By Ralph Pollock a THESIS SUBMITTED to the FACULTY O

UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

Why Didn't the Nyaya Recognize the Mind-Body Problem?

Ralph Pollock

A THESIS

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

IN PARTIAL FULLFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY

CALGARY, ALBERTA

JANUARY, 2012

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While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. Canada ABSTRACT

Although I contend that the spatiality of the Nyaaya soul goes a long way in explaining why the Nyaaya did not recognize a mind-body interaction problem, I have argued here that there does seem to be an interaction problem nevertheless. I make this claim because what seems to be doing the causal work in mind-body interactions are tropes of the soul. Because these tropes lack any spatial extension, it is hard to see how they can be causally efficacious, particularly if effects need to be spatially contiguous with their causes. In the end, I conclude that the Nyaaya soul, if it is construed along the lines of a classical field as portrayed in modern physical theory, is no more or less problematic, ontologically speaking, than such a field, save for the fact that a mathematical description has not been given for it.

ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude to those professors who in some fashion assisted me with this thesis: Kent Peacock, Michael Kubara, Mark Walton, Hillary Rodrigues, Noah Latham, John Baker, and Jonardon Ganeri. Especial thanks to Jack Macintosh, who was particularly helpful on the Early Modern European material, and my thesis advisor, Chris Framarin. Needless to say, none of these people can be held responsible for any misinterpretation of their views on my part and/or other errors in judgement I may have made here.

iii TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents iv

Introduction: The Diversity of Mind-Body Problems 1

Chapter 1: The Western Historical and Philosophical Background 4 1.1 Historical Background to the Mind-Body Problem 4 1.2 The Western Philosophical Background to the Mind-Body Problem 11 1.3 Conclusion 15

Chapter 2: The Nyaaya-VaisheShika Historical and Philosophical Background 16 2.1 A Very Brief History of Nyaaya-VaisheShika 16 2.2 The Nyaaya Philosophical Background 19 2.2.1 An Overview of the Categories and the Category of Inherence 21 2.2.2 Substance (Dravya) 27 2.2.3 Quality (GuNa) 39 2.2.4 Action (Karman) 46 2.2.5 Universals (Saamaanya) 47 2.2.6 Individuators (MsheSha) 48 2.2.7 Absence (Abhaava) 52 2.2.8 Contact (SaMyoga) 53 2.2.9 Impetus (Vega) 59 2.2.10 Impulse (Nodana) and Impact (Abhighaata) 60 2.2.11 Hardness and Related Concepts 60 2.3 Causality 61 2.4 Conclusion 69

Chapter 3: Nyaaya-VaisheShika Concepts of the Mind/Soul 70 3.1 Qualities of the Soul 71 3.2 The Inner Organ (Manas) 77 3.3 A Closer Look at the Soul's Qualities 85 3.4 The Relationship Between Soul, Inner Organ, and the Karma-mechanism 99 3.5 Conclusion 100

Chapter 4: Cartesian Concepts of the Mind/Soul and the Mind-Body Problem 102 4.1 The Cartesian Mind 102 4.2 Princess Elizabeth's Query: A Closer Look at the Mind-Body Problem 105 4.3 The Pairing Problem: A Contemporary Look at the Mind-Body Problem 113 4.4 Conclusion 121

Chapter 5: The Mind-Body Problem and Nyaaya-VaisheShika 122 5.1 Conceptions of the Physical, the Material and the Corporeal 122 5.2 Conceptions of the Mental and Psychological 131

iv 5.3 The Pairing Problem and Nyaaya-VaisheShika 134 5.4 Other Problems Concerning Nyaaya Soul/Mind-Body Interaction 138 5.5 Conclusion 153

References 155

v 1

INTRODUCTION: The Diversity of Mind-Body Problems

In the contemporary philosophical literature, 'the mind-body problem' is equivocal. Sometimes the mind-body problem is taken as being synonymous with what many call the problem of consciousness: "the problem...that our objective conception of the world as a collection of physical objects with a size, shape, and internal constitution, conflicts with our subjective conception of consciousness as a point of view on those objects" (Tartaglia 2007: 26). But more often the mind-body problem is conceived in other terms: what is the nature of the relation between the mind and the body? Call this question the general mind- body problem. The answers that have been offered to this problem are any one of a large number of "-isms": substance dualism (with its sub-variants of interactionism, "pre- established harmony", and occasionalism), property dualism, epiphenomenalism, mind- brain identity theory, eliminative materialism, etc. However, this question of the mind's relation with the body will only be philosophically problematic if one acknowledges the fact that the mind and body (or the physical world in general) are, intuitively at least, radically different sorts of things - the body being physical and the mind, presumably, not. Now if one assumes that this apparent disparity is real and adopts a substance dualism1, one may ask: how is it possible for the mind and body to interact in a causal fashion in the way they apparently do? Call this question the mind-body interaction problem. I take this problem to be the classical, traditional mind-body problem. It is widely acknowledged, either explicitly or implicitly, that the philosophers of classical India did not recognize the mind-body interaction problem (e.g. Ganeri 2011:168; Matilal 1986:125). Of course both general and interaction problems presuppose that the enquirer actually makes a distinction between the mental and the physical. At first glance,

1 Dualism is thought of as the thesis that there are two fundamental sorts of thing that constitute reality and that this two-fold division is exhaustive of all there is. In this sense, "dualism" as used here may be something of a misnomer unless it is understood as applying only to those classes of entities that are deemed either mental or physical, i. e. dualism would treat minds as a genuine ontological category distinct from that which is physical, but without insisting that all entities fall under these two categories. There are, after all, entities that at least some philosophers would not count as mental or physical, such as God, or abstract entities such as numbers or universals. Yet such philosophers could still be referred to as dualists if they believed in minds that were ontologically distinct from physical or material entities. 2 the classical Indians do not appear to have made a distinction that closely corresponds to the Western mind-body distinction. However, I intend to argue here that at least two of the classical Indian philosophical schools, viz. Nyaaya and VaisheShika - which at some point in history effectively became a single school which we may refer to as 'Nyaaya' - make a distinction that is sufficiently similar to the Western distinction to permit them to recognize what is essentially the general mind-body problem. So the first stage of this enquiry will concern itself with how Nyaaya treated the relation between mental and physical phenomena, and how these views compare with Western views of this relation. Then I will try to answer the following: why is it the case that Nyaaya did not recognize the mind-body interaction problem? Was it something they overlooked, or were there good or deep reasons for not recognizing it? In other words, should they have recognized it? Before embarking on a discussion of classical Indian views of mental and physical entities and properties, some light needs to be shed on exactly why the the mind-body interaction problem is considered a problem. I have so far defined the mind-body interaction problem along the following lines: given that mind and body are apparently radically different from one another in an ontological sense, how is it possible for them to causally interact with one another as they apparently do? But the problem as presented seems rather vague. What does it mean for two things to belong to "radically different" ontological categories, and why should such a difference render the causal interaction between items in the different categories problematic? Just how different do different substances have to be in order to generate the problem? Is it the degree of difference that is important - is there a critical number of differences between the substances that have to obtain in order for there to be a problem? Or is the sort of difference critical? Another peculiarity with the problem as stated is that, in addition to presupposing that the mind is something different from the body, it appears to presuppose that the mind, like the body, is actually an entity as opposed to, say, a set of properties that the body has. On the face of it, the mind-body interaction problem presupposes the truth of substance dualism2. Certainly substance dualism with respect to mind and body is associated with the

2 I say "on the face of it" because, with respect to property dualism, the causal relations between mental and physical properties can be seen as philosophically problematic as well; it is just that one is perhaps not as likely to use the term "interaction" as a relation between properties so much as between substances. In any 3 historical origin of the mind-body interaction problem. Such a substance dualism rose to historical prominence in the West with the writings of Rene Descartes; it was the active criticism of his views by his contemporaries that made explicit the problem concerning the causal interaction of mind and body. In our own time, Bernard Williams has deemed the causal interaction problem stemming from the putatively disparate natures of mind and body, "the scandal of Cartesian interactionism" (Williams 1978: 287). In order to better understand the issues involved in the mind-body problem, in the first chapter I try to provide a brief historical background to the problem. I also give a brief discussion of how philosophers in the West, especially contemporary ones, are apt to characterize fundamental, general notions involved in the formulation of the problem, for instance those of substance, property, trope, state, event, and process.

event, the historical mind-body problem was posed in terms of substances and not properties. 4

CHAPTER 1: The Western Historical and Philosophical Background

1.1 Historical Background to the Mind-Body Problem

The ancient Greeks initiated the philosophical tradition in the West. One view among them - there were similar views among other peoples - was that living organisms possess a special force or substance they called psuche (often rendered as 'psyche', usually translated as 'soul'), something which nonliving substances lack. As such, the soul was regarded as a "principle of life", whatever it is that is responsible for those features that differentiate the living from the dead. In the earliest extant Greek texts, Homer's epics, the word psuche meant either the life of an organism (especially a human being) that is lost at death, or the "shade" of the deceased person (Claus 1981:1) - this is the so-called "life-force" or "principle of life" sense of the word. But the psuche concept evolved with time and came to be thought of as a psychological agent, whilst still retaining its "lowly" biological denotation. This evolution culminated in the use of the word psuche in Plato and Aristotle to refer to what David Claus calls the "comprehensive personal soul", a soul which is responsible for the nutritive, sensory, emotive, and cognitive functions of the human organism. So it was that Plato's comprehensive personal soul, in addition to its being a life- force, served as the centre or locus of personality, rational cognition, moral choice, the emotions and appetites, and (ultimately) perception, and perhaps was possessed of immortality and the capacity for "supernatural" existence. But there were other sorts of souls, depending on which of these characteristics were present. The psuche of plants consists of a life-principle and appetites only, while that of animals includes these features as well as an emotive capacity of sorts. The soul of human beings is like that of animals but, additionally, includes rational cognition and therefore, by Plato's lights, the capacity for moral choice. The essential characteristic of all of these sorts of souls would appear to be the capacity for self-motion (Silverman 2003: 130), where 'motion' refers to the Greek notion of motion as change (kinesis). Self-motion is "change by nature", i.e. change whose 5 cause is internal to, and part of the veiy nature of, whatever it is that possesses the soul. Already by the 4th Century BCE, psuche was regularly contrasted with the "body" (soma) (Long 1998: 809), a word which originally referred to the corpse as opposed to the living body. Plato viewed this distinction, by and large, as that between two contrasting sorts of substance - Plato was a substance dualist. In his writings, Plato refers to the soul as 'incorporeal', i.e. lacking bodily form (somatoeides). But, as far as I know, he never gives us an explicit definition of 'incorporeal'. There is some indication that Plato thought of the corporeal as implying visibility (horaton) and tangibility (hapton) (e.g. at Timaeus 31b and Sophist 246-7), but this is not entirely clear. Plato also refers to the soul as spatially extended, e.g. at Phaedo 67c and at numerous places throughout the Timaeus. Although Aristotle criticized Plato for this conception of a spatially-extended soul, Reginald Hackforth insists that Plato's talk, at least in the Phaedo passage, is merely metaphorical and that he does not in fact attribute spatial extension to the soul (Hackforth 1955: 52n. 3). Notice, however, that there is no logical inconsistency in viewing an entity as both invisible and intangible while at the same time affirming that it has spatial extension. Most force fields treated by contemporary physical theory are examples of such entities. Although Plato to some extent dealt with the general mind-body problem in Phaedo, he seems to have hinted at the interaction problem, in a dualist context, in the Laws. In the passage I have in mind, he is talking about the soul he attributes to the sun - an unsurprising attribution given his notion of the soul as a self-mover - he discusses the way in which that soul acts upon the visible round body of the sun. There are three possible ways in which the soul could act on the physical sun:

Either she dwells within this visible round body and conveys it hither and thither, as our soul carries us wherever we go, or, as some hold, she provides herself a body of her own, of fire, or it may be of air, and pushes body from without forcibly by body, or finally, she is herself naked of body, and does this work of guidance by some other most miraculous faculties of hers. (Laws 898e-899a, trans. A. E. Taylor in Hamilton and Cairns 1989:1454-1455) 6

The third possibility concerns an incorporeal soul, so perhaps "miraculous faculties" are needed to affect a corporeal body. Even though Plato in this passage is talking about the solar soul, and singles out the first possibility as being the way in which the soul works in humans, it seems plausible that he might have thought any of these possibilities could have been applicable in the human case. Aristode rejected the substance dualism of Plato. Nevertheless, with respect to his position on the relation between the soul and the body, though some have categorized Aristotle as a functionalist, others have characterized him as a dualist. But to call Aristotle a dualist is misleading in my view, at least on one account of his views on substance. The interpretation of Aristotle's notion of substance is controversial, doubtless owing to the fact that his views on substance appear to be inconsistent across the works where they are discussed. The issues involved are complex and I can only briefly indicate here how they relate to the general mind-body problem. Aristotle's alleged dualism arises out of his hylomorphic view of substances. In general, this view holds that a substance consists of both matter (hule) and form (morphe): "matter is common to all bodies and remains constant in change, while the form explains why a given body has the particular properties it has at a given time" (Garber 1998 760). A stock example given to illustrate these concepts is a copper statue of Pericles. The copper material that the statue is made of is its matter, while the shape of the statue - a shape that happens to represent Pericles in this case - is its form. In the case of the living human body, the physical matter comprising it would be regarded as its matter, while the soul (psuche) would be viewed as its form. A typical interpretation of the soul in the hylomorphic scheme would be to view it as a certain functional organization of the body, i.e. the various material components of the living human body are organized in such a way that the body is able to perform the functions that are characteristic of such a body, e.g. respiration. The arrangement of these material components is analogous to the way that the copper is arranged to form a representation of Pericles in the statue example. Disturb the organization of the living human body significantly, say, by removing the heart, and the body will no longer be able to carry out its characteristic functions. A certain organization of the body no longer exists - the soul is destroyed. Considerations such as these have led many 7 philosophers to view Aristotle's view of the soul-body relation as a type of functionalism. The ascription of dualism to Aristotle sometimes arises based on the notion that (at least at some points) Aristotle regards both matter and form themselves as substances (Irwin 1991: 57). However, I think that this claim is based on an equivocation with respect to the notion of substance. In one sense of substance, that of a centre of change, i.e something that endures through change, both matter and form can be thought of as substances. For instance, Theseus' ship can be dismantled piece by piece and those very same pieces could be used to build a house for Theseus. Form here changes but matter remains the same. Conversely, the materials that compose the ship could be slowly replaced with the same sort of materials, so that eventually all the matter is replaced while the form of the ship remains the same. But Aristotle also views matter as a substance in the sense of an ultimate subject of predication and as a substratum (hupokeimenon) that possesses properties. He also views form as substance in yet a different sense, viz. as an essence (ousia), i.e. a set of properties that are essential to the substance being the kind of thing it is. Aristotle seems to have finally favoured the view that substance is form. Another way that Aristotle's dualism is not really a dualism like Plato's (or, as will be seen, Descartes'), is that soul and body in Aristotle's view are not independently existing things. Form and matter form a unity such that, with one possible exception, they do not exist independently of one another. But it is this one possible exception that, while not permitting a full-blooded soul- body dualism, effectively endorses a mind-body dualism along the lines of Plato's and Descartes'. Aristotle thought there were three types of soul: the vegetative soul, the sensitive soul and the rational soul. Vegetative souls possess the faculties responsible for nutrition, growth, and reproduction. Sensitive souls, in addition to subsuming the vegetative faculties, are characterized by sensation and "self-motion". Rational souls, believed to be unique (at least in the natural world) to human beings, in addition to displaying the powers of the vegetative and sensitive souls, exhibit the intellective faculties, i.e the will and intellect. It was the rational soul that the medieval European philosophers referred to as "the mind" (mens). Although it is not entirely clear whether Aristotle himself considered the intellect (nous) to a be a part, or faculty (dunamis), of the soul, or thought of it as an 8 entirely distinct soul, he apparently did believe it to be not associated with any bodily organ and, indeed, that one part or aspect of it, the so-called 'agent intellect' (also known as the 'active intellect'), in addition to being necessary for any thinking, was capable of existing independently of any body (Irwin 1991: 72). This separability claim appears antithetical to Aristotle's hylomorphic theory as I have presented it here, and the indictment of substance dualism seems inescapable. In the decades after Aristotle's death up until the the lsl Century BCE, his works were largely forgotten, perhaps because they were generally inaccessible. This time frame covers the Hellenistic era, an era that ended with the official start of the Roman Empire. It was an era that, philosophically-speaking, was largely dominated by the Stoics and Epicureans. Both of the these schools espoused physicalism (Annas 1992: 3), the thesis that everything that exists is physical, in the epistemic sense of 'physical', viz. capable of being described and explained using only the notions and methodology of physics3. Their physicalism was of a nonreductive sort. Though both Epicureans and Stoics regarded the psuche as a principle of life, they tended to concentrate on those functions that we today would deem 'mental' (ibid.: 9). The Stoics believed the soul to be a body or physical thing, whereby 'physical thing' they mean a three-dimensional solid object (ibid.: 37). More specifically, they thought the soul consisted of a substance called pneuma. The translation of pneuma as 'breath' belies the advanced theoretical role that this concept played in Hellenistic medical science and in Stoic philosophy of soul/mind (ibid.: 20-26). The varying properties of the soul were regarded as variations in the "tension" (tonos) of its pneuma. The Stoics implicitly recognized the soul/mind-body interaction problem in the following argument, paraphrased by Julia Annas, that they advanced for demonstrating that the soul is body.

3 The difficulties of epistemic definitions of 'physical' are well-known. Here, for instance, I intend 'physics' to refer to the physics of the culture in the time period under consideration, and that means that the entities referred to by physical theories, and therefore what constitutes the physical, can vary drastically between different cultures, or the same culture at different time periods. But what motivates such epistemic definitions (other than the desire to avoid vexing ontological questions), is the desire to show to that everything may be satisfactorily studied in a "scientific" sense and is part of the "natural order", with nothing that is so different as to be beyond the pale of such enquiry. In this sense, Platonic dualism is a nonphysicalist stance (Annas 1992: 4). 9

1. Only bodies interact. 2. Soul and body interact. Therefore 3. Soul is body. (ibid.-. 41)

If the soul were nonphysical - and dualism were true - there would remain the problem of how it could be that the soul and body interact. By embracing physicalism, the Stoics are avoiding any interaction problem. Unlike the Stoics, who, like Aristotle, held a continuum view of matter, the Epicureans were atomists. They believed the soul to consist exclusively of atoms and, indeed, believed that all that existed were atoms and the void. The Epicureans offered an argument similar to the above Stoic one for demonstrating the physicality of the soul (ibid.: 124). Although Aristotle's works became accessible again after the Hellenistic period, and their study revived, the next several centuries saw the resurgence of various forms of Platonism, often syncretistic, culminating in the dominance of Neoplatonism. Neoplatonic notions had a heavy influence on an ascendent Christianity, and the soul-body dualism Christianity promulgated became the accepted norm. With the end of the Roman Empire in Western Europe, now thoroughly Christianised, most of Aristotle's and Plato's works were lost there, though they survived in the Byzantine Empire to the east. The Arabs from the 7"1 Century onward conquered a portion of the Byzantine Empire at its eastern extremity. They brought along with them a new religion, Islam, and at the same time discovered in the new lands classical Greek literature, including some of the works of Plato and nearly all of those of Aristotle, which they studied. It was the Arabic transmission of Aristotle and Plato to Western Europe in the 12th Century that reinvigorated philosophy there. As had happened in the Islamic world, Aristotle rose to prominence, in no small part due the influence of St. Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas to some degree transformed Aristotle's views in order to maximize their consistency with Christian doctrine, though he maintained the basic Aristotelian 10 hylomorphic framework. A potential soul-body interaction problem was recognized by him also. One of the hypothetical objections he raises to the possibility of the soul being incorporeal (in order to defend that possibility) is nearly identical to the Stoic argument given above. Since Aquinas (like everyone else) viewed the soul as causing body movement, he advanced the following argument (Summa Theologica I. Q75. Art. 1).

PI) The soul moves the body. P2) Between the mover and the moved there must be contact. P3) Contact only obtains between bodies. C) Therefore, the soul is a body.

Aquinas also gave a couple of other objections to the soul being incorporeal, but rebutted all three of them. Despite Aquinas' reconciliation efforts, Aristotle's views never really sat well with many Western European Christian intellectuals. The apparent contrariety of these views with respect to a few key points of Christian doctrine was one of the motivations behind a general reform movement within the church from the close of the 13th Century onward. It is something of an irony of history that this very effort to return to a "truer" form of Christianity, involving as it did the quest for a new philosophy to replace the dominant Aristotelianism, help to usher in the so-called 'mechanical philosophy', a philosophy that was to be instrumental in promoting the secularization of Europe over the next few centuries. It was the 17th Century that saw the rise of this mechanical (or "corpuscularian") philosophy, the attempt to explain what we nowadays would call physical phenomena, including biological phenomena, in terms of the size, shape, and motion of corporeal substances, substances which may or may not have been viewed as consisting of small, impenetrable particles ("corpuscles"). Although the Aristotelian conception of the soul may have been the dominant view among philosophers at the turn of the seventeenth century, it was gradually displaced by conceptions of the soul similar to the Cartesian one that evolved during that century. Many attribute the "invention" of the mind and the "modem" mind-body distinction to Rene 11

Descartes4. Descartes retained the Platonic notion of the soul as substance, but got rid of its biological functions while retaining its reasoning powers and volition and, in a certain restricted sense, sensation - in short, just those functions we would call psychological or mental today. Given this view, it comes as no surprise that Descartes thought that only human beings (and angels and demons and God) have souls or minds - he regarded even the higher animals as being mere machines. Only in the sense that Descartes' notion of the mind was roughly coincident with our contemporary one can it be said that Descartes' contemporaries were the first to recognize the mind-body problem. For, as I suggested earlier, essentially the same problem is recognized by the Stoics and Epicureans when they argue that the soul must be corporeal on the grounds that, given that body and soul affect one another, only bodies can affect other bodies; or when Aquinas advances a similar argument in order to refute it. This is just to say that the Stoics and Epicureans could have entertained the Platonic notion that the soul was incorporeal, but had to reject such a notion on the grounds that there would have been an interaction problem. But the Cartesian soul - the mind - is pretty similar to the Platonic soul shorn of its lowly biological functions. So one might conceivably expect that a solution to the Platonic soul-body problem would take care of the Cartesian mind-body problem as well. Even so, one can say that Descartes and his contemporaries gave the problem its definitive form for the modern era, if for no other reason than that our modern concept of the mind owes so much to Descartes.

1.2 The Western Philosophical Background to the Mind-Body Problem

A convenient point of departure for the study of the mind-body problem is a consideration of basic Cartesian metaphysics. It is not entirely accurate to characterize Descartes' metaphysics, as is often done, as substance dualism, the thesis that reality is constituted by two fundamentally different substances: in the Cartesian case, mind (or soul) on the one hand, and "body" (or matter) on the other. On Descartes' usual notion of substance, that of

4 For instance, Rorty (1979). 12 an absolutely independently existing entity, God is the only substance (Principles of Philosophy, Part I, art. 51; cited by Cottingham 1993: 160). Both mind and matter are viewed as dependent on God for their existence. Nonetheless, Cartesian ontology can be viewed as acknowledging the three fundamental substances of mind, matter, and God, in the sense that, aside from God, everything which we would call a substance is an instance of either mind or matter. And we can characterize Descartes as a substance dualist with respect to the philosophy of mind. Bear in mind, too, that the classical mind-body problem can be generated without considering God. Descartes' notion of substance is crucial for an understanding of the mind-body problem. This notion is related to historically prior notions of substance that were first discussed by Aristotle. At least six different notions of substance have been detected in the works of Aristotle: "(1) the concrete individual, (2) a core of essential properties, (3) what is capable of independent existence, (4) a centre of change, (5) a substratum, and (6) a logical subject" (O'Connor 1967: 37). All of these notions are intimately related to one another. Early on (perhaps) Aristotle defined 'substance', in the strictest sense, as "that which is neither said of a subject nor in a subject" (Categories 2al2). He gives as an example of this notion, the individual man, e.g. Socrates as opposed to the "generic" man. With this definition, Aristotle all at once seems to be (at a minimum) embracing the above- mentioned notions of substance (1), (3), (5), and (6). From the example he gives, it seems clear that he is talking about substance as being a concrete individual (a particular). Consider, for instance, an individual bowling ball. This particular bowling ball is not predicated of any other thing (is not "said of a subject"). Nor can this individual bowling ball be said to be "in" any subject in a logical sense, though it may be "in" a subject in a spatiotemporal sense, e. g. when it is found in a bowling alley (see below). However, there are other "entities" - to use this term in a loose and very broad sense - which can be predicated of subjects and can be said to be "in" subjects. These are the attributes, a term which I will take to collectively refer to properties or qualities (which might be universals or tropes), actions, and relations that a subject (substance) may possess5. The colour black,

5 Something of an exception to this use of the term occurs when I employ the Cartesian term 'principal attribute' to convey the singular attribute that represents the essence of a substance. 13 for instance, may be said to be "in" a black bowling ball. The notion of being "said of a subject" in Aristotle's definition has been glossed above as involving the notion of predication. So we have the logical (or linguistic) notion of substance as a logical subject. If Aristotle is talking about concrete individuals as exemplifying substances, then he has to be talking about ultimate subjects of predication. While it is generally acknowledged that attributes can be subjects of predication - that there are such things as second-order properties - they are not ultimate subjects of predication, because first-order properties can always be predicated of substances. Such ultimate subjects of predication, though viewed as a linguistic category, can be seen as representing an ontological category, i.e. a certain type of entity, viz. the concrete individual. The notion of "being in a subject" in Aristotle's definition suggests the notion of substance as that which is capable of independent existence in a logical (rather than causal) sense. By 'in a subject' Aristotle means "what is in something, not as a part, and cannot exist separately from what it is in" (Categories la25). Aristotle gives "the individual knowledge-of-grammar" as an example of an item which is "in" a subject, the subject (or substance) in this instance being the soul. We predicate attributes of concrete individuals, but somehow the attributes are viewed as incapable of existing independently of the substances they characterize. It makes no sense to think of, for example, the mass of a bowling ball as a thing which would exist should the bowling ball be destroyed, or the knowledge of grammar existing without a person. Under this view, it is the substances which are viewed as having independent existence. However, in order for this to be true, it would seem that substances themselves are capable of existing without possessing any qualities. Considerations such as this lead John Locke to his characterization of substance as a something "we-know-not-what". Locke's notion of a substance is that of a substratum that provides "support" for various attributes. In fact, the very word Aristotle employs for 'subject' is hypokeimenon, which literally means "underlay" or "that which underlies something" (O' Conner 1967: 36- 37). Locke diagnoses our conception of 'substance' as a something "we-know-not-what" that underlies all the attributes of an object. He wrote: "The idea to which we give the general name Substance, being nothing but the supposed and unknown support of these 14 qualities we find existing which we imagine cannot subsist—without something to support them, we call that support Substantia" (Essay concerning Human Understanding [1689], II. xxiii. 2). By this Locke meant that substance as such was unobservable, and we are only aware of objects as bundles of "qualities" (attributes), even though we suppose there is an unspecifiable entity that serves as a substratum for the attributes. If one thinks of Locke's substratum as remaining stable and constant, even though the attributes it possesses change, one has the notion of substance in the sense of a centre of change. But if the changes of attributes are sufficiently radical, we might recognize that the substance itself has been destroyed and replaced by another, as for instance when a caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly. In this case we may talk of substance as being a core of essential properties. In the case of radical change, properties that are essential to a substance's being the sort of substance it is, are lost - it is no longer the same substance. It is the notion of an independent thing that seems to be mostly what Descartes has in mind when he talks about substance. Descartes seems to be talking of both causal and logical independence when he says that God is the only substance sensu strictu (Principles, Part I, art. 51). Presumably the dependence of mind and body on God is the dependence of causality and not logical dependence; there does not seem to be anything in the standard definition of God that precludes the (logically) independent existence of mind or matter as Descartes conceives either of these. Descartes thought that the existence of mind and body required the concurrence of God - the notion that substances, once created by God, need God's continuous assistance in order to endure through time. Even so, Descartes came to think of mind and matter (body) as "secondary" substances, substances which exist independently of everything but God, and require only his concurrence to exist (ibid. art. 52 )(Cottingham 1993:160). Although it is natural to relate the notion of a substance as an independent entity to the Aristotelian-Lockean notion of substance as a substratum, the relation appears a bit strained on Descartes' particular notion of substance as an independent thing. Cottingham, citing Principles, Part I, art. 63, reminds us that Descartes thought of the substance-attribute distinction as a purely conceptual one: substances do not exist as attribute-less substrata (Cottingham 1993:161). 15

The term 'substance' is perhaps not as popular today among philosophers as it used to be. E. J. Lowe employs the word 'object' for the possessor of first-order properties (Lowe 2001: 8). Some such objects may be thought of as being "insubstantial" (in one sense of that word) despite possessing properties: abstract objects like sets, numbers, and propositions fall into this category. Some concrete entities, on the other hand, scarcely warrant being called 'substances': events for instance. Events could be viewed as dated, nonrepeatable particulars. They are often thought of as the changes in properties (or, equivalently, change of states) that substances undergo (Heil 2004:19, 180). Processes can be viewed as causally connected sequences of events. There is also, nowadays, perhaps a greater tendency to accept the existence of property-particulars (tropes), either in addition to, or instead of, properties conceived as universals. Talk of states is also very commonplace. "State" is practically interchangeable with property: a state can be thought of as "a substance's possessing a property" (ibid.: 77). So to be happy, i.e. possess the property of happiness, is to be in a state of happiness. Events and processes can be thought of as state transitions (ibid.: 78), i.e. they exist (occur) when an object comes to possess a particular state (property).

1.3 Conclusion

In section 1.1 of this chapter I have shown that the mind-body interaction problem has precursors throughout much of pre-Early Modern European history. This suggests that, however unique the conception of the Cartesian mind might be, the Early Modern mind- body interaction problem was not a sui generis conception. 16

CHAPTER 2: The Nyaaya Historical and Philosophical Background

This chapter will primarily focus on the fundamental features of classical Nyaaya- VaisheShika philosophy, with particular emphasis on those ontological notions that parallel Western conceptions, particularly those prevalent in 17th Century Europe that are relevant to the formulation of the mind-body problem. My ultimate goal is to see if there is sufficient overlap between the concepts and theses of the Nyaaya-VaisheShika tradition and the Western to make possible the generation of the mind-body problem in the classical Indian case. This chapter concerns itself primarily with metaphysical topics other than those dealing with the soul and mind. (The nature of the Nyaaya soul will be dealt with comprehensively in Chapter 4.) No attempt will be made here to review the history of the concept of the soul/mind in the Indian tradition. Suffice it to say that the different Indian philosophical schools have differing views on the nature of the soul and that the Nyaaya- VaisheShika conception with which we are concerned has remained relatively stable over the long period of its existence. However, I will give an extremely brief historical overview of those primary Nyaaya-Vaisheshika texts and their authors that are relevant to this study. Because I have cited these texts/authors extensively, such an account should help to give a better idea of how the views being presented here are situated in time so as to appreciate their relative progression.

2.1 A Very Brief History of Nyaqya-VaisheShika

Little is known of the early history of either the VaisheShika or Nyaaya schools, though the former appears to have originated earlier than the latter. VaisheShika is the school with a strong focus on ontology. Its founding text is the VaisheShika-suutra (henceforth VS), attributed to KaNaada, and believed to have been compiled over the first two centuries BCE, even if the doctrines it purveys may have been formulated much earlier (Matilal 1977: 54). Despite the foundational status of VS and the fact that many 17 commentaries must have been written on it early on (none of these early commentaries survive), it was all but eclipsed in VaisheShika by the PadaarthadharmasaMgraha (also known as Prashastapaada-bhaaShya, henceforth PDM) of Prashastapaada (6lh - 7th Century CE). Part of the reason for this, perhaps, was that PDM was not merely a sutra-by-sutra commentary on VS, but a comprehensive re-organization and elaboration of the ideas that the sutras conveyed. Shriidhara (c. 950-1000) has given us a commentary on PDM called Nyaayakandalii (henceforth NK), as has Udayana (c. 1050-1100) in his KiraNaavalii. The Nyaaya (or Logic) school took over its basic ontology from VaisheShika, while focusing predominandy on epistemology and logic. It is their shared intellectual heritage that allows us to speak of these two schools as "sister schools" and use the rubric 'Nyaaya- VaisheShika' along the same lines that the SaaMkhya school is paired with Yoga and the (Puurva-)MiimaaMsaa tradition is paired with Vedaanta (also known as Uttara- MiimaaMsaa). It is these six philosophical schools that constitute the orthodox Hindu philosophical tradition (astika-darshanas), a tradition defined by an acceptance of the Vedas, and opposed to unorthodox schools (naastika-darshanas) such as the Buddhist, the Jaina, and the Materialist (Carvaaka). The foundational text of Nyaaya is the Nyaaya- suutra (henceforth NS), attributed to Gautama (also Gotama), and believed to have been compiled in the 1st Century CE. The most prominent classical commentaries on this work are the Nyaaya-suutra-bhaaShya (henceforth NSB) of Vaatsyaayana (c. 450-500) and the Nyaaya-vaarttika (henceforth NV) of Uddyotakara (c. 550-610). One of the most interesting features of the initial (classical) phase of VaisheShika and Nyaaya was the ongoing intellectual skirmishes with philosophers from the Buddhist schools, a clash which surely must have played a major role in the development of Nyaaya logic. Much of the work of Uddyotakara and Udayana in particular was directed against the Buddhists. It is in the work of Udayana that Nyaaya and VaisheShika, for all practical purposes, can be seen as merging into a single school. Moreover, much of the conceptual groundwork for Navya-Nyaaya (New Logic) was laid down by Udayana, even if it was Ga~NgeSha (fl. 1325) who produced what is considered to be that school's inaugural work, the TattvacintaamiNi. Navya-Nyaaya subsumed and eclipsed old Nyaaya, further advancing logic and epistemology. It did this largely by elaborating on concepts that were already 18 present in rudimentary form in the old Logic by means of a highly technical language it had developed. Buddhism in India was essentially dead in India at this time, but the New Logic can be seen as responding to the arguments of the Vedantins and MiimaaMsiikas. One of the Naavya-Nyaaya writers that I have cited extensively is Sha~Nkaramishra (fl. 1430), but these citations are exclusively from his commentary on VS known as the Upaskaara (henceforth US). From now on I will, with a few exceptions, use 'Nyaaya' to refer to the entire historical entity VaisheShika/classical Nyaaya/Navya-Nyaaya, in effect avoiding any finer-grained discrimination of the views being discussed, as the historical niceties are usually irrelevant to my goals here. A third phase in Nyaaya history may be identified, though it is not usual to do so. Jonardon Ganeri has called this phase the 'new reason' philosophy and specifies its founder as Raghunaatha ShiromaNi (c. 1450-1540) (Ganeri 2011: xi). Raghunaatha radically revised much of the VaisheShika ontological basis of Navya-Nyaaya. Many of his new ideas can be found in his PadaarthatattvaniruupaNa (henceforth PTN). It is not that Raghunaatha with his new ideas was able to incite a wholesale defection of Indian philosophers during the Early Modern period to his point of view, but rather that he stimulated a vigorous, often revisionary reaction to his ideas, resulting in philosophizing of a more original and creative nature than the quasi-scholasticism that had dominated Nyaaya since Ga~Ngesa. In fact, I think it can be argued that Raghunaatha played a role in philosophy in India not unlike that played by Descartes in Early Modern Europe. Ganeri talks of there being three sorts of Nyaaya philosopher in Early Modern India. One of these is the followers of Raghunaatha. Another group consists of those conservative scholars that sought to more or less preserve intact the New Logic in its classical formulation. Finally, there was a group who engaged in a profound reinterpretation of classical Navya-Nyaaya in light of Raghunaatha's work to show that, ultimately, there is no incompatibility between the 'new reason' and classical thought (Ganeri 2011: 4-5). The latter two groups could be regarded as analogous to the scholastic Aristotelians and the "progressive" Aristotelians (or Neo-Aristotelians) in Early Modern Europe, respectively. It is during the 'new reason' phase of Nyaaya that a couple of the works that I have cited quite frequently were written. These works are relatively conservative and were 19 written with the intention of producing introductory guidebooks to Nyaaya thought. The slightly older of the two is BhaaShaaparichChedda (henceforth BP) with its autocommentary Siddhaantamuktaavalii (henceforth SM), attributed, probably erroneously, to Vishvanaatha6 (fl. 1630). The younger work is the TarkasaMgraha (here abbreviated as TS) with its autocommentary TarkasaMgraha-dipikaa (here abbreviated TSD), written by AnnaMbhaTTa.

