Logic: Indian Skepticism

The Charvakas, Jains & Buddhists

Kanada and Gotama, our last two thinkers, have shown us Indian logic in its positivistic form, much like Aristotle (who we will get to soon) and Russell (who we will get to in the second half of the course when studying modern European logic).  Positivist thinking asserts categorical differences between objects and values (ex: “What is good cannot be bad, because it is good”).  Skepticism, however, tends to attach positivistic categorical judgments with relativity and shades of grey between the black and the white.

Consider the two sides of the Nyaya form of debate, which also happen to be the two sides of a dialectical investigation according to Plato and Aristotle: “X is Y” vs. “X is not Y” (ex: the self is eternal vs. the self is temporary).  Notice that the subject is shared, but there is a categorical black vs. white disagreement about it.

IF the world came in such simple forms, then the Nyaya proof by difference obviously follows (as does Aristotle’s syllogisms and Wittgenstein’s truth tables, both of which we will study soon).  If we KNOW that things are EITHER Y OR –Y AND NEVER BOTH, then we can discover and understand constant atomic truths about our world.  HERE IS THE PROBLEM: are things ever entirely Y or –Y?  Skeptical thinking says: X can be SOMETIMES Y, SOMETIMES not Y.  We can see positivistic and skeptical thinking in India, Greece, China, especially on logical matters.  Today, we look at major concepts of the Jains and Buddhists, Indian religions/philosophies that enjoyed logical debate but maintained skeptical positions on the nature of the world and our abilities to make judgments about it.

For both Aristotle and Gotama, we need to get above some/some to know something above merely having an insecure opinion (both are thus positivists).  However, a skeptical counter argument always will be: X is only very much Y, never entirely Y.  X is very much Y here in space and now in time, generally and to a degree, but never perfectly or fully.

For example, consider that we can all agree that fire is hot but any fire we have seen is cold compared to a star.  If we imagine Y and –Y as horizons that have no boundaries (Light vs. Dark) then X can be VERY Y or VERY –Y, but we would not be able to experience a thing as the pole of any opposition in itself (we can imagine something lighter or darker, like adding 1 to any number or subtracting to demonstrate the concept of infinity).

Not only do we try to CLOSE our inferences, judgments and concepts into black vs. white, but we also constantly like questioning black vs. white and revealing it to be shades of grey.  No matter our beliefs, we all do both to attack and defend points of view or perspectives.


The Charvaka School of Skepticism & Materialism

The Charvaka skeptics believed in perception, like the Vaisheshika and the Nyaya, but they did not believe in inference or theory of any kind.  Not only did they believe in no gods or spirits or eternal soul, but they did not believe that the human mind can know things through inference but rather imagines simplified relations.  This imaginary connection is an illusion.  One can use inference as a tool, but it is always an imaginary illusion.  Thus, they are agnostic about theory as well as theism.  Only what is right in front of your eyes is real.  This is very similar to Wittgenstein’s famous opening line of the Tractatus, the book that began modern truth table logic: “The world consists of facts, not of things”.  The world may be real, but to us it is many imagined things and constructed facts, not a thing perceived directly.

Other schools criticized the Charvakas for failing to explain the origin of consciousness.  The Charvaka reply was that consciousness was like the fermentation of alcohol.  When one mixes several ingredients in the right proportions and gives it time, alcohol is produced.  As such, consciousness is a temporary combination of elements that dissipates back into the material world from which it arose.


Jain Skeptical Logic

Jainism, or “Jain Dharma” is still practiced today by four million Jains (not Jainists as some mistakenly say).  There are currently 4 Million in India today, with many others in communities around the world including New York and Toronto.  Jainism rose just before Buddhism, as Mahavira (650 BCE), the main teacher and founder of Jainism, lived just before the Buddha (550 BCE), though all of these dates are still in debate.

