Philosophy, Medicine, Science,
and Boundaries
DAN LUSTHAUS
Harvard University
he Caraka-saṃhitā is widely accepted as the earliest extant Indian medical text. Its founding ideas are attributed to an ancient preceptor named
Ātreya and his disciple Agniveśa, about whom we know very little that
is not deeply drenched in conlicting hagiographia. he core redaction of
this text is attributed to someone named Caraka, whose historical identity
is equally soaked in conlicting hagiographical details.1 In this text, however, we ind, along with a plethora of medical information about sundry
physical and mental illnesses, symptoms, drugs, herbs, diagnostic theory,
and principles, methods of prognosis, treatments, anatomical theory, and
so on, what is usually considered to be the irst appearance of the theory
of pramāṇa, the instruments or means by which knowledge is acquired.
Medieval Indian philosophy – after the Nyāya-sūtra (which appears to
have been inluenced by the Caraka-saṃhitā [hereafter CS] in its own
treatment of the pramāṇas), and especially after the innovations in epistemology and logic developed by the Buddhist philosophers Dignāga and
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Dharmakīrti – devoted much of its energy and attention to arguments and
reinements of pramāṇa theory.
For centuries, pramāṇa theory was the grounding discipline for all
Indian philosophy, no matter which school or tradition one belonged to.
Why did it irst appear in India in a medical text? Does that make the CS
a philosophical text or a medical text with some philosophical sections?
Is this a question for comparative philosophy or for comparative “history”
of science? I will try in this paper to both complicate and clarify those
questions.
COMPARED TO WHAT?
his essay will be a departure from my usual approach, which would be to
focus on a careful reading of a text or limited range of texts. Instead, here,
I will raise more general issues gathered from some of the thoughts I have
had over the years as a practitioner of what could be called comparative
philosophy, ideas raised by working on a variety of materials in a variety
of religious and philosophical traditions. For the most part, what will be
ofered are, not so much conclusions, but possible research directions or
considerations for myself and other practitioners of this sort of philosophy,
though, as I will suggest in a moment, in some very important sense, all
philosophy is comparative.
All thinking is comparative: X and non-X, X and Y, Q implicating R;
all thinking presupposes notions of identity and diference. In what ways
are X and Y the same or diferent? All relations presuppose at least two
things must be diferent from each other, and at the same time united
in a common relation. When we wish to test whether our students can
think rather than regurgitate, we ask them to write essays that “compare
and contrast” one idea, or system, or theory, etc., with another. Rubbing
things together creates mental friction, which can, under the right conditions, ignite insightful and even innovative thinking – a type of creative
tapas in the Ṛg Vedic sense.2 A contemporary philosopher tackling Plato,
or Aquinas, or Descartes, or Hegel, or Frege, or Whitehead, or Derrida
is, in efect, doing comparative philosophy, comparing the thought of another time and/or place, often in another language, with one’s own. Even
when philosophizing strictly within one’s own contemporaneous idiom
with one’s contemporaries, one is thinking comparatively of one idea with
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another, or one theory with another, though obviously within a much
more restricted horizon of comparative possibilities. Hence, there is a risk
of ideational sterility unless new ideas, imported from elsewhere, can revivify the ideational pool. hat “other” source can be a foreign philosophy,
a system from another time, or simply the appearance of someone with
new ideas that stem from bringing some new factor or permutation into
the current discourse.3
Someone wrestling with Plato or Aristotle is engaged in something
very much like what someone wrestling with medieval Indian or ancient
Chinese philosophy encounters, i.e., an encounter with a foreign language
that ‘thinks’ and expresses itself diferently than we do today. his involves
systems of thought embedded in alien cultural and conceptual horizons
whose meanings and orientations must be recovered through whatever
means available or devisable. At the same time, translating the ideas in
these alien texts into our thinking patterns often requires negotiation with
a complicated set of texts, commentaries, divergent interpretations, and
hermeneutic challenges. hese in turn may be riddled with painful lacunae in terms of missing pieces, unknown opponents, and multiple contexts, often indistinct (or less distinct than we might imagine them). hese
texts and their contexts all remain moving targets that are re-imagined
and re-conigured by every generation that attempts to think through
these text-sets afresh. All of this is wrapped in an ever-increasingly dense
accrual of baggage and assumptions requiring discriminative weeding.
