Readers of the Indian Philosophy Weblog could also be to study a brand new article within the newest difficulty of the Journal of World Philosophies: “Pramāṇavāda and the Disaster of Skepticism within the Fashionable Public Sphere” by Amy Donahue (Kennesaw State College). The journal is open-access, and you may download the article here.
Right here’s the summary:
There may be widespread and warranted skepticism in regards to the usefulness of inclusive and epistemically rigorous public debate in societies which might be modeled on the Habermasian public sphere, and this skepticism challenges the democratic type of authorities worldwide. To handle structural weaknesses of Habermasian public spheres, resembling susceptibility to mass manipulation by “ready-to-think” messages and tendencies to privilege and subordinate views arbitrarily, interdisciplinary students ought to attend to traditions of information and public debate that aren’t rooted in western colonial/trendy genealogies, such because the Sanskritic traditions of pramāṇavāda and vāda. Consideration to vāda, pramāṇavāda, and different traditions like them can encourage new types of social dialogue, media, and digital humanities, which, in flip, might help to position belief in democracy on foundations which might be extra secure than mere (anxious) optimism.
I loved studying the article, and I discovered it extraordinarily thought-provoking. I hope readers of this weblog will test it out. Additionally, be sure you search for the forthcoming on-line debate platform that Donahue mentions on p. 5! Perhaps we’ll make an announcement on the weblog when it’s prepared. Or reach out to Dr. Donahue when you’re excited by collaborating.
Listed here are a number of of my questions for additional dialogue:
- Since pramāṇavāda was an elite discourse in historic South Asian societies and it requires some academic coaching (as Donahue notes on p. 4 and p. 5), can it do the work Donahue asks it to do?
- Are jalpa and vitaṇḍā so dangerous? Whereas most Naiyāyikas have denigrated them as illegitimate as Donahue notes (p. 6), a number of have distinguished “difficult” and “sincere” types of vitaṇḍā (Matilal 1998, 3). After which there’s Śrī Harṣa’s debate initially of the Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya with a Naiyāyika opponent about whether or not one should settle for the means of information (pramāṇas) as a way to enter right into a debate in regards to the pramāṇas (he mentions that one understands the discourse of the Madhyamakas and Cārvākas, maybe pondering of Nāgārjuna and Jayarāśi; I’ll have extra to say in regards to the Cārvākas in an upcoming convention presentation—see info beneath). Matilal has additionally argued that vitaṇḍā could make sense as leading to a “commitmentless denial” just like an “illocutionary negation” (Matilal 1998, 50-56). When it comes to a contemporary public sphere, may vitaṇḍā be a helpful tactic for, say, stating the inherent contradictions of assorted dangerous dogmatisms? Or possibly the deepest advantage of the vāda-jalpa-vitaṇḍā framework is a little bit of self-awareness about which type of debate one is utilizing?
- Is vāda essentially extra vulnerable to discrediting false beliefs than a Habermasian public sphere or the kind of market of concepts in John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty? (p. 11) My level is most positively not that we’ve got nothing to study from Indian logic and debate. Removed from it! However I ponder how efficient vāda will be. In any case, you don’t discover a lot philosophical settlement within the classical Indian custom, which is exactly why I discover it so fascinating!
- Is the archive (p. 12) primarily a part of vāda, or is it a cultural artifact of the Indian and Tibetan custom of commentaries? Was there one thing comparable in Hellenistic, Roman, Islamic, and Byzantine traditions, which had been additionally closely commentarial?
My questions right here are supposed to be taken within the spirit of vāda to maintain the dialog going. I hope others will learn Donahue’s thought-provoking article and be a part of this worthwhile dialog.
Additionally, if you may be attending the upcoming Central APA Convention in Denver, Colorado, USA on Feb. 22, 2023, you’ll have the possibility to debate these and different points in particular person!
Wed. Feb. 22, 2023, 1-4pm
2022 Invited Symposium: Vāda: Indian Logic and Public Debate
Chair: Jarrod Brown (Berea Faculty)
Audio system:
Amy Donahue (Kennesaw State College) “Vāda Venture: A Non-Centric Technique for Countering Disinformation”
Arindam Chakrabarti (College of Hawai’i at Manoa) “Does the Query Come up? Questioning the That means of Questions and the Definability of Doubt”
Ethan Mills (College of Tennessee at Chattanooga) “Cārvāka Skepticism about Inference: Historic and Up to date Examples”
(Extra information about the conference here, together with a draft program that features a number of different panels on Indian philosophy.)
Works Cited
Donahue, Amy. 2022. “Pramāṇavāda and the Disaster of Skepticism within the Public Sphere.” Journal of World Philosophies 7 (Winter 2022): 1-14.
Matilal, Bimal Krishna. 1998. The Character of Logic in India. Edited by Jonardon Ganeri and Heeraman Tiwari. Albany: SUNY Press.
