[Buddha-l] Prominent Neobuddhist proposes religion based blacklisting for government jobs

[Alberto Todeschini]

Richard Hayes wrote:

"In Indian tradition, there were various infelicities of presentation
that could cause a person to lose points in a debate."

Yes. Or to just lose the debate. I'm finishing a paper on what the
Nyāyasūtra says about this (i.e. the nigrahasthānas) with a bit of help
from other Naiyāyikas and Dharmakīrti's Vādanyāya. I'm also borrowing
Grice's Cooperative Principle and conversational maxims, with a bit of
speech-act theory sprinkled in just to be on the safe side.

(Grice and Austin/Searle have been very influential on the development
of argumentation theory, especially on the pragma-dialectical approach,
which is the most popular now. I find argumentation theory and informal
logic to be more promising than classical logic -the logic developed by
Frege, Russell, etc.- in studying Indian logic)

And two chapters of my dissertation discuss the same topic, especially
the treatment in the Hetuvidyā section of the Yogācārabhūmi (the
subsection is called 'vādanigraha') and in Asaṅga's Abhidharmasamuccaya.

I'm also offering a historical overview, going back to some Upaniṣads
and of course early Buddhism.

As Matilal, Mohanti, Potter and Katsura noticed, there is a genetic
connection between debate practices and the development of Indian logic.

Best,

Alberto Todeschini