This is a review of the last three sections (tilted “Philosophy from Gaṅgeśa, Early Modernity: New Philosophy in India and Freedom & Identity on the Eve of Independence”) of The Oxford Handbook of Indian Philosophy that includes 11 chapters written by renowned scholars on their respective fields of scholarship.

The three sections under review here broadly discuss the philosophical writings that originate between 14^th century south Asian thought and Indian independence. Though this handbook has deliberately chosen specific scholars for the elaboration of their respective works, contextualizing them in relation with many other Indian scholars constructs a nexus of scholarly thought that shows the richness of philosophical debate prevalent in Indian society across many sub-disciplines of philosophy, rigorous analysis, methodological inquiry, and their critical attitude towards their own tradition. These sections have discussed issues on ontology, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, religion, philosophy of mind, ethics, social and political philosophy. In this line, the first chapter of these last three sections discusses the epistemological arena of Gaṅgeśa who is considered to be the pioneer of Navya-Nyāya.

28. A Defeasibility Theory of Knowledge in Gaṅgeśa (Stephen H. Phillips)

The central aim of this chapter is to explicate Gaṅgeśa’s views about knowledge, knowledge sources, defeaters, and certification. In discerning the line of the argument in support of Gaṅgeśa’s epistemology, Phillips, first, provides a brief history of Nyāya’s philosophy in comparison with his competitors i.e. Mīmāṃsākas and Yogācāra Buddhist, and, then, locate Gaṅgeśa’s thesis. This helps him to clearly point out the main epistemological conceptions of Gaṅgeśa – 1) true beliefs are formed by episodes of occurrent knowledge defined as veridical cognition, and 2) False beliefs are formed by pseudo-knowledge sources (p. 543). The knowledge sources are 1) perception, 2) inference, 3) analogy and 4) testimony. This chapter mainly focuses on the first two sources. The author provides a brief elaboration of Gaṅgeśa’s view on perceptual illusion where he defends the position that a cognition whose validity has been neither defeated nor confirmed is to be considered veridical (p. 549), a robust early epistemic view of inference where he advocates that the conclusion can be restored by further qualification that nullifies the putative defeater (p. 544), and a detailed analysis of inferential Upādhi where he demonstrates that many examples convinced Gaṅgeśa’s to define Upādhi in terms of its negative capacity rather than as a corrector or “additional condition” (p. 552). The author takes help of quantificational logic to put forward Gaṅgeśa’s view lucidly, and with addition to many arguments, he concludes that the defeasibility character of Gaṅgeśa’s theory of knowledge does not involve a system of non-monotonic logic. Contrary to this, it shows that seemingly trust worthy sources of information can, at times, be misleading. But new knowledge is presumptively true. It can be defeated, and also can further be certified, thus is open to both possibilities. The richness of the article lies in its lucid explanation, regimentation in quantificational logic, and its repeated reference to western scholarship on prominent concepts. A potential reader may have one query regarding the abbreviation “NySBh” that the author appears to have missed elaborating. It refers to Nyāyaūtra-Bhāsya.  

 

29. Jayatīrtha and the Problem of Perceptual Illusion (Michael Williams)

This chapter focuses on Jayatīrtha’s defense of realism from the point of view of the problem of perceptual illusions, mainly arguing against Advaitins and their treatment of perceptual illusion known as “indeterminacy” (p. 560). Williams delineates that Jayatīrtha takes help from Naiyāyikas’ thesis of “misidentification” approach to illusion and makes a bold move from this positon to argue that “illusions entail the cognition of non-existent objects” (p. 561). Citsukha, an Advaitin, offers a critique to realism on the basis of his refutation of perception. In continuation of his criticisms on perception, he centrally focuses upon the cases of perceptual illusion that was further supported by Anandbodha, another Advaitin, and argues “perceptual illusions are ‘indeterminate’ so far as the ontological status go (p.562). In response to this, Jayatīrtha elaborates other prevalent conceptions of perceptual illusion, and through his own thesis known as “neo misidentification theory (abhinava-anyathā-khyātivāda which says cognition that takes one thing for its form while having something else for its object)” (p. 567), argues that perceptual illusions can be explained under the assumptions of a determinate ontology, thus provides a defense to realism.