he encounter can engender a massive oedipal confrontation, or a minor
re-arrangement of trivial details, or a refashioning to suit current tastes
and needs. Of these last three alternatives, the irst is likely to produce
philosophy; the second, some form of scholasticism or doxography; and
the last, revisionism or fundamentalism.4
Yet we tend to think of Greek, or Christian, or German philosophy,
and so on, as part of our “tradition,” our history, while Caraka-saṃhitā,
Dignāga’s Pramāṇa-samuccaya,5 Cheng weishilun 成唯識論 (Treatise
Establishing Vijñapti-mātra),6 and Zhu Xi’s 朱熹 Jinsi lu 近思錄
(Relections on hings at Hand7) are not. Some Western philosophers
still insist that non-Western philosophy is not philosophy at all, but even
if generously granted the label of “philosophy,” they don’t practice our
philosophy, i.e., what we consider to be philosophy proper. In a more ambiguous status are works by Islamic and Jewish philosophers such as Ibn
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Sīnā, Ibn Rushd, Maimonides, Gersonides8 and Crescas.9 heir ambiguity is due to the fact that, while they are rarely part of the curriculum of
Western philosophy, it is recognized that important igures in Western
philosophy, such as Aquinas and Spinoza, were aware of and were inluenced by them. Buber and Levinas have impacted the academy, but
Rosenzweig and Hermann Cohen still remain primarily “tribal” reading.
One obvious goal of comparative philosophy would be to expand the horizons of our sense of “our” tradition. Laozi and Zhuangzi now are part of
our tradition. One could even argue, without too much inaccuracy or perversity, that making the Upaniṣads a metonymy for Indian thought was an
invention of our tradition more than a fair appraisal of the actual history of
Indian philosophy, one with which certain factions in India became complicit. Nonetheless, the status of such divisions between “our” and “their”
tradition has become increasingly ambiguous over the last century, as texts
such as the Bhagavad Gītā, the Daodejing, and the Zhuangzi have become
staples of humanities programs (and even popular reading), while, in Asia,
Western fare has taken irm root in standard curriculums. he East-West
divide is more imaginary than real these days – more a question of identity
politics than a characterization of styles of thinking.
We are situated in a very privileged place. Rarely has such a large segment of the world had such access to so much of the world’s philosophical
literature.
It is an historical truism that philosophies are at their innovative best
when located at the intersection of competing systems. Philosophical xenophobia leads to stagnation, as the results of the largely successful eforts
by Anglo-American philosophers to expel even the philosophy of their
European contemporaries from the curriculum of philosophy departments
sadly illustrates. Rorty sneaking Heidegger in through the backdoor has
proven insuicient to revitalize the analytic project. He failed partly because so much of what made the German and French philosophies of the
twentieth century vital was lost or distorted in reductionistic translation.10
Philosophy is not just any thought on something novel but a disciplined form of thought, at once tradition- and rule-bound, and yet seeking
new discoveries or insights. Diferent philosophical traditions assume different rules and rhetorical styles. Some prize exhaustively detailed prose
exposition in formalized univocal syntax – e.g., a syllogism – while others
prefer evocative, poetic multivocality designed to say more with fewer
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words. Some seek to express their syllogisms and rigorous method in the
pithiest of verses. Whatever its style, philosophy seeks to reason, i.e., to
apply reason methodically to a topic or agenda.
My interest at the moment, however, is not to argue for some sense of
the universality of comparison. (As soon as universals become suiciently
restricted to allow comparison with other universals or particulars, they
lose some of their presumed universality.) Neither is it to essentialize some
notion of philosophy, but rather to think about what ‘reasoning’ means
in diferent philosophies, and what sorts of typical gestures and characteristics reasoning exhibits in various philosophies. I am not proposing
a deinition of “reason” beforehand in order to remain open to possible
suggestions ofered by the diferent traditions.
QUESTIONING PARAMETERS
To advance more quickly, let me throw out some questions.
Is there something that makes Chinese philosophy – if there is any
such unitive discipline as opposed to multiple, divergent philosophical
and religious traditions that we lump together on the basis of a common
historical and geographical proximity – distinctively a Chinese philosophy? And so on for Indian, Islamic, Jewish, etc., philosophies. Deciding
this is important if we wish to know what is being compared to what when
we propose to do comparative philosophy. As we will see, this also entails
the question of where our centre of gravity lies: From where do we begin to
compare? What sets the agenda? Is comparative philosophy done from a
home base looking out at the “others”? Or do we try to locate ourselves in
some privileged neutral or lofty position from which we look down at the
objects being compared, as if implicated by or committed to none of them?
Is there any viable standpoint upon which a comparative philosopher can
take his or her stand?
