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UNIVERSALS Frits Staal UNIVERSALS Studies in Indian Logic and Linguistics The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London FRITS STAAL is professor of philosophy and South Asian languages at the University of California, Berkeley. THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, CHICAGO 60637 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, LTD., LONDON © 1988 by Frits Staal All rights reserved. Published 1988 Printed in the United States of America 97 96 95 94 93 92 91 90 89 88 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Staal, Frits. Universals : studies in Indian logic and linguistics / J. Frits Staal. p. cm. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Hindu logic. 2. Language and logic. 3. Universals (Philosophy) I. Title. BC25.S76 1988 87-23187 160'.954—dcl9 CIP ISBN 0-226-76999-2 (cloth); 0-226-77000-1 (paper) Contents Preface vii Introduction 1 1. Universals, Shadowy and Substantial 1 2. The Evidence from Indian Logic 12 3. The Evidence from Indian Linguistics 29 4. Seven Reviews 35 5. Conclusions 36 Bibliography 51 PART i INDIAN LOGIC 1. Correlations between Language and Logic in Indian Thought. 59 Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 23 (1960): 109-22 2. Formal Structures in Indian Logic. 73 Synthese: An International Quarterly for the Logical arid Psychological Study of the Foundations of Science 12 (1960): 279-86 3. Means of Formalization in Indian and Western Logic. 81 Proceedings of the XHth International Congress of Philosophy, Florence 10 (1960): 221-27 4. The Theory of Definition in Indian Logic. 88 Journal of the American Oriental Society 81 (1961): 122-26 5. Contraposition in Indian Logic. 93 Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science: Proceedings of the I960 International Congress, Stanford (1962): 634-49 6. Negation and the Law of Contradiction in Indian Thought: A Comparative Study. 109 Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 25 (1962): 52-71 7. The Concept of paksa in Indian Logic. 129 Journal of Indian Philosophy 2 (1973): 156-66 PART ii INDIAN LINGUISTICS 8. Euclid and Pänini. 143 Philosophy East and West 15 (1965): 99-116 VI CONTENTS 9. A Method of Linguistic Description: The Order of Consonants according to Pänini. 161 Language 38 (1962): 1-10 10. Context-Sensitive Rules in Pänini. 171 Foundations of Language 1 (1965): 63-72 11. Pänini Tested by Fowler's Automaton. 181 Journal of the American Oriental Society 86 (1966): 206-9 12. Syntactic and Semantic Relations in Pänini. 184 With Paul Kiparsky. Foundations of Language 5 (1969): 83-117 PART in REVIEWS 13. D.H.H. Ingalls, Materials for the Study of Navya- Nyäya Logic. 221 Indo-lranian Journal 4 (1960):68-73 14. E. R. Sreekrishna Sarma, Manikana: A Navya- Nyäya Manual. 227 Journal of the American Oriental Society 82 (1962): 237-41 15. B. SheftSy Grammatical Method in Pänini: His Treatment of Sanskrit Present Stems. 232 Language 39 (1963):483-88 16. H. Scharfe, Die Logik im Mahäbhäsya. 238 Journal of the American Oriental Society 83 (1963): 252-56 17. G. Car dona, Studies in Indian Grammarians I: The Method of Description Reflected in the Sivasütras. 243 Language 46 (1970): 502-7 18. B.K. Matilal, The Navya-nyäya Doctrine of Negation: The Semantics and Ontology of Negative Statements in Navya-Nyäya Philosophy. 249 Indo-lranian Journal 13 (1971): 199-205 19. B. K. Matilal, Epistemology, Logic and Grammar in Indian Philosophical Analysis. 256 Indo-lranian Journal 19 (1977): 108-14 Index 263 Preface As a teenager in Amsterdam I would occasionally visit The Hague. It was not far but the natives struck me as decidedly odd, not to say weird. However, it didn't take long to find out that there also existed in The Hague people with whom it was easy and enjoyable to communicate. In the early fifties I spent three years in India where I had more exotic but similar experiences. Unlike many who came later, I did not go to India in search of drugs or religion. In Amsterdam, the first commodity had not yet arrived and the second was no longer in demand. What I encountered was a fresh experience that did not meet preconceived expectations, hopes, or fears. The experience taught me that those who want to feel good and also find truth should seek out both but never mix, let alone identify, them. Sanskrit says analogously that prey as "pleasant" is not the same as sreyas "good." Outside the circles of Indian and Western experts, where everything has become familiar and unexciting, Indian thought is often used to provide vari- ous kinds of stimulation. This is not surprising but illustrates that most Ameri- cans and Europeans have not yet begun to understand Asia. The situation is not different from the common approach to Greek philosophy that existed a century ago. Nietzsche described it around 1880 in a passage of Morgenröte (§544) to which Philo Bregstein