Jainism advocates two principles that are shared with Indian thought but credited to Jain innovation: anekantavada, the multiplicity and relativity of reality or “non-one-endedness” and syadvada, the hypothetical and imperfect nature of perspective and judgment that is always the fiber of human truth.  According to these two principles, all human beliefs and judgments are temporary and partial views of each particular thing, including the self, and the cosmos, the greater whole.  Jains, like Buddhists, believe that things may or may not be as they seem and may or may not be expressible as they are.  Jains, much like the Buddhist Logician Nagarjuna we will read soon, believe that there are seven points of view of each and every thing.  Each thing, including the cosmos and the self:

somehow is in a way that is describable
somehow is not in a way that is describable
somehow simultaneously is and is not in a way that is describable
somehow is indescribable
somehow is in a way that is indescribable
somehow is not in a way that is indescribable
somehow is and is not in a way that is indescribable

The Buddhist Nagarjuna’s four categories are how a thing is, is not, both is and is not, and neither is nor is not.  Notice his addition of the ‘neither’, and one could say one dimension of how things are and are not is how they are and yet are not describable.  However, the fourth Jain mode of simply ‘indescribable’ says neither ‘is’ nor ‘is not’.  While other schools, including Nyaya logician/debaters, claimed that Jains and Buddhists are at fault for contradicting themselves and seeing contradicting views in things, the Jains and Buddhists argue that one only falls into problematic contradiction if one makes one-sided claims.  This is a classic duel between all/none logic and some/some-not logic, between the absolutist and the relativist.  The absolutist says the relativist does not have certain truth and contradicts themselves because they are on all sides of the issue, and the relativist replies that the absolutist does not have the full truth and contradicts themselves because they are NOT on all sides of the issue.

Jain texts use the example of hot and cold.  An absolutist would argue that a thing cannot be both hot and cold at the same time, but a relativist would argue that a thing is always somewhat relatively hot and somewhat relatively cold.  To say a thing is simply hot ignores how cold it is, and to say it is simply cold is to ignore how hot it is.  We could supply the example of a refrigerator, which cools on the inside by heating up in back and drawing the heat out of the inside.  A refrigerator is simultaneously hot and cold, and it could not be cold in one part unless it is hot in another.

Jains also, much like the wheel of Lao Zi in chapter 11 of the founding Daoist text, the Dao De Jing, use the example of a pot being solid and empty, there and not there.  In one part, it is, and in another part, it is not.  They use another example of a multicolored cloth, which is and is not many colors all over.  Notice that each thing one can say about anything is true in some ways, but false in others, a very critical way that things are and are not as they are described yet are never fully describable.  Jains argue that one sees and argues for the side of things that one wants to see, that one wants to be true.  This is yet another example of attachment and desire carving the One into many, shining light on some and plunging others into darkness and ignorance.

Jains note that, because human views and descriptions are always one-sided, it is perfectly alright to understand the whole yet lead people in one direction as opposed to another, just as ignorant arguers do, if one sees all of what one is doing.  Jains and Buddhists would see Jain and Buddhist teachers and saints in this light, as always telling what cannot be fully told, as leading us towards what is in all directions to begin with.  It is only a low and ignorant mind that thinks such leading is impossible because it is contradictory.

Jains use the image of a tree, with the absolute view (naya) as the trunk, what one joins after being fully liberated, and the particular view as the branches and twigs.  Notice that the trunk is and is not the twigs, just as the absolute and all-encompassing view is each particular view as a sum of them all but is not each particular view in that it is everything opposed to each particular view as well.

Similarly, Jains argue (like Hegel, who considers seeing being, non-being and becoming simultaneously in things as the first leap of philosophy and associates it with the ancient Greek skeptic Heraclitus) that things simultaneously are and are not because they are being birthed/generated, stable/still, and decaying/transforming at the same time at all times that they are.  Each of these views are false if they are considered independently true as opposed to their opposite, but in conjunction with their opposites they are the whole truth of each particular thing and of truth as a whole.  Notice that the union of stability with transformation as a single whole view is entirely similar to the orthodox Hindu union of Vishnu, the preserver/savior, and Shiva, the destroyer/transformer, in Brahma, the personification of all.