Might it be the case that so-called Western philosophy is also distinctively “Christian” philosophy, even when practised by non-Christians
(such as Spinoza, Aristotle, Nietzsche, modern secularists, etc.), such that
Hegel – despite coining the phrase “death of God” – is after all at bottom
a Christian thinker? Does his Encyclopedia – consisting of the tripartite
Logic, Nature, Spirit – bear only a supericial structural and conceptual
parallel with the Trinity, or is there something more fundamental at play?
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Has Spinoza become a Buddhist when he identiies the three primary
afects – the afects from which all other afects are derived by permutational combinations – as pleasure, pain, and desire? In Buddhist jargon
pleasure-pain is called vedanā while desire in a primary sense is called
tṛṣṇā. Vedanā and tṛṣṇā are two of the most important nidānas in the
twelve-fold chain of pratītya-samutpāda (conditioned co-arising), often
considered Buddhism’s premier doctrine. Pleasure, pain, and desire in
Spinoza’s system of afects play a similar primary role as do vedanā and
tṛṣṇā in Buddhist discourse. Or is this model Jewish, since Spinoza partly
draws on Crescas’ ethical philosophy for these and other components of
his own?11 What else would Spinoza have to include or exclude before
we see his philosophy as Buddhistic, in the same way that Pure Land,
Huayan, or Tantra are seen as, at one and the same time, deeply similar
yet profoundly dissimilar to the Buddhist teachings of the early Pali canon? Might Spinoza be closer to, for instance, Pali Buddhism or Huayan
Buddhism, than either is to Pure Land or Tantra?
What makes these distinctive types of philosophy distinctive? What,
aside from their diferent narrative histories and accidental diferences
(language, socio-political factors, institutional support or suppression,
changing fashions in styles and rhetoric, etc.), makes them distinctive
from each other as philosophies? Are there characteristic factors that can
be enumerated? How do we bracket our expectations of what is properly
“philosophy” in order to inquire fairly into such a question? Even more
problematically, how do we circumscribe what counts as “religion”?
It is axiomatic in Indian philosophy that a deinition must be suficiently restricted so as to exclude anything that is not the case, and
broad enough to include everything that is the case. Western scholars
will quickly recognize that this is rarely as simple as it seems, especially
when trying to ind a stable referent for a term as famously diicult to
deine adequately as “religion.” Christian or so-called Western presuppositions concerning what counts as a “religion” quickly exclude many of the
world’s leading religions, such as Buddhism, Confucianism, Mīmāṃsa,
Sāṃkhya, Jainism, etc. his is because these either reject or give short
shrift to deities and especially deny a central role to a Divinity with a capital “D.” hese are major religions explicitly devoid of “God.” Responding
to that by enlarging the deinition of religion into something as inclusive
as Tillich’s “man’s ultimate concern” fails to exclude Marxism, health
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care, sports, romance, ego-gratiication, and a host of other -isms and human pursuits. Similarly, the Western notion that religion is grounded in
faith and belief rather than reason and logic would be anathema to many
Indian traditions (and even some pre-Renaissance Western religions). If
the essence of religion requires neither God nor belief, such that these
are contingent properties appropriate only for describing some religions,
then what essentially marks a religion as a religion? We partially run into
such problems because we start within the assumptions and “evidence”
of our Western traditions and then try to explain the “other” traditions
in terms of how well or adequately they mirror our own. In this way, we
set the agenda and prioritize the importance of issues based on what our
religions claim is important. Since other religions revolve around diferent
centres of gravity, inconvenient anomalies invariably emerge. If we believe
that “our” religion is paradigmatic for all religions, then its concerns must
also constitute the paradigmatic underpinnings of any proper religion.
Consequently, when faced with the aforementioned anomalies, if “our”
concerns and deinitions render other traditions marginal or insuicient
relative to what we deem the “ultimate” and most essential concerns, the
fault lies with them, not us.