2.2 The Nyaaya Philosophical Background

At the core of VaisheShika ontology are the six or seven "categories" (padaarthas)7. Though padaartha literally means "the things to which words refer", the categories are taken more specifically to refer to certain fundamental or ultimate things, the stuff out of which everything else is constituted, and which are themselves not to be reduced to any other entity (Ganeri 2010: 2). They are "entities" in the broadest sense of that word, i.e. types of "being". Karl Potter refers to them, perhaps unusually, as 'individuals'. VaiShesika ontology takes these basic elements that form reality to be partless. This is the reason why Potter opts for the use of 'individuals' to refer to the categorial entities - he wants to reserve 'objects' for those entities that are aggregates of these individuals, as well as something akin to what we would call "facts" (Potter 1977: 49). In fact, the project of VaisheShika ontology may be viewed as "the enumeration and identification of what there is in order to provide a real basis for all cognitive and linguistic acts" (Franco and Preisendanz 1998: 60). It is as though Nyaaya is providing an answer to the question of what reality must be like in order for our cognitive and linguistic acts to be true of the world, giving us metaphysical correlates of our linguistic structures (Siderits 2007: 87; Ganeri 2009: 5). According to Potter (1977: 44), the Nyaaya intentionally

6 Matilal (1977:109) thinks it probable that KRRSNadaasa, who flourished in the 16,h Century sometime after Raghunaatha, as the probable author, based on the research of D. C. Bhattacharya. 7 The categories come from VaisheShika. Nyaaya itself had a list of sixteen "categories" (NS 1.1.1) but many of these were epistemological or logical and not metaphysical. In fact, the VaiSheshika ontic categories were considered to be subsumed under one of the Nyaaya sixteen, that known as prameya, "the objects which are to be understood correctly" (Potter 1977: 43). 20 produced a system "in which each technical term, whether subject or predicate, has a referent". It might even be argued that the categories were formulated from the hypostasization of certain parts of speech, a claim that will gain some plausibility once the details of the Nyaaya categorial scheme have been given. An in-depth discussion of the categories will follow shortly, but first some other fundamental notions of Nyaaya will be considered, as they are of cross-categorial import. The notion of a locus (adhikaraNa) is fundamental to a discussion of Nyaaya ontology. Our colloquial notion of locus as being a locality or place is similar to the Nyaaya notion which, according to Potter, is "that which we say things reside "in" or "on" or "at"" (ibid. : 49). Potter accepts that this is no rigorous definition and thinks of the notion of locus as a primitive one8. Other names for the locus are "substratum" (aadhaara) and "abode" or "receptacle" (aashraya). The notion of a locus is involved in several relations that are fundamental to the Nyaaya world view. Daniel Ingalls (1987: 43) speaks of the elements that are in or on the locus as being "superimposed" on the locus. These "located" elements may be referred to as the superstratum (aadheya). This relation (sambandha) of located to locus is what Potter refers to as the "resider-residence-relation" (aashrayashrita-sambandha). Another name for this relation is "occurrence" (vRRitti) because the superstratum may be said to "occur" in or on the substratum (Gillon 1998: 759). The converse of this relation may be called "possession": the substratum or locus is said to "possess" the superstratum. Another set of terms for the relata in the occurrence/possession relation is dharma/dharmin. In this context, dharma (literally "attribute") is anything which has a location, and dharmin (literally "that which has the attribute") is the location of the attribute (Mohanty 1992:123). The resider-residence or occurrence relation may be considered fundamental in the sense that other relations (though not all) can be thought of as instances of it. This will be illustrated in what follows.

8 Potter mentions Shivaaditya's definition of x's being a locus (adhikaraNatva) as "x's property of having a universal resident in it" (ibid.: 50). Potter says this definition "echoes" Prashastapaada's claim that the first five categories are loci. This should become clearer after the nature of the various categories are discussed. 21

2.2.1 An Overview of the Categories (Padaarthas) and the Category of Inherence (Samavaqya) As I soon hope to show, the Nyaaya hold a position akin to substance dualism with respect to the philosophy of mind. One of the Nyaaya categories is dravya, invariably translated as "substance". Dravya does indeed appear to be very similar to some Western notions of substance. To understand the Nyaaya notion of substance more fully one needs to understand the notion of inherence (samavaaya). And in order to understand the notion of inherence it is desirable to have some acquaintance with the other Nyaaya categories that might be loosely referred to as "attributes": qualities, actions, universals and individuators. So in what follows, the notion of inherence will first be looked at closely, after which I will give an example that is illustrative of the categories and how inherence links them. Then a more comprehensive treatment of the categories will be undertaken. Inherence is in fact one of the seven Nyaaya categories, and it is the only one that is a relation. In discussing the categories, one may treat inherence as a primitive notion, as has Jonardon Ganeri, and describe, if not define, the other categories in terms of it (Ganeri 2001: 72-81). Karl Potter, on the other hand, makes an attempt to arrive at a rigorous definition of inherence in terms of the locus concept which, as mentioned, he takes to be primitive (Potter 1977 70). However, Potter's attempt appears to be defective, due in part to the fact that the concept of locus is an ambiguous one (Ganeri personal communication 2010). But even if the notion of inherence itself escapes satisfactory formal definition, it is possible to get an intuitive feel for the concept by looking at what the classical Nyaaya commentators have had to say about it. Prashastapaada tells us that inherence is "the relation subsisting among things that that are inseparable, standing to one another in the character of the container and the contained,—such relationship being the basis of the idea that 'this is in that.'" (PDS p. 14 (9 ), trans. Jhaa 1915: 32)9. Here Ga~Ngaanaatha Jhaa uses 'container' to translate aadhaara rather than 'locus' (Potter) or 'substratum' (Ingalls), but the relation under discussion is the

9 It is usual to just give the page number of the Sanskrit text in the case of PDM (p. 14 in this instance), but I have also given the number of the aphorism in brackets behind the page number (9 in this case), a number which the translator, Ga~Ngaanaatha Jhaa, has assigned but which is not found in the Sanskrit original. I continue to follow this procedure for all quotations from PDM, both direct and indirect. same residence-resider relation discussed earlier, though with the added qualification that the relata are "inseparable" (a-yuta-siddha). It is important to realize that when the claim is made that two relata are inseparable, it does not rule out that at least one of the relata can exist without the other; it merely means that the relata, while they both continue to exist, cannot become separated or exist independently of one another. In fact, Potter (1963: 118) has characterized inherence as an "asymmetric dependency relation", which he defines as a relation in which one of the relata is dependent on the other, but not vice versa. AnnaMbhaTTa's definition of inseparability is consistent with Potter's notion: "Two things of which one, as long as it lasts (avinayshat=vinaasha paryantum), exists only as in the other are 'ayuuta-siddha'" (TS 84, trans. Bhattacarya 1989: 369-370). AnnaMbhaTTa's definition of inseparability indicates that it is that which inheres (the inherer or the inherent, samaveta) which is the dependent relatum; the substratum which serves as that which is inhered in (the inheree or the inhered, samavaayin) is the relatum that is capable of independent existence. Bimal Matilal (1968: 39) makes this point explicitly10. But there appear to be exceptions both to the claim that inherence always involves asymmetric dependency, and the claim that the substratum is invariably the independent relatum. For one thing, in the case of both relata being eternal individuals - entities that are both uncreated and indestructible - there is no question of one being dependent on the other, so it does not really make sense to talk about asymmetric dependency in this case. Indeed, Shriidhara, commenting on Prashastapaada's definition of inherence, indicates that the notion of inseparability (ayutasiddha) between two eternal individuals would refer to their inability to move or go separately, apart from one another (NK p. 14 (9), Jhaa 1915: 33)11. However, even in some cases where one or more individuals that feature in an inherence relationship are nonetemal, it would appear that the relation is not one of asymmetric dependency. These exceptional cases will be discussed below after the discussion of inherence has been further scrutinized by studying an illustrative example.

10 Matilal speaks in terms of the subjunct (anuyogi) and the adjunct (pratiyogi) of the inherence relation, but the subjunct represents the substratum, and the adjunct the superstratum, in the case of inherence. See Ingalls (1987: 44) for the relations that hold between all these terms. 11 For purposes of specifying the commentary on a given sutra text, I follow the numbering of the sutra (when given), as well as the page number of the Sanskrit original (if known to me). Inherence relates items from the Nyaaya categories of substance (dravya), quality(guNa), action or motion (karma), universal (saamaanya), and individuator (visheSha) to one another. By and large, the Nyaaya notion of substance seems most related to the Aristotelian-Lockean notion of a substratum. Substances form the ontological foundation of the Nyaaya worldview in virtue of the fact that they inhere in nothing else except (in the case of composite substances) in other substances. There are two fundamentally different sorts of substance: eternal (nitya) and noneternal (anitya). The eternal substances are by definition uncreated and indestructible; the noneternal are neither. Eternal substances are, moreover, partless (without avayava). In fact, Nyaaya holds substances to be eternal in virtue of being partless; they would state that substances are eternal if and only if they are partless. Noneternal substances are invariably composites of the eternal substances, differing from one another in virtue of the type and arrangement of the eternal substances of which they consist. The eternal substances that compose the nonliving macroscopic objects of everyday life are the atoms (paramaaNus), which, like the classical Greek conception, are indivisible or partless and so small as to be beyond the threshold of perception. Qualities in Nyaaya are regarded as property-particulars (tropes) that substances possess. Actions are particular actions or motions that substances perform or undergo. Universals are conceived as being repeatable entities just as they are in Western philosophy u. Both qualities and actions are said to inhere in substances (i.e. substances serve as their substrata) and only in substances. Universals may inhere in either substances directly, or in qualities or actions. But no entity inheres in universals, not even other universals. Individuators inhere in the eternal substances and differentiate them from one another even when those substances are otherwise qualitatively identical. As an example that illustrates the categorial concepts mentioned so far, consider a clay pot which, before it is baked in an oven, is black in colour13 and sits on a table. There is a specific black colour that is said to inhere in this pot. The Nyaaya think of this colour as a genuine property-particular, what is being referred to here as a 'quality' (guNa). However,

12 It is a peculiar feature of Nyaaya philosophy that universals are admitted along with tropes given that, in Western philosophy, tropes are usually introduced with the idea of eliminating universals. 13 In Nyaaya, unlike in the West, black is considered to be a colour (ruupa) and not an absence of such. 24 they also think of the universal (saamaanya) "blackness" as inhering in the black quality. Moreover, certain other universals such as "potness" (or "pothood") are thought to inhere in the pot-substance directly. Now suppose someone picks the pot up off the table. In the process the pot undergoes motion (karman). This motion is regarded as a particular attribute of the pot in the same way that a quality is. The clay pot the Nyaayaika believes to be made up of, by and large, a particular type of atom, the earth atom. Colour, viz. black, inheres in these atoms, as does the specific-quality (visheSha-guNa) of odour. A specific- quality is a "defining" characteristic of a substance, something peculiar to that substance alone14. All earth atoms are considered to be qualitatively identical but their numerical identity is not thought of by the Nyaaya as being given by identical space-time coordinates. Rather it is their possession of individuators (visheShas) that does the job of individuating them. More will be said about these enigmatic entities later. For now I will merely observe the following. Individuators are not accessible via ordinary perception. Nothing inheres in an individuator, not even universals. And individuators themselves inhere in only the eternal substances (NK p. 13-21 (8), Jhaa 1915: 31) and so, they too, are eternal. The idea that the pot is an aggregate of atoms illustrates an interesting Nyaaya ontological conception that has not yet been considered. While the pot is viewed as being constituted by earth atoms, the-pot-as-a-whole is considered to be an entity in addition to the atoms themselves. The notion that the whole (avayavin) is "greater" than, or exists over and above, the sum of its parts (avayava) applies to all the atomic composite substances which can be identified as kinds - pots, tables, chairs, trees, dogs, etc. According to the Nyaaya, wholes are data given in ordinary perception - it is considered to be literally true that a person sees wholes. Furthermore, the whole is said to inhere in the parts. The pot inheres in the pot-halves, or, alternatively, the pot inheres in its earth atoms. This mereological aspect of inherence illustrates the twin aspects of inherence considered earlier, viz. inseparability and asymmetric dependency. The parts of the pot cannot be separated from the pot in the sense that both the pot and the pot-atoms cannot

14 It is standardly claimed that a specific-quality is not an essential attribute of a substance, merely a property that only that substance could possess, whether or not it happens to be inherent at any particular time. It has also been claimed that a specific-quality is a cognitive "mark" (lakSaNa) rather than an essence (svaruupa, liteally "self-form") (Ambuel 1998:121). 25

exist after the pot is smashed. It is obvious that the pot cannot exist if its parts do not exist and so can be said to be dependent on them. On the other hand, if the pot is smashed, it ceases to exist, even though its parts persist, so the parts cannot be said to be dependent on the whole. An important aspect of mereological inherence that I will briefly mention now, but deal with more comprehensively later, is its association with Nyaaya notions of causation. Wholes are thought of in Nyaaya as being generated by their parts. That is, any composite substance is viewed as a product (kaarya) caused by a certain arrangement of certain types of atoms. The conglomeration of atoms can be viewed as the "causal substrate" of the produced entity (Matilal 2005: 32). Sometimes Nyaaya talks about the notion of "co-inherence" (ekaartha-samavaaya), which is just the simultaneous inherence of two or more attributes in one and the same substance. Co-inherence has been brought up in connection with defending the Nyaaya ontology against an objection to the effect that there are instances when one quality inheres in another (TSD 3 c ii, Bhattacharya 1989: 28)15, which contradicts the VaisheShika notion that qualities can inhere only in substances. For instance, in the phrase 'one colour', the number one (considered a quality) appears to characterize or qualify a colour with a relation that looks a lot like inherence. However, according to AnnaMbhaTTa, the relation is not one of simple inherence; rather, both one and colour "co-inhere" in whatever substance 'one colour' is predicated of (Bhattacharya 1989: 31-34). Now that the concept of inherence has been illustrated with a few examples, it remains to mention a couple of potentially problematic aspects of the notion of the claimed asymmetric dependency aspect of the relata involved in inherence. It has already been seen just how it is that wholes inhere in their parts. In the case of qualities and actions the inherence relation is easy to understand. The qualities and motions would simply not exist if the substance that possesses them did not. As long as the qualities themselves exist they cannot be separated from the substance - this is inseparability. But the substance may continue to exist even if it loses its particular qualities or motions - this is asymmetric

15 The Roman numerals and lettering here do not correspond to any divisions in the Sanskrit text, but rather to divisions in Bhattacharya's (1989) English translation. 26 dependency. The pot that gets baked and turns red survives the destruction of its original black colour-quality16. If a pot that is in motion comes to rest (without breaking) it survives the loss of its motion. But what happens to the notion of asymmetric dependency when one deals with the essential qualities of a substance? Surely, if one admits that there are such properties, then it is trivially true that no substance could survive their loss, in which case the notion of asymmetrical dependency is inapplicable - what we really have is a case of mutual, symmetric dependency. (Bear in mind also, that in the case of eternal substances, some of their qualities are as eternal as they are [e.g. hot touch in fire (tejas) atoms], in which case there is no question of asymmetric dependency with respect to these qualities.) While the Nyaaya, as far as I know, does not explicitly discuss essentialism, they do, for instance, specify five attributes that all substances share. The issue of whether we can legitimately speak of an asymmetric dependency with respect to the inherence relation between such qualities and the substance in which they inhere will be further discussed in the section on substance. Notice that in all the cases of inherence considered above that it is the substratum (that which is inhered in) that exists independently. This is consonant with the view of AnaMbhaTTa mentioned earlier (and reiterated by Potter and Matilal). But what about the case of the universal which is said to inhere in the substance (or quality or action or individuator)? Substances cannot survive the loss of their universals. With respect to the notion of the substratum being the independent relatum in inherence, universals appear to be an anomalous case insofar as they are eternal and yet can inhere in composite (and therefore noneternal) substances. This seemingly problematic aspect of inherence will be discussed further in the section on universals. The inherence of individuators is unproblematic. They, for all intents and purposes, act just like qualities except that they are eternal (as are some qualities) in virtue of the fact

16 Only according to the Naiyaayikas. The VaisheShikas believe a new pot is produced in cooking/baking because they believe that the original black pot is destroyed right down to the atomic level, with a concomitant momentary loss of the whole, a whole which is then reconstituted when the atoms have undergone colour change. Both groups accept mereological loss as grounds for the formation of a new substance, e.g. when a the spout of a pot breaks off, or even when the pot loses a few earth atoms, the pot is no longer regarded as the same pot (US 7.1.18; Ambuel 1998:121,125). 27 that they only inhere in eternal substances, and are not inhered in by anything. A more comprehensive treatment of the categories now follows.

2.2.2 Substance (Dravya) It has been seen that the noncomposite substances are ontologically fundamental - they do not inhere in anything (PDS p. 18 (18), Jhaa 1915: 44). And composite substances will inhere only in their parts, which will ultimately include those noncomposite substances we call the atoms. There exist noncomposite substances other than the atoms, but before dealing with them, I will take a closer look at the nature and types of atoms. The exact nature of the atom (paramaaNu) in Nyaaya is a matter of some dispute. Certainly atoms are regarded as uncreated (or uncaused), indestructible, and indivisible, but they cannot all be regarded as immutable because their colour (in those atoms possessing it ), for instance, can change. However, with respect to the their size, there seems to be a perhaps irremediable tension between the notions that atoms have a finite dimension, and that they lack parts (lack avayava). Atoms are viewed as being below the threshold of perception and, indeed, nothing can be smaller than the size of an atom - they are said to be of the smallest possible size (NK p. 31 (36), Jhaa 1915: 74). However, it has been claimed that atoms "lack spatial extension altogether and are held to be infinitesimal" (Schweizer 1998: 198). Although 'infinitesimal' is ambiguous, it typically refers to a non-zero number that is smaller than any other (positive, real) number. In this sense, one might argue that the claim just quoted is an oxymoron on the grounds that any entity of non-zero size will still have some extension. Yet other contemporary scholars have cautioned us about viewing atoms (along the lines of the ancient Greeks) as infinitesimally small bits of extended gross matter, even going so far as to claim that they are mathematical points17. But if Nyaaya atoms are in fact points, then it is not really appropriate to talk of them as having any size at all - all they would have is location or position. However, according to Nyaaya, all substances have dimension (or extension or measure, parimaaNa), one of the distinguishing characteristics of the category, so they cannot be mere points.

17 Potter (1977: 79-90) cites Harisatya Bhattacharya and Brian Faddegon in this connection. Potter does not contradict these views. 28

Moreover, on the standard Nyaaya view of the formation of macroscopic objects from atomic aggregates, it seems that it would be impossible for atoms to be like mathematical points. The standard view goes as follows. Nyaaya considers the aggregation of two atoms, called a 'dyad' (dyaNuka), to still be imperceptible, but the aggregation of three dyads (six atoms in total), called a 'triad' (triaNuka), to be visible, roughly the size of a speck of dust. But if atoms are point-like, one would expect there to be an infinite number of them composing a triad (and not six). I think one of Nyaaya's very own arguments can be used against the atoms-as-points conception. Arguing for the existence of atoms, the Nyaaya assert that if Mt. Meru and a mustard seed (the stock example) were infinitely divisible (as opposed to consisting of atoms), there could never be a size disparity between them on the grounds that the same number of parts (viz. an infinity) is present in both Mt. Meru and mustard seed. Ignoring the question of the soundness of this argument and assuming it is correct, if atoms are mathematical points, then there would be an infinite number of them and both Mt. Meru and the mustard seed would be of the same size (e.g. US 4.1.2). Another point to consider is that, if atoms were extensionless points, it seems that they would be unable to aggregate to form larger clusters, as there could be no contact between them - they would just collapse into one another. However, the Nyaaya have what appears to be a very counterintuitive explanation as to how atoms aggregate to form larger objects that does not depend on their dimensionality (or lack thereof). Dimensionality (parimaaNa) is a quality (guNa) that will be discussed in more detail in section 2.23. For now just bear in mind that there are two sorts of dimension: "minute" (aNu) and "large" (mahat). What divides the two groups is the threshold of perceptibility, so both atoms and dyads are minute, and everything else from triads on up are large. The dimensionality of atoms is not considered to be additive in the way that it is for perceptible objects. The reason for this appears to be that the qualities would have to (by Nyaaya theory) give rise to qualities of the same or greater kind. So the dimension- quality {parimaaNa) in a single atom would have to give rise to a greater dimension-quality in the aggregated pair of atoms (the dyad). But what Nyaaya means by this, given that the dimension-quality is of the minute type, is that the resulting dimension of the aggregate would be a more pronounced ("greater") version of the minute dimension, so it would in 29 fact be smaller than a single atom! But the Nyaaya view this conclusion as a reductio ad absurdum of the view that the dimensionality of atoms is productive of the dimension of atomic aggregates, given that they see the infinite divisibility of matter as an absolute impossibility (bearing in mind that atoms are, by definition, the smallest possible "division" of matter). So rather than attribute, say, the resulting dimension of a (perceptible) triad of atoms (the dimension of the dyads remaining of the same "order" as the individual atom, viz. minute) to the dimension-qualities of the individual atoms, Naiyaayikas attribute them to the number-qualities of the group of atoms, which, in the case I am considering, is the number three, a quality which inheres in all members of the triad. (Numbers as inherent relational qualities is discussed in section 2.23.) However, I find this explanation difficult to make sense of. Nyaaya appears to have formulated this theory based on experience. Consider an analogy involving a cloth that is composed of a number of threads. The dimension of the cloth can be viewed as a function either of the number of threads (if the size of the threads stays constant), or the dimension of the threads (if their number remains constant). So what the Nyaaya seem to want to say, then, is that it is only the number of atoms that is responsible for the size a triad. Common sense would want to attribute the size of any object to both the dimension and the number of its parts, multiplying the number of parts by the size of the parts (on the assumption that all of the parts are of the same size). But Nyaaya rejects this explanation, at least in the case of going from the minute to the large dimension transition among aggregates of atoms. However, the Nyaaya accept dimensionality as a cause of greater size when two macroscopic (perceptible) objects aggregate. As far as I know, no classical Nyaaya or VaisheShika author explicitly likens the atom to a mathematical point18. However, some of the classical texts do encourage such a reading. They do so at places where they are arguing against Buddhist objections to the notion of physical atoms on the grounds that the entities referred to as 'atoms' are necessarily partite and therefore cannot be "atoms" in the intended sense. An argument

18 In some translations of Sha~Nkaramishra's commentary on VS the claim is made that atoms are without magnitude (e.g. US 4.1.6, Sinha: 149-150), but the Sanskrit word being translated as 'magnitude' is mahat, which really means "large magnitude" in this context, a type of dimension (parimaaNa) that macroscopic objects have. 30 along these lines occurs at NS 4.2.17-20. There, a hypothetical "Nihilist" (Aanupalambhika ) opponent bases his argument on the Nyaaya claim that the ether (aakaasha), an omnipresent (sarvagata) substance which will be discussed in more detail below, because it is all-pervading, must permeate (vyatibheda) atoms. But if this is the case, then an atom would have to have an "inside" (antaH) and an "outside" (bahiH), and therefore be partite after all. The Nyaaya response to this objection is to say that atoms, because they are not products (kaarya-dravya), cannot have any parts, and therefore lack an interior and an exterior. But if atoms lack an interior/exterior, then it seems to me that the atoms would have to be either dimensionless points (albeit with attributes that have yet to be discussed) or very short one-dimensional entities, i.e. line segments, on the grounds that, if an entity of finite size is more than one-dimensional, with one possible exception19, it would have to have an outside and an inside. However, for reasons that remain to be discussed, the line segment hypothesis is suspect20. In their commentaries on NS 4.2.20 both Vaatsyaayana and Uddyotakara give the question-begging atoms-are-not-products response - question-begging because 'product' here means something like "composite". However, Uddyotakara also provides another response that, as a rebuttal to the divisibility of atoms claim, is somewhat enigmatic. Uddyotakara claims that the opponent misunderstands the meaning of 'all-pervading' (sarvagata): what this term really means "is being in contact (saMyoga) with all existent finite-dimensional (muurta) things". This claim is consistent with the claim that atoms have a finite size, but is suggesting that the space they presumably occupy is not pervaded by the ether, but rather that the ether is merely in contact with them (wherever they are). The picture this response suggests is atoms existing as impenetrable corpuscles amidst an ether "sea". I think this picture should be resisted (on the textual evidence), however, because such corpuscles would still be expected to have an outside and an inside, something that Uddyotakara is at pains to deny. But if atoms cannot be construed as either dimensionless points or as very small extended bits of matter, what is the alternative? I think the only possible alternative here is

19 I think one might argue that the surface of a sphere, conceived of as a two dimensional entity, lacks an inside and an outside. See footnote 30 on p. 41. 20 See footnote 30 on p. 41. 31 to view them as infinitesimal in the sense remarked above, viz. of a non-zero dimension that is nevertheless less than any positive real number. But I do not think that this solution is particularly satisfactory. Though once lambasted by George Berkeley on philosophical grounds back in the 17th Century, the infinitesimal today is a mathematically respectable concept. However, it is one thing to produce a mathematically consistent theory of infinitesimals, and another to assert that such quantities exist in physical nature. And even if we do think that a physical atom of infinitesimal size could actually exist, is it intuitively clear that such an entity would lack an interior/exterior? There is a simple solution to the conundrum presented here, one based on the notion that 'part' is equivocal. It is regarded as an empirical generalization among the Nyaaya that objects which have parts cannot be eternal - sooner or later the parts must separate, resulting in the destruction of the object. But in the ordinary experience that gives rise to this notion, all of the observed parts are physical, even mechanically separable. However, consider, for example, a hypothetical physical (material) object in the shape of a sphere, one whose matter is continuous and impenetrable. To attribute "parts" to this sphere in the sense that it has an outside surface, and an interior which is hidden from view, is, I suggest, to use the term 'part' in a different sense from that in which we say that a pot is produced by fusing together those parts we call 'pot-halves'. In the case of the sphere, the outside (the surface) is separable from the inside (the interior), as Aristotle might say, only "in imagination", i.e. the "separation" is achieved by mental abstraction. In a physical sense, the surface of the sphere could never be separated from its interior. So I think that the Nyaya can get away with maintaining that atoms do have an inside and an outside but are nevertheless impartite in a certain, crucial sense. There are four or five kinds of atom. Four of these sorts of atom correspond to four of the five recognized "physical" elements (bhutas), viz. earth, water, fire, and air, i.e. there are earth atoms, water atoms, etc. Each of these elements has their own specific-quality (visheSha-guNa) which corresponds to one of the sensory modalities, e.g. earth possesses odour. But they typically have other qualities as well. For instance, while the specific- quality of earth is odour, it also possesses the quality of touch, a quality shared by all the 32 elements except the fifth one, the ether (aakaasha)21. The ether serves as the substratum of sound but it is not atomic. There is, however, a fifth substance that is of atomic dimension (iaNutva) but is not a physical element and it is unusual to refer to it as an atom. This substance is known as the inner (or internal) organ (manas).In fact, it is a matter of dispute among latter-day Naiyaayikas whether the inner organ is atomic (in the sense of its dimensionality) or not. The inner organ will be treated more comprehensively later on in this section, but especially in Chapter 3. Sometimes in the literature dealing with Nyaaya-VaisheShika, 'material' is made to translate what we have previously referred to as 'physical', i.e. pertaining to the elements (bhuutas). But more often it simply refers to substances characterized as possessing limited dimension (muurta). Muurta is also sometimes translated as 'form' or 'formed'. According to AnnaMbhaTTa, to be muurta is to possess limited dimension (limited parimaaNa) or action (kriyaa) (TSD 14). Despite AnnaMbhaTTa's definition, it is probably not the case that Nyaaya views limited dimension possession and capacity for mobility as a mutually exclusive possibility, as it seems to be the case that anything that is of infinite dimension, or at least of the largest possible size, is necessarily immobile, there being nowhere for it to move. Nyaaya views the majority of the ordinary, medium-sized bodies of everyday experience, including the human body, as being composed, by and large, of the earth element - those bodies, in fact, that we would characterize as inclining toward "solidity and rigidity" (PDS p. 27 (36), Jha 1915: 66). Bodies composed of earth are of three kinds: the living bodies (shariiras) of animals, including humans; the olfactory sense organ; and the objects of olfactory "perception" (ibid.). The objects of olfaction are "clay" (various parts of the earth's surface and human artifacts such as bricks and walls), "minerals" (stones and gems), and "vegetables" (plants). In addition to being considered one of the physical elements (bhutas), the ether may also be classed with the omnipervasive or ubiquitous (sarva-gatatva22, vibhu) substances. AnnaMbhaTTa defines omnipervasiveness as "the property of being in conjunction with

21 However, as will be seen later, the type of touch varies among the elements. 22 The Sanskrit suffix -tva functions like English "-ness" or "hood". 33 every 'formed' (muurta) [s]ubstance" (TSD 14, trans. Bhattacharya 1989 84), as does Vishvanaata (SM 26) and Shriidhara (NK p. 22 (24), 1915 Jhaa: 54). By 'conjunction' AnnaMbhaTTa means the relation Nyaaya calls saMyoga, also translated as 'contact'. This relation, regarded as a member of the quality (guNa) category, refers to something very similar to what is meant by the colloquial English terms that translate it, and will be dealt with in more detail later. In terms of dimensionality, the omnipervasive substances are the antipodes of the "infinitesimal" atoms, for they are either thought of as being of the largest possible size, i.e. as large as the cosmos itself, or as being of infinite extension (Ganeri 2009:15)23. Besides the ether, the other substances in this group are space (or spatial- direction, dik), time (kaala), and the soul (or self, aatman). In addition to being ubiquitous and (therefore) incapable of motion (niSh-kriya), all of these substances are impartite, (and therefore) eternal, and, except for the soul, unitary (eka) in the sense that there exists only one of each. The ether, space, and time will now be briefly discussed. The ether (aakaasha) possesses sound as its specific-quality. A few authors advise against translating aakaasha as 'ether' for that veiy reason, as it is emphatically not the luminiferous ether postulated to be the substratum of electromagnetic radiation by 19th Century Western physics. Nor, for that matter, is it the quintessence of the ancient Greeks (aether). Consequently, aakaasha is often left untranslated, but I believe there is more merit to translating it as 'ether' than is commonly supposed. For one thing, like the ether of nineteenth century physics, it is regarded as an imperceptible24 entity whose existence must be inferred (Potter 1977: 90). Moreover, it is ubiquitous in the same sense that the luminiferous ether was considered to be - it is a substance that is in contact with all bodies of limited dimension (NK p. 22 (24), Jha 1915: 54; US 7.1.22). Another feature claimed for aakaasha that it appears to share with the luminiferous ether is that, although it may be found throughout the entire universe, it is not quite all-pervasive in the sense that it does not pervade the space occupied by atoms25 (Potter ibid.). Potter claims that Gautama (the author of NS) "redefined" the omnipervasiveness of aakaasha from "its occupying every

23 Ganeri talks about space (dik) as being either infinite or of maximal size, but I believe that the same two possibilities apply to the other ubiquitous substances as well. Which of the two possibilities is correct is a matter of debate. 24 'Imperceptible' in the Nyaaya-VaisheShika case typically means invisible. 25 It is for this reason that 'ubiquitous' may do a better job of translating vibhu than 'omnipervasive' does. 34 point in space" to "its being in contact with everything" (ibid.: 80). Potter is referring to Gautama's response to an objection that I had mentioned earlier regarding the claim that atoms are indivisible. The objection is that, since the ether is presumed to fill every point of space, it would fill the intra-atomic spaces and therefore atoms could not be partless after all. (Note that Potter's interpretation of Gautama's response seems to assume that Nyaaya atoms occupy space, although, strangely enough, Potter himself suggests that the atoms do not occupy space (ibid.: 81-82).) But this notion of ubiquity which invokes the notion of contact suggests that aakaasha nevertheless occupies all points of space other than those occupied by atoms. If that is the case, then again it would seem to resemble the luminiferous ether on the grounds that the latter presumably did not pervade the space that the microparticles of Western physical theory were thought to occupy. In any case, I have employed "the ether" here as a translation of aakaasha. Other than the fact that aakaasha is an acoustic, as opposed to a luminiferous, ether, it differs from the 19th Century Western conception in a couple of other respects. One of these is that it is not displaced (or not transfigured, avyuuha) by an object moving in it, in the way, for instance, that water is displaced when a macroscopic material object moves through it (NS 4.2.22). Objects moving in the luminiferous ether were supposed to displace it, producing an "ether wind" in their wake. Another difference with the luminiferous ether is that aakaasha offers no obstruction (or no resistance, aviShTamba) to the movement of anything moving in it. Although the luminiferous ether offered little resistance to material objects, it nevertheless was viewed as being highly rigid. Vaastyaana attributes the ether's incapacity for displacement to its impartite nature, and its lack of resistance to moving objects to its lack of tangibility (lack of sparsha), whereas Uddyotakara simply attributes both characteristics to intangibility (NSB/NSV 4.2.22). Turning now to the substances of space (dik) and time (kaala), one might think that, in virtue of both being conceived as a substance, Nyaaya would favour the view that space and time are absolute rather than relational in nature. Nevertheless, even though the standard Nyaaya view of space and time appears to be that they, as well as the ether, provide a receptacle or container (aadhaara, aashraya) for corporeal beings (PDS/NK p. 22 (24), Jha 1915: 54; BP/SM 45; TSD 15; Ambuel 1998:121; Bhattachaiya 1989: 88), 35

Potter insists that both space and time are not viewed by Nyaaya as either "receptacles in which objects move or as continua of fixed points constituting extension" (Potter 1977: 91). Perhaps this seeming contradiction may be resolved, in the case of time, if one considers the distinction between endless, universal time (mahaa-kaala) and limited portions of that time that have been "imposed" on it (kaalopaadhi) via its relation with particular noneternal objects. As an explanation of this latter notion of time, which Ingalls refers to as "worldly time", consider the following. Suppose an object comes into existence prior to, say, noon on a given day, while another object comes into existence in the afternoon sometime on that very same day. What is it that makes us say that one object came into existence earlier than the other? Nyaaya would say that it cannot be space because there does not necessarily have to be spatial contact between the two objects for this situation to obtain. The Nyaaya answer is that there is a substance, time, that relates the two objects by being in contact (saMyoga) with both, mediating between them as it were, and giving rise to our locutions (AnnaMbhaTTa) or cognitions (Vishvanaata) of 'past', 'present', and 'future' (TSD 14), and "earlier than"or "later than" (BP 46). Viewed in this way, time can be seen as an explanatory posit put forth to account for the origin of such locutions/cognitions. Where the notion of time as an imposed property comes in is during our recognition of a segment of time by reference to noneternal objects, a segment which is in some sense mind-dependent, given that time is really a unitary, indivisible whole. Such partitions of time are conventionally recognized in our time calibration devices (which are of course noneternal), e.g. the clock with its hands. Such temporal partitions can be arbitrarily large, given that time is eternal, but it would seem that they cannot be arbitrarily small, as the "moment" (kShaNa) is thought to be the smallest possible imposed division of time. The Nyaaya- VaisheShika notion of a moment, though akin to the colloquial English notion of an "instant", has a more technical meaning and this will be discussed in more detail later on. It was just mentioned that time is in contact (saMyoga) with noneternal, corporeal objects, a notion consistent with AnnaMbhaTTa's definition of an omnipervasive substance and explicitly asserted by Vishvanaata (SM 46,124, Madhavananda 2004: 62 n2). However, as will be discussed later, contact or conjunction is a relation which, according to the Naiyaayikas, cannot obtain between eternal entities. So when Vishvanaatha says that all things have time as a receptacle (aashraya), or when AnnaMbhaTTa says time is the universal substratum (sarvadhaara) of all things, one has to wonder what the relation between eternal things and time is. Since time is a receptacle or substratum, it seems clear that the relation involved must be a type of the resider-residence relation (aashrayashrita- sambhanda) mentioned earlier. Ingalls (1987 75 nl61) claims that the relation between the other eternal entities and time is inherence. However, Bhattacharya (1989: 87-88) following the commentator (on TS/TSD) NiilakaNTha, claims that all entities, both eternal and noneternal, bear a relation to time that is neither contact nor inherence, but is of a sui generis sort simply referred to as the "temporal relation" (kaalika-sambandha). The nature of this temporal relation is rather complicated and will not be discussed here. Neither will I discuss the issue of whether there is a genuine contradiction between what NiilakaNTha and Vishvanaatha are saying about the relation of time to other entities. For the purpose of this enquiry it will suffice to say that time is construed by Nyaaya as a locus or residence of all that is, without being more specific. Another feature of time, according to Nyaaya, is that it is an efficient cause of all things that are produced, i.e. all non-eternal things (US 2.2.9). Finally, though generally time is thought of as being inferred, e.g. Shriidhara (NK p. 64 (42), Jhaa 1915: 142), a few Naiyaayikas believe it to be perceived (Potter 1977: 91). Many of the above considerations concerning time apply in an analogous fashion to space. The Nyaaya conception of space can be construed as an explanatory posit advanced to account for our locutions/cognitions involving relations such as "to the east (or west or north or south) of" (TS 16), and "nearer (or farther) than" (BP 46). Sha~Nkaramishra says that space is the efficient cause of our cognitions concerning such relations (US 2.2.10). Ubiquitous space, like eternal time, can be thought of as limited and calibrated by noneternal substances (Matilal 1968: 44). Space, too, is regarded as the receptacle of all things (PDS p. 22 (24), Jhaa 1915: 54), and since it is an omnipervasive substance, given AnnaMbhaTTa's definition of such, one can expect it be in contact (saMyoga) with all corporeal things. That it indeed has such contact is stated by Vishvanaatha (SM 46,123). But again, just as in the case of time, a unique sort of relation between space and other things, simply referred to as the "spatial relation" (daishika-sambandha) (Matilal ibid.: 44; Athalye 1988:134), has been postulated. Yet another similarity that space shares with time is that it serves as an efficient cause of everything that has an origin (PDS p. 25 (32), Jha 1915: 60). Finally, just as in the case of time, space is generally thought to be inferred (Potter 1977:91), e.g. Shriidhara (NK p. 68 (43), Jha 1915: 149). As in the case of time, the existence of a unique relation between space and all other things suggests an absolute character for space. One way I think the relational vs absolute issue could be decided is by imagining the Nyaaya universe to be depopulated of all corporeal objects including (per impossibile) atoms and inner organs. Would the Nyaaya still think that space exists in such a universe? I think they would. Even if Potter were right about the Nyaaya view of space and time being essentially relational, the Nyaaya would seem to countenance the existence of absolute space in virtue of their postulation of aakaasha, which effectively amounts to absolute space, just as was the case with the ether in nineteenth-century physics. Time may be another matter, but consider this. Ganeri states that the Nyaaya believe time can be differentiated from space in virtue of the fact that, whereas what is spatially near or far (or before or after) is relative to a person's location, all temporal events hold the same status (with respect to being before or after) for all (existing) persons (Ganeri 2009 15)26. But this view involves an absolutist conception of time insofar as it denies that an event A which occurs earlier than another event B for one person could occur later than event B for another person, a view at odds with relativistic physics. Before leaving the discussion of space and time, there is one more issue I would like to address as it has potential implications for this study. The notion of time as a substance is, I think, a curious notion. Nyaaya holds that all substances have extension (e.g. US 7.1.8 ), but it seems clear that they mean spatial extension. So time, by definition, ought to have spatial extension. But does it? It has extension in the sense that it can be conceived as going infinitely "forward" and (perhaps) infinitely "backward" as well, but this is not spatial extension. One might try to reason that no matter where one goes in space one will encounter time and, in this sense, time might be said to be spatially extended. Still, this does not appear to be a genuine case of substantial extension. Rather, it seems analogous to

26 But as Ganeri points out, the argument gives us no reason to exclude persons from the past and future. 38 claiming that the quality of mass has spatial extension because it can be found (or measured ) everywhere throughout a particular substance. But mass, being a quality, by its very nature (according to Nyaaya-VaisheShika, as will been seen later) lacks extension27. In short, time seems to be more like a property (or attribute of some sort) than a substance. This issue is important because Nyaaya uses the "all substances have (spatial) extension" idea as a premise in an argument (discussed later) for establishing the (spatial) extension of the soul/self. There remain two more fundamental substances in the Nyaaya ontology to be considered. One of these, mentioned earlier, is manas, variously translated as 'inner organ or 'inner sense' or 'internal organ' or 'mind'. The other is the soul or self (aatmari). Manas is cognate with English 'mind', but this translation has little to recommend it so I am here adopting 'inner organ' or 'internal organ' instead. Unlike the Western conception of the mind, manas is unconscious (PDS p. 89 (45), Jhaa 1915:198; NS 3.2.38, Gangopadhyaya 1982: 247). Moreover, classical Nyaaya views the internal organ as being of atomic dimension (aNutva) and therefore potentially mobile. Like its external counterparts, the sense organs, it is a mere mechanical instrument that purveys "information" to that which could be conscious of it, viz. the soul/self. The internal organ performs two or three unique functions. First, it receives the kinaesthetic sensations involved in proprioception and passes them on to the self (Potter 1977: 33). The internal organ also functions to receive the sense "data" that are gathered by the sense-organs and passes them on to the self, acting like what Ganeri refers to as an "inter-sensory switching device" (Ganeri 2001: 23). This description refers to the belief that manas feeds the self only one type of input at a time. It does so because it is believed that the self can only attend to one thing at a time. However, the internal organ only does this at the behest of the self - it is itself utterly lacking in any form of autonomy. The final function of the internal organ is the apprehension of the self s own mental states - it is the instrument by means of which the self can be conscious of these states. Manas will receive more attention in Ch. 3.