Jains were also early proponents of the idea that the cosmos works in cycles: like the physical rising and setting of the sun, consciousness rises, then sets.  People start to become awakened teachers and develop religion in the rising era, and people lose religion in the setting era.  This is endless, like the cosmos.  The cosmos becomes enlightened to its own self through us, and then loses consciousness of itself through us.  The Hindus and Buddhists share a similar picture of the cosmos, and the Indian golden age of philosophy, which includes the birth and teaching period of Mahavira and the Buddha, is seen as the apex, the high noon, of this current cycle.  Unfortunately, we currently live in an era of dimming religion and consciousness according to most Jain and Hindu teachers (the Hindus following the Jains in this picture).

Jain teachers and saints are known as Tirthankaras, “one who makes a ford” (cutting through water as order over chaos, as land becoming firmament in the chaotic waters).  Mahavira (also Mahavir), the founder of Jainism, is understood by Jains to be the 24th Tirthankara.  Like others of his time, Mahavira was a practitioner of austerities that are aimed at detachment from desire and multiplicity of the world: fasting, standing in jungles, going without food or luxuries for extended periods of time.  Statues of Mahavira and other Tirthankaras show vines growing up their legs and bodies, as vines grow several feet in the jungle a day and so would grow up your body if you practice standing austerities for days at a time.  Jains believe that these practices purify the self/soul/mind.

Here, we come to THE critical difference between Jainism and the other schools of Indian thought.  In Hinduism and Buddhism, karma can be positive (merit and blessing) or negative (demerit and sin).  Thus, karma can either help you up or drag you down.  For Jains, karma is always bondage, always weight that keeps you down, always division or blockage between you and the ALL.  Thus, one tries best to avoid accumulating karma and to destroy the karma one has already accumulated.

While there are kinds of karma and attachment that make ourselves and others happy which the Jains call good, they are hindrances to be overcome if final liberation is to be obtained.  If you really, really like waffles, this is fine but to become one with all you must be as indifferent to waffles, neither loving nor hating waffles, as the cosmos.  Jains believe that “good” karma, such as that which causes pleasure when helping others out of compassion, matures and falls off naturally along with the body.  It is easier to get rid of “good” karma which only affects the body, but it is still to be left behind.

Jains are famous for their doctrine of the negativity of attachment and the radical nonviolence that follows from this principle.  Jains wear masks to prevent insects from flying in their mouths, sweep the ground to avoid killing insects (even though the killing would be unintentional, it would still be an accumulation of karma), influenced other Indian thought in promoting vegetarianism, and even don’t eat root vegetables as it kills (up-roots) the whole plant rather than that plucked from the plant.  Like Buddhists, Jains believe that one should be disciplined and practice austerities and meditation not just for one’s own salvation, but for compassion and salvation for all living beings.

The best way to understand the dual practice of avoiding karma AND shredding karma is the Metaphor of the Leaky Boat:  You ride in a boat across water to a distant shore (Nirvana).  Notice that water represents chaos and desire, and the land represents the firm and the enlightened.  The boat is leaky, and water is pouring in.  You have to BOTH plug the leaks (preventative principles like vegetarianism that prevent bad karma from getting IN you) and bail out the water that has already inside the boat (shedding karma, practicing austerities like fasting or standing in postures to get the karma you already have in this life OUT of you).  Jains believe that it is only by this two-pronged strategy that the individual can be fully liberated and join back together with the cosmos and thus gain eternal life rather than round after round of rebirth.

From the Tattvarthadhigama Sutra, a central Jain text:
“There is a stoppage of inflow of karmic matter into the soul.  It is produced by preservation, carefulness, observances, meditation, conquest of sufferings, and good conduct.  By austerities is caused the shedding of karmic matter…Liberation is the freedom from all karmic matter, owing to the non-existence of the cause of bondage and to the shedding of the karmas.  After the soul is released, there remain perfect right-belief, perfect right-knowledge, perfect perception, and the state of having accomplished all.”

