[Buddha-l] Non-arising

[David Andrews]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for your references. I'm trying to chase them down now. I'll
probably go back into hiding myself until I've had a chance to go
through some of them.

I understand and generally agree with what you say, below. Because my
understanding of logic is primarily motivated by applications to
mathematics and computing, I am unlikely to be mislead by use of terms
in western philosophy. What little I know about Indian, Buddhist logic
is derived from reading much of Stcherbatsky many years ago along with
some modern works on Nagarjuna. I have the impression that the point was
not so much to debate or deduction as it was to break down conceptual
prejudices as part of a program of Buddhist meditative training.

You're right. Richard H. actually agreed with you in his last post and
that was over a month ago.;-)

David.


On 02/03/2010 5:08 AM, Dan Lusthaus wrote:
> Hi David,
>
> Thanks for your comments on logic.
>
> There has been some debate about whether "Indian logic" is deductive or
> inductive (the majority opinion, I think, going with inductive). While there
> is some value in thinking about the Indians are doing in such terms, over
> the years I have come to the conclusion that this sort of approach is
> reductionistic and misleading -- it presumes we have the the basic and
> correct categories, and we can measure how successful the Indians are by how
> well they approximate what we do, or how well what they do can be recast in
> our terms. For years scholars applied the nomenclature of western syllogisms
> to the parts of an Indian syllogism, so that one had a probandum, middle
> term, major term, etc. -- but this terminology never fit properly, so the
> Indian "proofs" were eventually recast, even if subtley, as Western
> syllogisms -- missing their point (and scholars today are still largely
> mystified about why Dignaga insisted on the Examples section. See, e.g.,
> Ernst Steinkellner and Shoryu Katsura, eds. On the Role of the Example
> (drstanta) in Classical Indian Logic. (WSTB 58). Wien: ATBS, 2004, pp. xii +
> 275
>
> One reaction, as mentioned, was to deny that what the Indians were doing was
> a syllogism of any sort (restricting the sense of syllogism to what
> developed from Aristotle through the Middle Ages in the West). Its corollary
> denial was that Indians were not doing "logic" but "debate," and their texts
> were "debate manuals," not logic texts.
>
> Another common reductive move is to admit somewhere in the first or second
> paragraph of an article that converting Indian argument into mathematical
> notation is problematic -- and then proceeding through most of the rest of
> the piece to do exactly that, ignoring their own warning (and proving the
> caution was warranted in the process, without acknowledging or recognizing
> that).
>
>    
>> It would helpful if you could provide me some references to the
>> literature. My specific interest would be the comparative analysis of
>> historical treatments of so-called Buddhist logic and modern treatments
>> of logic in a more general sense of the term.
>>      
> Perhaps if Richard H. comes out of hiding, he can provide a more extensive
> bibliography.
>
> Some classic works, not necessarily restricted to Buddhism:
>
> Daniel H.H. Ingalls. Materials for the Study of Navya-Nyaya Logic.
> originally published by Harvard, now in several Indian reprints.
>
> Karl H. Potter (ed.) (1977). Indian Metaphysics and Epistemology: The
> Tradition of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika Up to Gaṅgeśa. Motilal Banarsidass rpt.
>
> Richard S. Y. Chi. Buddhist Formal Logic: a Study of Dignaga's Hetucakra and
> K'uei-Chi's Great Commentary on the Nyayapravesa. Motilal Banarsidass 1990
> rpt. [with dozens of pages of charts of symbolic logic]
>
> a bit more recent: Claus Oetke. "Indian Logic and Indian Syllogism,"
> Indo-Iranian Journal, 46, 53-69, 2003.
>
> And if you can read German, Oetke's Vier Studien zum altindischen
> Syllogismus.
>
> That's starters...
>
> Dan
>
>
>
>