referred me: I note that our philosophising youths, women and artists want phi- losophy to provide precisely the opposite of what the Greeks de- rived from it. A person who does not hear the constant joy which pervades every phrase and counterphrase of a Platonic dialogue, the joy which celebrates the new discovery of rational thought— what does he understand of Plato or of ancient philosophy? The Greeks were intoxicated with dialectics, concepts, ideas, argu- ments, generalizations and refutations, an intoxication that re- minds us of what the great composers of classical counterpoint must have felt. But our contemporaries do not wish to be looked upon as rational beings, they like to be exceptional souls, "intuitive natures" with "inner depth" and "intellectual vision." They want to be artistic, a genius in the head and a demon in the body, hence eligible for this world and the next, to which is added the divine prerogative of being obscure and unintelligible. And vii VÜi PREFACE these are the kind of people that now do philosophy! I am afraid they will notice one day that they have made a mistake, that what they are looking for is religion! In India, I found answers to many questions that had never occurred to me. Everything demonstrated that Indian classical philosophers, grammarians, and ritualists—in Veda, Vedänta, Nyäya, Yoga, or MImämsä; in Buddhism, Jainism, or Tantrism—were rationalists and paid attention to arguments. They were in this respect like the ancient Chinese, Greeks, and many medi- eval European schoolmen, only more so. For their training comprised not only formal logic but also grammar, a discipline that until very recently was more highly developed in India than anywhere else. They were unlike contempo- rary irrationalists inspired by existentialism or hermeneutics, that is, in the end, religion. My conclusions were checked, expanded, and formulated in London and Amsterdam. The results were published in a series of articles, chiefly dealing with Indian logic and linguistics, which studied these subjects not from the viewpoint of the Orientalist but from a philosophic perspective. Friends and colleagues have long urged me to republish these studies to- gether in one volume as there has been a demand for them since their first publication in journals formidable and bizarre like IIJ (Indo-Iranian Journal) or BSOAS (Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies). This flat- tering suggestion also carried with it a whiff of mummification. Republica- tion, however, offered an opportunity to explain their lasting relevance to a wider audience. I have always been convinced that the principal ideas and conclusions of these studies had remained inaccessible to what seemed to be their proper audience, namely, philosophers, logicians, linguists, and anthro- pologists. One would like to add other enlightened intellectuals, politicians, and businessmen who are not enamored of Asia but cannot fail to note its in- creasing importance—the kind of people whose children do martial arts but who remain themselves /Unimpressed by "Success through Musashi." Is it more serious to argue that the ultimate source for Japanese management is Nägärjuna? It could be done, but would not be simple, and would have to be- gin where I began, with Indian logic. What is now rescued from self-imposed obscurity presents one more prob- lem. Inaccessibility of the papers was not merely due to the originals having been tucked away in strange places; they also were addressed primarily to Sanskritists, who include eminent scientists but are interested in words, texts, and translations, perhaps history, not ideas. And so I have written a substan- tial, leisurely, mildly autobiographical Introduction that lifts these essays out PREFACE IX of their Sanskritic context and places them in the broader perspective of the search for universals, which was my original point of departure. The book as it now appears does three things. First, it provides a new inter- pretation of Harvard philosopher Quine's "Indeterminacy of Translation" (now charitably called "Principle of Charity"), which had thrown doubt on the possibility of communication between civilizations. This interpretation provides access to a universe of analytic discourse outside Western analytical philosophy and shows how not to isolate philosophy from ongoing research in the human sciences, especially in Asian studies. Second, the book demon- strates that Indian pandits discovered the same universals that were discovered in the West. And third, it argues that the Western humanities and social sci- ences will have to learn from Asia before they can be of assistance in paving the way to the common future of mankind. The first and third argument derive their momentum and strength from the second. The second is based upon the studies in Indian logic and linguistics that are reprinted here in parts one through three.