The Instability of Reason: Śrīharṣa on the Foundations of Epistemology
(Under contract with Oxford University Press)
For many Sanskrit philosophers, epistemology wasn’t a purely theoretical enterprise; it was intended to serve practical purposes. This approach to epistemology is found in the philosophical tradition called Nyāya. The defenders of this tradition, the Naiyāyikas, took Nyāya to be a science of rational inquiry that could assist practitioners of other sciences like economics and government in realizing their distinctive practical aims. These thinkers were committed to Nyāya rationalism: the view that rational inquiry can help us discover all practically important truths about ourselves and the world. Though this view was popular in premodern South Asia, it wasn’t without its critics. In this monograph, I focus on one such critic of Nyāya rationalism: Śrīharṣa (12th century CE). Śrīharṣa agreed with the Naiyāyikas that liberation (mokṣa or apavarga), i.e., complete freedom from suffering, is the highest aim of human existence, and that we can achieve it by discovering the truth about the self and its relation to the world. But he rejected the claim that rational inquiry can help us discover that truth. Call this view anti-rationalism. In this monograph, I show how Śrīharṣa defends anti-rationalism against Nyāya epistemologists in his only surviving philosophical work, The Amassed Morsels of Refutation (Khaṇḍanakhaṇdakhādya).
The argument of my monograph is this. Contrary to other interpretations of Śrīharṣa, Śrīharṣa’s defence of anti-rationalism is intimately connected to his commitment to Advaita Vedānta. Like other supporters of Advaita Vedānta, he endorsed the view—derived from an interpretation of the Upaniṣads—that nothing other than consciousness ultimately exists. He thought that we can achieve liberation only by gaining non-conceptual, epistemically direct access to this fact. But, on his view, this is something that ordinary kinds of perception, inference, and testimony cannot give us. Thus, he was opposed to two presuppositions of Nyāya epistemology: first, that there exists a world of mind-independent particulars and properties beyond our conscious experiences and thoughts, and, second, that we can gain knowledge about that world by ordinary methods like perception, inference and testimony. To undermine these presuppositions, Śrīharṣa argues that rational inquiry into the fundamental structure of reality is unstable: any theory that we may arrive at by means of such inquiry is vulnerable to defeating evidence (in the form of counterarguments). This instability of reason, according to Śrīharṣa, should motivate us to suspend our projects of rational inquiry and to place our trust (śraddhā) in the scriptures—i.e., the Upaniṣads—which alone are invulnerable to defeating evidence. On the one hand, this sort of anti-rationalism distinguishes Śrīharṣa from his Advaita predecessors like Śaṃkara (8th century CE), who acknowledged the usefulness of rational inquiry in the pursuit of liberation. On the other hand, it makes his position similar to that of Mādhyamika Buddhists like Nāgārjuna (2nd century CE), who subscribed to a form of anti-rationalism.
I show that Śrīharṣa’s criticisms of Nyāya are significant for two reasons. First, they were influential in shaping the course of Sanskrit philosophy in the next few centuries. Not only did they influence later Advaita Vedāntins like Citsukha (13th century CE), but also paved the way for theoretical innovations in Nyāya through figures like Gaṅgeśa Upādhyāya (14th century CE), Śaṃkara Miśra (15th century CE) and Raghunātha Śiromaṇi (15th century CE). Second, Śrīharṣa’s arguments against Nyāya reveal the defects of a more general approach to philosophy: an approach that seeks to describe the nature of theoretically interesting categories—like knowledge and causation—by laying down reductive analyses of the corresponding concepts. Śrīharṣa argues that any attempt to offer such conceptual analyses is doomed to fail. Here, Śrīharṣa anticipates the view of contemporary epistemologists, like Timothy Williamson, who have expressed similar pessimism about the project of analysing knowledge and recommended a form of “knowledge-first” epistemology.
(Under contract with Oxford University Press)
For many Sanskrit philosophers, epistemology wasn’t a purely theoretical enterprise; it was intended to serve practical purposes. This approach to epistemology is found in the philosophical tradition called Nyāya. The defenders of this tradition, the Naiyāyikas, took Nyāya to be a science of rational inquiry that could assist practitioners of other sciences like economics and government in realizing their distinctive practical aims. These thinkers were committed to Nyāya rationalism: the view that rational inquiry can help us discover all practically important truths about ourselves and the world. Though this view was popular in premodern South Asia, it wasn’t without its critics. In this monograph, I focus on one such critic of Nyāya rationalism: Śrīharṣa (12th century CE). Śrīharṣa agreed with the Naiyāyikas that liberation (mokṣa or apavarga), i.e., complete freedom from suffering, is the highest aim of human existence, and that we can achieve it by discovering the truth about the self and its relation to the world. But he rejected the claim that rational inquiry can help us discover that truth. Call this view anti-rationalism. In this monograph, I show how Śrīharṣa defends anti-rationalism against Nyāya epistemologists in his only surviving philosophical work, The Amassed Morsels of Refutation (Khaṇḍanakhaṇdakhādya).
The argument of my monograph is this. Contrary to other interpretations of Śrīharṣa, Śrīharṣa’s defence of anti-rationalism is intimately connected to his commitment to Advaita Vedānta. Like other supporters of Advaita Vedānta, he endorsed the view—derived from an interpretation of the Upaniṣads—that nothing other than consciousness ultimately exists. He thought that we can achieve liberation only by gaining non-conceptual, epistemically direct access to this fact. But, on his view, this is something that ordinary kinds of perception, inference, and testimony cannot give us. Thus, he was opposed to two presuppositions of Nyāya epistemology: first, that there exists a world of mind-independent particulars and properties beyond our conscious experiences and thoughts, and, second, that we can gain knowledge about that world by ordinary methods like perception, inference and testimony. To undermine these presuppositions, Śrīharṣa argues that rational inquiry into the fundamental structure of reality is unstable: any theory that we may arrive at by means of such inquiry is vulnerable to defeating evidence (in the form of counterarguments). This instability of reason, according to Śrīharṣa, should motivate us to suspend our projects of rational inquiry and to place our trust (śraddhā) in the scriptures—i.e., the Upaniṣads—which alone are invulnerable to defeating evidence. On the one hand, this sort of anti-rationalism distinguishes Śrīharṣa from his Advaita predecessors like Śaṃkara (8th century CE), who acknowledged the usefulness of rational inquiry in the pursuit of liberation. On the other hand, it makes his position similar to that of Mādhyamika Buddhists like Nāgārjuna (2nd century CE), who subscribed to a form of anti-rationalism.
I show that Śrīharṣa’s criticisms of Nyāya are significant for two reasons. First, they were influential in shaping the course of Sanskrit philosophy in the next few centuries. Not only did they influence later Advaita Vedāntins like Citsukha (13th century CE), but also paved the way for theoretical innovations in Nyāya through figures like Gaṅgeśa Upādhyāya (14th century CE), Śaṃkara Miśra (15th century CE) and Raghunātha Śiromaṇi (15th century CE). Second, Śrīharṣa’s arguments against Nyāya reveal the defects of a more general approach to philosophy: an approach that seeks to describe the nature of theoretically interesting categories—like knowledge and causation—by laying down reductive analyses of the corresponding concepts. Śrīharṣa argues that any attempt to offer such conceptual analyses is doomed to fail. Here, Śrīharṣa anticipates the view of contemporary epistemologists, like Timothy Williamson, who have expressed similar pessimism about the project of analysing knowledge and recommended a form of “knowledge-first” epistemology.