27 Mass is not a quality (guNa) in Nyaaya-VaisheShika but the related notion of weight or heaviness (gurutva ) is. My real point here is that qualities which seem to pervade their loci are said to lack extension. 39

The substance known as aatman, typically translated as either 'soul' or 'self, is the entity that most resembles what the mind is considered to be in the West, particularly the Cartesian conception of the mind. For the qualities (guNas) that are unique to it and serve as its distinguishing marks (its lakSaNas or liNgas) - its specific-qualties (visheSha-guNas) - are what would be referred to as mental states in the West - desire (iccha), aversion (adveSha), volition (prayatna), pleasure (sukha), pain (duHkha), and cognition or consciousness (j~naana)28. These qualities are sometimes collectively referred to as 'the six qualities beginning with cognition'; I will refer to them here as 'cognition, etc.1. Like the ether, space, and time, the self is regarded as omnipervasive, partless, and eternal. The nature of the soul according to Nyaaya will be treated comprehensively in Ch. 3. The nine eternal substances surveyed thus far exhaust the fundamental kinds of substances which form the basis of Nyaaya ontology (VS 1.1.5). All other substances are constituted from these by aggregation involving inherence and/or contact (saMyoga). Contact, unlike inherence, is a member of the quality category, but is important enough to be dealt with under its own section. All substances are believed to possess qualities and this category will now be looked at in more detail.

2.2.3 Quality (GuNa) As mentioned previously, qualities (guNas) are not repeatable properties (as what goes by that name in the West are often considered to be29), but property-particulars, often referred to as 'tropes'. Qualities inhere in substances and only in substances, and are inhered in by universals. Neither qualities nor actions can inhere in qualities (PDS p. 94 (46), Jhaa 1915: 209 ), a notion that some might find counterintuitive, at least with respect to some of the items

28 J~naana is translated variously as 'cognition', 'awareness', 'judgement', 'knowledge', and 'intelligence'. Often within the Nyaaya literature it is taken to refer to consciousness, usually rendered elsewhere by cit and its cognates caitanya or cetana. 29 Because 'quality* is often used synonymously with 'property' in Western philosophy, and properties are typically thought of as universals, the word 'quality' as a translation of guNa is in a sense misleading. It is for this reason that Kisor Chakrabarti has employed the word 'quale' and its plural 'qualia' as a translation for guNa instead. However, 1 think that the cure is worse than die disease, as qualia has acquired a technical meaning in the philosophy of mind that is rather different from the Nyaaya sense of guNa. For this reason I have retained 'quality' as a translation of guNa. Besides, some philosophers do use the word 'property* in the sense of trope. that the Nyaaya consider to be qualities. Consider an object which is red all over. Is it a category mistake to ascribe extension or dimension (a quality) to the particular red (another quality) of that object? That is, should we not say that it is only the object that has extension and not the redness? The case of a number (a quality according to Nyaaya) apparently qualifying a quality like colour - the number of colours an object might have - is a bit more complicated, but old Nyaaya refused to budge on this issue and regarded expressions such as 'one colour1 as figurative (NK p. 94 (46), Jhaa 1915: 209). Similarly, actions do not inhere in qualities: when a substance moves, its qualities do not. Action or motion is a concomitant of corporeality in the Nyaaya world-view, and because qualities are not considered to be corporeal bodies, they cannot possess action. Another notion that follows from the putative impossibility of qualities or actions inhering in qualities, given that Nyaaya considers contact (saMyoga) to be a quality, is the impossibility of a quality being in contact with any entity. As I will discuss shortly, contact is a relational quality that simultaneously inheres in its relata, relata which are necessarily substances. Contact, also referred to as 'conjunction', is one of five qualities that all substances share (BP 88; TS 24-28). The notion that there are five qualities that are shared by all substances is, of course, strictly speaking false, even if it is common for writers to talk that way (e.g. Kisor Chakrabarti 1998: 86). For, in the case that the qualities are intrinsic qualities, if these qualities were shared between any number of individuals, they would in effect be universals and not property-particulars. In the case of relational qualities it is possible for the same particular quality to be shared by more than one individual. For instance, contact is a relation between a pair of substances, and each member of the pair is said to possess one and the same contact. But another pair of qualitatively identical substances which are in contact with each other in the same fashion as the members of the first pair, manifest a (numerically) different contact. Number is regarded by Nyaaya as a quality and the number n (the property-particular) is said (in classical Nyaaya at any rate) to inhere in all members of a set of n objects. But another set of n objects will possess a different n residing in each of its members that is different from the n residing in members of the first set, even though (by Western philosophical lights) the same n-ness (or n-hood, the universal) inheres in both sets! So in the case of relational qualities, one and the same 41 quality can be shared among more than one individual without being a universal. But it seems clear that when K. Chakrabarti talks about the five qualities that all substances have in common, he is really talking about them as universals. This is understandable, for in order to make any fruitful generalizations about qualities one has to talk about them as classes! This needs to be borne in mind in what follows where I talk about qualities as a class. The five qualities that characterize all substances, sometimes collectively referred to as the 'five qualities beginning with number', I will refer to as 'number, etc.'. In addition to number (saMkhyaa) and contact/conjunction, the other qualities in this group are dimension (parimaaNa), distinctness or separateness (pRRithaka-tva), and disjunction (vibhaaga). The notion of dimension (magnitude, extension) has already been touched on in the previous discussion of substance. The ubiquitous substances have maximal dimension and the non-ubiquitous but eternal substances have atomic dimension. Officially there are four sorts of dimension (TS 25; BP 110; NK 7.1.8), but only two of these are really relevant for my discussion: the dimension called 'small' or 'minute' (aNu), and the dimension called 'large' (mahat). The point of demarcation between the two groups is the threshold of perceptibility (visibility), with the minute substances of course being below this threshold. The large substances include all composite substances ranging in size from the triad upward, and the ubiquitous substances. (The ubiquitous substances - the largest possible substances - are not visible, but that is not a consequence of their dimension.) The minute substances include the atoms, dyads, and (usually) the inner organ. The size of atoms, as mentioned earlier, is absolutely minimal: they are said to possess the dimension known as paarimaNDalya (US 7.1.20), sometimes translated as 'sphericity' in apparent reference to a kind of shape30. According to Potter (1977:123-124) the exact size of the inner organ is a matter of some debate, though within Nyaaya itself it is agreed that it cannot be

30 This indication that the shape of atoms might be spherical is the reason why I am dubious about my earlier suggestion (p. 30) that atoms could likened to line segments. But if atoms are really spherical it is difficult to conceive of them as lacking an outside or inside. One way of doing this might be to conceive of the locus of points that form the surface of the sphere to constitute the atom per se (so the atom itself would be only two-dimensional), and not the volume of space that fills the sphere itself. In this way one might argue that the atom has no inside or outside but has dimension (whatever the circumference of the sphere is) and is able to make contact with other atoms. I can see that there are problems with this "solution" to the problem of atomic dimensionality but they will not be discussed here. omnipervasive or of maximal size (for reasons that will be discussed later). The notion that the inner organ, which is held to be an eternal substance, is of greater than atomic size seems inconsistent with the spirit of the Nyaaya system. Classical Nyaaya in general seems to consider that only the absolutely largest substances and the absolutely smallest substances could be partless (and therefore eternal), even if that conjecture does not follow of strict logical necessity. Yet if the inner organ were bigger than an atom, it would be breaking this symmetry and be a candidate for being noneternal. In any event, I will here assume that is of atomic size. Among number, etc., only dimension could be considered an intrinsic quality. In fact, the other four relational qualities are the only qualities that Nyaaya consider relational in the sense that they inhere in more than one substance simultaneously (VS 1.1.25; BP 89- 90). It has already been seen that number and conjunction are relational qualities, and it is clear that disjunction, the converse of conjunction, is also relational. Number has already been discussed and contact or conjunction, which is particularly important for this study, will be treated more comprehensively later under its own section. This leaves the quality of separateness (pRRithak-tva), sometimes also translated as 'distinctness' or 'isolation' or 'otherness', to consider. According to AnnaMbhaTTa, "separateness" refers to the cause of our notions (BP 113), or our employment of locutions that represent such notions (TSD 26), to the effect that "this is different from that", e.g. when we say that a particular pot is a distinct entity from a particular piece of cloth (Athalye 1988:164). In my view this notion is highly problematic for reasons that will not be treated here and the concept will be dealt with no further. Number, etc. are on KaNaada's original list of seventeen qualities (VS 1.1.6). Prashastapaada added another seven qualities to bring the canonical list to twenty four qualities (PDS p. 10 (5), Jhaa 1915: 23). Not all of these qualities will be discussed here. Those physical, or more accurately, non-psychological, qualities that are particularly germane to this study will be dealt with comprehensively after this survey of the categories. I discuss the psychological qualities in Ch. 3. In the meantime some of the more important qualities will be very briefly discussed. This should help to further clarify the nature of the sorts of substances mentioned in the previous section. 43

In connection with just those substances I have been calling 'material' - the four elements (referring both to the types of atoms and the composite substances that can be formed from them) and the inner organ - there are four attributes which are said to characterize them: (possession of) distance (paratva) or nearness (aparatva) in space or time, (spatial) limitedness (muurta), activity (kriyaa), and impetus (vega) (BP 25). Activity is not a quality but just another name for action or motion (karman), which has already been mentioned as one of the categories. 'Limitedness' is not listed as one of the canonical qualities but may be viewed as a type of the dimension (parimaaNa) quality mentioned above, viz. those dimensions that are not of maximal size. Other qualities that belong only to the material substances - though no single element (not to mention the inner organ) will possess all of them - are the "sense-ob]ect"(indryartha) qualities of the elements (colour, odour, touch, and taste), gravity or weight (guru), fluidity (the capacity to flow), and viscosity or viscidity. As mentioned earlier, those substances I have been calling immaterial - ether, space, time, and the soul/self - are by definition in possession of the qualities of omnipresence (sarva-gatatva) and "superlative" dimension (parama-mahattva) (BP 26). It was also seen that the ether, in addition to having these two qualities, has the specific-quality of sound. Space and time have no specific-qualities. The soul has a host of specific-qualities which shall be detailed later. With respect to those five substances I have been calling "elements" (bhuutas) - earth, water, air, fire, and the ether - the first four are material (in the dimensional sense) and, in addition to possessing various qualities perceivable by the external senses, are all tangible in the sense that they have the quality of touch (sparsha) (PDS p. 24 (26), Jhaa 1915: 58; BP 26). Bear in mind that the sensory qualities of the atoms themselves, including touch, are, like the very atoms in which they inhere, not perceptible, despite being the same qualities that occur in composite objects. To explain this lack of atomic- quality perceptibility the Nyaaya have postulated a special property known as "manifestness" (udbhuuta-tva) (Bhattacharya 1989:126-127): the qualities of atoms are said to be unmanifested, unlike their manifested composite-object counterparts. Manifestness appears to be a concept that is ad hoc and pseudo-explanatory. Apparently 44

Nyaaya does not want to attribute the imperceptibility of atomic colour to the imperceptibility of the atoms themselves, so they felt the need to postulate this property to account for it. Whether manifestness is a universal or not is a matter of debate among the Nyaaya (ibid.: 127). The original theory of the five elements appears to have attributed each of the five "sense-object" qualities - smell, taste, touch, colour, and sound - to its own element - earth, water, air, fire, and the ether, respectively - as a specific-quality (visheSha-guNa) (Ganeri 2009: 8). However, perhaps due to the seemingly implausible results of this assignment (e.g. pure earth would lack colour, which in Nyaaya-VaisheShika is tantamount to invisibility), it was supplanted by a scheme in which an element possesses more than one sensible quality. Even so, with the possible exception of air, it is still the case that each element does have a unique specific-quality. Although the ether lacks touch and uniquely possesses sound, the other elements are all tangible, but each, with the possible exception of earth, has its own peculiar variety of touch. Earth ostensibly possesses the same sort of touch as does air, though this touch apparently needs to be generated (in the case of earth only), through the cooking/baking (paaka) process (this notion is further discussed below). Nevertheless, earth possesses odour uniquely. So each element, with the possible exception of air, can be paired with a quality only it possesses: ether with sound, earth with odour, fire with hot touch, and water with cold touch; air possesses touch which is neither-warm-nor- cold, but so does earth, even if it needs to be produced by "baking" in the latter case. (But of course air lacks odour, not to mention colour.) The property of being tangible or possessing touch needs to be looked at in more detail. The Nyaaya account of touch seems to be equivocal between touch as a thermal quality which registers as temperature, and a quality that conveys the resistance encountered when the touch organ (located in the skin) is in contact with certain objects. AnnaMbhaTTa defines 'touch' as the quality that is apprehensible (graahya) only through the tactile organ (TS 22). By use of the word 'only' he means to exclude the quality of contact (saMyoga) from consideration, which the tactile organ also apprehends (perceives), in view of the fact that the visual organ can apprehend contact (Bhattacharya 1989:121-122 ). AnnaMbhaTTa says there are three kinds of touch: warm (or hot), cold, and "neither- warm-nor-cold" (anuShNaashiita, sometimes translated as 'temperate'). While fire has warm touch, and water has cold touch, both earth and air are said to have the neither-warm- nor-cold touch (TS 22), which I will refer to here as 'neutral touch'. But when the human hand, say, touches something that is at near the same temperature as the skin of the hand, one encounters an absence of temperature difference - presumably this would be an example of neutral touch - so the only sensation one would feel would be the resistance of the object to the hand. But surely this is just what the Naiyaayikas are referring to when they say they are apprehending contact via touch. In short, I find it difficult to see the difference between neutral touch and contact-as-apprehended-by-touch - they would seem to be phenomenologically identical. But the Nyaaya cannot have it both ways: either the sensation experienced when touching a "thermally neutral" object is the quality of (neutral) touch, or it is the quality of contact. As hinted at earlier, it is not entirely clear on the Nyaaya account if the sort of touch that the earth possesses is precisely identical with that touch that the air possesses, even though AnnaMbhaTTa seems to indicate that it is. For neutral touch is a permanent quality of air, while that of earth is produced through "cooking" (or "baking", paaka), a process which may be thought of as change induced by contact (saMyoga) with the fire element (tejas). Sometimes the touch of earth is referred to as 'touch-due-to-baking' (US 7.1.6), and, indeed, while admitting it is neither warm nor cold, Shriidhara talks as though such heat- induced touch is a quality peculiar to earth (NK p. 31 (36), Jhaa 1915: 73). The problem with this account is that it makes it sound as though earth, before it is baked, lacks any touch at all. One might presume that the difference between the touch of air and the touch of earth amounts to the difference in the sensation of the moving air against one's body (as Potter points out, the Nyaaya seem to mostly have wind in mind) compared to the touch of, say, a clay pot, but there does not appear to be any textual evidence for such a presumption. The four material elements are also said to possess (in addition to number, etc. and their respective sensible qualities) distance and nearness (BP 30-32). This would appear to be a logical consequence of their limited dimension. Finally, the only other type of quality held in common among these four elements is the disposition or tendency (saMskaara) called 'impetus' (vega) (BP 30-32), a quality similar to the modern concept of inertia, 46 though even more similar to the medieval European concept of impetus. Impetus will be treated under its own section later. Before passing on to the action/motion category it should be mentioned that there is an important distinction to be made between those qualities that are locus-pervading and those that are not. This distinction, however, is best discussed after the category of absence has been dealt with. Here it will be treated under the section on contact.

2.2.4 Action (Karman) Actions or motions (karman) are just like qualities in that they necessarily inhere in substances and are inhered in by universals. Indeed, although most Naiyaayikas regard motion or action as a separate category, a few consider it to be a type of quality. Motions are known through perception: they are perceived when the substances that move are themselves visible. Nyaaya postulates five different kinds of motion: going up ("throwing upwards"), going down ("throwing downwards"), contraction, expansion, and "going" (gamanum) (V S 1.1.7). The last type of motion in this list covers a modey assortment of motions not covered by any of the first four types (e.g. rotation). According to Ganeri (2009 16) the first four motions are volitional, while all of the motions represented by the fifth sort are non- volitional. According to Potter, Vaatsyaayana held motions to be momentary in the sense that they are regarded as lasting for only a single moment ([kShaNa)31, whereas Vyomashiva regarded a motion as something which lasts five moments (Potter 1977:131). In fact, the number of moments ascribed to a given motion varies according to different philosophers as well as among the types of actions under consideration. More remains to be said about this issue, along with the causal role of action in the production of certain qualities, but these topics are best dealt with after the reader has some acquaintance with classical Nyaaya conceptions of causality. So further discussion of action will be postponed until the

31 In the West there is talk about certain motions as lasting a long time, whereby "long" I mean more than an "instant", e.g. the flight of an arrow. But a Naiyaayika would view such an event as consisting of a series of separate motions, each one lasting a single moment. A month would be "formed by the addition of billions of sets of the four ultimate moments (kShaNa)" (Ingalls 1987 79 nl75). These sets are conceived as the smallest possible "imposed" (upaadhi) properties of time. 47 section on causality in this chapter.

2.2.5 Universals (Saamaanya) The term saamaanya means something very similar to what 'universal' typically means in the West. Potter characterizes the Nyaaya-VaisheShika universal as "real, independent, timeless, ubiquitous entities which inhere in individual substances, qualities, and motions and are repeatable, i. e. may inhere in several distinct individuals at once and or [s/c] at different times and places" (Potter 1977:133). AnnaMbhaTTa says that the universal is "eternal (nitya), unitary (eka), and 'related to more than one thing' (anekaanugata)" and that it occurs (vRRitti) in substances, qualities, and actions (TS 82); he further specifies that this occurrence relation is in fact inherence (TSD 82). Nothing inheres in universals. Universals are believed by the Nyaaya to be known through perception (ibid.: 137). There does appear to be a problem with the notion of a universal inhering in a substance. It is said that a substance cannot survive the loss of the universal which distinguishes it as a kind of thing (Bhattacharya 1989: 372). For example, when the aggregate of atoms that constitute a pot disintegrates, the pot may be said to have lost the potness universal. But whereas the pot as a composite substance has been extinguished, the potness universal, being eternal, continues to endure. This is true even in the case that there are no other pots in the universe to instantiate the universal (Matilal 2005: 45)32. (To be sure, the atoms that constituted the pot continue to survive, but the pot as a whole [avayavin] does not.) But earlier the inherence relation had been characterized as a relation of asymmetric dependence in which the inheree (samavaayin) could survive independendy of that which inheres in it (the samaveta). Certainly this is true in the case of substances with respect to qualities and motion. But it does not appear to be true in the case of composite substances with respect to universals. In that case the inheree is dependent on the universal that inheres in it and makes it the sort of substance it is. As far as eternal substances go, by their very nature they cannot lose the universals that characterize them,

32 Note that this claim is, strictly speaking, inconsistent with AnaMbhaTTa's definition of a universal being 'related to more than one thing'. But, as I point out below, different Nyaaya philosopher's had different views on this topic. 48 but in that case there is no asymmetric dependency relation involved at all, though the relation could still be characterized as one of inseparability (ayutasiddhi). Despite the claim by Matilal mentioned earlier that it is the substratum of an inherence relationship that is the independent entity (Matilal 1968: 39), in a later work he appears to implicitly acknowledge that universals violate this notion: "[i]f the inherent entity is a 'non-product', that is a permanent object (for example, a generic property like 'cowness'...), then inseparability means that the substratum can never exist without the other relatum" (Matilal 2005: 33). Universals in fact appear to be the only eternal entities ("permanent objects") that inhere in composite substances. They also appear to be the only entity that is both ontologically independent and an inherer (samaveta). It should be acknowledged that the claim that universals would continue to exist in an "unmanifested" state even if there is nothing to instantiate them (make them "manifest"), though the standard Nyaaya view according to Potter (1977: 139), has had its detractors. Potter says that Prashastapaada, Uddyotakara, and Vyomashiva all held that universals only occur in their "proper instances", which implies that they are non-occurrent if there are no such instances. If such were the case, of course, there could be no asymmetric dependency relation, as the universals would cease to exist with the destruction of the substances in which they inhere (provided the substances arise in the first place).

2.2.6 Individuators (VisheSha) The category of individuator, also referred to as "differentiator", "differentium", or "particularity" (among many other alternatives), was mentioned earlier as an attribute that earth atoms have that serves to differentiate one such atom from another that might otherwise be qualitatively identical33. In fact, not only are individuators said to inhere in the atoms of all the elements, but in all the eternal substances as well (TS 83). Stricdy speaking, 'qualitative identity' is an oxymoron in Nyaaya philosophy because the qualities spoken of there are tropes and not universals, though we can get away with speaking this way insofar as common universals inhere in the tropes. But what individuates one Nyaaya

33 All of the atoms of a given element, except for earth atoms, are viewed as qualitatively identical with one another. In the case of earth atoms, some qualities can vary, e.g. colour, which may be altered by the cooking/baking process. 49 quality (or action) from one another is the particular substance it inheres in, the fact that this quality inheres in this substance, while that quality inheres in that substance. The qualities of composite substances are said to directly inhere in the wholes that are these composite substances; these wholes, in turn, inhere in their parts, which are ultimately the atoms that give rise to them. So ultimately the problem of the individuation of noneternal substances is the problem of individuating atoms. As Ganeri (2009: 55-56) points out, what the Nyaaya are in effect assuming in the postulation of individuators is that "two non-identical items are distinguished by virtue of possessing distinct properties"34 and that, moreover, they have implicitly restricted this principle to intrinsic, nonrelational properties. Since this restriction rules out spatial and temporal relations that a given substance might bear to other substances, there is a perceived need to posit individuators. There can be no such thing as two intrinsically identical substances35.1 can only tentatively speculate that the rejection of extrinsic properties as criteria for numerical identity is based on the notion that many such properties may be seen as observer-dependent, and therefore viewed as being at odds with Nyaaya's direct realism. For instance, the qualities of nearness (apara-tva) and farness (para-tva) in space or time is sometimes treated by Nyaaya as though they were partly dependent on cognition, e.g. by Prashastapada (Potter 1977:123). Although in the West space-time relations are usually thought to individuate two otherwise perfectly identical individuals, such a means of individuation is not viewed as altogether unproblematic, e.g. when consideration is given to the possible world consisting only of two spheres which have identical intrinsic properties. The medieval European concept of haecceity can be viewed as an ad hoc solution to such problems. Haecceity is generally conceived as a "non-qualitative" attribute responsible for individuation: it is something an object is said to possess that differentiates it from another (numerically different) object whose properties, both intrinsic and relational, are identical with the former object. The Nyaaya individuator seems to have a close parallel in the concept of

34 As Ganeri (ibid. : 56) indicates, this principle is the contraposition of Leibniz's Law of the Indiscemability of Identicals. 35 Ganeri (ibid.) further points out that Leibniz held a similar view: differing spatiotemporal location was not a sufficient guarantor of non-identity, but that each object must possess some intrinsic difference. 50 haecceity. The individuator is not regarded as a Nyaaya quality (guNa) or action, but nevertheless functions like an attribute in that it inheres in substance. Because most of the eternal substances are generally considered to be imperceptible, it would seem to follow that their individuators are imperceptible as well. Prashastapaada thought that only certain yogis were able to perceive individuators, although among later generations of Naiyaayikas who came to view the self as perceptible, some came to view individuators of the selves as being perceptible (ibid. : 143). The Nyaaya use of the individuator concept is problematic for a couple of reasons. First of all, because there is only one of each of space, time, and the ether, why cannot these substances be distinguished by their specific-qualities or any other attributes that are unique to them? To be sure, of these three substances, only the ether has a recognized specific- quality (viz. sound), but, as has been seen, time and space nevertheless bear comparatively different relational properties to other entities, with their differential causal effects on human cognition. But perhaps this is a problem, at least with respect to space and time; perhaps because they are such staunch realists, the Naiyaayikas do not want to postulate (for purposes of individuation) any properties that might in some sense depend on human cognition. However, this cannot be the full story because sound is regarded by the Nyaaya as an intrinsic, mind-independent quality of the ether, so it not clear why the Nyaaya would attribute an individuator to the ether. Another potential problem for the individuator is its apparent redundancy, at least according to Navya-Nyaaya (the New Logic school), which rejected the very notion of ultimate individuators. The reason often given for this rejection is that the eternal substances are differentiated from one another "by themselves" (Madhavananda 1940:13 nl). Although many contemporary philosophers applaud this move by Navya-Nyaaya, it is not easy to make sense of this claim, but I will try. It is tempting to think of an individuator as just another quality, save for the fact that (unlike in the case of true qualities [guNas]) no universal (or anything else) can inhere in it. Its inability to take on a universal seems sufficient to guarantee an individuator's uniqueness, but does not really seem to be a necessary feature. Consider the possibility that, while all individuators possessed by, say, earth atoms are instances of x-hood (or x-ness), 51 each instance of x is unique, differing from other instances of x by a matter "of degree". (For instance, the universal "redness" might be present in all "baked" earth atoms, yet it is logically possible that each instance of red could be a unique shade of red. Of course, according to Nyaaya, colour is just another quality and there is no difference between the red of one baked earth atom and the next, but I have used this example simply to get my point across. Ordinary mortals do not perceive individuators, so if they were instances of some universal, only yogins would know this.) However, this account of an individuator as being simply a unique trope-like attribute does not appear to be exactly what the Naiyaayikas have in mind. For they attribute to the individuator the mysterious (to my mind) property of "self-individuation" (svatovyaavRRitta). Now if all the Nyaaya meant by this notion is that every individuator was absolutely unique, I think the concept would be unproblematic from a logical point of view. But the redundancy argument alluded to earlier suggests otherewise. This is the argument that there is no need to postulate an extra categoiy (viz. "individuator") to differentiate otherwise identical eternal substances from one another, as the eternal substances themselves can do the individuating, i.e. be self-individua ting. But this suggests that the atoms possess no absolutely unique attribute, for, if they did, what could such an attribute be but an individuator? The desire to postulate what Athalye calls the "peculiar inherent faculty" of self- individuation appears to be motivated by the desire to avoid a potential infinite regress. This regress would be initiated on the grounds that "there must be something else to distinguish the VisheShas themselves from one another" (Athalye 1988: 95). But then whatever it is that would accomplish this distinguishing would presumably require a "third- order" means of distinguishing these "second-order" individuators, and so on. So in order to block this regress, the individuators are said to be "self-individuating" and in no need of any further attribute to distinguish them. Given this logic, it is easy to understand why some Naiyaayikas, on the grounds of ontological parsimony, would want to just assign the "peculiar inherent faculty" to the atoms themselves. However, as I have hinted at above, there is no need to postulate "self-individuation" in this sense. To ask what distinguishes one individuator from one another is to treat the individuator as though it were a Nyaaya 52 substance and ask for an attribute that does the distinguishing. But I think that all that is needed here is to think of the individuator stricdy as an attribute which is itself absolutely unique - a uniqueness given in yogic perception - without any need to invoke a mysterious faculty of self-individuation. I have dwelt at length over the nature of individuators because they will prove relevant to my discussion of the so-called "pairing problem" in the discussion on the Western mind-body problem.

2.2.7 Absence (Abhaava) The category of absence, also referred to as 'negative facts', 'negation', or even 'nonexistence', is the one category that has hitherto not been discussed. The original VaisheShika categories were six, but the Nyaaya added absence as a seventh. It plays a prominent role in Navya-Nyaaya. If there is no clay pot on a table, then there is said to be an absence of a clay pot on the table. The table is thought of as the locus of the absence. That of which there is an absence is the pratiyogin, often translated as the 'counterpositive' or 'absentee' or 'negatum'. Absences are also believed to be perceived: we can see that there is an absence of the pot on the table. Moreover, there is no such thing as an absence whose absentee is unreal, e.g. there can be no absence of a unicorn. There appear to be two considerations that Nyaaya views as justification for positing absence as a category, one semantic and the other epistemic. The semantic consideration arises out of viewing meaning as reference, where the bearers of meaning, at least in the case of negation, are individual terms. The idea here is that one could not meaningfully deny anything if absences of particular entities (as represented by these terms ) were not real: "absences are the truth-makers of true denials" (Phillips 1997: 50-51). The epistemic consideration is of a phenomenological nature: "[experiences of nonexistence [absence] are phenomenally distinct from, and irreducible to, experiences of existents" (Ganeri 2009: 58). According to the Nyaaya there are four types of absence: prior absence {praagabhaava), destructional (or posterior) absence (pradhvamsabhaava), absolute (or constant) absence (atyantabhaava), and mutual (or reciprocal) absence (anyonyabhaava) (TS 9). 'Prior absence' refers to the nonexistence of an entity prior to its creation. 'Posterior absence' refers to the absence of an entity after its destruction. 'Absolute absence' may be defined as "that non-existence [i. e. absence] of relationship which is eternal" (BP/SM 12- 13). In other words, the absence of an entity at a given locus is an absence that obtains at all times, past, present and future (TS 87). 'Mutual absence' refers to the absence of identity as obtains between two entities, e.g. a pot is not a cloth. The notion of absolute absence is rather interesting. Sometimes absolute absence is used in a sense that seems to convey essentialistic notions of physical, perhaps even logical, possibility. In such instances, the substratum in which the counterpositive is absent, due to the substratum's very nature, can be looked upon as just the sort of thing that could never possess the absentee. For instance, colour is said to be absolutely absent from air. Similarly, a substance (dravya) may be thought of as an entity in which there does not exist an absolute absence of qualities (guNas)36. On the other hand, sometimes the Nyaaya seem to apply the concept of absolute absence to seemingly contingent circumstances; one of their stock examples would be: "There is no pot on the ground" (TS 87). Here this sentence appears to refer to the purely contingent fact that a particular pot is never to reside on the ground. This completes the survey of the fundamental categories. I would now like to go into more detail on those attributes that are of paramount importance for this study, starting with the notion of contact.

2.2.8 Contact (SaMyoga) It has already been mentioned that the notion of saMyoga, translated as either 'contact' or 'conjunction', is very similar in meaning to what is conveyed by those English terms. But in Nyaaya, 'contact' is employed as a technical term. Like inherence, contact is a type of resider-residence relation, in which one entity (the superstratum) is said to be located 'in' or 'on' another (the substratum). But unlike inherence, contact and its converse relation disjunction (vibhaaga) do not form distinct categories (padaarthas) but are

36 As will be noted in the section on causality, when composite substances are first formed they are believed to be lacking in qualities for a moment (kShaNa). 54 relational qualities (guNas) that inhere in members of a pair of substances simultaneously. Vishvanaatha describes contact simply as "the meeting of two things that are removed from each other" (BP 115), i.e. of two things that were initially separate. Similarly, disjunction may be thought of as the separation of two things that were once conjoined. AnnaMbhaTTa describes contact/conjunction as "the condition for the employment of the phrase 'conjoined'" (TS 27), as for instance when we assert that substance A is conjoined substance B. Contact would occur, for instance, if a pot were placed on a table. In that case, a contact-quality inheres in both pot and table, with the table viewed as the substratum, and the pot viewed as the superstratum, of the relation. Similarly, disjunction occurs when the pot is removed from the table. Notice that the relata involved in the contact relation, in contradistinction to those involved in the inherence relation, have to be by their very nature potentially separable (potentially yutasiddhi) from one another. Contact is not produced by other qualities but rather by action (BP 96), with one exception. The exception occurs when conjunctions are produced by other conjunctions (SM 95-96). For example, the conjunction of the body with a pot is regarded as caused by the conjunction of the hand (a part of the body) with the pot. This leads to the two-fold classification by AnnaMbhatta into contact produced by action and contact produced by contact (TSD 27). Contact is regarded as a non-locus-pervading quality or a relation of incomplete occurence (a-vyaapya-vRRitti). This "unpervasiveness" of a quality is "its property of having the same location as its absolute absence" (TSD 27). This just means that such qualities or relations are never to be found throughout their loci - there will always be some region of the locus where they do not exist. To take the table-pot example, there will always be areas of the table where regions of the pot will not exist. Gopinath Bhattacharya, commenting on the unpervasiveness of contact, says that "[i ]f two material bodies were to be in contact in every one of their parts, that would be total interpenetration and not contact", something he regards as an impossibility for "three- dimensional objects" (Bhattacharya 1989: 134). Considerations such as this may have led Potter to think of the contact relation in set-theoretic terms. He says that in contact "the product of the two individuals [substances]is greater than zero but smaller than either of the 55 two (where "product" is here being used in its mathematical or set-theoretical sense)" (Potter 1977: 70). He then further glosses "the product of two individuals" as "the individual (if any) which exhausts their common content": if the product is zero, this means they have no common content, while if the product is not smaller than either of the two, they cannot be two substances. Potter is likening contact to set-theoretical intersection. But when two physical bodies are in contact with each other, what exactly is their "common content"? Consider how the Naiyaayikas might conceive of the conjunction between a pot and the table it is resting on. One plausible suggestion is that they would view the contact as ultimately consisting of the contact between some of the atoms of the pot and some of the atoms of the table. However, if this is the case, and if Potter's account of contact is accurate, then it would appear that the notion that atoms are dimensionless points (as the commentators on the classical texts seem to logically imply) cannot be true. Recall that between any two distinct points that there are an infinite number of points. When two mathematically perfect spheres make contact with one another they can only do so by sharing a single common point - effectively a point from the surface of one sphere coalesces, so to speak, with one of the points from the other sphere. So if atoms were dimensionless points, contact between them would really involve them coalescing into one and the same object (point), amounting to a "product" that is not smaller than either of the two (points), and therefore violating Potter's definition of contact. Moreover, this coalescence would entail either the destruction of an atom, or that two atoms are now occupying the same point in space. We know that Nyaaya rejects the former possibility, but they also say that nothing can penetrate or pervade an atom because there is no interior for it to pervade, so presumably the notion of an atom penetrating the "space" of another is unacceptable too. If, on the other hand, these atoms have a genuine spatial dimension (as the classical texts claim), then it would seem that there are going to be a number of points between the atoms of the pot and those of the table that are held in common. It would then be this intersection of points that, as far as I can see, would have to constitute Potter's "common content" between the two bodies. It is important to stress that, even though contact is not locus-pervading, composite 56

substances-as-wholes, whose parts are in contact with the parts of other such substances, are viewed as being in contact with one another (NK p. 146 (88), Jhaa 1915: 317-318; Bhattacharya 1989: 134; Matilal 2005: 29-32). The table-as-a-whole is in contact with the pot-as-a-whole despite the fact that not all of their respective parts are in contact with one another. Recall the above example given to illustrate the type of conjunction that is caused by conjunction (as opposed to being caused by action): the body is said to be in contact with the pot in virtue of the fact that its hand is in contact with the pot. That this is strictly- speaking true might be questioned given that all the parts of body, except the hand, are not touching the pot. However, recall that the whole inheres in its parts - the body inheres in the hand and in this way can be construed as being in contact with the pot when the hand is. But if one of the body's hands is carrying a staff at the same time as the other hand is in contact with the pot, the staff cannot be regarded as being in contact with the pot because it does not inhere in the hand which is in conjunction with the pot. Given Vishvanaatha's definition of contact as necessarily involving substances that are initially separate from one another, one can infer that contact is impossible between any of the omnipervasive substances as these substances are eternal, so there was never a time when they were apart. This is the standard VaisheShika view. As will be seen, however, the MiimaaMsakas and, according to Umesha Mishra (1936: 48), even the Naiyaayikas reject the notion that contact between two omnipervasive substances is impossible. But Shriidhara has an impossibility argument that does not assume the necessity of an initial separation for contact to occur. He says there cannot be contact between two all-pervading substances because they would produce a dimension that would be "twice all-pervading", a result he views as an absurdity (NK p. 92 (45), Jhaa 1915: 206). What Shriidhara appears to have in mind here is the fact that the dimension (parimaNa) of a substance can be generated by the contact of two or more substances of smaller size, as for example the width of a piece of cloth is generated by the width of the individual threads. The problem with Shriidhara's argument is that it would seem to apply only to material substances. In Nyaaya ontology, space, time, and an infinite number of souls would seem to occupy the same space, totally "interpenetrating" one another, so there is no question of their dimensions being additive. Given Vishvanaatha's definition of contact, however, what are we to make of the claim that the eternal atoms have conjunction with the ether, etc.37 (PDS p. 141 (88), Jhaa 1915: 304)? After all, since all these substances are eternal and, except for the atoms, omnipervasive, there would never be a time when the atoms were apart or disjoint from ether, etc., and therefore 'conjunction' would not seem applicable to the relation that the atoms have with ether, etc. In fact, this very question is raised as a hypothetical objection in NK (p. 149 (88), Jhaa 1915: 324), which considers the following pronouncement by Prashastapaada to be a response: "The Conjunction of atoms with Aakaasha etc. exists only in one portion of those latter, and is brought about by the action of one or the other" (PDS p. 141 (6.10.88), Jhaa 1919 304). Shriidhara comments on this verse thus:

The Conjunction and Disjunction of the atom with the all-pervading Aakaasha is only partial (at least as regards the latter), and are produced by the action of the atom; just as the conjunction and disjunction of a man with a banyan tree (which extends all over from the roots to the top), are due to his movements up and down the tree. Consequently there can be no eternity for the Conjunction of the atom with Aakaasha. (NK p. 149 (88), Jhaa 1915: 324)

So it appears as if, because the atoms can move about from one region ("portion") of an omnipervasive substance to another, contact can be said to be occurring in the region moved to. One has to wonder about the consistency of the Nyaaya position on contact however. As stated previously, when composite objects are in contact with one another, it is not just certain parts of those substances that are considered to be in contact, but the substances-as-wholes as well. Now although the ether does not strictly speaking have any parts, it can be thought of as having spatial regions. So it seems fair to say that even though only some of these regions are occupied by atoms, atoms can be said to be in contact with the "ether-as-a-whole", in which case there was never a time when the atoms were not in conjunction with the ether, or by analogy, with the other omnipervasive substances.