What would this look like if, instead of taking Christian assumptions as the baseline, we let other traditions formulate their own consensus among themselves as to what counts as central concerns? What if
Christianity was deemed marginal or insuicient by that exercise? What
if, for example, one places ethical canons (halakhah, shāri‘a, dharma-śāstra,
vinaya, Confucian codes, even Daoist ethical treatises) at the core of what
would constitute a religion? hen Christianity becomes the odd religion
out. Christianity emits a great deal of moralism (much of it centred on
“bedroom ethics”), but it lacks a foundational ethical canon that plays a
comparable role to shāri‘a in Islam, or halakhah in Judaism, or dharmaśāstra in Hinduism, vinaya in Buddhism. hese ethical canons are typically more important than “belief ” in determining the degree of one’s
participation in these religions. his is not merely an ethnographic question but has immediate philosophical import. For instance, is it, as some
have conjectured, due to the strong emphasis on the ethical in Judaism
that Jewish philosophers predominantly embraced Aristotle – rather than
Plato or explicit forms of Neo-Platonism – during medieval times, and
Kant in modern times? What is lacking, in the Western study of religion
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or in Western philosophical method, is a well-formed discipline that deals
with the canons and reasoning styles of religious jurisprudence. (his is
in contradistinction to such well-worn and traditionally Christian disciplines as ontology, myth, epistemology, and exegesis.) As such, this lack
is a symptom of an evident myopia, and thus a potentially fatal challenge
that is presently threatening to render Western scholars irrelevant to the
growing religious confrontations. Such confrontations are occurring not
only abroad but within our own shores (despite however relevant we may
feel ourselves to be from within our own frameworks). For instance, we
become reduced to mouthing questionable ideological, ahistorical claims
when we insist that Islamists in Somalia are misusing the term jihad as
they declare Holy War on their government and suspected Ethiopian
(which, in their eyes, means Christian) interference. As a result, we fail to
explain adequately to our students how jurisprudential reasoning works.
At the same time, while searching for alternatives to military confrontation, we lack a commonly respected language and the recognized disciplined reasoning skills to address the holders of such worldviews on their
own terms. his is very obvious in discussions of the role of women in
Islam, caste inequities with Hindutvas, or abortion rights with evangelical and fundamentalist Christians. (In contrast, e.g., Palestinians and
Iranians have demonstrated deft command of our rhetorical polemics of
rights, self-determination, post-colonial ressentiment, etc.) One might ask
therefore whether Kant’s Practical Reason (and its spawn) include or occlude jurisprudential thinking? Is his ethical thinking the same or diferent as ethical thinking within religious traditions?
In a lighter but equally serious vein, as one surveys the religions of
the world one inds in every religion – except Christianity – a sacred humour tradition. Midrashic and Hasidic tales in Judaism, Zen anecdotes
and kōan collections in Buddhism, the ironic parodies in Zhuangzi, the
tales of Mullah Nasruddin in Islam, Śiva’s līlā (play), and so on, are best
known, but only the tip of a largely unexplored iceberg. For most religions, sacred humour is an important component of the spiritual path,
an attunement to the Cosmic Giggle, as some have called it. In contrast,
Christians, as Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose highlighted, have often
condemned comedy, laughter, humour, and even smiling as sacrilegious.12
his was not merely a medieval predilection but still inluences contemporary Christianity. When, in the 1950s, inspired by Aldous Huxley’s
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Doors of Perception,13 the British scholar of Indian and Iranian religion,
Richard Zaehner, decided to experiment with mescaline under clinical
supervision, he subsequently declared the experience “profane” rather than
“sacred.” his was largely because all of his attempts to have a “sacred”
experience while under the inluence of mescaline (visiting his favourite
cathedral, looking at pictures of the Virgin Mary, etc.) resulted in laughter, either an urge within himself, or “hallucinations” of the igures in the
stained glass windows laughing at him, etc. he book he wrote on this is
in two parts.14 he second part is an abridged but still lengthy transcript
of his “trip,” in which one needn’t be a clinical psychologist to discern that
his experiences were concertedly advising him to lighten up and enjoy the
humour – a message he not only resisted but found shocking and disturbing. he result was the book’s irst part in which, clothed in the guise of
objective scholarly discourse, he laid out a hierarchic typology of religious
mysticisms, with such labels as “pantheism” and “panentheism.”15 he
obvious purpose was to reairm the superiority of the Roman Catholic
variety to which he had converted, deeming the mysticisms of other religions less sacred and even profane. His typology was inluential in the
ield for some time, but, as an example of bald apologetics, should stand as
a cautionary tale for all comparativists.
Such assumptions concerning what counts as a religion or as legitimate philosophy lead us to become selective about which literature we
pay attention to, and even what parts to focus on in the literature we do
select. What is Buddhist or Hindu ontology? Is there a Daoist theory
of language? What are Neo-Confucian metaphysics? Such are our typical questions, but are they typical, much less prominent features of these
traditions, as our sustained and narrow attention to them would seem to
imply?
