path of knowledge, he or she is endowed with viveka-jnana, the discriminatory knowledge by which he or she can cleave through the chaff of dubious knowledge and be able to cognize the truth of reality. But such people are few in number; they form a minuscule percentage of the Hindu population. The vast majority of Hindus are fit only for pravritti-dharma, the path of action, and it is by diligently pursuing this path that they will eventually obtain, some in this birth and some after many births, the necessary qualifications for pursuing the path of nivritti. It is for this vast majority of the Hindu population - that is fit for the path of pravritti - that the presence of scientific theories in society makes a difference. How so?
The self of an embodied person appears in the state of embodiment as an agent of action. In this condition, it exhibits three powers known as iccha-shakti (the power of will/desire), jnana-shakti (the power of knowledge) and kriya-shakti (the power of action). Kriya or action springs from the jnana or knowledge that is presupposed to be right. That knowledge which is presupposed to be right may actually be right or wrong, so the action that springs from it may accordingly be rightly directed or wrongly directed depending on whether it is based on right-knowledge regarding dharma or wrong-knowledge regarding dharma. So, in order that a Hindu who is qualified to pursue pravritti-dharma – and this represents the majority of the Hindus – should be able to abide by the prescriptions of pravritti-dharma, he should have prior knowledge of what this dharma is. But if his education and social acculturation have implanted deep-seated beliefs within his mind that there is no such thing as the self or that there is no question of the self outliving the fall of the body or of transmigrating from one body to another, then what kind of action (kriya) would proceed from such beliefs (knowledge presupposed to be right)? He is likely to disregard the prescriptions of dharma altogether. So, you see, the theories of science – at least such of those theories that claim to explain consciousness, perception, etc , - do have a deleterious effect on the practice of Hinduism.
Regards,
Chittaranjan
Chittaranjan Naik
Amith Vikram D
I am younger to you in both age and learning. Thank you for having kindly overlooked my audacity to review your work.
Chittaranjan Naik
Chittaranjan Naik
On Monday, December 16, 2019 at 5:07:58 PM UTC+5:30, Chittaranjan Naik wrote:
Namaste Prof Paturi-ji,
In this post, I shall submit my thoughts on the idea of bringing the concepts of philosophy of science to bear upon Indology, or more properly on to a critique of Indology.
Though the notions of paradigm, paradigm-shift and incommensurability arose in the context of the philosophical study of science, there is no reason why they would not be applicable to any discipline of human knowledge that seeks to explain reality, or some aspect of reality, whether it be science, philosophy, social sciences, etc, in as much as a paradigm invariably consists of an explanatory framework based on certain parameters that form the underlying basis of the framework. And when these parameters change so radically that the very judgmental criteria of the explanatory framework change, it would result in the birth of a new paradigm that would be incommensurable with the old one.
The notion of paradigm has its origin in the philosophical movement known as ‘verificationism’ attributable to a group of philosophers, scientists and mathematicians of the early twentieth-century called the Logical Positivists. The project undertaken by the Logical Positivists for determining a set of objective verification criteria for the theories of science had to be given up as a futile endeavor because there was no way in which the verification criteria could be made free of the a priori symbolic framework within which scientists operated. It was the failure of this project more than anything else that led Thomas Kuhn to propose the notion of a paradigm wherein it is not the objective truth of a theory that determines its standing as an accepted theory but it is its acceptance by the scientific community as a provisional best explanation model for that aspect of reality that the theory seeks to explain that lends to it the status of an accepted scientific theory. It is this notion of a theory understood not as theory pointing to the truth of reality, or to the truth of that aspect of reality that the theory purports to explain, but of it being a provisional best-explanation model within a situational predicament in which the objective truth of a theory cannot be spoken about meaningfully, that underlies the notion of a paradigm.
The historical events that led to the inability of the Western tradition to speak meaningfully of an objective truth did not begin with the Logical Positivists. It was a problem that had already become endemic in Western philosophy since the time of Descartes and British Empiricism. For, until then, it was assumed that the correspondence theory of truth would hold valid. But, if one couldn’t speak of the perceived world as the real world, how indeed would one be able to substantiate the correspondence theory of truth? If the world were merely mind as the Idealists thought, how may there be an external world with which one’s conceptions may correspond? Or, if, as Locke thought, the world we perceive consists of secondary qualities as brought forth to our sensorium in accordance with the senses we are endowed with and the primary qualities of objects are something we can never know, or even form a conception of, how may one meaningfully speak of correspondence of our conception with objects or their properties thereof? Those who had until then considered the perceived world to be the real world came to be called ‘Naïve Realists’ and it was no more possible for philosophers to naively hold that the conception of truth pointed to the correspondence of our conceptions with the external objects of the world. The Western philosophical tradition hasn’t been able overcome this problem so far. The result of it has been a rather fruitless endeavor to redefine the meaning of the word ‘truth’. Today, this has led to philosophers positing more than ten theories of truth, such as the coherence theory of truth, the pragmatic theory of truth, the semantic theory of truth, the deflationary theory of truth, the consensus theory of truth, the constructivist theory or truth and many other theories of truth, but we are no closer to defining truth now than we were three hundred years ago. It is against this backdrop – of the inability of Western philosophers to define what truth is - that we must look at the genesis of the concepts of paradigm, paradigm-shift and incommensurability. Indeed, we may say that the overarching paradigm of all Western disciplines of knowledge is characterized by a tenuous foundation in which the meaning of word ‘truth’ is not fixed and remains as a floating symbol.
The situation with Indology is no different than it is with science or with any other disciple of knowledge that operates within the overarching paradigm of contemporary Western tradition. And it is this overarching paradigm that provides Indology with the license to ignore the goal of Indian vidyas, which is the obtainment of knowledge of truth, or yathartha-jnana as it is called in the Indian tradition, and to impugn to the authors of the texts of these vidyas extraneous motives which have no basis in the vidyas themselves. It has resulted in shifting the focus of the study of texts from philosophy to the philosopher and towards ascribing ulterior motives to the philosophers’ statements.
Seen from the standpoint of the Indian tradition, the failure of Western philosophy to sustain the correspondence theory of truth is attributable to the tradition lacking a culture of pramanas. The Indian tradition suffers from no such lacuna. There is in the Indian tradition no reason to discard the correspondence theory of truth because it has a robust theory of perception that maintains coherence with reality as it is naturally perceived. To treat the Indian vidyas, which are built on the foundations of a healthy and robust theory of truth, on par with contemporary knowledge disciplines and subject them to analyses from a Western explanatory framework set within an overarching paradigm in which the very meaning of truth is called into question is quite ludicrous. The judgmental criteria of the framework of Indology are incommensurable with those of the ‘paradigm’ of Indian knowledge systems. While Western philosophers have been reduced to speak of private ‘ontological commitments’ instead of the truth, those belonging to the Indian tradition may quite legitimately speak of the truth. In such a scenario, asking the Indologists to interpret the texts of Indian vidyas would be like asking the monkeys to interpret the texts of physics or mathematics. At the risk of sounding candidly uncharitable towards the Indologists, I would quote Jesus’ words from the Bible:
Nagaraj Paturi
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Chittaranjan Naik
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