Jain Logic Ghent Center for Buddhist Studies The field of investigation traditionally referred to as ‘Indian logic’ lies at the junction between theories of knowledge, theories of argumentation and theories of meaning. It consists of the study of persuasive reasoning as a reliable source of knowledge. In classical India, logicians from different schools, especially Buddhist, Naiyāyika (of Hindu obedience) and Jain logicians, built a common area of discussions within which an agreement on philosophical issues could be achieved. The 11th century CE can be seen as the final stage of a period rich in such debates, period in which a pan-Indian inter-doctrinal consensus on what counts as a canonical presentation of a satisfactory justification was achieved. But whereas Buddhist and Naiyāyika’s conceptions are well known, Jain theses have a marginal position in this general picture of classical Indian philosophies. However, Jainism is an ancient religion and a broad philosophical system whose specificity mainly pertains both to the way it takes into account the context of an assertion and to its interest for more formal issues, especially the structure of an assertion and its impact on truth values. This double specialty makes it worth studying from a contemporary perspective: First, it is worth confronting Jain classical philosophy, in which the concrete argumentative situation serves as a basis for the semantic notions at stake, with the actual developments in the field of the semantic-pragmatic interface. More precisely, Jain philosophers give sets of rules of application of words (theory of angles of analysis, nikṣepavāda) and of sentences (theory of viewpoints, nayavāda) in given argumentative contexts. Moreover, they give sets of maxims that one has to take into consideration when the disputants in a debate cannot agree on ontology. And finally, their theory of modes of predication (saptabhaṅgī) can be seen as the exhaustive list of types of end-states a process of ideal deliberation might have. Second, it is worth confronting the Jain conception of logic in terms of interaction between agents with the actual discussions concerning the links between logic and proof in science, because Jain logic can be seen as an example of an original treatment of these links, since Jain philosophers focus on the procedural aspect of inference. In this dynamic, logic is conceived in terms of interaction between agents and is more adapted to empirical situations. Session 1 Session 2 Session 3 |
Primary Literature Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttikasvopajñavṛtti. In: Hayes, R. P. and Gillon, B. S. ‘Introduction to Dharmakīrti’s theory of inference’. In Journal of Indian Philosophy 19, Kluwer, 1991, pp.1-73. Guṇaratna’s Tarkarahasyadīpikā. In: Van Den Bossche, F. ‘Jain arguments against Nyāya theism. A translation of the Īśvārotthāpaka section of Guṇaratna’s Tarkarahasyadīpikā’. In Journal of Indian philosophy 26, Kluwer, 1998, pp.1-26. Māṇikyanandi’s Parīkṣāmukham. In: Goshal, S. C. Parīkṣāmukham. In The sacred book of the Jaina 11, Today and tomorrow’s printers and publishers, Delhi, 1990. Ratnakīrti’s Īśvarasādhanadūṣaṇam. In: Patil, P. G. Against a a Hindu God. Columbia University Press, Columbia, 2009. Siddhasena Divākara’s Nyāyāvatāra. In: Balcerowicz, P. Jaina epistemology in historical and comparative perspective, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 2008. Vādi Devasūri’s Pramāṇanayatattvālokālaṃkāra. In: Bhattacharya, H. S. Pramāṇanayatattvālokālaṃkāra, Jain Sahitya Vikas Mandal, Bombay, 1967. Secondary Literature Clerbout, N., Gorisse, M.-H. and Rahman S. ‘Context-sensitivity in Jain Strategic Dialogues: A Dialogical Study of Siddharṣigaṇi's Commentary on the Handbook of Logic’. In Journal of Philosophical Logic 40/5, Sarrukai, S. (ed,), Springer, 2011, pp. 633-662. Flügel, P. ‘Power and Insight in Jaina Discourse’. In Logic and Belief in Indian Philosophy. Warsaw Indological Studies 3, Balcerowicz, P. (ed.), Motilal Banarsidas, 2010, pp. 85-217. Ganeri, J. ‘Indian Logic’. In Handbook of the history of logic 1: Greek, Indian and Arabic Logic, Gabbay, D. M. and Woods, J. (eds.), Elsevier, 2004, pp. 309-395.
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