If a Hindu and an observant Jew begin to converse, they would quickly discover that dharma-śāstra and halakhah – which are more constitutive
of each’s sense of identity and practice within their own traditions – speak
the same language. hey share similar concerns about proper and improper foods, business afairs, daily behaviour, hygiene, familial and social
obligations, ways to celebrate, etc. However, a Christian observer of that
discussion might wonder what the bulk of their discussion had to do with
“religion.” He may be envious of the poignant traditional humour tales
they trade. And the Christian would likely overlook or resist that for the
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Jew and the Hindu, what you do is ininitely more important religiously
than what you personally believe. A Hindu can believe in one, many, or no
gods, and still be a good Hindu; what he or she cannot do is violate the
speciic dictates and mores of his or her caste and still be deemed a “good”
Hindu. At the level of dharma-śāstra and halakhah, such matters are no
longer ad hoc or sociological (or even ethnographic). hey are instead
philosophical, to be attended to with all the rigour of a system of detailed,
rational jurisprudence, one which has for millennia pervaded every facet
of social, personal, and spiritual life.
BOUNDARIES
he boundaries between “philosophy” and “religion” (and science, medicine, physics, grammar, linguistics, astronomy, rhetoric, hermeneutics,
etc.) are unclear, and the separations between such disciplines that we
take for granted today were less clear even in the West a century or so ago.
Philosophers and scientists, for instance, were often the same people during the Middle Ages in Islamic and Jewish circles. Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna),
Ibn Rushd (Averroës), Maimonides (Rambam),16 Gersonides (Ralbag),
etc., all made major scientiic contributions,17 and, with the exception of
Gersonides,18 all were practising physicians esteemed for their medical
skills during their day.19 Kant may have been the last of this breed of
scientist-philosophers, at least in the Western tradition, since he is credited with discovering the existence of galaxies. (Similarly, all except Ibn
Sīnā and Kant were prominent jurisprudents of their day. Maimonides,
for example, in his Mishneh Torah, was the irst to organize the full gamut
of Jewish law into a systematic code. his, along with his Responsa and
other halakhic works, continues to be inluential and studied today.)
Nor were such scientiic endeavours done in isolation. While certain
Islamic and Jewish religious matters may have been primarily in-group
matters, scientiic knowledge was shared and common. Maimonides
(1135–1204) and Ibn Rushd (1126–1198) – contemporaries born in
Cordoba, Spain – drew from the same medical well-springs. (his occurred even though Maimonides’ family had to lee Spain due to the persecution of Jews by the Almohades; he completed his secular education
at the famous University of Al-Karaouine in Fez, Morocco.) And such
knowledge was far more globally disseminated than is usually recognized.
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“he greatest tribute paid to the Indian [medical] system came from
Avicenna [Ibn Sīnā], who categorically acknowledged in Al Qanun (he
Canon) that he had beneited tremendously from the Indian jogis he used
as one of his sources.”20
he convergence of philosophy and medicine was not a creation of the
Middle Ages. In the West, philosophy and medicine have been intimately related at least since Diocles of Carystus (fourth century BCE) and
Aristotle. As van der Eijk states: “the relationship between Aristotelianism
and medicine has long been a neglected area in scholarship on ancient
medicine.”21 One might add that the same neglect is evident in scholarship
on ancient philosophy. While the present essay cannot substantially remedy that neglect, a few of van der Eijk’s observations about Greek medicine and philosophy – which have striking parallels in the case of India
– may help bring some attention to what it is we have been neglecting.
… more recently there has been a greater appreciation of the
fact that Greek medical writers did not just relect a derivative
awareness of developments in philosophy – something which
led to the long-standing qualiication of medicine as a ‘sister’ or
‘daughter’ of philosophy – but also actively contributed to the
developing concepts and methodologies for the acquisition of
knowledge and understanding of the natural world. (Philip J.