Jains argued as logicians (debaters, in the ancient world) with the other competing schools of Indian thought such as Vedanta, Nyaya, Buddhists, and Charvakas.  As mentioned, Jains argued against Hindu orthodox schools such as the Vedanta and Nyaya that there is no immortal soul/self after total release and liberation, against the Buddhists about karma, heavenly realms and other dogmatic differences, and against the Charvakas that there is no liberation of consciousness.  They also argued passionately for the principle of anekantavada against the doctrine of many other schools that there is one essential nature outside of any perspective (‘naya’), a position the Jains call ‘ekantavada’ as opposed to their own ‘an-ekantavada’.


Buddhist Logic

The Buddhists, who enjoyed debate on the nature of reality, took Gautama’s teachings on logic and in dialogue and debate with Jains developed skeptical arguments against Nyaya atomic truth.  Until recently, it was believed that Buddhists took these developments from the Jains who developed them earlier, but today it is understood that Buddhism was forming and developing its doctrines at the same time as Jainism was, so it is not clear whether the Buddhists got the skeptical arguments from Jains or if both Jains and Buddhists get them from earlier Jain-like thinkers who were meditating and practicing disciplines in the Jungle as the Jains do.

Like Jains, Buddhists argued that a thing X can be Y in some part but not others, in some place but not everywhere (universal) and at some time but not all times (eternal).  Buddhists believe in pratityasamutpada, ‘codependent arising’, that things are always complex, are caused by a complex set of things and events, and cause a complex set of things and events.  Thus, things are not grounded in singular essences or elements, but in the network of elements and particular things as a whole complex.  In the same way, a thing X is Y and not Y in an interdependent and never fully describable set.

In many ways, X is Y in some part, in some place and at some time BECAUSE X is also not Y in other parts, in other places and at other times.  For instance, if we were not born we would not exist, but when we were born or conceived we were not and then became to be.  If things did not become and transform from non-being to being, things could not be what they are.  A butterfly exists because it grew out of being a caterpillar.  An adult human being is because they were a baby but no longer are.  We can recall all of the previous Jain examples of hot and cold (and our modern refrigerator), of stability as generation and destruction, and of multi-colored cloth (reminding us of the elementary school joke, “What is write and black and red all over?”).  Unlike the Nyaya, Buddhists believe in being in accord with all truth, which means being in accord with the whole complex and its contradictions, not simply in accord with one side against another because it is dominant.

The Buddhists, like the Vaisheshika and Nyaya, believe that things have causes, however they do not have singular causes but rather instrumental, dominant, significant or efficient causes that catch our focus such that the infinite network of causes is obscured.  It is true that particular things cause other particular things, but not in a simple exclusive ‘A to B’ relationship.  One can understand and recognize A to B causation while also maintaining awareness of the perpetual complexity of context.

According to the Buddhist tradition of logic, there are three kinds of inference, two positive and one negative.  The positive types of inference are identity (If there is fire then there  is flame) and perception of effect (if there is smoke then there is fire).  The negative type of inference is non-perception (There is no fire if we see no fire).  Buddhist logicians, like Jains, often use the same examples the Vaisheshika and Nyaya use, such as ‘If there is smoke on the hill, then there is fire on the hill’ to analyze types of inference and discussing whether or not a particular inference is valid.

Just like Jains, Buddhists believe that because of suffering there is attachment and bondage to particular things, to “this versus that”, such that we come to have one-sided views of ourselves, of particular things, and of the cosmos as a whole.  Growing in wisdom and enlightenment is growing into identity with the whole, with all the sides that human minds can cling to out of despair, anger and fear.  The Buddhists, like the Jains, believe that one does not have a permanent self, and this constant transformation is a central cause of the fear and clinging of the mind to something opposed to an opposite in order to seek stability.  However, because the things and views are not themselves permanent, the mind must jump from one thing to another, seeking ideal stability in each thing and then leaping to the next with the same hope, endlessly without rest unless wisdom is developed.  The Buddhists use the metaphor of the monkey mind, of a monkey leaping from branch to branch in a frenzy.  The liberation from desire is simultaneously the liberation of ignorance, a finding stability in the whole tree rather than seeking stability in any particular branch.