37 This 'etc.' should be understood here and in subsequent passages to refer to all of the omnipervasive substances. 58

(In fact, one may wonder [again] about the consistency of the Nyaaya position on the partlessness of substances. The Nyaaya seem to want to deny attributing any particular region of the atom as having contact with other atoms on the grounds that this would imply that atoms have parts. But how is this different from attributing a certain region of contact to the ether? Perhaps it is because, if you do attribute a particular region of contact to the atom, then because of its finite size, you are implying that it has an inside and an outside, and therefore [from an Nyaaya perspective] parts [an idea that I have already argued against ]. The ether would not be subject to this condition as it is of infinite [or maximal] size.) A few words remain to be said about disjunction (vibhaaga). Disjunction is in many ways the converse of conjunction. AnnaMbhaTTa defines disjunction as "that which is destructive of conjunction" (TS 28, trans. Bhattacharya 1989: 135). Disjunction is not merely the absence of conjunction but is the state that results from a separation of two things that are in contact, producing a destruction of that previous conjunction. As with conjunction, there are the two main sorts: disjunction caused by action (on the part of one or both things of a pair) and disjunction caused by disjunction. So when the hand is removed from a pot, disjunction between the pot and hand is said to be caused by action of the hand. And at the same time there is said to be disjunction between the body and the pot owing to the disjunction of hand and pot. Disjunction is regarded as as unpervasive as conjunction (Bhattacharya 1989: 136). Consider the act of moving a pot from the ground to a table as a sequence of events. Initially there is the effort to lift the pot up - this is the act (karman) of separating the pot, which is in contact with the ground, from the ground. When the pot is in fact lifted from the ground so it is no longer in contact with it, disjunction (vibhaaga) occurs. Strange as it may seem, the next stage in this sequence according to the Nyaaya is the destruction of the initial conjunction (purvaM-desha-saMyoga-naasha) of the pot with the floor. (Intuitively, one feels that the destruction of conjunction between two substances is simultaneous with disjunction. But in this account, disjunction is regarded as the cause of - and not identical with - the destruction of conjunction. Similar notions will be treated in the section on causality.) Finally, the pot is placed on the table, resulting in a new conjunction (apara- desha-saMyoga). 59

2.2.9 Impetus (Vega) Impetus, sometimes referred to as 'impulse', 'inertia', or 'velocity', is not explicitly mentioned on the actual list of twenty-four qualities given by Prashastapaada. There is, however, a quality on the list of twenty-four that may be referred to as 'tendency' or 'disposition', a word that translates the Sanskrit saMskaara . It has become a matter of standard interpretation to regard saMskaara (when dealing with Nyaaya-VaisheShika) as subsuming impetus, elasticity (sthitisthaapaka), and bhaavanaa (mental dispositions or "traces" typically related to memory). Though these three qualities are regarded as dispositional, they can hardly be said to constitute a natural kind. Impetus bears some resemblance to the modern scientific concept of inertia, although unlike inertia it is a quantity that can be exhausted. Bhattacharya (1989:138) has referred to it as a "persistent tendency". He defines vega thus: "that which being due to a motion is the generator of another motion" (ibid. : 362), a definition that can be illustrated with the following examples. The quality of weight (or heaviness or gravity, gurutva) is itself a dispositonal property possessed by certain material bodies that causes them to fall through space when there is an absence of support (vidhaaraka) for them. For example, if a table is pulled out from under a pot lying on top of it, the pot will fall to the ground. But Nyaaya considers that though the initial motion of the pot downward (its aadya-patana) is due to its heaviness, the subsequent motion of the pot (up until the time the motion stops due to contact with the floor) is due to impetus. In fact, the subsequent motion of the pot is regarded by Nyaaya-VaisheShika as a series of downward motions, all of them due to impetus (ibid.: 138). Another case where impetus is operative is in the shooting of an arrow with a bow. In this case the initial motion of the arrow is not due to heaviness but to a type of contact (saMyoga) called 'impulse' (nodana, discussed below). Once set in motion by impulsion, the arrow's subsequent motions are maintained by impetus until it is stopped by contact with its target. In the case of the flying arrow, the Naiyaayikas conceive of a series of separate impetuses, one for each motion that the arrow undergoes during flight, whereas 60 the VaisheShikas think there is only one impetus throughout (Mishra 1936: 43)38. Impetus is produced by action rather than by qualities (BP 96). Only the four corporeal elements as well as the internal organ possess, or are capable of possessing, impetus (TS 80). Nyaaya views on causality have not been discussed in detail yet, but as will be seen, impetus may serve as a non-inherence cause (as when the impetus of the parts of an object cause impetus in the object as a whole) or an efficient (or instrumental) cause (PDS p. 102 (73), Jhaa 1915: 224).

2.2.10 Impulse (Nodana) and Impact (Abhighaata) Impulse and impact are types of physical contact (saMyoga) that produce motion in an object. Nodana, rendered variously as 'impulsion', 'pressure', and 'molecular movement', is "that kind of contact of one body with another which operates silently and produces such motion as does not bring about disjunction between the bodies in contact" (Bhaduri 1975: 122). The contact of the air of a continuous breeze which bends leaves of grass in one direction would be an example of impulse. Abhigaata, on the other hand, has a meaning similar to the English 'impact'. It is a "sound-producing contact causing such motion as leads to the disjunction of the conjoined bodies" (ibid.). The snooker ball which hits and then rebounds from another such ball would be an example of impact.

2.2.11 Hardness and Related Concepts There is a cluster of terms in Sanskrit related to the concept of hardness - a concept related to the notion of a substance's resistance to having its space occupied - by being more or less synonymous, or by being more or less antonymous, with it. But whatever group of terms we look at, the debate regarding their status is the same: are these attributes varieties of conjunction-of-parts (avayava-saMyoga) or are they types of touch (sparsha)? Hardness (karkasha-tva) and tenderness (sukumaara-tva) are two universals which, according to the Naiyaayikas, inhere in the conjunction-quality between two substances composed of earth, but according to the VaisheShikas inhere in the touch-quality (Mishra

38 Mishra cites the Upaskaara commentary on VS 5.1.17 in support of this contention. 61

1936: 49-50)39. The rationale for the VaisheShika viewpoint appears to be given by Vishvanaatha: if hardness (kaaThinya-tva, note the different Sanskrit term), etc. did inhere in contact, then they would be perceptible to the eye (SM 104, but Vishvanaatha does not specify what he means by 'etc.'). On the other hand, Shriidhara, even though he is commenting on a VaisheShika text, says that hardness (kaaThinya) and "looseness" (prashithila) are "particular forms of conjunctions [saMyoga] of particles" (NK p. 106 (83), Jhaa 1915: 232). Presumably what he means here is that the atoms (or dyads or triads, etc.) composing harder substances are conjoined "more tightly" in the sense that there is more contact between their particles at any given time - such substances might be said to exhibit greater "compaction" - as compared to the case of "looser" substances. But then "looseness" might be expected to be more associated with conjunction rather than with touch. However, TSD, generally considered to be a syncretistic text, also talks about hardness (kaaThinya) and mRRidu-tva, which Bhattacharya translates as 'softness' (Bhattacharya 1989 34), as being types of conjunction-of-parts.

2.3. Causality

I now want to investigate Nyaaya-VaisheShika conceptions of causality. In contemporary philosophical discussions in the West, as in ordinary speech, the notion of causation referred to is usually that of efficient causation. Other notions of causation, which stretch back to Aristotle, have largely been abandoned in the West. In fact, the classical Greek term that has often been rendered as "cause" is aition, but it has been suggested by many that this term is better off thought of as referring to a type of explanation or an "explantory factor" rather than a cause. Like Aristotle, Naiyaayikas talk about more than one type of cause (kaaraNa). Before discussing the sorts of causation that they entertain, a few remarks concerning their conception of causality in general is in order. It has been pointed out that while Western philosophy views causation as a relation whose relata are typically depicted as events, Nyaaya-VaisheShika views these relata as

39 Mishra cites Padaartharatnamaalaa, p. 32, in support of this contention. 62

being between "individuals" and not exclusively between events (Potter 1977 54). (Recall that 'individual' for Potter signifies one of the categorial (padartha) entities.) In fact, on Udayana's account of causation - considered to be definitive for the Nyaaya - causation is regarded as a relation between universals (ibid. 55). It is not clear, however, that this view of causation as relating to substances or attributes is significant - it has already been seen that the production of a new property can itself be viewed as an event, and I think the same thing could just as easily be said about the production of a substance. According to Vishvanaatha, causality (kaaraNa-tvam) is "the invariable (immediate) antecedent [niyata-puurva-vRRitti] of what is not superfluity" (BP 16, Madhavananda 2004 23). "[W]hat is not superfluity" translates anyataa-siddha-shuunya, which Grimes (1996: 46) defines as "not being established as other than indispensable". In yet other words, the cause is taken to include only what is strictly necessary to explain the effect (Madhavananda ibid. 23 n3). So the donkey that is used to carry the clay to the potter (who may be viewed as an efficient cause in the production of a clay pot) is superfluous (to use Madhavananda's terminology) in the sense of "not necessary" or "irrelevant", insofar as something other than the donkey could have transported the clay. AnnaMbhaTTa gives us a number of irrelevancy criteria for deciding if an individual (as a prospective cause) is superfluous or not (TSD 41), but these will not be discussed here. The definition of effect (kaarya) is given by AnnaMbhaTTa as being the counterpositive (or negatum, pratiyogin) of a prior absence (or antecedent negation, praagabhaava) (TS 42). (Recall that a prior absence is an absence of a particular entity [the counterpositive] up until such time that it is produced [caused].) Nyaaya has the notion of "universal cause" or "common cause" (saadhaaraNa- kaaraNa), which according to Athalye (1988:166) is a cause of all effects qua effects and not qua particular products. For instance, a stick may be the efficient cause of a clay pot in virtue of the fact that it is a pot and not some other product, but space and time are viewed as efficient causes of that very same pot qua product (effect). Although in its early stages Nyaaya might have postulated the three universal causes of space, time, and destiny (adRRisHTa), it was later to explicitly include five more: God, His knowledge, His will, His effort (collectively referred to as tajaj~naanechChaakRRitya), and prior absence (ibid.: 63

166). According to Nyaaya, whenever we speak of an effect these causes are implied, being generally not explicitly mentioned. 'Universal cause' is to be contrasted with 'peculiar cause' or 'uncommon cause' (a-saadhaaraNa-kaaraNa). The latter cause may be thought of simply as any efficient cause that is not one of the universal causes. The stick involved in the production of the clay pot is such a cause. According to Nyaaya, all causes fall into one of three categories: inherence causes, non-inherence causes, and efficient (or instrumental) causes. An inherence cause (samavaayi-kaaraNa) is really the substrate within which the effect under consideration inheres. It is invariably a Nyaaya substance (dravya) (BP 23). As examples of inherence causes, consider the following. Recall that a pot is a composite object (whose ultimate parts are earth atoms) and a whole that is something in addition to the parts that make it up. Similarly, a (piece of) cloth is a whole that exists along with the threads that compose it. The pot-halves are said to be the inherence cause of the pot, just as the threads are viewed as the inherence cause of the cloth. In these cases there is a definite mereological aspect to the inherence cause. On the other hand, inherence causation does not always involve mereological considerations. For instance, cognition is said to have the soul for its inherence cause and the soul, being eternal, is impartite. The notion of inherence cause appears to be unique to Nyaaya. Samavaayi-kaaraNa is sometimes translated as 'material cause'. Recall that, in Aristotle, the material cause is that from which, or out of which, something (the effect) is formed or constituted. Although I do not think that the Nyaaya conception of inherence cause is identical with the Aristotelian conception of material cause, I do not think this for the reasons typically given. One such reason is that the Aristotelian material cause has to be "material" or "substantial" in the mundane, colloquial sense of those terms (and therefore will not refer to immaterial substances like, for instance, whatever-it-is that souls are made of). But consider the following quotation from Aristotle, where he gives examples of material causes.

The letters are the causes of syllables, the material of artificial products, fire and the like of bodies, the parts of the whole, and the premisses of the conclusion, in the sense of 'that from which'. Of these pairs the one set are causes in the sense of what 64

underlies, e.g. the parts, the other set in the sense of essence—the whole and the combination and the form. (Aristotle, Physics, 195a15-21)

I think the premisses-conclusion causal relation mentioned here would have to be understood as involving an "immaterial" pair of items. (To see this, all one has to do is consider both premisses and conclusion as [physical] sentences, e.g. as marks on the chalkboard, to see that the conclusion cannot possibly be constituted by the premisses.) Notice that, like Nyaaya's notion of inherence-cause, Aristotle's material cause clearly includes a mereological notion. There are two or three ways, however, that the Nyaaya inherence cause differs from the Aristotelian material cause, as far as I can see. One is that the former is always a substance in the Nyaaya sense (BP 23), whereas the latter need not be a substance in either the Nyaaya sense or, perhaps, even in any of the Aristotelian senses. Consider Aristotle's example of premisses and conclusion again. Nyaaya would regard the premisses of an argument as cognitions, which they would regard as qualities of the soul-substance, and therefore they could not serve as an inherence cause. However, even if Aristotle thought of premisses as cognitions (which he does not), rather than propositions (which he does), I do not believe he would regard cognitions as substances either, and yet I am confident he would still view them as a material cause of the conclusion. Moreover, I do not think Aristotle views propositions as substances either. So the Aristotelian material cause is more general than the Nyaaya inherence cause in that it is not restricted to substances. Another way in which the inherence cause appears to differ from the material cause, is that it can give rise to effects that are qualities and actions, and I do not think that Aristotle would have conceived of either of these as being formed out of matter (hyle). Finally, while the Nyaaya view all causes as coming before the effect, Aristotle does not stipulate a temporal relation between the material cause and whatever is formed from it. The notion of a non-inherence cause (a-samavaayi-kaaraNam) involves those instances where qualities and actions are considered to be causes of (composite) substances, qualities, and actions. Just as in no case does a quality or action serve as an inherence cause, in no case may a substance be considered a non-inherence cause (BP 23). According to Shriidhara, the relation between the non-inherence cause and the inherence cause consists in the non-inherence cause "inhering in the material cause [i. e. inherence cause], and also in inhering in the same substratum in which the material cause inheres" (NK p. 101 (6.1.71), Jhaa 1915 222). In the examples given above, it is the contact (a quality) between the pot-halves (substances which serve as the inherence causes of the pot) that also (i.e. in addition to the pot-halves) causes the existence of the whole pot and serves as the pot's non-inherence cause. Similarly, it is the contact between the threads that compose the cloth (substances that serve as the cloth's inherence cause) that serve as the non-inherence cause of the cloth. In these cases it is evident that the non-inherence causes of the composite object (the effect) inhere in the inherence causes of that object, in accordance with what Shriidhara is saying. In these cases the non-inherence causes give rise to (composite) substances. But qualities can serve as the non-inherence causes of qualities too. Apaakaja colour (colour that is not the result of the "cooking" (or 'baking', paaka) process), taste, smell, touch, dimension, weight (gravity), fluidity, viscosity, and impetus are all qualities that inhere in wholes (composite substances) and whose non-inherence causes are (typically ) the same sorts of qualities as they are found to inhere in the inherence cause of the whole (e.g. the atoms that constitute the whole) (PDS p. 98 (57), Jhaa 1915: 216), i.e. these qualities of composite substances are due to like-qualities inhering in the inherent causes of these very substances. So, for example, the particular red of the threads of a certain cloth serves as the non-inherence cause of the red of the cloth as a whole. This is the sort of case that Shriidhara was likely referring to when he said that the non-inherence cause inheres in the same substratum in which the inherence cause inheres: the colour of the threads (the non-inherence cause of the colour of the cloth) inheres in the same substratum (the threads) that the inherence cause of the colour of the cloth (the cloth) does. In contradistinction to the qualities considered thus far, specific-qualities of the soul do not originate from like qualities inhering in their inherence cause. But nor would we expect them to, given that no composite substances are involved in these cases. Qualities can also serve as the non-inherence causes of actions (karman). Some qualities that are such causes of actions are "...internal vibration [nodana], impact 66

[abhigaata],weight, fluidity, impression....and conjunction with the Soul exercising Volition" (US 1.1.19). An example where a single quality gives rise to a substance, another quality, and an action is the following: a cotton ball possessed of impetus (vega) comes into contact with another cotton ball and causes it to move, thus creating an aggregate of the two cotton balls (a new substance), the new dimension of the aggregate (a new quality), and the movement of the new aggregate (a new action). The third sort of cause that Nyaaya recognizes, the nimitta-kaaraNa, resembles our notion of efficient cause, and it is often translated as such, as also by 'instrumental cause'. The efficient/instrumental cause is usually defined negatively as being other than an inherence or non-inherence cause (TS 43; BP 18). Getting back to the clay pot example, it would be the potter's stick or the potter himself that would be viewed as the efficient cause of the pot. It should be clear by now that there is an entire assemblage (saamagrii) of causes (kaaraNas) that may be involved in the production of a single effect. In colloquial English, however, we typically speak of the cause of an event, picking out what seems be the most salient cause among a host of causal factors. Nyaaya speaks of such a cause, one that they refer to as the karaNa (literally 'instrument') cause40. The Naiyaayikas have given us more than one interpretation of karaNa, but the one that I will put forward here is perhaps the most prominent, being popular in Naavya-Nyaaya. In this interpretation karaNa is the cause of what is known as the 'operation' or 'operating condition' (vyaapaara), which may in turn be defined as "that cause which immediately precedes the effect" (Ganeri 2009: 31). So in the case of the production of a clay pot, the contact of the pot-halves would be the operation, and the stick (wielded by the potter) which brings such contact about, would be the karaNa41. Under the interpretation put forward here, the karaNa cause is never an inherence or non-inherence cause (Athalye 1988: 210). The temporal restriction on causation (i.e. there can be no simultaneous causation or

40 According to Athalye (1988: 210) the karaNa is nearly identical with the English legal term 'proximate cause'. Potter refers to the karaNa as the "(causal) condition par excellence" (Potter 1977: 57). 41 That it is the stick (a substance)that is the karaNa, and not the movement of the stick (an action), seems to be the standard view, though it should be noted that Ingalls (1987: 30 n9) states that it is the action of the stick that is the karaNa. Ingalls' view seems to accord better with standard English usage regarding what might be considered the salient cause in this case. retrocausation), coupled with the notion of an inherence cause, gives rise to an interesting challenge to the conception of substance. Because the qualities (as well as the actions) of a composite substance are (inherence-)caused by the substance in which they inhere (US 1.1.18), that composite substance must be devoid of all qualities during the moment of its formation (SM 14) in virtue of the fact that the effect (the qualities) arises a moment after the cause (the composite). For this reason, old Nyaaya definitions of substance as that in which qualities inhere are, strictly-speaking, false. In fact, one way of defining substance is to just say that it is that which can serve as an inherence cause, or equivalently, that which lacks an absolute absence of qualities. Notice, on the other hand, that one cannot define qualities and actions as being that which can serve as non-inherence causes because not all qualities can serve as such, e.g. cognition (or knowledge) (SM 23). The temporal restriction on causation also poses a challenge to the traditional Nyaaya conception of a quality. Suppose a given substance undergoes destruction. If one views, as does the Nyaaya, the cause of the destruction of the substantial qualities as being the destruction of the substance in which they inhere, then one will have to conclude, given that effects necessarily occur subsequent to their causes, that the qualities persist for a moment after the substance has been destroyed. So the whole conception of qualities as incapable of independent existence is, strictly speaking, incorrect under this scenario as well. Composite substances, qualities, and motions can all serve as causes (of some sort) as well as being effects (VS 1.1.8), though non-composite substances, being eternal, are uncaused and can only serve as causes. In fact atoms, taken individually, cannot serve as causes either (US 1.1.8; SM 15). In general, it is composite substances that give rise to other substances, and qualities that originate other qualities (VS 1.1.9-10). So, for example, two separate earth atoms can come together to form a terrene aggregate of two atoms (a dyad), or the black colour of the individual atoms are causally responsible for the black colour of the terrene aggregate. In contrast, action produced by action is not known (VS 1.1.11). This, on the face of it, might seem wrong: consider that the action of swinging an axe causes the tree to fall down. Recall, however, that on the Nyaaya account contact is a quality and the initial action of swinging the axe produces contact with the tree, so it is the 68 contact-quality which is the direct cause of the tree's falling downward-action. Substances are not destroyed by their own cause or their own effect. The reason given for this claim is that "...Substance is destroyed only by the destruction of the support or substratum and the destruction of the originative Conjunction" (US 1.1.12). What this claim appears to amount to is that neither the inherence cause (the substratum) nor the non- inherence cause (the "originative" conjunction) of a substance will, by itself, destroy the substance (NK p.21 (20), Jhaa 1915: 51). Similarly, the effect (the composite substance) will not, by itself, destroy itself. However, neither VS nor US make any explicit mention of efficient causes here, which seem to provide a counterexample: consider an explosives- maker (whom we may take to be an efficient cause) who accidentally explodes his wares (which are the product or the effect) and kills himself in the process. In contrast to substances, qualities can be destroyed both by their own effects and by their own causes (VS 1.1.13). In contrast to both substances and qualities, actions are destroyed only by their effects (VS 1.1.14). So, for example, when two billiard balls collide, their contact will destroy their original motions. While both substances and qualities can serve as the inherence and non-inherence causes of substances, qualities, and actions, actions serve only as the cause of the qualities of conjunction, disjunction, and impetus (vega) (VS 1.1.20). According to KaNaada, action is not considered to be a cause of substance "because of its cessation" (VS 1.1.22). Sha~Nkaramishra interprets this as meaning that substance is produced by conjunction upon the cessation of action (US 1.1.22). What he seems to have in mind here can be illustrated by the cotton ball example given earlier. It is action that brings about the conjunction of the two cotton balls, which might be said to form a new composite substance. At this point the motion of the cotton balls toward each other has ceased, and yet the new substance (the two-cotton ball aggregate) continues to exist in virtue of the action- induced conjunction of the two balls. The immediate cause of the new substance is the contact-quality between them, and not the action per se, which is necessarily destroyed upon the production of contact, an example of action being destroyed by one of its effects. Even so, although this contact may constitute the operation (or operating condition, vyaapaara) of the final effect, it seems to me that the action of the cotton balls should be 69 considered the salient instrumental cause (karaNa) in this process. Universals, individuators, and inherence itself, of course, cannot serve as inherence or non-inherence causes of anything, but they can serve as instrumental causes (NK p. 20 (19), Jhaa 1915: 48). For instance, because these items can be cognized, they serve as the instrumental cause of their cognition.

2.4 Conclusion

In this chapter I have explicated the concepts and categories of Nyaaya that most correspond to Western, especially Early Modern, notions of a fundamental and general ontological nature, as well as focusing more narrowly on those concepts that represent items of a non-mental or non-psychological nature. It has been shown that the Nyaaya substance-attribute ontology has much in common with Western notions of substance and attribute, even if the Nyaaya notion of mereological inherence is unique. The Nyaaya notion of substance seems to be most related to the Lockean notion of substratum. The Nyaaya notion of inherence is manifested in the concepts of inherence and non-inherence causality, concepts which are unique to Nyaaya. On the other hand, their concept of an instrumental cause is practically identical to the notion of an efficient cause, which is the dominant notion of cause in the contemporary world. One set of notions that I have only touched upon here, those designated by terms like 'material', 'corporeal', and 'physical', will be dealt with in greater detail in the final chapter. However, it should already be clear that the Nyaaya-VaisheShika atomic substances discussed in this chapter, in virtue of their sensory properties, above all their tangibility, bear a strong resemblance to substances deemed 'material' or 'physical' in the West, particularly in Early Modern times. It is these atomic substances that, according to Nyaaya, form the physical body of the human being. Another set of notions that the Nyaaya possessed that can also be thought of as physical are those mechanical concepts, briefly discussed here, related to impact, impulse, and impetus. 70

CHAPTER 3: Nyaaya Concepts of the Mind/Soul

Views on the nature of the soul differed amongst the classical Indian philosophical schools. The association of the soul with life functions, particularly the "life-breath", is found in many of the world's cultures, especially during early phases of their development. In the earliest VaisheShika text, the VaisheShika-suutra, typical life-functions, including breathing, are considered to be defining marks (UNgas) of the soul alongside the inner states (cognition, etc.). In the Nyaaya-suutra, talk of the biological functions is dropped from the list of the marks of the soul,which are restricted to the internal states (NS 1.1.10). But Prashastapaada, writing yet later, does mention the body's breathing and other involuntary actions such as eye blinking and self-healing on the part of the body when it incurs injuries, as warranting the inference of the existence of an agent that causes them, viz. the soul (PDS p. 69-70 (44), Jhaa 1915:153). Another characteristic of some early views of the soul is their attribution of the soul to plants. One finds this in Plato and it is characteristic of the Hindu-Jain-Buddhist worldview in general. While Kisor Chakrabarti and Gopinath Bhattacharya indicate that the Nyaaya hold this belief (Chakrabarti 1999: 119; Bhattacharya 1989: 91), Athalye (1988: 136) says that a "section" of Naiyaayikas claim that plants are soulless. Shriidhara categorically denies that plants have souls, apparently on the grounds of their lack of intellectual activity (NK p, 83 (44), Jhaa 1915: 186). There is an important distinction to be made between the souls of human beings (and animals and plants and superhuman beings) and the soul of God. Originally VaisheShika was "not really theistic in character" (Matilal 1977: 65) - there is no explicit mention of God in the VaisheShika-suutra. But from the time of Prashatapaada onward, the existence of God was not only acknowledged, but homage was payed to Him at the beginning of many Nyaaya and VaisheShika texts, and arguments for His existence were put forward. The differences between Nyaaya conceptions of the divine Soul and the souls of humans will be briefly detailed later. 71

3.1 Qualities of the Soul

I had earlier characterized the Nyaaya soul as omnipervasive, partless, and eternal. To characterize something as omnipervasive is to imply that it has unlimited or infinite dimension, or, at least, that it is of the largest possible size. (One might imagine that if the space of the universe has a positive curvature, as is suggested by some contemporary cosmological models, then the human soul, though it would fill the universe and therefore be of the greatest possible dimension [and therefore omnipervasive], would nevertheless be, like the universe itself, of finite dimension.) There also is said to exist an indefinite plurality of souls (Potter 1977: 95). According to Shriidhara (NK p. 88 (44), Jhaa 1915: 195 ), and implicit in AnnaMbhaTTa's account42, there is, indeed, an infinite number of souls. The souls are said to be "different in different organisms" (TS 17), but this does not mean that there is a one-to-one correspondence between individual souls and every "organism" that exists, has existed, or ever will exist, because one and the same soul will transmigrate through an indefinite plurality of bodies throughout eternity. The fact that there exists an infinite number of maximally-extended souls packed into the very same space seems to reveal that the Nyaaya soul is immaterial in the "classical Western" sense of lacking impenetrability, insofar as any particular soul is able to occupy the very same space that other souls, not to mention other substances (material or not), occupy. The notion that the soul is possessed of unlimited dimension or is omnipervasive needs to be looked at more closely. It may be recalled that omnipervasive substances possess the characteristic of being in conjunction with all substances of limited dimension, and that the soul is no exception (US 7.1.22). While the Upanishads may be held to reveal that the soul is all-pervading43, Nyaaya has offered a couple of arguments for this claim. The first of these justifications involves a concept that seems to have evolved with the progression of Nyaaya thought, that of adRRiShTa, the 'unseen force' (or 'destiny'),

42 As far as I know, TSD does not explicidy say that the number of souls is infinite, but one can infer it from AnnaMbhaTTa's statement that the number of inner organs is infinite because each one has a "uniform" association with a soul (TS/D 18). 43 See, for instance, KaTha UpaniShad 6.8. which Matilal refers to as the 'karma-mechanism'. More will be said about adRRiShTa later, but early on in Nyaaya it was conceived as an invisible power that operated in the natural world and was itself a consequence of two specific-qualities of the soul that have not been mentioned yet, viz. merit (dharma) and demerit (adharma). Indeed, in Nyaaya literature, adRRiShTa is practically synonymous with a/dharma. Merit and demerit will be discussed in more detail later; suffice it to say for now that the terms mean something like 'good karma' (merit) or 'bad karma' (demerit) as they are used in the popular idiom. Shriidhara claims that the omnipervasiveness of the soul can be inferred from the facts that fire flames upward and air blows horizontally (NK p. 88 (44), Jhaa 1915:196). The argument seems to be that, because the "unseen force" (adRRiShTa) is the cause of these movements - movements which may occur anywhere - and this force inheres in the soul, the soul must be omnipervasive. The implicit assumption here appears to be that events can be caused by the "karma" (merit or demerit) of a person even if their body is spatially far removed from those events. One may wonder why, however, the unseen forces of spatially limited souls could not be responsible for the same events. The reason appears to be that the Nyaaya reject "action-at-a-distance" causality: Shriidhara explains how merit and demerit, though not existing in fire, can serve as instrumental causes of the action in fire because of their proximity to the fire (NK p. 103 (75), Jhaa 1915: 226). So while the person's body may be far removed from the action they cause, their soul, being omnipervasive, is not. This scenario does not necessarily presuppose that merit and demerit exist in a region of the soul that is in contact with the events they are causing. Shriidhara gives an analogy that helps to explain this claim: a piece of cloth that is held by a person of the untouchable caste may still pollute a person of a higher caste were they to touch it at the other end, despite there being no direct contact between the two persons. I believe that in this analogy the cloth is like the soul, the untouchable is like the soul's adRRiShTa, and pollution of the higher-caste person is analogous to events caused by the adRRiShTa (like upward-flaming fire and wind ). However, a crucial question to ask here is: is the "polluting power" of the cloth is locus- pervading? Likely it would be considered as such, in which case the analogy would not be a good one if merit and demerit themselves were not locus-pervading. The question of 73 whether the soul's qualities are locus-pervading or not will be considered in the next chapter. The other argument given for positing the soul's ubiquity involves showing that, since it cannot be of atomic or medium-sized dimension, the soul is necessarily of infinite, or at least maximal, dimension, the only size-possibility candidate that remains after the first two possibilities have been eliminated. That the soul is of greater than atomic dimension is considered to be proved by the fact that certain qualities are felt to pervade the body all at once (TSD 17). For example, the pleasure one experiences when one takes a warm bath when one is cold is felt over the entire body. Given that the soul cannot be of atomic dimension, it can be inferred that it must be of the infinitely-large dimension, on the grounds that any size less would imply that the soul would consist of parts and therefore not be eternal. Substances of size intermediate between the smallest and the largest are believed by the Naiyaayikas, based on experience, to be composite, and that all composite substances are believed, again based on experience, to be perishable. But it is a fundamental belief of Nyaaya that the soul is eternal, and therefore they conclude that it cannot be of an intermediate size (TSD 17). The reason the Naiyaayikas believe the soul has to be eternal is because of what might be called the "Law of Karma", the notion of cosmic justice that says everyone will receive just deserts for their behaviour (action, karma), if not in one lifetime, then in some subsequent lifetime. If a soul were to perish before receiving justice, this would be a violation of karmic law. One may wonder why the soul is believed to have any dimension at all. A standard argument made on behalf of the Naiyayikas (K. Chakrabarti 1999; Bhattacharya 1989 101) 44 goes as follows.

Every substance has an extensive magnitude. The soul is a substance. Therefore, the soul has extensive magnitude.

44 K. Chakrabarti, who references 'TSD 101' is in fact citing the Bhattacharya reference given here. But as Bhattacharya points out, this argument is not actually given by TSD. But I rather doubt that Bhattacharya came up with the argument himself, as he often appears to be using classical commentaries for guidance, usually the commentary of NiilakaNTha. 74

The first premise is supposed to have empirical support, without any known counterexamples (Bhattacharya, ibid.). Among classical orthodox Indian philosophers the second premise was believed to be true, although Buddhists and many contemporary philosophers would deny it. The argument is formally valid. But what about the first premise? One might argue that there are items that are similar to, or function like, substances in the Nyaaya sense that do not necessarily possess spatial extension. Consider, for instance, a musical composition as a particular. As such, the Nyaaya would seem to view it as a certain sequence of sounds occurring within the confines of the auditory-organ. These sounds would be qualities of the ether, a spatially-extended substance. Yet, conceding the Nyaaya point that there are substantial wholes greater than the sum of their parts, it seems that there is something here that is composed out of sounds (more specifically musical notes) that is not identical with the ether, viz. a song. This song would seem to be a whole (by Nyaaya lights) and a substratum with certain qualities, e.g. number (as in the number of notes composing it) and sound itself (or "sound-objects"). But qualities, including sound, in the Nyaaya world-view lack spatial extension, and so it would seem does the song constituted by them. My guess is, however, that the Nyaaya would regard the spatial extent over which a given song could be heard as the song's spatial extension. But what about a musical composition viewed as an abstract entity, independent of any particular instantiation of it on whatever musical instruments? As such it seems to be an independent entity, a separately identifiable thing, that has many properties or qualities. Yet it lacks spatial extension. But here, I think, the Nyaaya would simply claim that what is being talked about is a universal, and so is really not a substance. You may recall that the classical VaisheShika viewpoint is that numbers are qualities and not substances, and my guess would be that entities that would be called abstract entities in the West would be thought of as being either qualities or universals in Nyaaya-VaisheShika. Omnipervasiveness is a variety of the dimension-quality, one of the five generic- qualties that all substances are held to possess. But an unusual characteristic of the Nyaaya soul is that it is essentially featureless save for its individuator and these five qualities. Those six specific-qualities that were mentioned earlier as characterizing the soul 75

(cognition, etc.) are merely adventitious (aagantuka) and only arise in it when it has contact (saMyoga) with a human body (shariira) via its contact with an inner organ (manas). Souls which exist temporarily in a disembodied state during transmigration possess only the three specific-qualities not perceptible by the inner organ, viz. merit, demerit, and mental- dispositions {saMskaara, bhaavanaa). (Mental-dispositions will be discussed in more detail later, but for now they can be thought of as memories and dispositions of a person to behave in certain ways.) On the view of cosmology that AnnaMbhaTTa favours (TSD 13), the universe is periodically created and destroyed save for the eternal substances. During the interim (avaantara) period of cosmic dissolution (pralaya), i.e. the period before the next cosmic rebirth or creation (sRRiShn), all composite substances are destroyed, and therefore the souls become disembodied. The souls do, however, retain their mental- dispositions - and presumably therefore their merit and demerit - which are carried over into the period of creation (Bhattacharya 1989: 83-84). But even these qualities appear to be non-essential features of the soul as well, for during the final period of cosmic dissolution (mahaapralaya), the souls lose their mental-dispositions (and presumably merit and demerit as well). In fact, the state of the soul during the final cosmic dissolution appears to be indistinguishable from the liberated soul as conceived by Nyaaya. Given the nature of the soul as delineated above, one may wonder why AnnaMbhaTTa has elected to define the soul as the substrate (adhikaraNam) of cognition (j~naana) (TS 17). There are two possible answers to this question. One is that AnnaMbhatta is talking about the embodied human soul, which, in virtue of its embodiment, is capable of cognition. In fact, he classifies the soul (aatman) as being of one of two types: the Supreme Soul (paramaatman) and the 'finite soul' (Bhattacharya's translation of jivaatman, a Sanskrit term which implies embodiment). The other possibility is simpler: by saying that the soul is the substrate of cognition, AnnaMbhaTTa means to imply that only the soul lacks an absolute absence of cognition, a feature even of disembodied souls. So both the Supreme Soul and the finite soul share the capacity for cognition/consciousness. But whereas cognition in the finite soul is transitory, it is eternal in the Supreme Soul. The Supreme Soul in Nyaaya ontology, of course, is God (Iishvara). 76

In addition to cognition, the only other qualities that the divine Soul possesses (other than the generic qualities that all substances share) are desire and volition/effort, qualities that are shared by all embodied human souls. A question arises as to whether the body is a necessary condition for the existence in the soul of such psychological qualities as desire and volition. In the context of discussing the existence of God, Shriidhara says the body is not a necessary condition and that, moreover, such psychological qualities, just like colour45, can be eternal (NK p. 56 (40), Jhaa: 125). This seems to only apply to the case of God, however. In the case of humans, even though the soul is all-pervading, it is only when it is confined within the body that it takes on the character of "cognizer" (NK p. 63 (41), Jhaa 1915: 140). Indeed, the very purpose of the body, according to Shriidhara, is to serve as a provider of experiences for the soul (ibid.). Given that, for the Nyaaya, soul-body contact is a necessary condition for cognition, etc. in humans, it is a wonder that God is regarded as conscious at all, let alone eternally so, given that He is a maximally extended, but disembodied, soul. Not only does God have cognitions, He is omniscient. But this omniscience appears to be achieved without any instrumentality, unlike knowledge acquisition in human souls which crucially depends on the sense organs and the inner organ serving as the instruments of such acquisition. Even the most powerful yogis are dependent on their inner organ for their super-cognitive powers. The notion that the inner organ and the sense-organs are instruments (while the soul/self is their operator) plays an important role in Nyaaya-VaisheShika arguments for the existence of a soul/self that exists as an entity distinct from these organs. But if God can function as a cognizer without such instrumentality, the Nyaaya point of view would seem inconsistent, and one has to wonder how compelling arguments from instrumentality are. In any event, for purposes of this study the anomalous nature of God's cognition in Nyaaya can be ignored. Suffice it to say that the qualities of the soul that are of most interest to the concerns of this study occur within the finite spatial intersection of the infinitely extended human soul with a particular body, and do so in virtue of soul-body contact. This contact or conjunction of the soul with the body (shariira) gives rise to

45 Shriidhara must have the colour of non-terrene atoms in mind here. cognition etc. TSD considers the body (or the organism in general) to be the abode (aayatana) of pleasure/pain experiences (bhoga) for the soul (TSD 10 II—B). The body is said to be the "limiter" (avachChedaka) of the soul with respect to its affective and cognitive and volitional experiences (Bhattachaiya 1989: 52). A part of the body (such as a limb), may also function as a limiter of the soul with respect to affective experience, as when, for example, a pain is felt in the arm only. It has already been seen that a limited portion of the ether constitutes the auditory-organ. In a similar fashion, it is the portion of the self limited by a person's heart that serves as the "knowing organ", according to Potter (1977: 98). Presumably, it is only in this limited area that a person's cognition-qualities are to be located. To be more accurate, it is not the direct contact between the soul and body which serves as the non-inherence cause of cognition, etc., but rather the contact between the soul and the inner organ when the latter is in direct contact with the body's sense organs, in the case of perceptual cognitions, or the direct contact between the soul and the inner organ, in the case of "inner state" cognitions. The soul, being omnipervasive, is of course in contact with the sense organs and the internal organ all the time, but only when the internal organ is in contact with the sensory organs will perceptual cognitions occur. Similarly, the soul is only aware of its own inner states (cognition, etc.) when it is in contact with the inner organ. There are some conceptual problems that arise with the foregoing scenario which will be looked at shortly, but first the nature of the internal organ will be looked at in more depth.