van der Eijk, Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity, p. 8)
Moreover, it would be quite misleading to present the relationship between “doctors” and “philosophers” in terms of interaction between “science” and “philosophy,” the “empirical” and
the “theoretical,” the “practical” and the “systematical,” the
“particular” and the “general,” or “observation” and “speculation.” To do this would be to ignore the “philosophical,”
“speculative,” “theoretical,” and “systematic” aspects of Greek
science as well as the extent to which empirical research and
observation were part of the activities of people who have gone
down in the textbooks as “philosophers.” hus Empedocles,
Democritus, Parmenides, Pythagorus, Philolaus, Plato, Aristotle, heophrastus, Strato, but also later thinkers such as
Sextus Empiricus, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Nemesius of
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Emesa, and John Philoponus took an active interest in subjects
we commonly associate with medicine, such as anatomy and
physiology of the human body, mental illness, embryology and
reproduction, youth and old age, respiration, pulses, fevers, the
causes of disease and of the efects of food, drink and drugs on
the body. (p. 10)
… Galen … wrote a treatise advocating the view that the best
doctor is, or should be, at the same time a philosopher.… It is no
coincidence that Aristotle’s comments on the overlap between
“students of nature” and “doctors” are made in his own Parva
naturalia, a series of works on a range of psycho-physiological
topics – sense-perception, memory, sleep, dreams, longevity,
youth and old age, respiration, life and death, health and disease – that became the common ground of medical writers and
philosophers alike. (p. 11)
… interaction… also took place in the ield of methodology
and epistemology. As early as the Hippocratic medical writers,
one inds conceptualizations and terminological distinctions
relating to such notions as a “nature” (phusis), “cause” (aitia,
prophasis), “sign” (sēmeion), “indication” (tekmērion), “proof ”
(pistis), “faculty” (dunamis), or theoretical relection on epistemological issues such as causal explanation, observation,
analogy, and experimentation. his is continued in fourthcentury [BCE] medicine, with writers such as Diocles of
Carystus and Mnesitheus of Athens, in whose works we ind
striking examples of the use of deinition, explanation, division
and classiication according to genus and species relations, and
theoretical relection on the modalities and the appropriateness
of these epistemological procedures, on the requirements that
have to be fulilled in order to make them work. (p. 12)
Some [philosophers] are known to have put their ideas into
practice, such as Empedocles, who seems to have been engaged
in considerable therapeutic activity, or Democritus, who is reported to have carried out anatomical research on a signiicant
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scale, or, to take a later example, Sextus Empiricus, who combined his authorship of philosophical writings on Scepticism
with medical practice. (p. 13)
It is interesting in this connection that one of the irst attestations of the word philosophia in Greek literature occurs in a
medical context – the Hippocratic work On Ancient Medicine.
(p. 19)
Comparable observations could be made concerning the early Indian
medical literature, such as Caraka-saṃhitā and the slightly later Suśrutasaṃhitā, as a survey of those texts, or even their tables of contents, would
quickly show. Space limitations preclude documenting that here in detail,
but one example should suice. he core of chapter 8 of part 3 (Vimānasthāna) of the CS consists of a rigorous, detailed description of the components of “debate” (vāda). his includes a full discussion of the parts
of a formal inference, the pramāṇas, distinguishing sound from unsound
arguments, and the value and protocols of argument.22 Passage 68 lists
ten topics a physician should explore by the three pramāṇas of authoritative tradition, perception, and inference. (Here, unlike in part 1, chap.
11, where āpta-pramāṇa, ‘authoritative tradition,’ is given great weight,
several indications place āpta-pramāṇa in a subservient, even expendable
position in relation to perception and inference.23) he ten topics are:
kāraṇa (the cause or agent initiating action, i.e., the physician), karaṇa
(instrument assisting the agent’s action, e.g., pharmaceuticals), kāryayoni
(the matrix from which the action emerges), kārya (what is being done),
kāryaphala (the result or purpose of the action), anubandha (what the action is bound to entail), deśa (the locus of the action, viz. the place and the
patient), kāla (time, viz. seasonal factors and the state of progress of the
disease), pravṛtti (the process), and upāya (procedure or device, i.e., proper preparations and initiation of proper actions). All students of Indian
philosophy will instantly recognize these ten terms are central, pervasive
categories of Indian philosophy. Here, where a patient’s life or death (not
to mention the reputation of the physician, an issue the CS also takes very
seriously) hang in the balance, these terms acquire not only concreteness
but a sense of urgency. his list could serve as the program for virtually
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any Indian religion or philosophy. hat the irst ive items are conceptually
and etymologically24 linked to the term karma underlines this.
Are we failing to produce philosophers of the stature and acuity of
Ibn Sīnā and Maimonides because philosophy departments do not require
their majors or graduate students to attend medical school, much less seriously practice the hard sciences?
What then are the limits or horizons of philosophy proper? Some
styles of philosophy strive for univocality. hinking can only be clear,
goes the claim, when words are drained of all ambiguity or multivocality.
Today the implications of the desire to reduce all voices to one, to eliminate alternatives, or to reduce a word to a single meaning, strike many
of us as disconcerting. We learn more from exploring diferent styles of
philosophy, diferent ways of accounting for the human condition, than
we beneit from silencing alternatives.
