On the presentational unity of knowing in Nyāya

Abstract

Many Sanskrit epistemologists think there are several basic ways of knowing (pramāṇas). Yet there is also a long tradition of seeking a general definition of pramā, the mental episode of knowing that is the result of a pramāṇa. One popular definition of pramā invokes the concept of anubhava. In ordinary usage, ‘anubhava’ means ‘experience’. But in the context of defining pramā it usually receives a more technical-sounding translation, like ‘presentational awareness’ or ‘non-mnemic awareness episode’. This paper considers how to interpret the anubhava condition in Nyāya epistemology. On a presentationalist interpretation, the condition requires pramā to present the cognizer with its object in a perception-like way. On a deflationary interpretation, the condition only functions to exclude memory from counting as a pramāṇa. This paper defends a modest presentationalist interpretation. Sections 3 and 4 present two kinds of arguments for this interpretation. Section 5 embeds the interpretation within a wider presentationalist framework, but stresses important disanalogies with the presentational conception of knowing that Maria Rosa Antognazza claimed was “genuinely traditional” in the history of epistemology (“The Benefit to Philosophy of the Study of its History”. British Journal for the History of Philosophy 23, no. 1 (2015): 161–84).

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