Ram-Prasad Advaita Epistemology and Metaphysics

An Outline of Indian Non-Realism
Erscheinungsjahr 2013
ISBN: 978-1-136-86890-0
Verlag: Taylor & Francis
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 288 Seiten

Based on original translations of passages from the works of three major thinkers of the classical Indian school of Advaita (Sankara, Vacaspati and Sri Harsa), but addressing issues found in Descartes, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Wittgenstein and contemporary analytic philosophers, this book argues for a philosophical position it calls 'non-realism'. This is the view that an independent, external world must be assumed if the features of cognition are to be explained, but that it cannot be proved that there is such a world, independently of an appeal to cognition itself. This position is constructed against idealist denials of externality, realist arguments for an independent world and the sceptical denial of the coherence of cognition.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ram-Prasad, Chakravarthi

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Nicht-Westliche Philosophie Indische & Asiatische Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Erkenntnistheorie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Metaphysik, Ontologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction

Section I: Sankara: Externality

1. Sankara and the philosophical framework of Advaita

2. Sankara, Vasubandhu and the idealist use of dreaming

3. Sankara, dreaming and non-realism

Section II: Vacaspati: Determinacy

1. Vacaspati on anirvacaniyatva

Section III: Sri Harsa: Existence

1. Knowledge and Existence

2. The non-realist critique of Existence

Discursive Appendix: Reading Sri Harsa through 20th century anti-sceptical naturalism

Section IV: Applying Non-Realism

1. Causal connections, cognition and regularity: comparativist remarks on David Hume and Sri Harsa

2. Immediacy and the direct theory of perception: problems with Sri Harsa