Are there meaningful lines to be drawn between philosophy and religion? Let me suggest two:
(1) Borrowing Neitzschean vocabulary, we might say that
religion is a will to meaning, while philosophy is a will to
knowledge. hese two types of wills may converge, when
either meaning is understood as equivalent to knowledge
or vice versa. Yet there are conceivably meaningful
endeavours that do not rest on knowledge per se, e.g.,
romance.25
Religion thus seeks to make life meaningful, to provide
purpose and meaning to one’s existence and one’s life
experiences. Philosophy, in contrast, seeks to know, to
understand, and to make life comprehensible through
evidence and reason. When meaning and knowledge
converge, the line between religion and philosophy blurs.
(2) Religious thinking is ultimately tautological (e.g.,
“I am that I am”; Being is; scripture is true because
it is scripture). Tautology can be a handmaiden to
authoritarianism (“It’s so because I say so!”). Philosophy,
however, considers tautology a logical error, and thus it
prefers (i) reasoning from premises to conclusions. his
is Aristotle’s preferred method (derived from the third
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PHILOSOPH Y, MEDICINE, SCIENCE, A ND BOU NDA R IES
segment of Plato’s divided line) and is a cornerstone
of scientiic method. Even more importantly and
radically, however, philosophy prefers (ii) reasoning from
premises to their presuppositions (as in recovering the
archē; the fourth segment of Plato’s divided line). Such
a procedure can be found in Nāgārjuna’s quieting of
all presuppositions (prapañcopaśama) and perspectival
attachments (dṛṣṭi). He undertakes this in order to expose
the absurdities masquerading as reasoned positions
to which we attach and with which we construct our
identities (ātma-dṛṣṭi). It is also found in Husserl’s search
for a presuppositionless philosophy in order to ground
the sciences, Wissenschaften.
With such considerations in mind, we might ask the following questions:
(1) Does Hegel’s teleological view of history, as a rediscovery
of the self by itself through the other, inally only
reairm a Christian tautological telos? (he result here
is that history’s destiny is already decided before it has
begun, the alpha in the omega, so that the eschaton is
preigured in the creation. One moves all the way from
one end of history to the other only to rediscover what
was already there at the beginning: A = A. History and
time become nothing more than the working out of the =
that declares tautological self-coincidence as a discovery
upon which all history awaits.)
(2) What signiicance or insight lurks in the tension between
his Being vs. Nonbeing sublating into Becoming, i.e.,
his famous Aufhebung ofered in the Logic? On the one
hand, Hegel seems to suggest that a dynamic process
necessarily arises from, and then supersedes static
contraries. On the other, he posits Becoming, seen as
Geist’s search for itself, as ultimately terminating in
a static telos of authentic self-realization at the end of
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history. Does this result in a terminus in which the
movement of mind, spirit, and history itself comes to
a stop once reaching its actualized self-recognition?
Does Becoming emerge from the tension of two static
contraries only to culminate eventually, with historical
and ultimate inality, in a new stasis where the contraries
have been replaced by a tautological self-coincidence?
(his self-identity will have aufheben-ed all contrastive
tensions.)
Becoming stops becoming. In what way, then, might this terminal historicism of Hegel be compared with the Kashmiri Shaivite idea of līlā, as a
game Śiva plays with himself? In this game, Śiva repeatedly, even eternally, alienates himself from himself, multiplying himself into “others” into
which he forgets himself in order to ind himself again. He thus continually engenders and wanders through various realms of existence that are
the forgotten aspects of himself. Eventually, he rediscovers himself as the
source of the game of forgetfulness, only to forget himself again once he is
found, in order to keep the game in play. Each of us is nothing more than
moves in this game of hide-and-seek, mere facets of Śiva’s forgetfulness.
For Hegel, History becomes a inite search by Spirit for itself consisting of
a series of logical predictable moves with a guaranteed climax. he notion
of Becoming with which Hegel reintroduced Western thought to time
and historicality inally leads to its own static culmination. No such inite
limits restrict Śiva’s līlā. he divine’s game of hide and seek with himself
not only plays out perpetually, restarting once completed, but time and
temporality are byproducts of the game. he game is not only a temporal
narrative conceived chronologically, but synchronically all levels of the
game are at play simultaneously, so that remembering and forgetting
happen simultaneously as well as sequentially. History plays out, but full
realization is always available and instantaneous. It is a telos that is forever
culminating because it never really culminates. he joy of realization is
only one more joyous moment in a joyous game. he game and the joy
continue nonetheless. he cosmic cards are reshuled. Śiva forgets once
again, and the game continues.