Buddhists believe that reason, wisdom and enlightenment can be achieved through study, reflection and meditation.  Study is taking knowledge in, reflection is critical reasoning about the knowledge one has taken in, and meditation is practicing stillness and calm.  While most Indian schools of thought teach that study and reflection are paths to enlightenment and greater perspective, Buddhists emphasize the necessity of practicing meditation over long periods of time.


Nagarjuna

Nagarjuna (150-250 CE) is the central and most famous logician of Buddhism and, from a non-eurocentric view, one of the greatest logicians in all of human history.   He was likely the abbot of a monastery where he wrote textbooks for monks on logic, meditation and compassion for all beings.  Nagarjuna’s work was important for many Chinese and Japanese schools of Buddhism.  Tibetan Buddhists, who wrote many commentaries on his work.  The Dalai Lama today teaches Nagarjuna to audiences frequently.

Many of his works attack the Nyaya school.  Like the Jains, Nagarjuna believed that the Nyaya were right about their views but they did not understand that viewpoints and descriptions can complement each other as opposites.  While Buddhists believe in classifying types of things in the world and mind, and teach these lists of categories as catechism, they believe in seeing things as temporary, dependent on other things, and lacking self-stability and self-determination.  Like the Nyaya and other Buddhist debaters, Nagarjuna typically argues for a proposition supported by both reason and analogy while pointing out fallacies in the argument of his opponents.  In one debate, his opponent argues that if Nagarjuna believes everything is empty, then his words and argument must be empty.  Nagarjuna replies that his words are, like all things, relatively empty, but this does not mean they are not relatively true and meaningful at the same time.  Nagarjuna’s opponent argues that if Nagarjuna believes that everything can be negated, then so can his argument.  Nagarjuna replies that he can negate his own argument, but he can also put it forward at the same time.

What will these words I use now mean in five years or 3000 years?  If we do not know this makes them quite meaningless to us sitting here today as far as we know, but does this make them quite meaningless here and now?

Buddhists believe in teaching particular things, but acknowledge that sometimes we need to hear a particular truth and be lead in a particular way, and other times we need its opposite.  Just like Jains believe, a teacher who knows there are many sides to truth is wiser at teaching particular things as true.  If a truth X is quite true, this is dependent upon and interactive with ‘not X’ being quite false.  Nagarjuna taught that all Buddhist concepts are only valid for actual practice and not abstractly in theory, much like American pragmatism and John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism/Instrumentalism we will study in the second half of the course.  Like Wittgenstein in his later thought, Nagarjuna taught that things do not have singular essences, but arise out of the complex whole.  He argued this against other Buddhist schools of his time who taught that the essence of the self is non-existence as opposed to existence, that time is the essence of things, anger is the essence of duality, that compassion is the essence of practice, and matter is the essence of form.

Nagarjuna is a firm supporter of pratityasamutpada and Jain anekantavada, non-one-endedness.  This is displayed well in his catuskoti (also called the tetralemma, both meaning, ‘The Four Things’) show us another modal understanding of viewpoint and description that complements the Jain seven view understanding already discussed.  This is best symbolized as a cross or an X that cuts a space into four quadrants of Y, not Y, (Y and not Y) and not (Y and not Y).  Y is positive, not Y is negative, (Y and not Y) is some and some not positively, a contradiction of opposites affirmed, and not (Y and not Y) is some and some not negatively.  This last square may be hard to understand at first, but if we consider that the absolutist principle and strategy called the ‘principle of non-contradiction’ denies that X can be Y and not Y at the same time, this would be one example.  Another is that the image of a fire on a television is not hot like a fire, but neither is it cold because it is not hot.  Rather, the image of a fire is neither hot nor cold in itself unless one has left the television on for far too long.  Another example is an actor playing a villain is not bad because he does evil, but neither is he good because he is not evil as he appears.  The actor may be acting well or poorly regardless of what the role requires.