Basic Principles Of Indian Philosophy Of Language

"This book is a concordance of theories of Indian tradition. An analytic approach has been made on the theories available in Paninian, Nyaya-vaisesika, Purvamimamsa and Vedanta schools to show the consistency of the discourse made by traditional philosophers who claim themselves to be astika or Vedacentric. Attempts also have been made to establish that the traditional Indian theories of language are undoubtedly relevant for solving some problems raised in modern philosophy of language."

The Volume Throws Light On Various Issues And Problems In Classical Indian Philosophical Tradition Concerning The Structure Of Language And Meaning, Particularly Referring To The Theories And Philosophies Of Bhartrhari And Nyaya And Purva-Mimamsa Philosophies Of Language. It Also Involves The Contemporary Western Perspective In The Course Of Analysis.

What can the philosophy of language learn from the classical Indian philosophical tradition? As recently as twenty or thirty years ago this question simply would not have arisen. If a practitioner of analytic philosophy of language of that time had any view of Indian philosophy at all, it was most likely to be the stereotyped picture of a gaggle of navel gazing mystics making vaguely Bradley-esque pronouncements on the oneness of the one that was one once. Much work has been done in the intervening years to overthrow that stereotype. Thanks to the efforts of such scholars as J. N. Mohanty, B. K. Matilal, and Karl Potter, philoso phers working in the analytic tradition have begun to discover something of the range and the rigor of classical Indian work in epistemolgy and metaphysics. Thus for instance, at least some recent discussions of personal identity reflect an awareness that the Indian Buddhist tradition might prove an important source of insights into the ramifications of a reductionist approach to personal identity. In philosophy of language, though, things have not improved all that much. While the old stereotype may no longer prevail among its practitioners, I suspect that they would not view classical Indian philoso phy as an important source of insights into issues in their field. Nor are they to be faulted for this.

This volume is concerned with those parts of Indian pramana theory that Western philosophers would count as logic and philosophy of language. Indian philosophers and linguists were much concerned with philosophical issues having to do with language, especially with theories of meaning, while the Indian logicians developed both a formalized canonical inference schema and a theory of fallacies. The logic of the standard Indian inferential model is deductive, but the premises are arrived at inductively. The later Navya-Nyaya logicians also went on to develop a powerful technical language. This intentional logic of cognitions became the language of all serious discourse in India. The selections in this volume discuss Indian treatments of topics in logic and the philosophy of language, such as the nature of inference, negation, necessity counterfactual reasoning, many-valued logics, theory of meaning, reference and existence, compositionality and contextualism, the sense-reference distinction and the nature of the signification relation.

Contains eight essays by the late Professor G. Misra who was the first Indian philosopher to employ the rigorous methods of modern linguistic and logical analysis to understand the key doctrines of Advaita Ved?nta.

This Book Offers A Study Of Bhartrhari S Vakyapadiya In An Altogether Modern (The Post-Fregean) Perspective On The Philosophy Of Language. Bhartrhari S Analysis Of Language Is Presented Methodically And In Contemporary Philosophical Idiom.

The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Philosophy of Language presents a systematic survey of philosophy of language in the Indian tradition, providing an up-to-date research resource for better understanding the history and future direction of the field. Each chapter addresses a particular philosophical problem from the viewpoint of seminal traditions and specific thinkers. Covering the philosophical insight on language found in the mainstream philosophies of Vyakarana, Mima?sa, Nyaya, Vedanta, Buddhism, and Alankarasastra, the chapters tackle crucial semantic and pragmatic questions such as the relation of the speaker to reality, the use of metalanguage, the distinction between sentences, elliptic statements, and figurative usages, and the impact of textual structures on the philosophical message. Complete with further reading suggestions and an annotated bibliography, this collection makes an important contribution to both Eastern and Western contemporary philosophy of language.