3.2 The Inner Organ (Manas)

It has already been stated that the inner organ is generally considered to be of atomic dimension and that its chief functions are to act as an inter-sensory switching device, conveying sensory information to the soul one "datum" at a time, and to serve as the instrament by which the soul has 'apprehension' or 'direct awareness' (upalabdhi) of its own psychological qualities. AnnaMbhaTTa gives the absence of tangibility (sparsha) and 78 the possession of action as the defining characteristic (lakShaNa) of manas (TSD 18). The inner organ possesses all those qualities held in common by the four material physical elements with the exception of tangibility, i. e. number etc., distance, nearness, and impulse (BP 34). Notice that manas is the only "material" (finite-dimensional) substance which lacks tangibility. Strangely, even though it is intangible, its corporeality (finite size) leads Sriihdahra to liken manas to a stone (NK p. 73 (44), Jhaa 1915: 161). Shriidhara give us a reason for the lack of the possession of touch by the inner organ: if, like the atoms, manas possessed touch, it would form "products homogenous with itself", but we know, empirically, that it has not produced any such "touch products" (NK p. 46 (39), Jhaa 1915: 105) and, therefore, could not possess touch46. 'Products' refers to composite substances produced via aggregation of atomic-sized substances. So Sriidhara is making the claim that, owing to lacking tangibility, inner organs cannot aggregate to form composite objects. It is not clear to me why Sriidhara makes this claim, but I think it can be construed as an argument for thinking of tangibility as impenetrability or resistance of an object to having its space occupied - perhaps the view is that such resistance allows a substance to aggregate with others which also possess it, instead of occuping each other's space. Shriidhara gives another, more cryptic, but seemingly interesting reason as to why the inner organ lacks tangibility: "The absence of touch in the Mind [manas] is proved from the fact of its being, like the Self, something different from the Body, and yet being productive of the cognitions of all things" (NK p. 93 (45), trans. Jhaa 1915: 207). It is difficult to see what Shriidhara means by this other than that he is claiming some radical ontological difference between the inner organ and the body. After all, there are lots of ordinary substances that are "different from the body". Nor is it clear why the lack of tangibility would be related to the capacity of the inner organ to produce cognitions in the soul. It almost seems as if something akin to the Cartesian mind-body interaction problem is implicitly acknowledged: (the Nyaaya could be saying) in order to cause cognitions in

46 A related claim is made by Sha~Nkaramishra: "being touchless, they [inner organs] cannot originate" (US 7.1.23). 'Originate' refers to the production of a composite or aggregate substance. Notice, however, that Shriidhara is using the lack of monos-aggregates as evidence for the inner organ being touchless, whereas Sha~Nkaramishra is assuming it outright. the intangible soul, the inner organ itself has to been intangible as well. This notion seems unlikely, however, given that Nyaaya believes that soul directly acts on tangible matter. An important characteristic that the inner organ shares with the physical elements is the capacity for action (kriyaa) (PDS p. 21 (23), Jhaa 1915: 52), a notion which Udayana in his Kiranaavalii, glosses as motion (spanda) (Jhaa 1915: 53n). In order for perception to be possible as the Naiyaayikas conceive of it, the inner organ needs to be mobile - the inner organ has to move to a sense organ in order to make contact (saMyoga) with it. The inner organ, as has been remarked earlier, is, like the ether, something of a "hybrid" substance in that it straddles the boundaries between the physical elements and the incorporeal substances. Whereas the ether is a "physical" element (in that it has a perceptible quality that is specific to it) that is "immaterial" (in that it has unlimited dimension) - all of the other elements being material - the inner organ is not a physical element even though material (by the dimensionality criterion). What is remarkable about the inner ogran, compared to "regular" material objects like atoms and the composite substances formed from them, is its possession of the quality of impulse (vega) with a concomitant absence of tangibility. The non-omnipresence of the inner organ and, indeed, its atomic dimension, is argued for (US 3.2.1). One of the arguments is that, if the inner organ were universal, it would be in contact with all of the senses simultaneously, resulting in a single cognition that comprehended the information from the all the sensory modalities at once, a notion that Nyaaya is at pains to deny. Nyaaya rejects this notion on empirical grounds: as a matter of fact, one happens to be conscious of only one external or internal state at a time. The inner organ is viewed as mobile, moving hither and thither from one sense organ to the next, at the discretion of the soul. In fact, it is the non-simultaneity of cognition that leads Nyaaya to the belief that the inner organ possesses a minimum of divisibility, which is just to say it is of atomic dimension. The underlying idea with this claim seems to be that if manas were divisible, then one of these parts could take input from from one of the senses while, at the same time, its other part(s) could receive input from the other sense(s). Notice that, on this account, it is a perceived "deficiency" in the inner organ, and not the soul, that results in the 80 soul's inability to cognize all sensory input simultaneously47. Another, related, argument adduced by Nyaaya in favour of a finite-sized inner organ is that we observe the "local" character of our inner states, e.g. "pain in my head", etc. The underlying idea with this claim seems to be that if manas were universal it would be in contact with everyone else's bodies, and therefore a single self would experience everyone else's inner states. However, this claim seems to raise a problem. Even assuming the inner organ to be finite-dimensional and operating only in the confines of a given body, what prevents the soul, which is omnipresent, from being in contact with everyone else's inner organ, and therefore being conscious of others' internal states and external perceptions? This problem will be examined later. A final argument alluded to by Sha~Nkaramishra against manas being omnipervasive rests on the putative incoherency of the notion of contact existing between two omnipervasive substances. This argument is given by AnnaMbhaTTa and essentially says that, if manas were omnipervasive, the phenomenon of cognition would not emerge (TSD 18). The argument may be reconstructed as follows48.

PI) Cognition is a positive effect which has contact (saMyoga) between the soul and the internal organ as its non-inherence cause. P2) Contact between two omnipervasive substances is impossible. P3) The soul is omnipervasive. CI) Therefore, the internal organ is not omnipervasive.

The first premise is based on the Nyaaya-VaisheShika notion that every positive effect (bhaava-kaarya) - every real, actually existing effect - has a non-inherence cause (asamavaayikaaraNa). Arguments for the third premise have already been presented. As far as the second premise goes, it has already been seen that the impossibility of contact between two ubiquitous substances is considered to be a logical constraint by the VaisheShikas. However, the intuitive notion of contact would seem to admit of some

47 Ganeri (2001: 23), speaking on behalf of the Nyaaya, has claimed that the deficiency rests with the soul, but he must have sources other than the Upaskaara in mind as a basis for this claim. 48 This reconstruction is based on the commentary of Bhattacharya (1989:106-107). 81 flexibility with respect to its meaning, as the MiimaaMsakas, for instance, thought that such contact was possible (Athalye 1988:147). Even the Naiyaayikas, apparently, thought this. Their argument seems to have been that since the ubiquitous substances have contact with the limited substances, they would indirectly possess mutual combination (ajasaMyoga) with one another (Mishra 1936: 48)49. So it is not surprising that AnnaMbhatta, after giving the above "absence of cognition argument", assumes (for argument's sake) that contact between two omnipervasive substances is possible. He then produces another argument against this notion which essentially says that, if an omnipervasive internal organ were in contact with the (omnipervasive) soul, then there would exist an absence of dreamless sleep (TSD 18). This argument in particular opens up a few problems relevant to this study, so it will now be discussed in some detail. Consider the following argument. If the soul and the inner organ were both omnipervasive and in contact with one another, they would be eternally in contact with one another. This is because, being partless substances, they are ipso facto eternal; being omnipervasive, they are ipso facto immobile - they would never be able to disjoin from one another. However, cognition/consciousness arises from the contact between the soul and manas. Since this contact would be continuous and eternal, a person's consciousness would be continuous and eternal. There would therefore be no such thing as dreamless sleep, as during the dreamless sleep of a person their consciousness is presumed not to exist - there is no cognition, not even "dream-cognition"50 But we know that the phenomenon of dreamless sleep is a real one, so the Naiyaayikas reject the premise of the ubiquity of the internal organ. As it stands, there is one glaring problem with the above argument in favour of an atomic manas. (As pointed out earlier, since omnipervasiveness of the inner organ is ruled out we can conclude that it must be atomic in size rather than "middle-sized" because of the accepted fact that it is eternal.) Even when the inner organ is conceived of as atomic-

49 Mishra cites NK, p. 150, for support of this contention. However, it is not explicitly attributed to the Naiyaayikas there. Mishra also cites tyomavatii, p. 494. 50 During ordinary waking life much of cognition/consciousness will arise from sense organ-manas-soul contact. During sleep when one is dreaming the sense-organs would typically be disjoint from the inner organ (but see below), but the inner organ would still be in contact with the soul to present "dream material" to the soul, one of the sources of which are memory-traces (saMskaaras) latent in the soul itself (PDM/NK p. 183-185 (97), Jhaa 1915: 386-390). 82 dimensional, it should still be in continuous, permanent contact with the soul, given that the soul is omnipervasive. However, the "absence of dreamless sleep" argument as delineated above is not quite AnnaMbhatta's argument. His argument invokes the existence of an anatomical structure referred to as the puriitat, generally considered to be the pericardium or one of the large blood vessels attached to the heart. AnnaMbhaTTa states that if it is atomic, manas is able to enter the cavity of the puriitat (the puriitat-naaDii), thus ensuring it is no longer in contact with anything outside of the cavity. When this condition is achieved, according to AnnaMbhaTTa, dreamless sleep arises. When the internal organ comes out of the puriitat, cognition/consciousness reemerges. However, this account does not seem to solve the contact problem: surely the soul, being omnipervasive, extends into the cavity of the puriitat as well, in which case continuous, perpetual contact between it and manas, and therefore eternal consciousness, obtains. There are two possible ways out of this dilemma, whilst remaining faithful to AnnaMbhaTTa's argument. According to Bhattacharya (1989:108-109), AnnaMbhaTTa is really positing a special sort of contact between manas and the soul when it is inside the puriitat which disallows the emergence of consciousness. However, other interpreters (e. g. Athalye) do not recognize this interpretation. Certainly, at least, one has to read in between the lines of TSD to find it51. The problem with this solution, if it is indeed what AnnaMbhaTTA had in mind, is that he has not specified in what sense that this contact relation differs from the "ordinary" saMyoga that obtains between the soul and the inner organ. Another possible implicit solution of the contact problem would be to assume that, like the ether, the soul does not quite permeate all of space but merely surrounds the pericardial cavities of persons everywhere. Such a notion, while no less ad hoc than the former one, seems even more radical - as far as I know no one has seriously entertained it as a solution. Yet another solution to the contact problem, but one that does not follow AnnaMbhaTTa, is that which, according to Bhattacharya (1989: 109), is given by

51 In fact, the notion of a special type of contact between the self and inner organ when it has "retired" into the puriitat, seems to be how Prashastapaada characterizes "sleep": he says it is "the name of a particular state of contact of the self with the mind [manas]" (PDS p. 183 (97), Jhaa's translation, Jhaa 1915: 386). But it is not entirely clear whether Prashastapaada has just dream-sleep in mind, or sleep in general, which might then be taken to account for dreamless sleep. 83

Vishvanaatha in SM. This solution admits of constant, never-ending ordinary contact (saMyoga) between manas and the soul, but insists on an extra necessary condition that has to obtain in order for consciousness to arise. This extra condition is that manas has to make contact with tvak, the sense-organ of touch (sparsha). Tvak is sometimes translated as "skin", but in Nyaaya it is not synonymous with the outer integument that covers the human body, but rather with the touch-organ located there. In fact, the touch-organ is believed to pervade nearly the entire body. But it is believed that it does not pervade the puriitat and, therefore, atomic manas is able to retreat there, disjoining itself from the touch-organ and thereby creating a lapse of consciousness/cognition. It seems to me that this solution has little more to recommend it over the other two proffered here. As well as seeming rather ad hoc and ill-motivated, it seems to suggest that in order for, say, a visual cognitive perception to occur, atomic manas has to be simultaneously in touch with both the touch-organ and the visual-organ. If such is the case, then how can the Nyaaya claim that people are not conscious of visual and tactile sense-data simultaneously, a possibility that Nyaaya wants to deny. Moreover, on Vishvanaatha's theory, it would seem that even during dream-sleep it should always be possible to cognize tactile data, just as during dreamless sleep it is never possible. But these points are debatable. Yashwant Vasudev Athalye asserts that both AnnaMbhaTTa's and Vishvanaatha's accounts of dreamless sleep are not correct and that this phenomenon can be "sufficiently accounted for" simply by the disjoining of the internal organ from the external sense organs even though the former remains in perpetual contact with the soul (Athalye 1988:148). But he in no way elaborates on this claim. It seems he must think that the sense-organs are involved in dreaming. To be sure, Prashastapaada in a seemingly equivocal verse, says that dream-cognitions arise through the sense-organs even though the latter are no longer operative and the inner organ has "retired" (PDS p. 183 (97), Jhaa 1915: 386). Shriidhara elucidates "retired" as the disjoining of the the inner organ from the sense organs, and implies that this happens when dreaming occurs, so it is hard to see how Athalye could be right. Surely the problem that both AnnaMbhaTTa and Vishvanaatha sought to avoid was the continuous apprehension of the soul's internal states that would result from continuous soul-manas contact in order to make way for the possibility of the totally unconscious state 84 that is presumed to exist during dreamless sleep. A possible solution to this problem would be if the soul could disengage manas from those parts of itself that actually provide the "material" (saMskaaras or psychological dispositions, including memory traces, which I am presuming here are non-locus-pervading ) for introspection or dreaming. After all, the internal organ is of atomic dimension and mobile and the soul regularly shunts it from one sense organ to the next, so if certain memory-traces or other psychological dispositions needed for dreaming do not pervade the soul, it should be possible for the soul to keep manas disjoined from them to some degree. So in the case that the inner organ is not in contact with any of the external sense organs, and only in contact with parts of the soul devoid of psychological qualities, the soul should be unconscious. In fact, the whole notion of unconsciousness for the embodied soul seems problematic. Nyaaya holds that the inner organ is under the control of the self (NS 3.2.38). This claim seems to entail (at least by Nyaaya lights) that the self is a conscious agent when it controls a permanently non-conscious manas, which it does through its own "effort" (NSB 3.2,38). One may wonder, then, when the soul is unconscious, how it is that it is able to compel the inner organ to come out of the puriitat. The mechanism must be an unconscious one. But if that is the case then it does not make sense to attribute agency to the soul when it is in this state. Perhaps this case is no different from the apparently unconscious control that the soul has over our involuntary breathing that some texts (e. g. Nyaaykandalii) would claim. From the alleged non-simultaneity of cognitions, as well as the similar claim by Nyaaya that volitions (prayatnas) are non-simultaneous, Nyaaya infers that there is one inner organ per organism (VS 3.2.3). If there were more than one, they think there would be at least some simultaneous cognitions or volitions. It has already been pointed out that the mobility of a minute manas can account for the non-simultaneity of cognitions. But the mobility of the inner organ appears to be important in another way. We know that a given human body (shariira) must eventually die, while the soul and the inner organ associated with that body are eternal. The unliberated soul, following the strictures of a/dharmic karma (or adRRiShta), must 85 associate itself with another newly born body after the body it currently is inhabiting dies, via its very own inner organ. The inner organ moves away from the dead body and into another body "through the agency of the unseen potency [adRRiShta] of the soul's actions" (NK p. 93 (45), trans. Jhaa 1915: 207). The inner organ is said to enter a new human body when that body is in the "embryonic stage" (NK p. 33 (36), Jhaa 1915: 78). Given the atomic dimension of the inner organ, Vishvanaatha concludes that it cannot itself be the seat of the inner states because it would mean that the inner states themselves would be imperceptible (SM 49)! This argument is, I think, significant because it shows to what great a degree that Nyaaya holds internal perception to be analogous to sense-perception. There is, however, a very interesting way in which internal perception is disanalogous to sense perception. The internal organ, qua instrument, is not entirely analogous to a sense-organ qua instrument. One of the principles of external perception in Nyaaya is that the sense-organs themselves are made out of the same sort of material as the object being sensed. So the sense-organ that perceives the odour of earth is itself composed of earth, etc. But manas, as organ for perceiving the soul's internal states, is (presumably) not itself composed out of "soul-stuff". This digression on the inner organ can be concluded by re-stating two prominent claims in causal terms. First, it is the conjunction of the inner organ with the self that serves as the non-inherent cause of cognition, etc. (SM 85). And second, cognition, etc. have the soul as their inherent cause - the soul is their substrate, not the inner organ. I would now like to look at some general characteristics of the soul's specific-qualities.

3.3 A Closer Look at the Soul's Qualities

Like the specific-quality of the ether (sound) and unlike the specific-qualities of the other physical elements, cognition, etc. are regarded as momentary and non-locus- pervading, existing only over certain parts of their substrates (PDS p. 25 (31), Jhaa 1915: 59). "Momentary" here has its usual Nyaaya technical meaning, referring to enduring for only a single moment (NK p. 25 (31), Jhaa 1915: 60), where moment (kShaiVa) is the 86 smallest possible "imposed property" of time52. However, while Prashastapaada says that the perceptible specific-qualities of the soul and the ether last only one moment (PDS p. 25 (31), Jhaa 1915 59), Vishvanaatha indicates that they really last two moments (SM 27). A given specific-quality of the soul may give rise, after lasting a moment, to another specific- quality inhering in the soul. This second quality will destroy the first quality, but only in the next (third) moment. Therefore, a given perceptible specific-quality of the soul is said to last for a couple of moments only, as it is destroyed at the third moment. Even qualities like merit, demerit, and mental-dispositions cannot be coeval with their substrate (PDS p. 70 (44), Jhaa 1915: 154). Udayana, however, is a dissenting voice with respect to cognition, etc. being qualities of incomplete occurrence. According to Potter, Udayana seems to think cognition, etc. are locus-pervading on the grounds that, if they were not, the soul could not be impartite (Potter 1977: 126-127). However, this reason does not appear to be very convincing: it was already remarked that, in the case of the ether, a certain region of it, when bounded by a person's tympanic cavity, revealed a sound that was non-locus- pervading. Analogously, a person's body can be seen as limiting a region of an omnipervasive soul, and that is where cognition, etc. may be found. In either case, I think one could argue that there is no "objective" part of either the ether or the soul involved - the part existing only "in imagination", i.e. a mental abstraction or projection. Not only do cognition, etc. not pervade the soul, but nor, apparently, do they even pervade the body itself. In fact, one of the reasons marshaled against the notion that these inner states might belong to (inhere in) the body is that the body's specific qualities are all locus-pervading (NK p. 85 (44), Jhaa 1915:188). For instance, pain will only be felt in a localized region of the body, such as the foot. Of course, if the entire body of the person catches on fire, the person will experience pain all over the body, so supposedly the Nyaaya point is that the body's qualities, unlike pain and the other inner states, are necessarily locus-pervading. But is this really true? For one thing, the body is a composite substance, so how can we speak of its specific (visheSha) qualities? Certainly the body is essentially composed of the earth element and therefore possesses the specific-quality of odour. But

52 See footnote 31. 87

there will be regions of the body where earth atoms, and therefore odour, are absent. Or consider colour. Colour may vary over the extent of the body. While it may be true that colour, the universal, pervades the body, the same colour-quality (a property-particular) does not53. The statement that "inner" states like pain are to be located in a specific region of the body is an interesting one. A soul-specific quality being literally localizable within the body is considered indicative of the soul's spatial extension. It would be interesting to know how the Nyaaya would deal with the phenomenon of phantom limb pain. Descartes seems to have inferred from such pains that they showed that the apparent localizability of pain was an illusion, and that if the immediate cause of the pain, if not the pain itself, was to be located anywhere, it would be located in the brain (AT 420/CSMK S4)54. In fact, the existence of phantom limb pain could be taken as an argument to suggest that, if the apparent spatial location of pain is an illusion, it might not have any spatial location at all, and therefore the mind (or soul), as possessor of pain, lacks spatiality. Alternatively, one could infer that the phantom pain really does exist in the place where it appears - it appears in a spatially extended soul that in fact extends beyond the body where the phantom limb is "located". But it does not appear that the Nyaaya could have recourse to this latter view because, in accordance with their ontology, pain could only arise where the body has contact with the soul, a contact which is absent in the case of phantom limbs. The specific-qualites of the soul will now be treated in some depth. It was briefly mentioned earlier that, in addition to the "generic" qualities of number, etc., and those six specific-qualities beginning with cognition, the Nyaaya soul or self possesses mental- dispositions (bhaavanaa, a type of saMskaara), merit (dharma) and demerit (adharma) (PDS p. 69 (44), Jhaa 1915:154; BP 32-33). Though these qualities are no less specific-

53 Colour may not be the best example to illustrate the point I am making. The early Naiyaayika view (and the one presented by AnnaMbhaTTa, who lived long after the New Logic [Navya-Nyaaya] originated) is that a substance that consists of many colours, when regarded as a whole, possesses a single colour called "variegated colour" (citra-rupa). Navya-Nyaaya abandoned the notion that there was such a colour. But unless the body is thought of as strictly the portion of the organism composed of earth atoms I do not think that odour can be regarded as truly pervading the entire body. The touch organ consists of air and is present throughout much of the body, and "fire" (tejas) is found in the digestive system. One has to wonder how appropriate it would be to apply 'body' to just the earth component of the organism. 54 See footnote 67 for an explanation of the citation abbreviations. 88 qualities of the soul than the six beginning with cognition (BP 91), they are not considered perceptible in the way that cognition, etc. are. Cognition, etc. are perceived via the inner organ, whereas mental-dispositions, merit and demerit are said to be 'transcendent' (atiindriya), meaning that they are "trans-sensuous", i. e. they are not capable of being perceived, at least by ordinary (laulika) sense-perceptionS5. 'Disposition' generally translates saMskaara. Whatever the precise denotation of saMskaara in Buddhist philosophy, where it is encountered quite frequently and often translated as "impression" or "trace", in Nyaaya it is a psychological concept that refers to a mental predisposition or disposition that is typically associated with memory (smRRiti). Although Prashastapaada uses saMskaara for this very same disposition-related-to-memory concept, that word is perhaps better used here in its broader sense (see section 2.29 of Ch. 2 ), reserving the word bhaavanaa for the psychological disposition, as does, for instance, BP. Bhaavanaa, or saMskaara when it is clear from context that it is being used in the psychological sense, will be translated here as 'mental-disposition'. 'Merit' and 'demerit' are often used to translate dharma and adharma, respectively, as used in the Nyaaya ontological scheme; alternatively, 'virtue' and 'vice' are employed. Dharma and adharma are used similarly to the way 'good karma' and 'bad karma' are typically used in Western culture, viz. as qualities that accumulate in virtue of a person engaging in virtuous or non-virtuous activity, respectively. Of course, as has already been seen, karma in classical Indian thought often just refers to action simpliciter. Persons who are not liberated have attachment to pleasure and aversion to pain. These states set up a series of actions by which the person seeks to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. It is these actions (karma) that cause dharma and adharma (NK p. 89 (44), Jhaa 1915: 197)56. It is the action or behavior of the body of a person that "earns" merit or demerit, as the case may be, and these qualities inhere in the soul of that person, producing "traces" (saMskaaras) there which are responsible for the soul's eventual transmigration (Potter 1977: 130). A word needs to be said about adRRiShTa, a concept which is intimately related to a/dharma. AdRRiShTa is often translated as 'unseen force' or 'invisible force' or even

55 Gravity or weight is a "physical" quality that is said to be trans-sensuous. 56 The text of NK cited here is based on a statement from a hypothetical Buddhist opponent but it is implicitly accepted by Nyaaya. 'destiny', but I have thought it best to leave it untranslated. As mentioned earlier, Matilal refers to adRRiShTa as the 'karma-mechanism'. Although in some of the early classical texts adRRiShTa is sometimes talked about as though it were a separate, independent force that permeates the universe, there is no need to view it as such. It is the sense-transcendent merits and demerits of the souls that populate the universe that drive most of the action in the universe, and it is these qualities of the soul that can be viewed as adRRiShTa, which Shriidhara explicitly states inheres in the self (NK p. 88 (44), Jhaa 1915:196). For this reason adRRiShTa is often used interchangeably with a/dharma in the literature (e.g. BP 91 ). The merits and demerits accumulate in souls as saMskaaras that survive the destruction of the body and drive the next transmigration. It is the diversity of dharma and adharma (as qualities of souls) which is viewed as bringing about the diversity of living bodies in the world (NK p. 87 (44), Jhaa 1915:193). A/dharma diversity accounts for the diversity of pleasure and suffering experienced by different persons. According to Shriidhara, any action that is not caused by gravity (weight), fluidity, or impetus, must be regarded as being produced by some specific-quality of the soul (NK p. 88 (44), Jhaa 1915: 196). For instance, the action of the hand is produced by volition (prayatna). But some seemingly unrelated physical phenomena, like the upward "flaming" of fire and the horizontal blowing of air, are said by Shriidhara to fall into this category. One gathers from the context of the discussion that they are the result of the AdRRiShTa. The non-perceptible specific-qualities of the soul, though far more enduring than cognition, etc. - typically they survive the soul's transmigration to another body - are nevertheless non-eternal and, as explained earlier, will not survive mahaapralaya if they have survived to that time. While the perceptible qualities of the soul are generally conceded to be non-locus-pervading (Udayana notwithstanding), what about the status of non-perceptible specific-qualities? A body is required to produce them but they also survive in the disembodied soul. I am unaware of any textual evidence that is decisive on the issue of the pervasiveness of the soul's sense-transcendent qualities. An in-depth discussion of the soul's perceptible qualities, particularly cognition, will now follow. 'Cognition' translates the Sanskrit term j~naana. Other English words employed to translate j~naana are 'consciousness', 'awareness', and 'judgement'. There are a 90 few other Sanskrit words that are, from the Nyaaya point of view, regarded as more or less synonymous with j~naana: buddhi, upalabdhi, and pratyaya (PDS p. 171 (91), Jha 1915: 363). The sorts of the things that the Nyaaya include under the 'cognition' rubric are knowing, inferring, guessing, wondering, doubting, remembering, dreaming, and perceiving (Matilal 1968: 8). Under this scheme, perception is a proper subset of cognition. When the healthy, functioning eye of a person is in contact with a fragrant object at the same time that that person's nose is, according to the Nyaaya only one of the sense objects (colour or odour) will be perceived (cognized) at the same time (NK p. 90 (45), Jhaa 1915: 200). This putative fact reveals that consciousness or awareness of the object is involved in cognition. According to Matilal, a j~naana "can very well be viewed as an event in the sense that a particular tone or sound can be thought of as a physical event" (Matilal 1968: 7). He goes on to say that a j~naana is a momentaiy event, just like a tone or sound. The problem with Matilal's characterization, however, is that he glosses "event" (in this context) as "something having a temporal coordinate but no spatial coordinate" (ibid. 7 n5). The claim that cognition-particulars have no spatial coordinates is at odds with Kisor Chakrabarti's claim that the specific-qualities of the self - what he, and I, have been referring to as the self's "inner (or internal) states" - are locatable in both time and space (K. Chakrabarti 1999: 22). If Matilal were right about this lack of spatiality, then the Nyaaya self would seem to be not essentially different form the Cartesian one57. However, given that that the Nyaaya self has spatial extension and its specific qualities/inner states are produced as a result of its contacts with the internal organ (within the confines of the body), it is difficult to see how Chakrabarti could be wrong. Perhaps what Matilal is really driving at here is that cognitions cannot be assigned specific spatial coordinates, while not necessarily denying that they are spatially localizable - this would appear to be an epistemic, as opposed to an ontic, constraint. Matilal also considers the possibility of characterizing a cognition as an act. He affirms this possibility provided that the cognition is always directed toward something.

57 I am assuming here, as many have, that the Cartesian soul does not exist in space. But it is not really clear that the Cartesian soul is nonspatial and I discuss this issue in Ch. 4. 91

What Matilal has in mind here is very similar to, if not identical with, what Western philosophers have referred to as intentionality: he says that cognitions are always of, or about, something, that something being deemed the "object or objects" or content (viShayataa) of such cognitions - they always refer to some object beyond themselves (ibid.: 7). Indeed,this "object-directedness" (sa-viShayakatva) is the distinctive character of a cognition and is the very means by which cognitions can be individuated - different cognitions refer to different objects. The Sanskrit notion of an act (or action, kriyaa) needs to be looked at more closely. Consider the stock example of a person who cuts down a tree with an axe. According to Matilal (1968: 7 n7), the classical Sanskrit grammarians thought that an action was the meaning of any verbal root, a view which the Nyaiyaaykas opposed. Matilal (ibid.: 7) says that Nyaaya applies the term kriyaa only to physical movement. He points out that Jayanta58 argued that cognition is of the nature of a product (phala-svabhaava) as opposed to being of the nature of an act (kriyaa-svabhaava). So in our tree-cutting example, which is clearly a case of physical action, the action is the cutting. Yet the product is the felling of the tree. However, Shriidhara, writing well after Prashastapaada, but before the advent of Navya-Nyaaya, considered cognition to be an action just like cutting down a tree (NK p. 71 (44), Jhaa 1915: 155-156). In English, "cognition" is a noun used both to refer to the act or process of cognizing, and to the product or consequence of that process. So it seems that the same ambiguity exists in Sanskrit and this should be born in mind in what follows. (The tree-cutter example is illustrative of two other important concepts involved in Nyaaya views of cognition. One of these is the notion of the agent (kartRRi), the subject that carries out the action. In the example, it is the person wielding the axe that is the agent. In a cognition, it is the self/soul that is considered the agent. The other notion is that of an instrument, represented by the axe. The inner organ (manas) is an instrument of cognition when inner states are being scrutinized, and the external sense organs are instruments of cognition when external perceptions are scrutinized.) Another seemingly peculiar claim that Matilal makes regarding cognition, one that may be related to the above-mentioned nonspatiality claim, is that a cognition "cannot be

58 In his Nyaayaman~jarii, p. 20. said to be a modification of anything in the sense that a pot is taken as the modification of a lump of clay" (Matilal 1968: 7). Now if all he means by this is that a cognition, because it is a quality and not a substance, cannot be analogized to a pot, then his claim is unproblematic. However, Matilal may want to deny that the soul's specific-qualities cannot be viewed as modifications of the soul, when the latter is regarded as the underlying substance (dravya) serving as a substratum (adhikaraNa) for these qualities. It seems natural to view the change in colour that a lump of clay undergoes in "cooking" (or "baking", paaka) as the modification of the clay substance. The crucial question is whether this is an accurate view of what is going on in such cooking and whether or not it is analogous to changes in the soul's qualities. Matilal's claim may be based on such textual evidence as found in Nyaayakandalii, which, in answering an objection to pleasure and pain being qualities of the soul because they are "modifications" (vikaaras) and therefore could not be properties of the soul because eternal objects cannot undergo such modifications, says that the production and destruction of pleasure and pain does not affect the "form" (sva-ruupa)59 of the soul (NK p. 85 (44), Jhaa 1915: 189). Notice that in the pot- as-modified-lump-of-clay example, the initial "form" of the clay is transformed. However, if only the colour of the lump of clay were changed, presumably a Naiyaayika would not want to say that the form of the pot had changed. So I think we are on safe ground in asserting that cognitions can be regarded as modifications of the soul, albeit ones that do not change the soul's "form". One more claim that Matilal makes needs to be addressed. He says that a cognition "can be called a 'mental state' in the sense that what the Naiyaayikas call mind (manas) is a necessary factor (actually the instrument) in the production of a j~naana" (Matilal 1968: 7). The problem with this and similar claims, as has been pointed out earlier, is that English plays a metalinguistic role here and 'mental', even though it is cognate with manas, refers to something (in English) that is a lot more like the Nyaaya soul or self (aatman) than the inner organ. Recall that the inner organ is of atomic dimension, mobile, and, though intangible, possesses impetus. There is also an absolute absence of consciousness in it. Now recall Descartes' "I think, therefore I am". Here Descartes attributes thought - nearly

59 The word sva-ruupa can mean something like 'essence'. 93 synonymous with the Nyaaya conception of j~naana - to his self, which he practically equates with his consciousness. For Descartes, thought was the essence of mental substance, a substance which he also referred to as "mind", and sometimes as "soul". Contemporary Western accounts of the mental continue to refer to consciousness and cognition as quintessentially mental phenomena whether or not they reduce the mental to the physical. For all these reasons it should be clear that the equation of 'mental' and manas ought to be avoided. The fundamental division of cognitions, according to AnaMbhaTTa, is between memory-cognitions (smRRitti) and the rest, known by their Sanskrit term as anubhava (TS 34). Anubhava is perhaps best left untranslated - it contains a motley assortment of types, including perception and inference. Memory is defined as a cognition that arises from 'traces' (saMskaaras) alone (TS 35). AnaMbhaTTa explicitly refers to the traces as being bhaavanaas, or what I have been calling mental-dispositions. Recall that such mental-traces are themselves unperceived qualities of the soul. They are caused by anubhavas and are the cause of memory- cognitions (TS 80). The 'alone' qualification in the definition of memory is important because recognitive perception (pratyabhij~naa) - the perception involved when one recognizes that the object currently perceived is the same one that was perceived in the past - also invokes memory-traces, but is strictly-speaking an anubhava. According to AnnaMbhaTTa the "new thinkers" (naviinaiHf0 think that memory-cognitions may also cause other memory-cognitions, whereas the traditional view is that they can only be caused by anubhavas (TSD 80). The truth or falsehood of a memory is regarded as parasitic on the truth or falsehood of the anubhava that caused it (TD 74). Anubhavas themselves are further divided into two types: veridical (yathaartha) anubhavas, referred to as pramaa, and non-veridical (a-yathaarta) anubhavas (TS 36), which may be called a-pramaa. Nyaaya gives rather technical definitions of these two types that I will not bother to give here. Suffice it to say that the true anubhavas have as their (intentional) objects, objects or state-of-affairs that actually obtain (as cognized),

60 It am not sure whom AnnaMbhaTTa is referring to here, but Ganeri (2011:150) says that naviina was applied to Raghunaatha's "new reason" movement. 94 whereas the non-true anubhavas do not. Pramaa may in turn be classified according to the means by which the cognition is acquired: perception (pratyakSha), inference (anumiti), analogy or comparison (upamiti), and (verbal) testimony (shaabda). Here again we have something of an ambiguity with these four terms with respect to their status as cognitive state versus the means by which that state is achieved. But this ambiguity does not exist in the Sanskrit61 except in the case of perception, where pratyakSha can mean either the cognitive state, or the means by which that state is achieved. Anumaana, upamaana, and shabda are the means by which anumitti, upamiti, and shabda, respectively, are achieved. In fact the members of the former group are viewed as (what I referred to earlier as) the special, uncommon causes (asadhaarana karaNas) of the items in the latter group (TS 39). These means of acquiring true cognitive states are sometimes referred to as the 'accredited means of knowledge' or pramaaNas. Perception is one of the anubhavas that has received a lot of attention by the Nyaaya and I would now like to look at it in more detail. Qualities associated with the senses - colour, sound, odour, taste, and touch - have in the West traditionally been considered to be "secondary" qualities, qualities that exist only in the mind and have no external, mind- independent existence. But according to Nyaaya, these sensory qualities are not qualities of the soul (NK p. 60 (41), Jhaa 1915: 133-134). They believe that because, for instance, the same sound is accessible to more than one person, for that very reason it has objective, soul-independent existence (ibid.) (and therefore cannot be a quality of the soul). (The reason why they believe that the inner states [cognition, desire etc.] are qualities of the soul is because they hold to the notion of privileged access regarding these states - one person cannot experience another's desire, pain, etc. [ibid.].) So the Naiyaayikas are direct realists - sensory qualities are considered by the Nyaaya to be actual qualities of the physical elements (bhuutas) themselves. So (bright, white) colour is the specific quality of fire, etc. These qualities are referred to in VS as "objects of the senses" (indriyarthas). They are considered to be apprehended by their respective sense-organs (US 3.1.1). Potter and others have remarked that the sense organ is not synonymous with the