30. Mādhava’s Garland of Jaimini’s Reasons as Exemplary Mīmāmsā Philosophy (Francis X. Clooney, Sj)

This chapter aims at establishing Madhava as a “special” kind of philosopher through his work, Garland of Jaimini’s Reason. To explicate what counts as a “special” philosopher, the author takes help from Jacob Neusner’s explanation of it. Focus has been given to elucidating the texts, commitment to rational inquiry, its thinking proceeding by a practice of the close reading of certain difficult texts, ordering the concepts, and reasons embedded deep in the details. Dealing with particulars and concrete cases of Mīmāṃsā philosophy, specifying each details of those cases, series mode of inquiry and reducing complexities into simplicity made Madhava a specific kind of philosopher. This has been further supported through two examples and comparisons with Wittgenstein. Doubting the Neusner criteria and comparisons with Wittgenstein offer an interesting reading of this chapter.

31. Hindu Disproofs of God: Refuting Vedāntic Theism in Sāṃkhya-Sūtra (Andrew J. Nicholsaon

The central objectives of this chapter are to 1) elucidate the Sāṃkhya-Sūtra’s arguments rejecting Hindu conception of God in the context of premodern Indian intellectual debates, 2) to give an overview of the responses to these arguments from Vedāntic theists, and 3) to briefly examine these debates’ cross-cultural importance for philosophy of religion. The first hint one gets regarding the rejection of God in Sāṃkhya-Sūtra is in the discussion on perception where God’s perception has not been explained because “Īśvara is not established” (p.601). The advocates of the rejection of God provide arguments from two perspectives, 1) from the law of Karma and 2) from God’s own psychology, and show it is untenable to believe in the existence of omnipotent and omniscient God. However, can there be any other sort of God in Sāṃkhya? In response to this question, the author argues that Sāṃkhya believes in gods as “super-powerful beings who are neither omniscient nor the absolute cause of universe” (p. 604) but at the same time, he never engages in any afflicted actions (p. 606). In response to this position, Vedāntic arguments in favor of Īśvara (loosely translated as God) construe such a being as being in charge of overseeing the cycle of creation, preservation and destruction. In the last section, applicability of the arguments against the existence of God on theistic traditions, especially in Christian theology, has been analyzed. This debate can be made more complicated, and in turn can simplify the conception of God, by looking into the concepts of philosophy of action such as desire, intention, motivation and so on.

32. Raghunātha Śiromaṇi and The Examination of the Truth about the Categories (Michael Williams)

This chapter aims at examining the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika’s category through the lens of Raghunath Śiromaṇi, and how Raghunāth Śiromaṇi revitalizes the critical philosophical attitude in his work, and other philosophers who were influenced by him. In order to accomplish this objective, the author also analyses two commentaries on The Examination of the Truth about the Categories, one by Raghudeva Nyāyālaṅkāra and one by Rāmabhadra Sārvabhuma, and Krṣṇadāsa Sārvabhauma’s Peral-Necklace of Doctrines. A brief introduction about Raghunath Śiromaṇi and a critique of classical metaphysics have been presented in first two sections of the chapter. The remaining parts are completely devoted to arguments given against the category of Substance, viz. space, time, ether (by the reason of parsimony and theoretical economy) and atom (by an eliminativist attitude), and the arguments in favor of new categories such as number (pp. 632-34), property (pp. 634-35), causeness and effectness (pp. 635-37).

 

33.  Nīlakaṇṭha Caturdhara’s Advaita Vedānta (Christopher Minowski)

This chapter aims at explaining the extent of Nīlakaṇṭha