61 It would be more accurate to say "need not exist". In fact, sometimes the "means-terms" anumaana and upamaana are used in place of their respective "state-terms" when talking about states (but never vice versa) (Bhattacharya 1989:154). 95 respective physical organ that occurs in the body. Indeed, sometimes it seems as if sense organs are not even corporeal entities, given passages such as this one from the Nyaayakandalii: "it is a universally admitted fact that the sense-organs themselves are imperceptible, being extremely subtile [parama-suukShma] in their character, and only nominally material" (NK p. 41 (38), trans. Jhaa, Jhaa 1915: 93). Jhaa glosses "subtile" (subde, suukShma) as "imperceptible"62. Nevertheless, the commentaries on VS are clear that the sense organs possess a physical nature - each organ is strictly composed of the physical element that possesses the respective specific-quality that the organ apprehends. TS is clear on the nature and location of these organs. The locus of the organ of smell is the tip of the nose (TS 10) and consists of earth "molecules" (PDS p. 28 (36), Jhaa 1915: 66); the locus of the organ of taste is the tip of the tongue and consists of water atoms; the locus of the organ of vision is the centre of the "black of the eye" (kRRiShNataaraa), i.e. the iris, and is composed of fire "molecules"; and the locus of the organ of touch is the "skin" (US 4.2.11) - in a very loose sense of that word, as the touch-organ is regarded as pervading the whole body - and consists of air molecules (NK p. 44 (39), Jhaa 1915: 103). The organ of hearing is conceived to be that portion of the ether which is limited by the physical apparatus of the ear, or (presumably) the tympanic cavity (PDS p. 59 (41), Jhaa 1915:130). That the sense organs are regarded as being part of the body is reflected in passages such as the following: "the Souls depend for their cognitions on the sense-organs obtained in accordance with their previous deeds [karmic law]; and as such before they have obtained the physical body, they could not have cognition of anything" (NK p. 57 (40), Jhaa 1915: 125-126). Perceptual cognition or knowledge (knowledge based on perception) is produced when the soul is in contact with a sense which, in turn, is in contact with an object (VS 3.1.18). As pointed out earlier, however, the soul is not direcdy causally-linked via contact with with any of the senses, as it is the inner organ in contact with the sense organ that is the causal intermediary between the senses and the soul. The inner organ is said to be

62 Although it is not entirely clear to me, I think that the reason that the sense-organs might be regarded as imperceptible is because they consist of just atoms and dyads ("molecules", or dvyanukas), and nothing more complex. It is a peculiar view of the Nyaaya that, no matter how big or dense an aggregate of atoms or dyads becomes, that aggregate will not be perceptible. In order for anything to be perceptible it must consist of one or more triads (tryanukas). 96 directed by the soul to attend to the sense objects (via the sense organs) it would like to attend to (US 3.2 1). However, the soul has the capacity to only attend to one perception at a time (Ganeri 2001: 23), i. e. it is only aware or conscious of one sense-object at a time (or, is only aware of one "inner state" at a time, if it is scrutinizing non-sensory inner states such as pleasure, etc.). I speculate that it might very well be the case that the inner organ is gathering all sorts of sense data and, in virtue of its contact with the soul, these perceptions are accumulating in the soul, but without the soul exhibiting consciousness directed toward most of them. But to put the matter this way, that perceptions might be "accumulating in the soul" without the soul being aware of them, is something that I do not think the Nyaaya would accept. In the case where a person "hears" a sound without being immediately aware of it (because his attention is focused on something else) but then, sometime later, recalls that he heard that sound, the Nyaaya would have to say, it seems to me, that the self is aware of memory traces (saMskaaras or bhaavanaas) and not "percepts". However, this particular account of recollection (which is admittedly speculation on my part) seems to contradict the view that cognitions, in this case perceptions, create memory traces, as in this instance the traces are laid down by an unconscious process (that I am hypothesizing), similar to perception but lacking awareness on the part of the agent. One point that needs to be addressed here is the varieties of sense organ-object interaction. With "inner perception" (when the inner organ "perceives" the inner states of the self) only two substances are in contact (saMyoga) with one another, viz. the inner organ and the self. With external perception (pratyakSha), while the soul and the inner organ are in contact, the inner organ is also in contact with whatever sense organ is engaged in the perception. In all instances of ordinary (laulika) sense-perception, some sort of sense organ-object 'connection' relation (sannikarSha) is said to exist. However, this relation is not necessarily one of contact (saMyoga). Contact will obtain between the visual organ or the tactile organ when either is perceiving a substance (dravya). This may strike the reader as strange in the case of visual perception, for how can there be contact between, say, the visual organ and a pot, when the latter is not physically contiguous with the eye (recall that the visual organ is located in the eye)? The reason that contact obtains in this case is 97 because, on the Nyaaya theory of visual perception, the fire (tejas) "molecules" that constitute the visual organ are projected beyond the limit of the eye and make contact with the actual pot, so there is no real "action-at-a-distance" involved. However, when qualities or universals rather than substances are said to be perceived, the notion of direct contact between them and the sense-organ is not applicable, given that contact is a relation between substances only. Nevertheless, such perception is affirmed to exist, and referred to as 'inherence-in-the-conjoined' sannikarSha in the case where the perceived quality or universal inheres in the substance with which the sense- organ is in contact. Similarly, perception is referred to as 'inherence-in-the-inherent-in-the- conjoined' sannikarSha in the case where a universal is perceived when it inheres in an inherent quality of the substance that the sense-organ is in contact with. In the case of hearing sound (a quality), contact is not involved at all between the auditory organ and sound-as-object (though of course the contact between the inner and auditory organs still obtains). In this case, sense organ-object interaction is said to obtain simply in virtue of inherence - the inherence of sound in the region of the ether that is limited by the tympanic cavity. The reason why a sound produced far away from a given person's ear can be heard by that person is that the distant, "original" sound produces a sound that is physically close to it, and this new sound, in turn, produces another sound next to itself, with a similar reproductive process successively repeating itself until a sound is produced in the region of the ether bound by the ear. Moreover, the universal 'soundhood' which inheres in the sound, is itself perceived in this manner. There is yet another type of sannikarSha that I can only touch on here. This involves the perception of an absence (a-bhaava), which, it may be recalled, is a categorial individual. Absences neither inhere in, nor are in contact with, their loci/substrata. But an absence is said to 'qualify' or be the 'qualifier' (visheShaNa, prakaara) of its locus, while the locus itself is deemed the qualificand (visheShya). For this reason, the sannikarSha involved in the perception of an absence may be referred to as the 'qualifier-qualificand relation'. In fact, the Nyaaya view of perception of an absence is a bit more involved than what is presented here, but this account will suffice for my purposes. It should also be noted that the qualification of a locus with an absence is only one sort of qualifer-qualificand 98

relation. Besides cognition, the other specific-qualities or distingushing marks (liNgas) are desire (icchaa), aversion (dveSha), volition or effort (prayatna), pleasure (sukha), and pain (duHkha). Other psychological qualities are considered by Nyaaya to be variants of, or reducible to, these six - Shridhaara gives bravery, magnanimity, compassion, cleverness, and vanity as examples of such (NK p.10 (2.1.5), Jhaa 1915 23). Like their counterparts in the West, the Nyaaya philosophers think that pleasure and pain are not intentional states63. A word needs to be said about the Nyaaya concept of volition (prayatna, sometimes translated as 'effort'). ShaNkaramishra in US (3.2.4) characterizes breathing, as well as the opening and closing of eyelids, as being effected by volition. Most people, however, consider these movements to be involuntary most of the time and so would not say we are exercising our volition when we breath or when we inadvertently blink when a bright light is shone into our eyes. But ShaNkaramishra does concede that in deep, dreamless sleep, people breath and that "volition proper" does not exist at this time. Nevertheless, he is willing to say that another sort of volition is operative during this time, a volition he calls "volition the source of vitality" (sic, US 3.2.4, trans. Sinha, Sinha 1911: 128). I mention this to caution the reader that "volition" as employed by Nyaaya may not always be regarded as a feature of the conscious soul. The causal relationships between the psychological qualities have a pretty standard delineation in Nyaaya. All of the specific-qualities of the soul have the character of efficient (instrumental) causes (PDS p. 102 (72), Jhaa 1915: 223). Pleasure is productive of desire, which in turn may produce volition, which in turn may produce action. Similarly, pain will produce aversion, which in turn may produce volition to produce a certain action. Cognition, pleasure, pain, desire, aversion, and mental-dispositions will be productive of qualities in the soul (their substrate or inherence cause) only; volition will be productive of qualities only in other things (e.g. action in a part of the body); and merit/virtue and demerit/vice can produce qualities in both their own substrate and in other substances (PDS p. 100 (66-69), Jhaa 1915: 220-222). A cognition may produce other cognitions. It may also

63 As a matter of fact, Nyaaya considers the other states (besides cognition) to be intentional in only a derivative sense (Matilal 1968: 8), but this is a fine point and not particularly relevant to this study. produce mental traces, which in turn might produce other traces or actual remembrance (memory-cognition). A virtue might produce another virtue, or it might give rise to pleasure. Similarly, a vice might produce another vice or it might give rise to pain. Virtue and vice are also said to affect the action of burning as in the fire kindled at sacrifices (NK p. 100 (69), Jhaa 1915: 222).

3.4 The Special Relationship Between Soul, Inner Organ, and the Karma-mechanism

I would now like to return to a problem, touched on earlier, that arose out of regarding the soul to be omnipresent, coupled with the notion that the inner organ is the instrument by which the soul is aware of inner and outer states. It was asked what prevents an omnipervasive soul, in virtue of its contact with all the inner organs in the universe (one per person), from being conscious of the experiences of all persons? Since there are an infinite number of souls in existence, and all of these souls are in contact with every living body, why is it that each and every soul does not receive experiences from each and every body in existence? The inner organ of course mediates the the contact between soul and body and can only input to the soul one "datum" at a time. But each and every soul is in contact with everyone's inner organ, so why is there not an influx of input from different inner organs? To be sure, a single self is paired up with a particular inner organ, which itself is paired up with a particular flesh-and-blood body, and what the inner organ is in contact with is (mostly?) under control of the soul. But why is it not the case that I can read someone else's thoughts, or see through their eyes, and vice versa? Well, in certain cases, some people are believed to read others' "minds" or perceive through others' senses - some yogis are said to do just that. Presumably yogis are able to control their own inner organ to the extent that they can have it connect to any other body. Nevertheless, it seems natural to ask why it is the case that any given soul (not just that of certain yogis) cannot utilize its very own inner organ (given its inherent mobility) to connect up with other bodies, or, for that matter, why any given soul cannot utilize any inner organ (not just its own), given that it is in contact with all of them, to connect up with other bodies. 100

The following passage from the Nyaayakandalii sheds some light on this conundrum. For one...who admits of many Selves, even though all Selves, being omnipresent, would be present in all bodies, yet his experiences would not be common to all of them; as each of them would experience only such pleasures &c., as would appear in connection with the particular body that will have been brought about by the previous Karma of that Self,—and not those belonging to the other bodies. And the Karma also belongs to that Self by whose body it has been done. Hence the restriction of body is due to the restriction of Karma and vice versa,—the mutual interdependence going on endlessly (and hence not objectionable). (NK p. 87 (44), Jhaa 1915:193) So it would seem that merit and demerit (dharma and adharma) - what is being referred to by Karma in the quotation - which forms the basis for the karma-mechanism (or destiny, adRRiShTa), are factors that ensure a unique correspondence between a soul and a given body. Or, for that matter, between a soul and a given inner organ. Here is Udayana from Nyaayakusumaa~njali: "[i]t is in fact the destiny responsible for a selfs pleasure, pain etc. which connects a particular mind with it and not any other mind. So each self and its experiences are accessible only to one mind and not all minds" (Nyaayakusumaa~njali, trans. N. S. Dravid, Dravid 1996: 225). It is the karma-mechanism that causes a particular soul-inner organ pair to seek out or, indeed, to establish, a certain organismic body (shariira). But it would appear to be the case that the karma-mechanism also ensures that the soul can only "liaison" via the inner organ it is paired with. One might naturally expect the same inner organ, which is every bit as eternal as the soul, to be eternally paired with the same soul. And according to Umesha Mishra (1936: 159) this is indeed the case. In fact, Mishra goes so far as to say that it is only the inner organ that a soul is paired with that individuates one liberated soul from another.

3.5 Conclusion 101

In this chapter I have reviewed Nyaaya conceptions of phenomena that would be deemed 'mental' in the West. I have shown that the Nyaaya conception of the soul is rather similar to the Cartesian one, except that it has infinite (or maximal) spatial extension rather than no extension. More specifically, it is like its Cartesian counterpart in that it possesses cognition, perception, memories, pleasure, pain, and volition. Unlike the Cartesian mind, however, the Nyaaya soul does not possess any of these qualities essentially. Given the approximate equation of Nyaaya with the Cartesian mind, and given the conclusion of the last chapter that the Nyaaya conception of the human physical body is similar to Western notions of the body (in terms of its materiality), it follows trivially that Nyaaya had the conceptual resources to frame what I have called the general mind-body problem. That they in fact did so can be especially be seen in book 3 of NS/NSB, where much of the discussion is concerned to show that the soul is not to be identified with the body or the sense organs. I have not dealt with this problem here, as my only concern is to show that there are good reasons for thinking that the Nyaaya self-body problem can be construed as being a type of general mind-body problem. My primary concern in this study is the mind-body interaction problem, but I have been viewing the ability to generate the general mind-body as a prerequisite for establishing the interaction problem. 102

CHAPTER 4: Cartesian Concepts of the Mind/Soul and the Mind-Body Problem

4.1 The Cartesian Mind

With the rise and success of the new mechanical philosophy in Early Modern Europe, many philosophers there felt that even biological properties and functions could be explained in terms of the size, shape, and motion of material substances (Garber 1998: 764 ), rather than in terms of Aristotelian substantial forms and "innate natures". Descartes was just such a philosopher. For Descartes, however, the phenomenon of thought - which roughly coincides with the intellective faculties that were characteristic of the Aristotelian rational soul64 - did not admit of such explanation. The existence of thought necessarily implied a thinker, i.e. a thinking thing or mental substance. (Descartes' notion of substance was already dealt with in Chapter 1.) Descartes thought that the essence of this mental substance, or mind, was thought, which some scholars have glossed as simply consciousness. On the other hand, Descartes considered the essence of "body" to be (spatial) extension. 'Body' here refers to what we would call material (or physical) entities in general, and the human body or any of its parts (e.g. the brain) may be regarded as instances of such. In fact, to be completely accurate, 'body' as employed by Descartes refers to res extensa, a single omnipervasive substance (whose essence is exhausted by the single attribute of extension) indefinitely extended in all directions (Cottingham 1993: 22). The ordinary bodies which make up the everyday, perceivable world, or the imperceptible particles (which on Descartes' view) constitute them, are viewed by Descartes to be merely

64 I say roughly coincides because Descartes takes thought to refer not only to various intellectual activities such as understanding and judging and willing, but to the faculties of imagination and sensation (Meditation II, AT VII28). Although sensation was regarded by Aristotle as belonging to the sensitive soul, Descartes considered it, along with imagination, an attribute of the mind (or Cartesian soul if you will) only when the mind was "in union" with the body. Indeed, it is possible that Descartes conceived of sensation and imagination as belonging to the mind-body union and to neither substance by itself (Garber 1998: 767). In any event, if sensation and imagination are considered modes of mind, they are not essential ones unless we think of the human mind as being necessarily embodied (Alanen 2003: 57). Descartes considered mind-body union an essential aspect of the human being (ibid. : n39). 103

"modes"65 of this one single substance. Descartes does not admit the existence of a pure vacuum. It should be pointed out, however, that an alternative view of Cartesian res extensa exists: from this point of view, res extensa, though still a single ominpervasive plenum, has parts that are substances, which in turn have modes that are still to be regarded as (modifiable) bodily properties66. As far as I can see, however, for purposes of formulating the mind-body problem, it does not much matter whether the bodies of everyday experience are viewed as bits of res extensa in either of the two senses described here, or, for that matter, even if they are viewed as individual substances (whose essential property remains extension) separated from one another by empty space. Descartes granted that our pre-reflective notion of soul attributes to it those characteristics that Aristotle said it had, and, moreover, that it is something "tenuous" that permeates parts of the body ( Meditation II, AT VII 26)67. But it was Descartes' philosophical reflections on the soul that revealed something different - an extensionless68, nous-like entity. He deduced the incorporeality of the mind from his ability to conceive of a thinking thing apart from an extended thing - the idea that a thinking thing need not be extended, and an extended thing need not be capable of thought, was sufficient for Descartes to conclude that the mind/soul was a distinct substance from any body (Meditation VI, AT VII 78)69. In fact, according to Cottingham (1993: 53), Descartes viewed thought and extension as mutually incompatible attributes, so minds necessarily lacked extension and matter necessarily lacked thought70. Additionally, Descartes thought that because the soul is separate and separable from the body, it may persist after the body

65 "Modes" is usually glossed as "modifications". Descartes understood modes as properties or accidents that inhere in substance as their subject (Garber 1998: 779) with the understanding that these properties are capable of changing. In Descartes view, God has properties but lacks modes. 66 Schmaltz (2008: 44 n80) assumes this point of view. 67 Unless otherwise specified, all quotes from Descartes in English translation are from Cottingham et al. 1984 or Cottingham et. al. 1985 or Cottingham et al. 1991, texts which are cited here as CSM I, CSM II, and CSMK, respectively. These texts are keyed to the Adam and Tannery French edition, indicated here in brackets as 'AT. 68 Descartes was by no means the first person to attribute lack of spatial extension to the soul. For example, the ninth-centuiy monastic writer Remigius of Auxerre explicitly says that it is unextended (MacDonald 2003: 246). 69 As Garber (1998: 782 n20) points out, this is not the only argument for Descartes' conclusion, but it will suffice for my purposes. 70 Cottingham cites Meditation VI, AT VII 78, in support of this contention. It seems to be derived from the notion that distinct principle attributes entail distinct substances. 104

is destroyed. The upshot of Descartes' arguments was that only human beings (at least in the natural world) had souls, that such souls were similar to what the Medievals referred to as 'the mind' (mens), and that such souls were incorporeal (extensionless) and immortal. In correspondence with Henry More, Descartes rebutted the objection that God (and angels, and by implication the human mind) had extension because "he is everywhere" (AT V 269-270/CSMK 361; AT V 342-343/CSMK 372-373). Descartes denied extension in the strictest sense to God, angels, and the human mind. As no two objects or parts of objects which have extension can be in the same place at the same time, according to Descartes, and since it is understood that "the human mind and God and several angels can all be at the same time in one and the same place [emphasis added]", he concluded that these latter substances truly lacked extension. He conceived of these incorporeal substances as "sorts of powers or forces" which, though capable of acting on extended things - Descartes spoke of them as exhibiting an "extension of power" - were not themselves spatially extended. So while it appears that, while denying extension to angels, God, and human minds, Descartes is saying that they are located in space, other passages mitigate against this possibility. Descartes considers that the attribution of matter and extension to the soul is simply to conceive of the soul as united to the body (AT III 694/CSMK 228). However, the matter that is attributed to thought in this case is "not thought itself, and that the extension of this matter is of a different nature from the extension of the thought, because the former has a determinate location, such that it thereby excludes all other bodily extension, which is not the case with the latter". I do not know how to reconcile the lack of a "determinate location" with the notion that a human mind, angles and God can all be "in one and the same place". Even a dimensionless point, if it can be attributed to physical space, is thought of as having a determinate location. Perhaps Descartes is talking about a "fuzzy location", a location for which we cannot give exact coordinates, but if that were so it would make the mind a spatial entity after all, albeit one without extension. In fact, that Descartes consistently held a notion of the mind as lacking spatial location, and perhaps even spatial extension, may be challenged by considering his "heaviness analogy", which will be done in the next section. This analogy may provide an example of what I have called 'fuzzy location'. Descartes makes much of the union between the mind and body, using it to help solve (in his view) the mind-body problem he had helped to create.71 In fact some scholars have claimed that the Cartesian mind-body union, or even the human being, is itself a third sort of substance (Garber and Wilson 1998: 860 nil), but I will leave this an open question in my discussion. Certain types of what Descartes calls "thought", viz. sensations, imaginations, and passions, require the mind to be united to a body. Of course, with the mind being extensionless, the union presumably cannot be a physical one and should be understood in the sense of "people being united by a common cause", in which case the word "united" is synonymous with "associated with". Descartes' answer to Princess Elizabeth's queiy - perhaps the most famous of all queries concerning mind-body interaction - as to how the soul, being only a thinking substance, is able to cause the body to perform actions, relies heavily on the notion of mind-body union. This notion will be looked at some more when I examine Descartes' response to Elizabeth's question in the next section.

4.2 Princess Elizabeth's Query: A Closer Look at the Mind-Body Problem

Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, in her correspondence with Descartes, wrote the following.

[Elizabeth enquires, given the Cartesian mind-body scheme,]72 how the mind of a human being can determine the bodily spirits [i.e. the fluids in the nerves, muscles, etc.] in producing voluntary actions, being only a thinking substance. For it appears that all determination of movement is produced by the pushing of the thing

71 In one sense it does not seem fair to attribute origination of the mind-body problem to Descartes and his contemporaries. It has been seen that the ancient Greeks effectively recognized a soul-body problem. But both problems can be seen to arise in both Plato and Descartes in virtue of the soul or mind's immateriality, so they can be viewed as essentially the same problem, especially given that the Platonic soul bears a certain "family resemblance" to the Cartesian one. 72 Only the italicized words in brackets are my own, otherwise they are the translator's. 106

moved, by the manner in which it is pushed by that which moves it, or else by the qualification and figure of the surface of the latter. Contact is required for the first two conditions, and extension for the third. [But] you entirely exclude the latter from the notion you have of the body [sic: Garber should have "soul" here instead of "body"], and the former seems incompatible with an immaterial thing. (AT II 661/trans. Garber 2000: 172)

Notice here that Elizabeth is not just simply stating that there is difference between mind and body that leads to the problem of how they are able to interact, she is actually specifying what the difference consists in73.1 will have more to say about this way of framing the problem in the next section. In response to Elizabeth's query, Descartes asserts that there are two fundamental facts we have concerning the soul's nature. One of these, as mentioned previously, is that it thinks. The other is that, given that it is united to the body, the soul can act upon, and be acted on by, the body (AT III 664-665/CSMK 217-218). It was the causal interaction between soul and body that Elizabeth found problematic and that Descartes attempted to address by considering the notion of the union of soul (mind) and body as a "primitive notion" on par with the notions of soul/mind (or the related notion of thought) and body (or the related notion of extension) themselves (AT III 665-667). For Descartes, a primitive notion was one that was fundamental insofar as other concepts could be derived from it or entailed by it, and could not itself be derived from other more fundamental notions. As examples of such notions - he thought there were very few such notions - Descartes gave the "most general" as being being, number, and duration. More particular primitive notions are those of extension (or alternatively body, to which extension belongs uniquely) from which is derived the notions of shape and motion, and thought (or alternatively, soul or mind, to which thought belongs uniquely), from which come "perceptions of the intellect"

73 Elizabeth was not the only one with this problem. Robert Boyle stated: "I confess I see not by what Mechanical Law or power an immaterial creature can at pleasure alter the determination of the motion of a Body; and make it move forwards, backwards, upwards, downwards, to the right hand, to the Left and in a word, in I know not how many differing wayes. [For] the determination of a Body in motion, is as naturally the Effect of Mechanical Laws as the motion it self" (BP 7:115). I owe this quotation to Jack Macintosh; it can be found in his Boyle on Atheism, Macintosh, J. (ed.), Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006. 107 and "inclinations of the will". It is the primitive notion of the union of soul and body from whence comes our notion of mind-body mutual causal interaction: "as regards the soul and the body together, we have only the notion of their union, on which depends our notions of the soul's power to move the body and the body's power to act on the soul..." (AT 665). So the notion of mind-body interaction may be said to derive from, or "fall under", the primitive notion of mind-body union. Garber (2000:178) makes a reasonable attempt to make this notion of dependence more precise: "if a given idea Q falls under a primitive notion P, then having P is in some sense necessary for having Q, and that no primitive notion distinct from P is necessary for having Q". It is Descartes' view that genuine human knowledge requires clearly distinguishing these primitive notions and only applying them to the things to which they pertain, on pain of making what is effectively what Gilbert Ryle was to call, a few centuries later, a 'category mistake'. Moreover, it is illegitimate to try to explain a primitive notion in terms of another for the veiy reason that they are primitive notions. So Descartes considers Elizabeth's objection to immaterial mind-material body interaction to be based on this sort of category mistake, viz. we assume that the way in which one corporeal, extended body interacts with one another (presumably necessarily involving contact between the bodies) is applicable to the way in which the soul/mind interacts with the body. What Descartes seems to be saying, then, is that we are applying the primitive notion of extension to a phenomenon to which it does not belong, viz. the union of mind and body. Or we could say we are (erroneously) trying to explain the (what should be primitive) notion of the mind- body union in terms of the (equally primitive) notion of body/extension. A slightly different, and perhaps more accurate, rendition of Elizabeth's mistake is given by Garber:

Elizabeth's mistake is that of trying to explain one notion, that of mind-body interaction, which pertains to the notion of the union of mind and body, in terms of impact, which pertains to another primitive notion, that of extension or body, something that is neither necessary, since each notion is per se intelligible, nor possible, since the notions are completely distinct. (Garber 2000: 173) 108

Here Garber interprets Elizabeth as relating the concept of mind-body union to that of extension via the concept of impact (the "pushing of the thing being moved" to quote Elizabeth). At first sight, what Garber calls Descartes' "doctrine of the three primitive notions", and more specifically the primitive notion of mind-body union, seems like an ad hoc contrivance for eliminating the mind-body interaction problem. For one thing, it seems more natural to consider the union of mind and body as a complex notion, compounded out of the primitive notions of mind and body, with perhaps the generic notion of union itself regarded as primitive, particularly as Descartes himself takes such pains to emphasize the distinctness of mind and body74. Perhaps the mind-body union is best understood along the lines of a sui generis, "emergent" phenomenon: "the union covers such important features of human experience and action as sensations, passions, and voluntary movements, which are not intelligible in terms of the Cartesian notions of extension or thought alone" (Alanen 2003: 48). Lilli Alanen goes so far as to say that Descartes as much as recognizes that the notion of mind-body union being on "primitive par" with both mind and body considered individually is incoherent, insofar as he declares

It does not seem to me that the human mind is capable of forming a very distinct conception of both the distinction between the soul and the body and their union; for to do this it is necessary to conceive them as a single thing and at the same time to conceive them as two things; and this absurd.

In fact, the epistemology differs for each of the three primitive notions. Mind/thought and the notions of "pure thought" can only be understood via the pure intellect, whereas body/extension is best understood by a combination of pure intellect and imagination (AT III 691-692/CSMK 227). But the mind-body union can only be known "clearly" by means of the senses. (To use Descartes' own terminology, we may have clear and distinct ideas of mind and body, but with the mind-body union we can have a clear idea at best, with distinct

74 For instance, at AT VII444-445/CSM II 299-300. 109 ideas being ones which are of a "propositional" nature and amenable to analysis, and clear ideas being ones which are actually perceived (Alanen 2003: 67).) One way of interpreting Descartes here is to say that the primitive notion of mind- body union is just a brute fact given us by sense experience and incapable of any explanation. Nevertheless, in responding to Elizabeth's objection, Descartes did ask her to consider an analogy which is meant to show that the mind-body union could be seen as a primitive notion, and by implication, that the mind-body interaction is an intuitively clear notion. Descartes thinks that the motion that is produced by the heaviness (or weight or gravity, Latin gravitas) of an object is one that is never thought of as being "produced by a real contact between two surfaces, since we find, from our own inner experience, that we possess a notion that is ready-made for forming the conception [of heaviness] in question" (AT III 667). What Descartes is alluding to here is that our notion of heaviness and the interaction of a falling body and the earth - a typical example of body-body interaction - is derived from, or based on, our ordinary, everyday notion of mind-body interaction. This interpretation is evidenced by the following passage from Descartes' replies to the Sixth Set of Objections, a passage which he draws to Elizabeth's attention.

The chief sign that my idea of heaviness was derived from that which I had of the mind is that I though [s/c, thought] that heaviness carried bodies toward the center of the earth as if it contained some cognizance [cognitio] of this center within it. For it could not act as it did without such cognizance, nor can there be any such cognizance except in the mind. (Sixth Replies, AT VII44275)

It is, of course, a common perception that our minds move our bodies. Moreover, heaviness - the degree of attraction of bodies to the centre of the earth - is typically thought of (on our ordinary, everyday conception76) as a property or, according to Descartes, as a

75 The passage selection and translation is Garber's (2000:176). 76 The account of heaviness is, in fact, the medieval Scholastic account as Descartes understood it, according to Garber (2000:175). Nevertheless, Garber says that this account is the "common idea of heaviness, the idea the Scholastics and the common man and the idea that Descartes himself had in his naive and sense- bound youth" (176). 110

substance independently existing from the body it is attributed to77, and an incorporeal property or substance at that. Descartes' suggestion, then, is that we model gravitational attraction on the mind-body interaction, treating heaviness as though it were an intelligent, purposeful response on the part of the body that is falling, as though the body or, more specifically, its heaviness, were an agent. Ultimately, Descartes wants to get across the point that causal interaction between minds and bodies is perfectly intelligible, otherwise we would not find the common or Scholastic view of heaviness intelligible. There seems to be some irony in the fact that Descartes put forward this heaviness analogy as a demonstration that we have a clear idea of mind-body interaction, for he himself rejected the notion that heaviness was in any sense mental, coming to view it as a corporeal property. He believed that the Scholastic account of heaviness was an illicit projection of our innate conception of our own composite nature onto an inanimate world, along the lines of his view that the secondary properties of things were projected onto the world (Garber 2000: 177). This might suggest that the whole notion of mind-body interaction was a mistaken one. If heaviness is not really an exemplar of mind-body interaction, maybe nothing is. But Descartes did not consider this possibility as far as I know. Indeed, it has been argued by Garber (2000) that the mind-body interaction, when viewed unidirectionally as causation flowing from mind to body, is in fact the basis of Cartesian physics, and all body-body interactions are really examples of it, even if Descartes himself did not consciously think of it in this way. The reason Garber gives for this claim is that, for Descartes, what appear to be body-body interactions ultimately owe their existence to God, making Descartes something of an occasionalist with respect to the corporeal realm. On the other hand, Tad Schmaltz finds "reasons internal to Descartes's system - drawn particularly from his account of causation in physics - for the conclusion that created entities rather than God are the true cause of natural change" (Schmaltz 2008: 6 r.

77 Common sense may view heaviness as a property but I doubt it views it as a substance. I think Descartes thinks that heaviness could be seen as a substance because, when he was younger, he believed in the medieval notion of real qualities, which are rather substance-like. See footnote 79 for further explanation. 78 Whether Descartes was an occasionalist or not is a controversial topic. Malebranchean occasionalism is at one extreme of a spectrum with respect to the degree that God intervenes in causal affairs of the world, with a position that is referred to in the contemporary literature as 'conservationism', at the other. Occasionalism is the thesis that natural causes do not necessitate their effects but, rather, are connected to Ill

I suggested earlier that Descartes' heaviness analogy cast some doubt on whether Descartes consistently held that the soul lacked spatial location or even spatial extension. It is time to look at the relevant passages (AT VII441-442/CSMII 297-298). Descartes claims that when he was younger, he thought of gravity (heaviness) as a "real quality" that "inhered" in solid bodies. Because he is referring to the medieval notion of real quality here, Descartes goes so far as to say that he effectively thought of gravity as a substance in a way, for instance, that clothing might be considered thus - though a substance in itself, clothing is a quality when regarded as worn by a human being79. Even though gravity can be imagined to be "scattered" throughout the whole (heavy) body, Descartes did not attribute to it the "true" extension that "constitutes the nature of a body", viz. that extension which is "such as to exclude any interpenetration of the parts". For instance, he surmised that there was the same amount of gravity in a one foot lump of metal as there was in a ten foot piece of wood. (Presumably he would not surmise this if gravity had a substance-like "true" extension, given that Descartes rejected the notion of density, i.e. mass [as quantity of matter, and therefore, presumably, heaviness] per unit volume.) In fact, Descartes thought that the entire gravity of the body could be "contracted to a mathematical point". He points out that gravity, while "remaining coextensive" with the body could "exercise all its force in any one part of the body", just as if gravity existed in that part alone instead of being scattered throughout the rest of the parts. The purpose of Descartes' digression on gravity is to analogize it with his view of

them by divine decree. So on this view God is the only real cause and all creatures (created things whether animate or not) are said to be merely "occasional causes" of natural change. Conservationism is the position that that creatures are the real cause of changes in the natural world, with God's role relegated to the creation and conservation of the world (Schmaltz 2008: 6). Concurrentism is an intermediate point of view between occasionalism and conservationism that, though assigning real causal powers to creatures, nevertheless asserts that God contributes a causal "concursus" to the action of every creature (ibid.), i.e. the action is an effect which is caused by both God and the creature (the causes "concur", as it were). I think most scholars are of the opinion that Descartes was conservationist, while a lot of people in the 17th Century took him for an occasionalist. 79 The medieval concept of "real quality" is something of a hybrid between the substance-as-an-indepedent thing and an inherent quality of that substance. This is why the clothing analogy (or is it an example?) might strike you as a bad one - surely clothing worn by a human being should be thought of as substance in conjunction with the person (as the Nyaaya would have it). Some Medievals held that sensible qualities (e.g. colour) were real qualities, but other qualities such as shape not. Descartes viewed real qualities as being separable by divine power. Ultimately he rejected real qualities, coming to view all qualities to be like shape in the sense of lacking an independent existence. In some sense Nyaaya qualities (guNas) are similar to real qualities because, even though ordinarily inseparable from the substances in which they inhere, they are separable from such substances for one moment after the destruction of those substances. 112 the mind. Descartes thought that even though the mind is regarded as a substance, it can also be viewed as a "quality of the body to which it is joined". He says that just in the same way that gravity can be viewed as coextensive with a body that has it, is "exactly the way in which I now [emphasis added] understand the mind to be coextensive with the body - the whole mind in the whole body and the whole mind in any one of its parts"80. It is difficult to know what to make of this analogy. For one thing it does not appear to be a very good one. Since Descartes' latest view sees the soul as a full-blown substance (i.e. not as a real quality), it is not clear how he can maintain that it is co-extensive with the body in a way that allows for interpenetration of the body's parts. Moreover, the analogy suggests that the mind, like gravity, can have causal influence ("exercise all its force") at any point in the body, which is something that, as a matter of fact, appears to be false. If, like Descartes sometimes conceives of gravity, the mind is thought of as a mathematical point (as Descartes suggests), it seems that, like gravity, it could be found thus at any point in the body, as though it could move around throughout the body. Yet Descartes seems to think if there is a causal nexus of the mind with the body, it likely occurs at the pineal gland (Passions of the Soul, art. 31 & 32; AT III 362/CSMK 180, both citations given by (Nottingham 1993:146). But I think the bottom line here is that Descartes' view of the soul here (based on the gravity analogy) is inconsistent with what he has written elsewhere. Even if we construe the extension talked about here as a "power extension" (discussed earlier), it nevertheless is the case, if the analogy is accurate, that the mind has spatial location. If the gravity analogy is dismissed as unsound, what about the possibility that the mind could just simply be likened to a mathematical point? The classical conception of a mathematical point is that of a dimensionless (unextended) entity whose only property is position (in space). Perhaps in order to take this analogy (minds/souls are like points) seriously, one has to be a realist with respect to points, or (at least) "point-particles", in the sense that such entities could be realized in the natural, spatiotemporal world and not just in some "Platonic heaven". Sometimes some physical entities are treated in physics as though

80 The phrase "whole in whole and whole in each part" was employed by Aquinas when describing the presence of the rational soul in the body. It is uncannily suggestive of the Nyaaya-VaisheShika notion of mereological inherence. 113 they were point-particles - dimensionless points but possessing measurable physical properties81. The crucial question is whether or not such entities are to be viewed purely as idealized fictions82. If not, one might want to argue that Cartesian minds are analogous to such entities - they could still be located in space (at a given point) even though they lacked spatial extension. In answering Elizabeth's objection, since Descartes does not avail himself of using the soul's putative spatial location as a means of answering Elizabeth's query, I am inclined to think (like so many others have), that he did not really believe that the soul has a spatial location.

4.3 The Pairing Problem: A Contemporary Look at the Mind-Body Problem

On its most common interpretation, Cartesian dualism says that the universe is populated by material entities in physical space, on the one hand, and immaterial minds (or souls) which exist "outside" of physical space, on the other (Kim 2004:129-130). A critical inference that Jaegwon Kim and many others make in their interpretation of Cartesian dualism is that, since Cartesian minds lack spatial extension, they cannot be in space. Although I have already suggested that this inference is not necessary, and even presented some textual evidence that Descartes may have thought otherwise, because I want to deal with Kim's treatment of the mind-body problem, this issue will be set aside and I will assume that Cartesian minds cannot exist in physical space in any sense. That being said, I would merely like to point out that it may very well be the case that what usually passes for "Cartesian dualism" in contemporary mind-body discussions does not accurately reflect

81 This would include the quantum field-theoretic view of elementary particles such as electrons, quarks and photons. According to quantum field theory instances of such particles can be created at a single point in space, implying that the particle has no spatial extent (Mark Walton, personal communication 2010). Spin is a property that is attributed to elementaiy particles but this property, also known as intrinsic angular momentum, has no macroscopic analogue and need not be conceived "spatially". 82 Large, macroscopic entities are treated as point-particles in elementary mechanics but this is an obvious case of treating such entities as idealized fictions. Rigid-body mechanics is the more complete theory that treats these bodies as systems of particles, but again it is clear that these particles are idealized fictions here as well. 114

Descartes' actual views on the mind-body relation83. However, this possibility is not very relevant for what I am investigating in this section, which is the mind-body problem as it has generally been understood since Descartes. In my Introduction I mentioned that the typical formulation of the mind-body problem involved the notion of a "radical difference" between mind and body (or material bodies in general), that many have identified as the source of the mind-body problem. There I had suggested that 'radical difference' is a vague phrase. For instance, in the mind- body case, could it refer to greatness or magnitude of difference between these two sorts of entities that disallows their causal interaction? It is hard to make sense of this notion. After all, two different substances as disparate as, say, a super-hot plasma and a solid near absolute zero, are capable of causally interacting with one another. Yet many philosophers, when presenting the mind-body problem as traditionally conceived, make it sound as though it is the great degree of difference simpliciter between mind and body that makes their causal interaction problematic. Kim in fact provides some evidence for the "radical difference" conception as lying at the heart of the historical problem. He quotes the first line of Princess Elizabeth's quotation (in her 1643 letter to Descartes) that was presented in the last section (but from a different translation): she wants to know how it is that "man's soul, being only a thinking substance, can determine animal spirits so as to cause voluntary action" (Kim 2000: 3184). This barely hints at the radical-difference problem but Kim later offers the following quote from Anthony Kenny.

On Descartes' principles it is difficult to see how an unextended thinking substance can cause motion in an extended unthinking substance and how the extended unthinking substance can cause sensations in the unextended thinking substance. The properties of the two kinds of substance seem to place them in such diverse categories that it is impossible for them to interact. (Kim 2000: 32)85

83 This is the view, for instance, of Margaret Wilson (1978:180-181), but concerning a different aspect of Cartesian dualism then the spatiality problem I have been discussing.. 84 Kim is quoting here from Margaret Wilson, ed., The Essential Descartes (New York: New American Library, 1969), 373. 85 The quote is from Anthony Kenny's Descartes (New York: Random House, 1968), 222-223. 115

Kim rightfully thinks that Kenny's reasoning does not provide us with much of an argument; he asks "[w]hy is it 'impossible', as Kenny puts it, for things with diverse natures to enter into causal relationships with one another?" and "[j]ust what sorts of diverseness make trouble and why?". In various writings (Kim 2000; 2004; 2005: 70-92) Kim has presented what he calls the pairing problem, which is best viewed, I think, as an attempt to make the mind-body problem more precise, to show exactly how substance dualism poses a genuine problem. In fact, Kim takes the pairing problem to be insurmountable and effectively an intelligibility argument against the very notion of Cartesian-style substance dualism. Before discussing the pairing problem, I would like to point out that I think the Early Modern philosophers had a deeper appreciation of the problem of mind-body causation than Kim leads on. When introducing the mind-body problem with the quotation from Elizabeth he gives above, he says nothing about what she says immediately after that (which I have given in section 4.2)86. It is evident in that quotation that Elizabeth is not attributing the theoretical difficulty of mind-body causal interaction to the radical difference simpliciter between (Cartesian) mind and body, but to the plausible notion that causation necessarily involves contact, i.e. some sort of spatial contiguity, and to a lack of a capacity for contact in things lacking spatial extension. Elizabeth's objection can be viewed as an instance of a more general principle concerning the nature of causation, what Rob and Heil (2008: 5) have termed the causal nexus thesis (CN)of causation: Any causal relation requires a nexus, some interface or connection by means of which the causal relation occurs. I will have more to say about CN after discussing Kim's pairing problem, to which I now turn. Kim's argument is based on the notion that cause and effect pairings in the physical world obtain in virtue of spatial relations. Given an event A which causes an event A*, and another event B which causes an event B*, Kim asks: what principle accounts for the appropriate cause-effect "pairing", i.e. what accounts for the fact that effect A* is said to result from the occurrence of A rather than B, or why is B* said to be caused by B rather

86 It may be that Kim was not actually aware of what she said after the quotation he gives because it is not available in the standard English translation of Descartes' letters, CSMK. 116

than A? He conceives of this "principle" as some relation R that "grounds and explains" the cause-effect pairings. Kim thinks that spatial relations are the best candidate for R - in fact, "the only possible way of generating pairing relations" (Kim 2004:131). To substantiate this contention, Kim advances the following thought-experiment. Suppose there exist two objects or events A and B which have identical intrinsic properties. Suppose there is a third object C that is causally influenced by A but not by B. Because A and B have identical intrinsic properties - and therefore presumably precisely the same causal powers - it seems that the only reason we could have for ascribing causal influence on C to A is that there exists a certain relational property (a relation or set of relations), relative to C, that differ between A and B. Kim thinks that this relation is a certain spatial relation that obtains between A and C but not between B and C. The "right" spatial relation might be that A was sufficiently close to C to exert causal influence, whereas B was too far away; or that, although A and B were equidistant from C, A had a different spatial orientation toward C which allowed it, and only it, to causally influence C; or perhaps, though A and B were equidistant from C and both possessed identical spatial orientations toward C, there existed a physical barrier between B and C, but not between A and C, which blocked any causal influence that B might have had on C. Kim says there are no other "obvious candidates" other than spatial relations for explaining causal pairing. Kim applies analogous reasoning to the case of Cartesian minds (or souls) interacting with physical objects, but instead of A and B representing physical objects (or events) they are taken to be minds having the same intrinsic properties, while C is a physical object (or event) which undergoes a change due to actions on the part of A and B which occur simultaneously. Now if it is A and not B that is the cause of the change in C, Kim wants to know what would be the basis for such a claim. Spatial relations are ruled out as candidates to explicate the pairing as both A and B are not in physical space. We run into the same problem with the opposite case in which both A and B are intrinsically identical physical objects (or events) and C is a mind. If C undergoes change due to the influence of A, what relation forms the basis for this change? Again, spatial relations would not be an option for the same reason as in the previous scenario. However, as regards the first scenario involving Cartesian minds, one has to ask if 117

Kim's thought experiment with respect to identical minds interacting with physical objects is coherent in the first place. Can there simultaneously exist *two* minds that are intrinsically identical given the assumption that they do not exist in space? We would normally individuate qualitatively identical objects by their spatiotemporal relations, yet Cartesian minds lack spatiality. So how could they be individuated? Platonists who think that mathematical objects exist independently of the human mind would consider them to lack spatiotemporal status. I think it is true that any mathematical object that is qualitatively identical to another object is seen as numerically identical to it as well. So would not the Cartesian minds we are considering not be not only qualitatively identical, but numerically identical as well? If so, the pairing problem cannot even be formulated for the case of minds affecting physical objects. Another problem which suggests that the pairing problem cannot even get off the ground, is its use of the notion of simultaneity. I think for the purposes of framing the pairing problem, what is needed here is absolute simultaneity - it would not do to have two minds appear to be thinking the same thoughts at the same time in one frame of reference, while appearing to be thinking the same thoughts at slightly different times in another. Yet absolute simultaneity is something which the Special Theory of Relativity tells us we cannot posit. It is not clear to me how how cogent the "relativistic" objection to the pairing problem is. I will ignore it for this reason, as well as the possibility that relativity theory may not be the final word in space-time physics - it is not inconceivable that some future physics might countenance absolute simultaneity. Moreover, I suppose we can assume, in order for Kim's argument to proceed, that each mind has a haecceity or some other mysterious means of individuation that (like haecceity) is not regarded as an intrinsic property. The final scenario that Kim considers is the case of causal interaction among (nonspatial) minds, where again he thinks the pairing problem is insurmountable. Again, however, it is difficult to know what we could mean by two different mental substances (existing at the same time) with the same intrinsic properties without space to individuate them. In any event, given the pairing problem, if there could be two different mental substances with the exact same properties it does seem that they would be incapable of causal interaction with one another. Of course, we typically do not think of souls as interacting directly with one another (at least outside of heaven). On the other hand, as Kim himself points out (ibid.:133), causal relations holding "within" a mental substance do not appear to be ruled out by his argument. Kim's pairing-problem argument needs to be understood as an attempt to make the mind-body problem as a problem precise. Rather than saying the problem of mind-body interaction arises because of the "radical" difference between two substances Kim gives us the pairing problem. However, Kim's solution to the pairing problem when it comes to the interaction, or lack thereof, between entities or events, all of which are physical, is not itself very precise. He says that there are spatial relations that necessarily obtain between the members of a cause-effect pair. However, R could be any one of (at least) three types of spatial relation: spatial proximity, spatial orientation, or a spatial relation such that there is no obstruction between cause and effect. The following example will serve as an illustration of these relations. Consider the case of a hungry cheetah and two gazelles who are identical twins - from the perspective of the cheetah the two gazelles have identical intrinsic properties. One of the gazelles is within sight of the cheetah while the other is too far away to be seen, so the former triggers a chase response in the cheetah while the latter does not. Here spatial proximity provides the basis for the appropriate causal pairing. Suppose, however, that both gazelles are equidistant from the cheetah but one is in front of the cheetah while the other is behind it. It is the gazelle in front of the cheetah which is visible to the cheetah and so triggers the chase response. Spatial orientation is crucial in this case. Finally, suppose that one gazelle is within visible range but significantly further from the cheetah then the other, which happens to be hidden from the cheetah's view by a bush that is in front of the cheetah. In this case also the cheetah gives chase to the visible gazelle. Now to say that R is a spatial relation (of some sort) does not seem very informative. Remember that Kim seeks to address the ontological question: in virtue of what is it the case that an object causes a change in another object, while another object, qualitatively identical to the first object, does not? In one instance, it might be one of the spatial relations we have already considered, at another time another. Perhaps in some instances R is a 119 spatial relation we have not considered? Kim's answer to the pairing problem that R consists in some set of spatial relations does not seem completely satisfactory. On the face of it, a more intuitively appealing answer, I think, is that there is some kind of "connectedness" beyond a spatial relation simplicter between cause and effect that accounts for their rightful pairing. An alternative that Kim considers that achieves this connectedness is the postulation of a causal chain between the cause and the effect under consideration. Kim rightfully points out that the "causal chain" solution begs the question if it is viewed as an attempt to solve the pairing problem, i. e., instead of claiming that there is some spatial relation R that allows us to pair cause A with effect A*, the causal chain of events between A and A* serves the same function as R. Kim thinks that because a causal chain is itself just a chain of causal relations we would still "need to explain what pairing relations ground these interpolated causal [s/c]-effect pairs" (130). But there is a way of rendering this objection innocuous: all we need to do is postulate a contact (spatial contiguity) relation between the members of the first cause-effect pair, and successively for all subsequent members that lead up to the final effect under consideration. In other words in order for A to cause A*, it has to either be in direct contact with it, or there has to be a series of spatially contiguous objects or events between A and A*. There are potential problems with this solution (to be discussed shortly) but notice that it has the virtue of postulating one sort of spatial relation, viz. contact, and not the three mentioned earlier. Indeed, it seems that the crucial characteristic that all three of these aforementioned spatial relations involve, what it is about them that makes them the right spatial relation in any given causal scenario, is spatial contiguity or contact of some sort. Whereas Kim's spatial relation R, by itself, is not very informative, postulating a conjunction relation would in general allow us to pick out which particular spatial relation (orientation, proximity, lack of obstruction) is the correct one. Of course, this solution to the pairing problem involving the notion of contact is just an affirmation of the CN thesis. In fact it seems practically identical to what Princess Elizabeth had in mind when she objected to Descartes' mind-body interactionism. I think most contemporary philosophers might be inclined to be unimpressed by her objection because it is couched in notions involving blatantly mechanical terms like "pushing" (or terms like "impulse" in other translations). Modern physics, while not eschewing these notions altogether, is more concerned with interactions between bodies involving fields, at least at a fundamental level. However, I do not think this makes an essential difference to Elizabeth's objection - one can easily drop the talk of pushing and impelling, of impulse and impact, and just talk about about spatial contiguity (contact) between interacting entities. As Elizabeth herself points out, impact requires contact between the interacting entities. Contact seems to be an inherently spatial concept and generally implies that the entities between which it obtains possess spatial extension. We do not really have to gloss 'impact' as implying that some sort of force (as in a push or a pull) or even momentum (viewed as the product of mass and velocity) is involved. What perhaps is really motivating Elizabeth's objection is our common, everyday intuition that causal interaction between distinct entities requires some sort of spatial contiguity between them. In short, she seems to be ruling out "action-at-a-distance". With one possible (but somewhat dubious) exception, contemporary physics countenances no action-at-a-distance. That exception of course is the phenomenon known in quantum physics as quantum entanglement, but this poses as much of a problem for Kim's relation spatial R among spatial events as it does for the more specific relation of spatial contiguity. Whether the existence of quantum-entangled pairs of certain physical microparticles provides a counterexample or not is debatable. Nearness in space is ruled out as a relation that determines a causal pairing between two entangled partner particles if one of them is at, say, the opposite end of the Milky Way, where it has its spin determined by a measurement performed on its entangled partner here on Earth, and therefore undergoes the same spin orientation. Moreover it is a question as to whether or not this is even a case of causation - is not the change in spin each member of an entangled pair undergoes supposed to be simultaneous? Does the notion of simultaneous causation even make sense? But even assuming it does, one reason to think that this quantum scenario would not be a counterexample to Kim's criterion is that at some point in time the entangled pair would have been spatially contiguous, viz. when they were first formed. 121

4.4 Conclusion

In this chapter I have taken a close look at the Cartesian conception of mind, and while suggesting that it may not be nonspatial as commonly supposed, have nevertheless proceeded based on that assumption. I have taken a close look at the historical "inauguration" of the mind-body interction problem involving Princess Elizabeth's letter to Descartes. I have shown that her original formulation of this problem, contrary to the contemporary "textbook" formulation, does not involve the notion of a radical ontological gap per se between the Cartesian mind and body, but rather suggests that the mind cannot interact with the body because it lacks certain mechanical attributes. Moreover, I have suggested that what is crucial about Elizabeth's objection, is not so much the mind's lack of mechanical attributes, but rather that it fails to provide a causal nexus with the body because it is nonspatial. I have also taken a look at Kim's "pairing problem", which I have suggested is an attempt to make precise the "radical difference" version of the mind-body interaction problem. Although I have suggested that Kim's way of formulating this problem for Cartesian minds may itself be incoherent, I have proceeded on the assumption that it is not. I have argued that his postulation of a "generic" spatial relation to solve the pairing problem is not as good as postulating a spatial contiguity or contact relation. I have examined the pairing problem in some detail because, in the final chapter, I apply it to the case of the Nyaaya soul. 122

CHAPTER 5: The Mind-Body Problem and Nyaaya

Much of what I have written previously has been written with the goal of providing the necessary background needed in order to provide a convincing case that the mind-body interaction problem can be framed within the Nyaaya philosophical tradition. The first step in developing such a case is to show that Nyaaya posits ontological categories that approximate, in a semantic sense, the Cartesian categories of mind and body. I believe that, to a large extent, I have already shown that this is the case, but in the first part of this chapter I would like to explore this issue a bit further.

5.1 Conceptions of the Physical, the Material, and the Corporeal: the Nyaaya- VaisheShika and Western Traditions Compared

In contemporary discussions in the philosophy of mind, "the mental" is typically contrasted with "the physical". Although 'corporeal', 'material', and 'physical' are often used interchangeably in the contemporary literature and appear to be synonymous in ordinary parlance, "physical" is sometimes deliberately contrasted with "material". Often when this contrast is made, 'material' is the adjectival form of 'matter' used in its high-school textbook definition sense of "that which occupies space and has (inertial) mass" (to be contrasted with "energy"), or even in a sense similar to George Berkeley's 17th Century definition of "an inert, senseless substance, in which extension, figure, and motion do actually subsist" (Principles of Human Knowledge, par. 9). In such contrasts, an appeal is often made to epistemic definitions of 'physical' which assert that what counts as physical are whatever entities or processes that physics, or some future variant of physics, postulates, irrespective of whether or not we would deem these entities or processes "material". But the real problem with using "corporeal", "material", and "physical" interchangeably comes when dealing with the contemporary literature in English that treats classical Indian philosophy. These words are often used to translate certain Sanskrit words which do not quite have the 123 same meaning, and therefore cannot be used interchangeably if one seeks accuracy. To complicate matters, sometimes in English-language discussions concerning Indian philosophy these words are employed within the very same discussion in their English- language sense in addition to their use as translations of similar, but not identical, Sanskrit terms; it is not always easy to use context to ascertain the meaning that the author has in mind. Consequently, the ensuing discussion of the possibility of the mind-body problem for the Nyaaya is best started with a careful examination of the appropriate Sanskrit terminology and its relation to near-equivalent English terms. I will discuss the English terms first. As I mentioned in the previous chapter, 'corporeal' and 'material' were used synonymously by Descartes, and that has been the case in general since his time. For something to be a corporeal substance it would seem to necessarily possess spatial extension, though such a property is perhaps not sufficient for its characterization since one of the issues with regard to the nature of incorporeal substance was whether it was extended or not (Garber 1998: 763). Of course the human soul was typically thought of as an example of incorporeal substance, but this category might also include animal souls, angels, and spirits of nature. Entities such as ghosts and shades might be included too, and these are typically thought of as being extended. But in popular mythology, such entities can move through solid objects (e.g. walls). So perhaps in order to count as corporeal, a substance would have to possess, in addition to extension, relative impenetrability, or even, what is a very similar notion, that which physics refers to as inertia87. As a matter of fact, both spatial extension - tri-dimensionality to be specific - and impenetrability were invariably viewed as essential characteristics of the corporeal by proponents of the mechanical philosophy in Early Modern Europe (Ariew and G abbey 1998:435). Ralph Cudworth, for instance, thought that the "ancient Atomical Philosophy" had it right when it thought of "Body" as "a Thing Impenetrably extended, which hath nothing belonging to it, but Magnitude, Figure, Site, Rest, and Motion, without any Self-

87 Impenetrability might be thought of as an object's resistance to having its space occupied. Though related, this .notion is not the same thing as inertia, which is an object's resistance to a change in its motion (where a state of rest can be regarded as a state of motion). I think that if one accepts an atomic view of matter, however, a macroscopic object's impenetrability can be (explanatorily) "reduced" to the inertia of its atoms. But nothing said here hinges on this point. 124 moving Power"88. Descartes took the "pre-reflective" notion of body to be "whatever has a determinable shape and a definable location and can occupy a space in such a way as to exclude any other body; it can be perceived by touch, sight, hearing, taste or smell, and can be moved in various ways, not by itself but by whatever else comes into contact with it" (AT VII26). Even when Descartes settled on extension as the sole defining characteristic of body, he thought that impenetrability could be derived from extension as a logical consequence (AT V 269), a highly doubtful claim. The attribution of impenetrability to matter seems to cater to our intuition that no two objects or entities can occupy the very same space at the same time. This so-called intuition has sometimes been accorded the status of a synthetic a priori truth, a truth about the empirical world that we know prior to any experience. But if it is such a truth, it does not seem to apply necessarily to objects of every sort. Consider, for hypothetical instance, an object that, for all intents and purposes, appears to be a bowling ball, but is in fact composed of an exotic form of "matter" whose microparticles are immune to the electromagnetic interaction, which is to say that the usual electric forces that attract and repel protons and electrons that compose ordinary matter are not operative among the microparticles that constitute it. In such a case, it does indeed seem to be true that two objects could occupy the same space: an ordinary-matter bowling ball after all is mostly empty space and our exotic-matter bowling ball may be considered ex hypothesi to be mostly empty space as well, so it is easy to see, in the absence of of an electromagnetic interaction between the particles of the respective bowling balls, how the particles could "slip by" one another and interleave in such a fashion that the two bowling balls occupy the same space. Of course, the objection to this thought-experiment would be that microparticles themselves are not occupying each others' space. This is true enough, but it is not entirely clear that we are entitled to claim a priori necessity for our intuitive principle when applied to such microparticles, whether or not we regard these microparticles as genuine point-particles lacking any dimension whatsoever, but nevertheless located in space, or as entities possessing spatial extension, however small89, or, most problematically

88 Quoted by Garber (1998: 763). 89 Classical mechanics treats elementary particles as point-particles, whereas superstring theory - an attempt to unify quantum theory with gravity theory - does assign spatial extension to these "particles". 125 of all, as quantum particles lacking definite locations. One may not need to entertain so hypothetical an example as the one involving exotic-matter in order to produce an (apparent) counterexample to the principle that no two bodies can occupy the same space at the same time. Consider, for instance, the existence of any material object within the boundaries of one of the force fields90. Now a field is a physical object (at least insofar as it is an entity postulated by physics) and possesses spatial extension. Ordinary material objects within, say, a gravity or electromagnetic field, are permeated by such fields and it appears that two physical entities are occupying the same space. However, just as in the hypothetical case of the exotic-matter bowling ball, we need to ask if the field exists in the exact same space occupied by a given microparticle belonging to the field-embedded material object. This question, it would seem, does not have a clear-cut answer. So the force fields postulated by contemporary physics are interesting, problematic cases for what appears to be our ordinary notion of corporeality. They satisfy Descartes' definition of corporeality but perhaps not Cudworth's, with his notion of an entity "impenetrably extended". The foregoing discussion suggests the following assignment of meanings. A corporeal entity is one that has spatial extension and possesses resistance to being penetrated or moved. A material entity is any corporeal entity, i.e. 'material' is synonymous with 'corporeal'. A physical entity is any fundamental entity postulated by contemporary physics. It just so happens that all such physical entities are spatially localizable91, even if perhaps, in some cases, they are not spatially extended. So on this view, force fields would be physical (but perhaps not corporeal/material, given that they offer no resistance to being penetrated by ordinary matter)92 but ghosts would not (nor would they be corporeal/material ). Though this terminology may prove convenient in discussing philosophical problems in

90 Of course, by 'force field' here, I have in mind one of the fields associated with one of the four forces postulated by contemporary physics, e.g. the electromagnetic field. 91 I seem to have suggested above that quantum microparticles are not spatially localizable. Normally they are not thought of as having a definite spatial location, but in principle such a location can be determined if a measurement is made on them (and their wavefunction collapses). In this sense, they are potentially (spatially) localizable. 92 I think this statement needs qualification. For instance, magnetic fields are used for containing hot plasma in fusion experiments and they would not be able to do this if they did not offer some resistance to the plasma. However, I am thinking of, for instance, the ease with a human being can walk through a magnetic field. 126 the Western tradition, it is more difficult to apply it to discussions of classical Indian philosophy. I will now closely examine the Sanskrit terms most related to the Western terms. Kisor Chakrabarti, in the context of discussing the Nyaaya philosophy of mind, attempts to define what it means for something to be physical (K. Chakrabarti 1999 :19-21 ). In the course of his discussion it seems that Chakrabarti implicitly presupposes that there is a notion of the physical that is held in common between Western and classical Indian cultures, one that corresponds to a natural kind, even if a rigorous definition cannot be provided for it. Chakrabarti considers the view that being physical "necessarily implies being extended or being in space and vice versa" (ibid.19). This is close to the Cartesian definition of the corporeal, though I am not sure if Chakrabarti thinks there is a difference between "being extended" and "being in space", or if he intends that the phrases are to be regarded as synonymous. I earlier suggested that there is a difference between being extended and simply being in space when I considered the possibility that genuine point- particles might exist - such particles lack extension but can be located in physical space. So while it may be true that everything that is extended exists in space, it may not be true that everything that exists in space is extended. But I will here ignore this difference. Chakrabarti goes on to indicate two different ways of "being extended [parimaaNa] or being in space" according to Nyaaya. One of these is the way in which ordinary macroscopic objects exist in space: they "occupy a limited region of space (muurta) and offer resistance to other physical substances of limited magnitude from occupying that same space"93(/bid.). For all practical purposes this is Cudworth's characterization of the corporeal, involving the dual criteria of finite spatial extension and impenetrability. Although it is commonplace among the Naiyaayaikas to refer to the medium-size dry goods of everyday experience as muurta - as I discussed in Ch. 2 it is one of the defining characteristics of all the non-omnipervasive substances - implying that a limited, finite region of space is occupied, Chakrabarti does not provide any textual evidence that they considered impenetrability (or solidity) or inertial resistance as a distinguishing criterion of

93 At another point Chakrabarti characterizes this first sense of being an extended thing in a similar fashion: it is being a thing which "is solid and offers resistance to other measurable substances' occupying the same space" (ibid. 24). 'Measurable' maybe taken to be synonymous with 'finitely-extended' (muurta). 127 any group of substances. I will have more to say about this issue shortly. The second way of being in space that Chakrabarti attributes to the Nyaaya is that in which the given entity "does not occupy any limited region of space and prevent other physical (or non-physical) substances from occupying that same space" (ibid.). One can infer from this second characterization of "being in space" that such substances possess "maximal", if not infinite, extension. Chakrabarti gives aakaasha (what I have been referring to as the ether, the substratum of sound) as an example of this sort of entity. Chakrabarti goes on to say:

The latter sense [i.e. second sense of being extended or being in space] is that of being in contact with a substance (saMyogitva). Something in contact with a measurable (or immeasurable) substance need not prevent other measurable (or immeasurable) substances from being in contact with that same thing, (ibid. 20)

Of course, Chakrabarti cannot possibly mean that this second way of being in space is that of being in contact per se with a substance, for as he himself acknowledges, "[b]eing extended in the sense of being in contact with another substance is true of all substances" (ibid.). What Chakrabarti must mean to say, given that both sorts of extended substances manifest contact relations, is that the infinitely extended substances merely exhibit contact relations (and offer no resistance to having their space occupied). Chakrabarti says that the first way of being in space "implies" the second but not vice versa (ibid.). I am not entirely sure what he means by this, but he seems to be saying that all substances that exist in space in the first sense (the finitely-extended substances that possess impenetrability) have contact (or the capacity for such) with other substances, but a substance that has contact with other substances (or the capacity for such) is not necessarily a finitely-extended substance that possesses impenetrability. It is clear by his characterization of this "second way" of being in space that Chakrabarti is accounting for the way in which the omnipervasive substances - the ether, space, time, and the soul - exist in space. But I think that his claim that there are two different ways of "being in space" is misleading. As I see it, both of his ways of being in 128 space (or of being extended) involve spatial extension (he is, after all, talking about "being extended or being in space"), it is just that one is finite and the other infinite (or maximal). Moreover, there is no logical connection between the two sorts of extension (infinite versus finite) and impenetrability. Nor is there any logical connection between both types of extension and contact, other than that the infinite substances can be in conjunction with more finite substances than finite substances can. What I think Chakrabarti should do is simply remark that there are two sorts of extended substances, those that are of finite extension and offer resistance to having their space occupied, and those that possess infinite extension and offer no resistance to having their space occupied. Chakrabarti concludes, however, that extension or spatiality is not a sufficient criterion for physicality, even if a necessary one. This is because the self (or soul, aatman) is a substance and (therefore) possesses extension, but it is patently not physical. In fact, Chakrabarti calls the self an "extended, immaterial substance" (ibid.), though it is not clear that he is using 'immaterial' here in the way I used it in Ch. 2 to refer to substances that have infinite (maximal) dimension/extension. Chakrabarti eventually gives us the criterion which, as already suggested in Ch. 2, is the Nyaaya criterion of physicality, viz. that of possessing a specific-quality (visheSha- guNa) that is externally perceivable (vahirindriya-graahya). Being "externally perceivable" refers to the capacity to be perceived via at least one of the external sense organs. Those substances which are externally perceivable are the elements (bhutas): earth, water, air, fire, and the ether (aakaasha). To be constituted from the elements is to be bhautika, which perhaps is the Sanskrit word closest to our 'physical1; certainly bhautika is often rendered as 'physical' in translation. By giving us the defining property of the physical according to the Nyaaya, Chakrabarti does not necessarily intend to give us the Sanskrit terminology that most captures the Western sense of "physical". As mentioned earlier, Chakrabarti talks as though there is a notion of the physical that is culturally independent, a natural kind that we attempt to define, successively refining that definition in light of experience if necessary. About the Nyaaya definition of the physical Chakrabarti says 129

This definition should not be thought to be an a priori, necessary truth. Rather it is an empirical generalization amply confirmed by innumerable observation reports and not challenged by any above-the-board counterexample. It is conceivable that a physical object may not have any externally perceivable quale [i. e. quality (guNa)]. It is also possible to cook up thought experiments in which the above generalization does not hold, (ibid.)

Although it is not entirely clear, it seems that Chakrabarti gives us the reason he says that a physical object need not have any externally perceivable qualities when he talks about the Nyaaya conception of a physical substance as the causal substratum (what I have been calling the 'inherence cause', samavaayi-kaaraNa) of externally perceivable qualities. Because a causal substratum is "different from and independent of the effects supported by it", it is possible that a physical substance could exist without any externally perceived qualities (ibid. 21) - it is just that the qualities could not exist without the "support" of the physical substance. (But I have already provided evidence that Nyaaya qualities can exist independently of their substratum in Ch. 2.) But it is not clear whether Chakrabarti would want to maintain that there could exist a genuine physical substance that possesses an absolute absence (atyantabhaava) of externally perceivable qualities, i.e. one that has always, and forever will, lack the capacity of supporting such qualities. Such a substance would be a genuine counterexample to the Nyaaya definition. I find it interesting that Chakrabarti thinks it might be possible for there to exist a physical object that could lack an externally perceivable quality. If there were such an object, why would Chakrabarti think it "physical"? Chakrabarti does not say, but I can think of more than one answer to this question. However, I will only mention one of these possibilities here even if I think it unlikely that this is what Chakrabarti has in mind, because it is reminiscent of well-known definitions in the contemporary Western literature that involve a negative characterization of the physical as being that which is non-mental, even if this characterization is only partial (e.g. Wilson 2006: 72). SM defines a physical substance (bhuuta) as a specific-quality that is absent from the soul (SM 27)94. What I am

94 Bhaduri (1975: 52 n3) also cites SM p. 129. We do not have to worry about space, time, or the inner organ 130 suggesting here (on behalf of Chakrabarti) is that there might be a physical object that has a specific-quality that is not perceptible by ordinary (laulika) sense perception - perhaps yogis can perceive it - and it is the fact that this specific-quality is absent from the soul that would make it physical. All told, both "positive" and "negative" definitions of bhautika by the Nyaaya that I have discussed here do not quite match up with the notion of the physical in Western philosophical discussions, if for no other reason than that time and space are regarded as physical concepts in the latter. Insofar as the material is identified with the physical (as traditionally has been the case in Western culture), 'material' might be used to translate bhautika. But in discussing Nyaaya-VaishesHika philosophy, 'material' is more often applied to muurta substances (those substances which were earlier said to occupy space in Chakrabarti's first sense) (Potter 1977: 72), i.e. the four elements (bhutas) other than the ether, and the inner organ (manas). The ether (aakaasha), along with space/spatial direction (dik), time (kaala), and the soul/self (aatman), are typically deemed 'immaterial' because they are considered to be ubiquitous or all-pervasive (vibhu) (substances which correspond to Chakrabarti's second sense of being extended or being in space), not to mention immobile (ibid. 72-73). Of course, the notion of the material substances as muurta substances only acknowledges one aspect of the Western pre-modern notion of the material, viz. dimensionality, while ignoring the other, viz. impenetrability. There does not appear to be a natural kind-term in Sanskrit that corresponds to this twin-aspect sense of 'material'. However, Sadananda Bhaduri is one of the few contemporary authors who suggests, at least implicitly, that 'material' in the Nyaaya system can be understood as applying to "tactile substances of limited magnitude (sparshavan-muurta-dravya)" (Bhaduri 1975: 53). (Here, 'tactile' (sparsha) has to refer to a type of contact that conveys solidity or impenetrability, and not temperature)95. In this sense, it is the physical elements other than the ether (which lacks touch) that are material. Rarely, if ever, do the classical, foundational texts of old Nyaaya or VaisheShika mention finite-dimensionality and tangibility in the same breath, so to speak, but occasionally their commentators do, though sometimes on behalf of a

as being physical under this definition because the lack specific-qualities (visheSha-guNas). 95 The ambiguity of sparsha was discussed in Ch. 2. 131 hypothetical Buddhist objector (e.g. NSB 4.2.23)96. In commenting on the nature of the cooking/baking (paaka) process, Sha~Nkaramishra refers to the principle that no two objects of limited form (muurta) can occupy the same space (US 7.1.6). The nature of the inner organ (manas) according to Nyaaya really shows up the ambiguity of 'material' when English is the metalanguage for discussion of the Nyaaya substances. As mentioned, Potter (among others) calls any finite-dimensional substance 'material', including the inner organ. Moreover, the inner organ is mobile and therefore has impetus (vega). But Arindam Chakrabarti says manas is immaterial (A. Charkrabarti unpublished: 3). He must be saying this because the inner organ is intangible (which some might think implies penetrability97). So the inner organ, like the ether, in some ways wreaks havoc with standard Western notions of what is material and what is physical. On balance, I think a convincing case can be made that Nyaaya conceptions of "the physical" (bhautika) and "the corporeal" (muurta) and "the material" (muurta plus sparsha?) bear a strong (Wittgensteinian) "family resemblance" to Western conceptions of the physical/corporeal/material. Above all, the four atomic physical elements, which possess both finite-dimension and tangibility, and which compose the human body, are similar to conceptions of matter in Europe at the time that the mind-body problem was articulated.

5.2 Conceptions of the Mental and the Psychological: the Nyaaya-VaisheShika and Western Traditions Compared

96 The NSB verse commentary involves a "Nihilist" objector who is trying to refute the Nyaaya position that atoms are partless. But there are other arguments from Buddhists who used the property of impenetrability (the term they used was sapratighatva) to argue against the existence of Nyaaya wholes (composite objects over and above their parts) on the grounds that the wholes could not occupy the same space as their parts because they were numerically different substances. The Nyaaya solution, of course, was to assert that the wholes inhered in their parts, while at the same time affirming that no two ultimate substrates could occupy the same space. 97 Bhaduri (1975: 53), in characterizing material substances as being of limited size and tangible, says that they necessarily possess impenetrability for that reason. This suggests that the inner organ, also of limited size but intangible, lacks impenetrability. But this lacking of impenetrability would contradict Sha~Nkaramishra's claim, mentioned above, that no two substances of limited size can occupy the same space. 132

It should already be evident, based on what I have presented in Ch. 3, that the Nyaaya-VaisheShika concept of aatman is in certain ways very similar to the Cartesian concept of mind or soul. First of all, the Cartesian mind is a substance in a certain sense, and the Nyaaya soul is a type of dravya, with many arguing that the Nyaaya conception of dravya refers to substance in a certain sense. The sense in which either of these are substances may not be identical, but I have argued that they are very similar. Some have claimed that Cartesian substance is to be construed as an ontologically independent entity and not as a substratum, the substratum sense being the sense of the Nyaaya dravya. However, as has been seen, Nyaaya substances, at least the non-composite ones, are viewed as ontologically independent entities. It seems to be part of the very notion of substance that substances are in possession of what I have loosely termed 'attributes'. And so it is in both the Cartesian and Nyaaya cases: attributes are substantial modes (which can be taken to include actions) and properties, in the former case, while they are tropes (guNas), which include actions (karma), and universals (saamaanyas), in the latter case. Another way in which Cartesian and Nyaaya souls are similar is that they possess similar "psychological" attributes, and that these attributes are considered unique to souls. The Nyaaya six specific-qualities of the soul (cognition, etc.) are attributes of the Cartesian soul as well. Finally, Cartesian souls are like their Nyaaya counterparts in that they are, to use the term loosely, "immaterial". The real debate here concerns in what sense either soul can be said to be a spatial entity. I have already concluded that, on balance, the Cartesian soul should be regarded as nonspatial. Although I have already indicated that the Nyaaya soul possesses spatial extension, there is textual evidence that the opposite view (that the Nyaaya soul is nonspatial) is plausible. I would now like to briefly look at this evidence. Although the secondary literature that deals with Nyaaya-VaisheShika, it seems to me, almost exclusively endorses the view that the Nyaaya soul is a spatially extended entity, either explicitly or implicitly, Arindam Chakrabarti has asserted that the Nyaaya soul lacks spatiality. To be sure, he has made this claim when interpreting Uddyotakara's commentary on NS 3.1.1, but, as the following quotation shows, he appears to be talking about the Nyaaya position in general. 133

Although the Naiyaayika assigns "ubiquity" or "All pervasive" - quantity (Bibhu [sic, Vibhu] parimaaNa) to the Self, as the subsequent argument [Uddyotakara's commentary] clearly brings out, the Nyaaya self is not a Spatial entity. Just as it is timeless, and in that sense omnitemporal, it is spaceless - and in that sense Vibhu, everywhere present. (A. Chakrabarti 1982: 237 n.9)

Moreover, Chakrabarti gives us no indication that this view is unusual or in conflict with other views of the Nyaaya soul. It is difficult to reconcile the Uddyotakara-A.Chakrabarti view of the soul's lack of spatiality with Kisor Chakrabarti's view that the soul has spatial extension. Uddyotakara, in the commentary that A. Chakrabarti is commenting on, says that the soul is "nowhere". One might try to gloss this as meaning "nowhere in particular" because it is located everywhere, as might seem to be suggested by A. Chakrabarti's quotation. But in this sense the soul should not be regarded as "outside" of space and time - in the way that numbers are sometimes thought to be by Platonists - but rather as present at all space-time points. But if this were the case, does it really make sense to say that the soul is nonspatial? Consider the ether (aakaasha). Uddyotakara does not make a claim of nonspatiality for it, yet, like the soul, it cannot be said to have a particular location. The crux of the matter is that omnipresent (vibhu) substances are, by defintion, in contact (saMyoga) with all material (muurta) substances in the universe, and contact, as I have suggested earlier, is an inherently spatial concept. So it is not easy to understand how the Nyaaya soul could be in contact with all material substances in the universe (and "everywhere present"), while at the same time be regarded as "nonspatial". I consider K. Chakrabarti's position on the soul's spatiality to be the standard view, and this is the view that will be presupposed here in considering the mind-body problem in a Nyaaya context. But if A. Chakrabarti is literally correct when he says the Nyaaya soul is a nonspatial entity, then that soul is even more like the Cartesian one than what I presented earlier. 134

5.3 The Pairing Problem and Nyaaya-VaisheShika

Given all that I have said so far, it seems that there is a good case to be made for a Nyaaya substance dualism with respect to mind/soul and matter/body that roughly corresponds to the substance dualism held by Descartes and other 17th Century European philosophers. The question I now want to ask is, is this similarity to the Cartesian case sufficient to generate a soul-body interaction problem within Nyaaya? As far as I know, the Naiyaayikas never acknowledged such a problem. There are two possibilities as to why this is the case. First of all, it may be the case that they simply overlooked that there was a genuine problem, though they ought to have recognized it. The other alternative, is that the Nyaaya concepts of mind/soul and matter/body are just different enough from their Cartesian equivalents that the notion soul-body interaction is straightforwardly unproblematic, or at least less straightforwardly problematic. I will argue that both of these alternatives are partly correct: while the differences in the Nyaaya concepts go a long way toward avoiding an interaction problem, making a possible problem not terribly obvious, ultimately (given the classical Nyaaya-Vaisheshika ontology) there is an interaction problem nevertheless. This is not to say that, with some slight modifications, the problem might be more easily solved than in the Cartesian case. I propose some such modifications here. What I first propose to do is to establish why generating the mind-body interaction problem within the Nyaaya-VaisheShika ontological framework might be difficult. You will recall that the typical way of formulating the mind-body interaction problem is that of positing a difference between mind and body so "radical" as to make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to conceive how they could interact. It is tempting to analogize the Nyaaya case to the Cartesian one, given that the Nyaaya soul is immaterial and the only entity capable of possessing consciousness. Earlier on, however, I had castigated this "radical difference" formulation of the interaction problem as hopelessly vague. I furthermore suggested that Kim's pairing problem was effectively an attempt to give the interaction problem a precise expression. So it is of considerable interest to see how 135

Nyaaya might handle the pairing problem. Recall that Kim's pairing problem asks in virtue of what ontological feature or principle can an event/object that is qualitatively identical to another such event/object be "paired" with another event in the relation of cause to effect. One might suspect beforehand that the differing views on the soul's spatiality would play a crucial role in how Nyaaya can deal with the pairing problem, given that Kim has singled out spatial relations as crucial to its solution. One may wonder, given that classical Nyaaya souls have their own individuators (visheShas), whether the pairing problem can even be formulated within the classical Nyaaya framework. Recall that the one variant of Kim's pairing-problem supposes to exist two numerically distinct souls that are intrinsic-qualitatively identical to one another. The existence of soul individuators (in the Nyaaya case), however, would forestall this possibility. Of course, what I am assuming here, is that the way Kim is using 'qualitatively identical' (and the way it is typically used) is in a sense such that qualities can be any intrinsic "attributes" whatsoever, be they tropes, properties, or "internal" motions. This sense of 'attribute' would also include the Nyaaya individuator, which is, by definition, unique, so from the Nyaaya point of view you cannot have qualitatively identical souls in Kim's sense. What I would like to discuss here, is whether a pairing-problem can nevertheless be formulated with two souls that are qualitatively identical but for their individuators. Before discussing this possibility, however, first consider the hypothetical case where the souls under consideration in the pairing-problem are just like Nyaaya souls, but they lack an individuator or any other means of "intrinsic individuation" (e.g. self- individuation, discussed earlier), as opposed to individuation that involves extrinsic, relational factors (e.g. position in space and time). Such souls would be qualitatively identical, yet (by hypothesis) numerically distinct. Kisor Chakrabarti has made the claim that, because the Nyaaya soul has spatial extension, the classic mind-body interaction problem need not arise (K. Chakrabarti 1999: 25-26). Chakrabarti's intention is not to thwart the pairing-problem per se (which he does not discuss), but rather to point out that, in virtue of existing in space, the soul can make contact with the body in order to interact with it. He contrasts this with the Cartesian sort of soul, which, because it does not exist in 136 space, is unable to make contact with the body, and therefore the interaction problem arises. At first sight, this spatial soul might appear to solve the pairing problem, if you recall that Kim thought that the solution would have to involve a spatial relation between mind/soul and the body it is supposed to interact with. On the Nyaaya account, this relation would be spatial contiguity (contact, saMyoga) between soul and body. However, when one recalls that the Nyaaya soul is possessed of maximal spatial dimension, its spatial relation to a particular body would seem to be just as problematic as the Cartesian case where the soul is dimensionless and, indeed, nonspatial. For in the Nyaaya case, each and every soul would bear exacdy the same spatial relations to every material object in the universe, so spatial relations per se could not serve as a solution to the pairing problem. In short, at a minimum, Nyaaya souls without individuators (or any other self-individuating intrinsic qualities), are no more able to cope with the pairing-problem than their Cartesian counterparts. I return now to considering the possibility that the attribution of individuators or self-individuation to the Nyaaya soul does not help eliminate the pairing problem. What such attribution certainly does help with, if one could but countenance the existence of either individuator or self-individuation, is Strawson's problem of individuating countless minds that are qualitatively identical (all thinking the same thoughts) (Strawson 1974). But with the pairing problem, Kim proceeds on the assumption that there exist two (or more) distinct, yet qualitatively identical, minds/souls and asks, in virtue of what is it the case that one of these minds, rather than the other, can be said to cause some physical event? Presumably Kim wants these minds to be qualitatively identical in order to preclude the logical possibility that an intrinsic quality that one of the minds lacks could not be used as the solution to the pairing problem. But I do not think that anything like an individuator would be likely to ever play this role. For one thing, (if it did) we could not have law-like generalizations based on it because it is an utterly unique attribute. Nor do individuators even appear to be the sort of thing that could participate in causal explanations - it is hard to make sense of the claim that it is merely in virtue of its individuator that one mind, rather than another, can cause a certain physical event. In short, I do not think that it is stricdy speaking necessary to assume strict qualitative identity between the two (or more) minds considered in the pairing-problem, in order to establish it as a problem. 137

So it would seem that neither "intrinsic individuation" nor unique spatial relations (which are not available to Nyaaya souls) can solve the pairing problem in the Nyaaya case. However, it may be recalled that the inner organ (manas), which is of finite dimension and has a spatial location, does bear unique spatial relations to a given human body, usually taking up residence in the organism (unless it is between transmigrations). So, in effect, the pairing-problem between soul and body reduces to the nature of the pairing relation between the soul and the inner organ. As already discussed, given the maximal extension of the soul, spatial relations will not pass muster for establishing such a unique relation. However, earlier I had suggested passages in some of the classical Nyaaya texts suggested that such a unique relationship between a given soul and a given inner organ was achieved, not through contact per se - every soul in the universe being in contact with every inner organ in the universe - but through adRRiShTa, the karma-mechanism. Every soul has its "own" inner organ with which it appears to be able to uniquely interact with in such a way as to produce cognition, etc. AdRRiShTa is the invisible moral force that seems to permit the unique causal interaction between a soul and a given inner organ. Notice that a similar sort of explanation to account for the unique pairing between mental cause and physical event would seem to be available in the Cartesian case. But rather than an invisible moral force effecting the pairing, it might be the will of God that does. But the crucial difference between the two cases is that, once the pairing is effected, the causal interaction problem remains in the Cartesian case, but seemingly not in the Nyaaya case. Recall that in the two classic solutions to the interaction problem that involve God - Leibniz's "pre-established harmony" and Malebranche's occasionalism - genuine causal interaction between mind/soul and body is rejected, and it only appears that such interaction exists. Whatever you might think of the karma-mechanism as an explanation for achieving the desired pairing between soul and manas, and therefore between soul and body, once the pairing is achieved, it does seem that K. Chakrabarti is correct when he claims that the spatiality of the soul helps to explain how it is that the soul can affect the body. For it is the spatial extension of the Nyaaya soul that permits contact between it and the inner organ, which in turn is in contact with the body. And, as I argued earlier, spatial contiguity 138 between cause and effect of some sort does seem to be a requirement for genuine cases of causation. Even so, one might still wonder if some sort of "radical difference-objection" to the Nyaaya case might still remain. After all, the Nyaaya soul is very different from the inner organ, which is in turn very different from the bodies (shariiras) with which it interacts. I think that there is a lot to this objection, though it needs to be made precise, and the issue is nowhere near as unproblematic as K. Chakrabarti seems to imply.

5.4 Other Problems Concerning Nyaaya Soul/Mind-Body Interaction

What I will do now is present a certain causal chain of events consistent with Nyaaya ontology, with the idea of examining it to determine potential problems for Nyaaya soul/mind-body interaction. Recall how soul-body interaction is supposed to work in the Nyaaya case. Take as an example a person who, upon seeing a clay pot, desires to lift it up to see what it feels like, as well as to inspect it more closely. As far as I know, Nyaaya does not explicate a lot of the details of such a process. But here is what they would, more or less,claim. The person's eyeballs, which contain the visual organs, happen to be in "line-of-sight" of the pot. The visual organs project light (or fire, tejas) particles (atoms or dyads) that make contact (saMyoga) with the pot. In fact, these ocular light rays are considered to be part of the visual organs. The inner organ, perhaps at the behest of the soul, moves into a position to make contact with the visual organ (for the sake of simplicity I will assume there is only one such organ). The inner organ (manas) itself is (typically viewed as being) the same size as a single atom. Once in contact with the visual organ (which is contact with the pot), the inner organ, which is always in contact with the soul, causes a perception-cognition (pratyakSha-j~naana) of the pot in the soul, a quality (trope or property-particular, gunNa) that temporarily (for one moment, kShaNa) inheres in the soul. (I suppose one could think of the inner organ as conveying the light particle "information" to the soul.) This cognition, in turn, causes the desire (iccha) - another quality of the soul - to lift the pot. And this desire, in turn, causes the volition (or effort, prayatna) to lift the pot, volition being yet 139 another of the soul's qualities. Now the volition to lift the pot will cause action (karma, kriyaa) on the part of the body, viz. the person's arm and hand to move in the appropriate way to actually pick up the pot. The movement of the hand98 is the first action in this scenario. With respect to this action, the inherence cause is the hand, the non-inherence cause is the contact of the hand with the soul possessed of volition, with volition being the (immediate) efficient or instrumental cause. The movement of the pot as held by the hand can be regarded as the second action. It is action that occurs in virtue of the pot's contact with the hand. So in the second action, the pot is the inherence cause and the conjunction of the pot with the hand- conjoined-with-the-soul-exercising-volition would be the non-inherence cause. In a similar case involving a hand holding a pestel that is being moved upward, Sha~Nkaramishra gives the same non-inherence cause as I have given for the pot case, and gives gravity and volition as the efficient causes. While it is clear that volition is an efficient cause here, it is not clear why he thinks gravity is a cause of the upward movement of the pestel - presumably he would also consider it to be a cause in the case I am presenting. But it is acknowledged that in cases of the upward or "sideways" motion of substances possessed of gravity, impulse (or [mechanical] pressure, nodana) is the cause of such motion. Typically in such cases, the impulse-contact imparts impetus (vega) to the substance. It is the substance's impetus that allows it to, temporarily at least, overcome gravity. Volition, as discussed earlier, is the acknowledged (efficient) cause of such impulse that arises when a living organism moves upwards or laterally (e.g. a bird flying), or propels a substance upwards or laterally through the air (e.g. a human throwing a stone) (VS/US 5.1.8-9). So I think that, in the case being considered here, the lifting of a pot up off a table and towards the person lifting it can be seen as a result of the impulse-contact between the person's hand and the pot he is grasping. The person's hand can be viewed as exerting a certain gripping pressure on the pot. Since the hand-arm is moving at the same time, the impetus of the hand is "transferred" to the pot in virtue of such contact".

98 I am viewing the hand-arm combination as a single substance. 99 Nyaaya may have conceived of the entire action described here in a somewhat more complicated fashion than what I have presented. For one thing, the action of the hand-arm may be thought of as produced by "muscular motion" (cheShTa) rather than being a type of such motion, but this is not clear. Also, cheShTa is sometimes said to be produced by kRRiti, sometimes translated as 'impulse' or 'first impulse' or 'stir1 140

Now, as I alluded to earlier, some of the finer points of this entire causal chain are rather mysterious. First of all, do the light particles of the ocular ray(s) form a "physically" (spatially) contiguous entity between the sense-object (the pot) and the inner organ? It seems as though they must if any action-at-a-distance causality is to be avoided. Presumably the shape of the pot is "grasped" in virtue of the fact that the light particles are only able to contact the pot in a pattern that can only conform to the pot's actual shape. Recall, though, that with the inner organ being of atomic size, it would not be able to come in contact with more than a few light atoms at a single moment, and so would not be able to "grasp" the pot-pattern as a whole all at once. So does the inner organ then have to move around the (proposed) pot-shaped pattern of light particles (in order to convey information of the pot's existence to the soul) in an analogous fashion to what it does when it is transferring information from the different senses (to the soul) non-simultaneously? Another apparent lacuna in the standard Nyaaya account of perception has to do with the exact location of the various qualities that arise in the soul. Kisor Chakrabarti assures us that all of cognition, etc. occur within the limits of the human body. Traditionally, the Nyaaya, like Aristotle, thought the centre of cognition was the heart or pericardial cavity. But what this has to mean, in the Nyaaya case, is that cognition transpires in the region of the soul delimited by the pericardial cavity, if not by the heart itself. So presumably the inner organ, after coming in contact with the visual organ in our example, even though it is already in contact with the soul, would have to move into the region of the soul where the heart is in order for a cognition to occur. (One might object that this is not necessary and that manas merely being in contact with aatman is sufficient. But my point is that one would naturally expect the perception-cognition to occur in that region of the soul where manas is in contact with the sense organ [because of intuitions we have concerning spatial contiguity], not the region of the heart. If the cognition were to occur in the heart region without manas moving there, then something like action-at-a- distance would appear to be occurring. One could argue that the soul itself is the conduit of transmission of the "information" from manas to the heart, but this still looks like "action-

(mentioned in the VRRitti of JayanaaraayaNa on VS 5.1.1, but from a quoted, but unknown, source [Sinha 1911: 165]). 141 at-a-distance", given that the soul is impartite - contact with the sense organ occurs in the head, while at the same time the perception-cognition "magically" appears in the heart, given that there is featureless, structureless soul-substance in between.) But it is not at all clear why the cognition would have to occur within the confines of the heart. Indeed, it is not even clear why the cognition per se would have to occur within any region of the soul that is delimited by the body. I am tempted to attribute this restriction to adRRiShTa. If one imposes the restriction on causality that an effect must be spatially adjacent to its immediate cause(s) in a contiguous fashion, then, since the inner organ never wanders outside of the body it is associated with (I speculate that this is due to adRRiShTa) - except in the case of yogis - one might expect the qualities of the soul that are caused by the inner organ to be confined to the body as well. But this does not answer the question as to why cognition, etc. have to be confined to the area of the heart. Once the pot-perception cognition arises in the heart, presumably the subsequent desire and volition qualities occur there as well. But the details of the next step in the causal chain under consideration here, the movement of the arm, are also mysterious. If the volition which causes the movement remains in the pericardial cavity, and assuming no- action-at-a-distance causality, then it would seem to be the heart and something else (that connects the heart with the arm) that act as causal intermediaries. Perhaps the Nyaaya viewed either the blood vessels or nerves as being the intermediaries. That such causal intermediaries may exist in the case of volition-caused-arm movement is suggested by a somewhat obscure account, given by Sha~Nkaramishra, of the case of volition-caused-inner organ movement. For instance, in the pot example just given, in order for a pot-perception to register in the soul, the inner organ has to move in order to conjoin with the visual organ. The efficient cause of such conjunction is volition in the soul. But according to Sha~Nkaramishra, the volition-quality does not act directly on the inner organ:

Although the internal sensory [organ] as an organ is not an immediate object of [or "not directly subject to", Sinha 1911:181] volition, it is to be considered that action is produced in the internal sensory [organ] by volition acting upon the channel 142

which conveys the internal organ [or "by volition which can be reached by the nervous process by which mind [the inner organ] travels", Sinha ibid.]. It must be admitted that this channel is perceptible to the sense of touch, else the transmission of what is eaten and drunk, by means of volition acting upon the channel of the breath [or "reached by the nervous process through which life or the vital energy travels", Sinha ibid.], would be impossible. (US 5.2.14, translated by Archibald Edward Gough in Gough 1975: 169)

This quotation seems to indicate that the soul's volition acts directly on the channel ("nervous process") through which the inner organ may travel, rather than directly on the inner organ itself. Since the soul is in contact with the inner organ at all times, it should be concluded that that part of the soul where volition can be located (if such there be) is never in contact with the inner organ per se, and that it is the inner organ's channel that acts as the causal intermediary. This interpretation, at any rate, seems to be indicated by the passage just quoted. My aim here is not to press the Nyaaya position in a heavy-handed fashion with respect to supposed lack of detail or clarity in their explanations. But I am trying to look for points in their position that are philosophically problematic with respect to the mind/self - body interaction problem. Most of the gaps in the Nyaaya account of mind/soul-body interaction that I have thus far given can, I think, easily be filled in a philosophically unproblematic way. Some of the features of this account may even be altered without significant impact, at least from a point of view that focuses on the interaction problem. For instance, it might be the case that the inner organ is not of atomic size, but of intermediate size, just as Raghunaatha ShiromaNi maintained. Perhaps the region where the soul intersects the brain is the real locus of cognition. Indeed, it might even be the case that the inner organ is a set of nerves running from the various sense organs and converging in a region of the brain, etc. Again, it might be that the nerves running from the brain are the immediate cause of the arm lifting. Perhaps there are some points in the account I have given that are philosophically problematic, but not with respect to the interaction problem with which I am concerned. 143

One such might be the invocation of adRRiShTa (if it really is, or needs to be, invoked) at points where there does not seem to be an intuitively "natural" account to be given. But this is debatable. Another point in the causal chain considered above that might indicate a philosophical problem is the point where the inner organ causes a cognition in the soul. For the inner organ is a corporeal (muurta) and mobile body that possesses an absolute absence of consciousness. But the cognition it causes, a perception of a pot in the case under consideration, is what many Western philosophers think of as a sensation100 or, more accurately, a cluster of sensations, which have often been thought of as immaterial in the modern West. Both Naiyaayika and Western philosopher alike would claim that such a perception or sensation involves consciousness or awareness of the content (or object) of perception, i.e. whatever the perception/sensation is about101. Yet it is not clear how and why, from the mere contact of the inner organ with light particles, an awareness should result in a soul in contact with that inner organ. This is the problem of consciousness that I mentioned at the outset of my project, and one that will not be discussed here. But I would now like to closely examine the causal chain considered above for possible problems with respect to mind/soul-body interaction. Before proceeding, I would like to point out that Nyaaya views of body-body interaction, where by 'body' I refer to composite substances formed from the atomic elements, do not seem to be particularly problematic. As is evident from the discussion in Ch. 2, the Nyaaya possessed some of the "mechanical" concepts that were prominent in 17th Century European physics/natural philosophy. Their concept of impetus (vega) was very much like the Western concept of that goes by the same name, and therefore similar to the modern physical concepts of inertia and momentum. They possessed concepts that were similar to that of impact (their abhighaata) and mechanical pressure (their nodana). Despite being familiar with these concepts, there was no one among the Naiyaayikas claiming that mind/soul-body interaction had to be modelled on body-body interaction. Why this might be the case will be dealt with later.

100 It is more accurate, I believe, to compare a sensation to an unqualified (or indeterminate) cognition (nirvakalpa-j~naana), but this is a concept that has not been discussed here. 101 Though the Western philosopher might be willing to say that you can have sensations or percepts without being aware of them. 144

I will now take a closer look at mind/soul-body interaction. In the pot-perception example, it is the volition of the soul that causes the arm to lift the pot (in virtue of the hand's connection to both arm and pot). Now at first sight, it seems strange that something like a volition (as conceived by the Nyaaya) is able to effect this motion. Recall that a volition is a quality and, as such, lacks any spatial dimension or extension (parimaaNa), on the grounds that qualities cannot inhere in qualities. One might therefore presume that it is a dimensionless point, possessed of location/position only. But it is not easy to see that such a point could be causally efficacious, especially when one considers that qualities are incapable of moving102. Why is this? I think the reason we are apt to view a Nyaaya quality as causally inert is because, in our ordinary experience, we perceive that it is corporeal substances, or, perhaps more accurately, actions involving them (events), that seem to be doing all the causing. For this reason it is tempting to think that the Nyaaya have made something akin to a category mistake when they say that a quality, even though it is a particular (a trope), can cause an action. To see this, consider when some body A (say a large rock) falls on another body B (say a clay pot), crushing it in the process. According to classical Nyaaya, weight (or heaviness or gravity, gurutva) is a quality of body A, and is the non-inherence cause of the downward motion (an action, karma or kriyaa) of A. But this very same weight can be viewed as the efficient cause of the action of body B, viz. its deformation. The non- inherence cause of the deformation of B would be yet another quality, viz. the impact (abhighaata) between A and B, which it may be recalled, is a type of contact/conjunction. But to us it seems more correct to think of body A, regarded as a substance, as the cause of the action in body B. Or, perhaps even better, since Western philosophers often view events as causes, one will think of the hitting of body B by body A as the cause. The previous considerations might lead one to consider that the Nyaaya just have a different view of causation than Western philosophers, especially those from Early Modern Europe. The crucial question here is, ought the Nyaaya to hold the view that tropes are causally efficacious? It seems to me that holding that tropes can serve as causes violates the spirit of their philosophy. Recall that classical Nyaaya steadfastly refuses to countenance

102 See Ch. 2, p. 40, for the notion that motion is not an attribute qualities could possess. 145 any second-order property-particulars. So, as mentioned above, a quality like volition lacks a dimension-quality. But so too do qualities that have a "physical" character, e.g. weight. Nyaaya also regards the attribution of action or motion to any quality in the same vein. Thus it is the substance, and not its colour or weight, that has extension and that moves through space. So it seems to me that the same intuition or argument that leads to these conclusions, should lead the Nyaaya to regard substances, rather than qualities, as the items that are responsible for causation. Qualities generally do not exist but for the substances in which they inhere. To be sure, a substance has to have certain qualities in order to be causally efficacious, but as the ontologically independent relatum of the inherence relation, it would make more sense to attribute causality to the substance, particularly if more than one quality of the same substance is needed to cause a given effect. Earlier I suggested that a Nyaaya quality, because it lacks extension, is effectively a dimensionless point (albeit a property-possessing one) that nevertheless has spatial location. This notion, at first sight, seems to make it unwise to say that tropes themselves can serve as causes. This is because tropes, from a Nyaaya perspective, cannot make contact (saMyoga) with one another, as contact is itself regarded as a (relational) quality and qualities cannot inhere in other qualities - only substances can have contact with other substances. So if spatial contiguity between cause and effect is considered to be a requirement of causality, then these point-tropes should be causally inert. Even if an exception is made, however, and contact is allowed as a second-order quality, the dimensionless character of tropes would still preclude their contact. For in order to be distinct, two numerically distinct tropes must necessarily occupy different points in space. But there is an infinite number of such points between any two distinct points, no matter how close they are to one another. Therefore there can be no contact between distinct points and therefore between any two distinct tropes. This inability of a Nyaaya quality to conjoin with another quality, if we think of it as a problem for causality between tropes, may be called the Nyaaya trope-density problem. Yet it is a fact, according to Nyaaya, that certain qualities pervade their loci. Indeed, other than conjunction, disjunction, sound, and the specific-qualities of the soul, the Nyaaya have traditionally regarded all other qualities as qualities of complete occurrence 146

(i.e. qualities that are locus-pervading, vyaapya-vRRittitva). It is hard to reconcile this notion of qualities as being invariably dimensionless points. The only way I can see to do this would be to view, say, the weight-quality that is found all over a given body, as consisting of an infinite number of point-weight tropes. But I do not think the Nyaaya ever viewed qualities of complete occurrence in such a manner. Moreover, the same problem of the apparent spatial extension of qualities occurs with at least some of the qualities of incomplete occurrence. For instance, it is pretty clear that an object can be conjoined with another object over a contiguous set of points, in which case such contact cannot simply be viewed as a single point shared by the two touching objects. Again, you may recall that pleasure (sukha), a quality of the soul, though it does not pervade the entire soul, nevertheless can pervade the entire body. What I have been suggesting here, by pressing Nyaaya on the matter of trope causation, is that there may be an interaction problem here that is reminiscent of the classical Western mind-body problem. From what I have said so far, there does not appear to be a problem that is peculiar to mind/soul-body interaction. After all, my earlier example involved a massive body crushing a lighter one by falling on top of it, an example of body- body interaction. The trope-density problem really does seem to pose conceptual difficulties for causal interaction between the various psychological tropes. For while it may be the case that pleasure and pain may pervade significant areas of their locus, I think one can presume that the other psychological qualities are point-tropes. (Phenomenologically, pleasure and pain are felt to occur over an area of the body, but no so qualities like volition and desire.) So how, for instance, a perception-cognition gives rise to a desire, which in turn might give rise to a volition, will be problematic if one assumes that cause and effect have to be spatially contiguous. But what about the question with which I am especially concerned here, viz. soul-body interaction? To use the scenario put forward earlier, how is a presumed point-trope such as volition supposed to effect the movement of the arm? At first sight there appears to be a simple answer to this question. Although volition is said to be the efficient cause of the arm movement, it is the conjunction of the soul- possessed-of-volition with the arm that is the non-inherence cause of the arm's action. So 147 really, one substance (the soul) is causing action in another substance (the arm) in virtue of the contact between them. So there does not appear to be a trope-density problem here. However, you may recall my earlier concern about how it is possible for a perception- cognition to arise in the region of the soul that is contact with the pericardial region of the body at the same time that the inner organ is contact with the visual organ in the eyeball. I suggested that even though the soul is in contact the inner organ, the production of the perception in the area of the heart looks like action-at-a-distance. What I am now suggesting is happening in the volition-arm scenario is also action-at-a-distance, but in the opposite direction. If volition is a point-trope in the heart region, it does not seem likely that it could influence the arm to move. Consider, in support of this claim, the example of a metal rod that is electrically charged at one end, but electrically neutral at the other. Another electrically charged object will respond in appropriate causal fashion if it is in contact with the end of the rod that is electrically charged, but not if it is contact with the neutral end. So it might be with the case of the soul, with a volition-trope in the area of the heart unable to move the arm that is some distance away. One apparent solution to this dilemma is to simply posit some sort of causal intermediary between the heart region where the volition resides and the arm. An instance of this, doubtless anachronistic but serving to get my point across, might be a set of nerves connecting the heart area with the arm, nerves capable of moving the arm when in contact with the pericardial area where the volition resides. However, it is difficult to see this solution as working either, for a reason similar to that which gives rise to the trope-density problem, viz. lack of spatial contiguity between trope (volition in this instance) and the substance it is affecting (the hypothetical nerves in this case). For a point-trope cannot make contact (saMyoga) with a substance any more than it can with another trope. You might object that the volition point-trope does not need to be contiguous with the nerves going to the arm - it inheres in the soul and it is the soul that is in contact with the nerves. Yet in order to avoid any action-at-a-distance causality whatsoever the nerve would have to be in contact with the very same area of the soul where the trope is located, and that could never be as long as the trope is a dimensionless point. So you might consider that in order to provide for the requisite contiguity, one could 148 just insist that cognition and other qualities are not simple point-tropes after all, but do in fact continuously cover a region of the soul just the way bodily pleasures and pains do, even if we cannot say anything more specific about their locus. I earlier suggested that one could view such spatially extended trope regions as not violating the Nyaaya prohibition against second-order qualities if we view such regions as sets consisting of an infinite number of (dimensionless) qualities. Classical Nyaaya would almost certainly not approve of such a conception on the grounds of what they would consider an absurdity: in the case where one quality pervades a greater area than another quality, both qualities would consist of the same number of point-tropes, viz. an infinity of them. (This is the same "mustard seed versus Mt. Meru" argument that was discussed earlier.) But it seems to me that the only alternative that logically permits a trope to actually be pervasive would be to allow the dimension-quality to inhere in it. In any event, either of these alternatives would seem to provide for spatial contiguity between cause in one substance and effect in another. Consider, for hypothetical instance, the following. Two substances A and B come into contact with one another. The region of A that comes into contact with B (if not A in its entirety) is pervaded by a quality a. Upon contact of B with A, another quality b arises in the region of B that is in contact with A (if not in B in its entirety). (In this case, the contact- quality between A and B would be considered the non-inherence cause of b while a would be construed as the instrumental cause of b.) But insisting on at least the partial pervasiveness of the soul's qualities may not prove altogether satisfactory either. Consider that composite substances owe (in a causal sense) their qualities to the qualities of their parts, ultimately their atomic parts. With respect to the atoms themselves there is no question of their intrinsic qualities not pervading their entirety. (A relational quality like conjunction by its very nature cannot pervade its loci.) The qualities of composite substances that are (ultimately) inherence- caused by the atoms are also thought to pervade their loci. In fact, if one ignores the relational qualities of conjunction and disjunction, the only qualities of incomplete occurrence (i.e. are non-locus-pervading) are sound (the one and only specific-quality of the ether) and the specific-qualities of the soul. So the only two substances in which such non-pervasive qualities occur are the ether and the soul, which are themselves both 149 infinitely (or maximally) extended and impartite. Both the ether and the soul are continuants, not only in the sense of entities that endure through time, but in one of the senses in which someone who does not believe in atoms might think of matter - a continuous, indivisible "stuff". Perhaps the Naiyaayikas would resist the notion of infinitely (spatially) continuous soul-stuff, but it seems to be a logical consequence of viewing the soul as a substance that has dimension. Because they are impartite, it is clear that any causal "activity" that occurs within the ether or the soul, as part of them, has to occur between their tropes. For there cannot be any substances (parts) that compose the soul that would carry out such activities. But this notion of a continuous soul-stuff acting on itself and material objects via its qualities, even though these qualities may be found spread throughout finite-sized regions of it, may be problematic. To see this, consider the following example. Imagine being immersed in a large body of water at room temperature in which a warm underwater current is created. When your body comes into contact with the warm current, you will feel this warmth in the region of the current, at least until the heat dissipates. You will also experience a greater resistance to your own movement in the water were you to move against the current. The relative warmth of the higher temperature current can be viewed as a trope of incomplete occurrence. So too, perhaps, can the (greater) resistance of the water in the region of the current. You may not actually perceive any movement of the water, but only feel its heat and extra resistance. You might be able to correlate the perceived resistance with a causative event that is external to the region of resistance. For instance, the turning on of an electrical device - a device that would take the tank water as input, heat it, and forcefully eject the heated water - submerged near the tank's edge may be the cause of the warm current. Now there are a number of ways of giving causal explanations of the warm current phenomenon. The contemporary scientific explanation is based on an atomic (or molecular) theory of matter: the higher temperature of the water in the current is due to an increase in the average kinetic energy of the water molecules (more energetic molecular collisions per unit time), and the greater resistance or inertia of the current is due to the increase in the momentum (mass times velocity) of the water molecules in the direction that the current is 150 flowing. Early Modern European science would have had a similar explanation, though to explain the wanner current they might have claimed that either phlogiston or caloric (both conceived as substances) being released into the water was responsible. The Naiyaayikas, too, would have a similar explanation. They might view the pressure of the water current as resulting from impulse-contact (nodana) of the water "molecules" in the region of the electrical device with that device, with the subsequent transmission of impetus (vega) among the water molecules constituting the current. The warm "touch" of the water they would view as being due to the presence of fire/light (tejas) atoms or "molecules" being released into the water. The Nyaaya explanation is scarcely less "mechanical" than the other two103. Now consider an explanation in which water is envisaged as a homogenous, spatial continuant. Then it is difficult to imagine the "water" as possessing internal motions, i.e. regions of the water internal to the mass of water as a whole that would displace one another, while the mass as a whole would not move (being constrained by the tank as it is). This seems to be a problem with any material object where its matter is viewed as spatially continuous. So what we are faced with, in the example under consideration, is the appearance simpliciter of temperature and resistance tropes in the water. To be sure, we can legitimately attribute the cause of these tropes to the turning on of the electrical device. But compared to the intuitively satisfying mechanical explanations given above, in this case the causal relations would be viewed as "brute facts", without any deeper explanation. Of course, one might reply that at some level we have to face such brute causative facts in our explanations. But then again, the "longer" we can postpone this level, the more fruitful our science ought to be. So in the case just considered, an atomic theory of matter will lead to predictions that can account for all sorts of unrelated phenomena, whereas as a continuum theory of matter would appear, from a predictive standpoint, to be a dead end. The reason I have put forward the previous example is because I want to analogize that situation with the case of the causation of qualities in the soul. I have already suggested that the Nyaaya soul can be viewed as a spatially continuous substance because it is impartite. Because it is maximally large it is immobile. And if what I said earlier about

103The details of the Nyaaya explanation might be incorrect here, but this will not affect my basic argument. 151 spatial continuants is correct, there cannot be any internal motions of soul-stuff as well - there are no soul "convection currents", as it were. Nor can any tropes the soul possesses move, for, as the Nyaaya affirm, tropes are not the sort of things that move. So the appearance of qualities in the soul, whether caused by contact with the inner organ, or by other qualities previously inhering in the soul, has to be viewed as brute fact. No deeper mechanism seems capable of being postulated. The same considerations would also apply when the soul causes action in the body. Though there would seem to be much scope for elaborating on the mechanism of actions in the body itself, all that remains to be said about the cause of the initial bodily action is that a quality of the soul, viz. volition, caused it. So I think that, if Princess Elizabeth could have been transported back to classical India, she might have raised a similar objection to the Nyaaya account of soul/mind-body interaction that she raised against the Cartesian account. Recall that earlier I implicitly presented two different ways of interpreting Elizabeth's objection. One of these explicitly objected to the lack of a mechanical account of mind-body interaction (involving concepts relating to momentum and impact). Neither the Nyaaya nor Descartes are able to provide such an account. For these concepts involve motion, and the Nyaaya soul, along with the qualities that inhere in it, suffer from an absolute absence of motion. (There must have been overwhelming, implicit intellectual "pressure" against the Nyaaya conceiving the soul in mechanical terms, ultimately stemming from their religious beliefs, viz. that the soul is eternal. As we have seen, the Nyaaya have arguments that the soul could not be of atomic size. But then it could not be of medium size either because, if it were, it would have to be a composite substance, and therefore noneternal. So it must be of maximal size, and therefore immobile. Its incomposite nature rules out it having any parts at all, let alone moving parts. So a mechanical account of the soul is just simply an impossibility by Nyaaya lights.) The other way of interpreting Elizabeth's objection against the Cartesian case involves recognizing the lack of spatial contiguity between the Cartesian soul and the human body, a contiguity which is necessary (by at least 17th Century standards, if not ours ) in order for causation to obtain. But here it is doubtful that the same objection can be raised in the Nyaaya case. Certainly this is what Kisor Chakrabarti maintains, claiming that 152 the Nyaaya soul exists in space and has spatial extension and therefore establishes a connection with body. As discussed earlier, however, Arindam Chakrabarti claims that the Nyaaya soul is not a spatial entity. If true, then the Nyaaya case does indeed suffer from the same problem that the Cartesian one does. Earlier I had hinted that a "brute fact" causal account - a type of causation that some might call 'Humean' - is not the most satisfying sort of explanation. However, I also pointed out that at some level we need to accept such brute facts on pain of an infinite regress of facts that have to be explained. One expects to find explanations involving such facts, if anywhere, in the most fundamental theories of physics. Earlier I had mentioned why it was the case that contemporary philosophers do not take what might be called the "mechanical version" objection of Princess Elizabeth very seriously: the original corpuscularian, mechanical philosophy of the 17th Century, with its Berkeleian conception of matter, was displaced in modern times by theories involving fields and point-particles. In fact, absent the complex mathematical relationships (that physicists have worked out in detail), the Nyaaya view of the soul and its interaction with matter is similar to contemporary physical field theory. One might not view any of the four fundamental fields that form the basis of modem physical theory as being substances in the colloquial sense. But I think it is at least debatable that they could be considered substances in one of the philosophical senses considered earlier. For they appear to be independent entities, as well as entities that possess properties. A field is really a region of space, regarded as a continuum, in which each point of that space possesses a property (or properties) with a specific numerical value that represents the magnitude of the property (or properties) at that point. The value may, and typically does, vary from one point to the next. The value at a given point may also vary over time. For instance, an electric field, which is really an aspect of a greater electromagnetic field - the electromagnetic field being one of the four fundamental fields - is a distribution of electric charge in space. Every point in this field has a certain magnitude of charge. I think it is fair to say that such points could be viewed as tropes. From a mathematical point of view, the field extends to infinity in all directions, though its strength asymptotically drops off. This field has the capacity to affect the motion of material particles like electrons and protons. Here there is no talk of causation involving 153 impact. The field is a continuum, but its varying point-values of a measurable physical property ensure against its homogeneity. At this level there exists brute-fact, "Humean" causation. An electromagnetic field deflecting an electron is in principle no different from a Nyaaya soul moving a body's arm. You cannot give a deeper reason (on current theory) as to why an electron with negative charge gets repelled by a field with positive charge - it is simply a brute fact. Ultimately, the reason why the Nyaaya account of the soul will simply be a theory acceptable in religion and philosophy, but not in science, is because of its lack of predictive power, a lack which would stem primarily, though not necessarily exclusively, from the fact that no one has come up with a mathematical theory of the Nyaaya soul.

5.5 Conclusion

In this final chapter I have focused in greater detail on the way in which Nyaaya conceptions of the physical/material/corporeal, on the one hand, and Nyaaya conceptions of the mental/psychological,on the other, correspond to their Western counterparts, particular those that were prevalent in Early Modern Europe. I essentially confirm the conclusion of earlier chapters that there is sufficient "family resemblance" between the Nyaaya and Western conceptions to permit us to speak of a general mind-body problem in the Nyaaya case. I have presented the A. Chakrabarti-Uddyotakara thesis that the Nyaaya soul is nonspatial after all. Although I suggest that the evidence on balance does not favour this thesis, at least in the way I have interpreted it here, if the thesis is true then the Nyaaya soul is more like the Cartesian soul (on its standard interpretation) then is commonly supposed. I have also examined here how the Nyaaya might deal with Kim's pairing problem. I argue that in and of itself the spatial extension of the Nyaaya soul does not solve the pairing problem because, being infinite (or maximal), a given soul would bear exactly the same spatial relations to everything in the universe as every other soul. However, I suggest that Nyaaya souls can be individuated by their inner organs and the bodies they are responsible for creating and this provides a solution to the pairing problem. I further suggest that, on my interpretation of the A. Chakrabarti-Uddyotakara thesis that the soul is nonspatial, the 154 pairing problem cannot be be solved. Although I contend that the spatiality of the Nyaaya soul goes a long way in explaining why the Nyaaya did not recognize a mind-body interaction problem, I have argued here that there does seem to be an interaction problem nevertheless. I make this claim because what seems to be doing the causal work in mind-body interactions are tropes of the soul. Because these tropes lack any spatial extension, it is hard to see how they can be causally efficacious, particularly given what I have called the trope-density problem - the problem of how it is possible for a dimensionless trope to make contact with another trope. (I am assuming here that causality requires some sort of spatial contiguity between cause and effect.) In the end, I conclude that the Nyaaya soul, if it is construed along the lines of a classical field as portrayed in modern physical theory, is no more or less problematic, ontologically speaking, than such a field, save for the fact that a mathematical description has not been given for it. 155

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