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PHILOSOPH Y, MEDICINE, SCIENCE, A ND BOU NDA R IES
LOGICAL STYLES: ROOT METAPHORS
Let me suggest a quick rubric for diferentiating Western philosophy from
Indian philosophy, and each from Chinese philosophy, though I will not
expand this here into a full analysis. Each is grounded in certain root
metaphors, basic models or disciplines which become, from the beginning, fundamental and constitutive of what follows and thereby counts as
philosophy in each of these traditions.
For the Greeks (and still in the West), the foundational disciplines
were physics and mathematics. For India, the root models were grammar
and medicine. For China, it was the family viewed, on the one hand, as
hierarchical relations (parents over children, elder sibling over younger
sibling, etc.), and, on the other hand, as dialectical relations between
family members (the give and take between a couple, parents and children, etc.). Family relations, combined hierarchically and dialectically,
yield a pattern in which individuals both change and keep roles through
a stable system: he youngest daughter, starting out life at the bottom of
the family hierarchy, can gradually raise her status until she is matriarch
of the family, overlording her sons and their wives. Social order, the web
of correlative thinking into which all natural and artiicial entities and
forces – including medical theories – were plotted, and ascension through
the stages of the spiritual path followed that model.
For the West, then, we think we are at our most profound when engaged in questions of ininity, ontology, and the translation of time and
space into mathematical equations. his fosters the illusion that soft sciences become hard once they adopt a mathematical method, etc. he sense
of profundity that wells up in us when such topics are broached is our
inheritance from the Greek presuppositional foundation of mathematics and physics. he word meta-physics resonates. “Ininity,” for instance,
has had neither the prominence nor the emotional afect in other cultures
that it has held in ours. Kant, having completed the three critiques, still
thought his philosophy uninished, “or else a gap will remain in the critical philosophy.”26 In a letter to Kiesewetter, Kant explains what remains
to be done: “he transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural
science to physics must not be left out of the system.… [W]ith that work
the task of the critical philosophy will be completed and a gap that now
stands open will be illed.”27 He died before completing this task that the
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Western tradition tacitly insisted he address. It is like a voice of conscience
or internalized imperative that had become categorical, unavoidable, an
urgent need that now deined him and his system. Conversely, Nathan
Sivin has to argue, in his treatment of Chinese science, 28 that Chinese
scientists did not deal with “Nature” in the sense of phusis. Understanding
what they have been concerned with thus becomes a conceptual stretch for
the “Western” mindset.
For Indians, grammar disclosed the structure of reality. Just as
words are means to apprehend referents (artha), so does perception apprehend objects (artha). he detailed relations and variations denoted by
Sanskrit grammatical inlections mirror and reveal the relational realities,
variations, and even the eternal verities of the operations of the cosmos.
Medicine is about saving beings from sickness, illness, and sufering, restoring them to health. Buddha’s famous four Noble Truths29 is taught
these days, in an expanded form, in medical schools throughout the West
under the label “Pathological Model,” i.e., symptom, diagnosis, prognosis,
and treatment. When early Buddhist texts spoke of the Buddha as the
“Great Physician,” one who turns poison into medicine, etc., they were not
speaking metaphorically. Buddhism itself, these texts explain, is “medicine,” consisting of speciic therapeutic devices designed to cure dis-ease
(duḥkha). Like all-powerful medicines, it is forged from toxic materials
speciically designed to treat speciic illnesses; when the medicine has
done its task one should stop taking it, or else it also can make one sick.
Hence, that we should ind pramāṇas (means of knowledge) being
introduced in the medical text, the CS, should not surprise us.
THE CARAKA-SAṂHITĀ, INSANITY, AND THE PRAMĀṆAS
I came to the CS as a result of work on the Mano-bhūmika section of
Asaṅga’s encyclopedic Yogācārabhūmi. Asaṅga is the nominal founder
of the Yogācāra school of Buddhism, one of the two Mahāyāna systems
in India. he Yogācārabhūmi’s irst chapter, on the ive bodily consciousnesses (pañca-vijñāna-kāya-bhūmi), discusses the sense organs, perception, karma, and related topics. For the second chapter, the “mental stage”
(mano-bhūmi), Asaṅga makes the transition from physical, bodily processes to more exclusively mental conditions through a medical survey of
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PHILOSOPH Y, MEDICINE, SCIENCE, A ND BOU NDA R IES
psycho-somatic topics, speciically physical conditions that afect mental
states, such as intoxication (mādhyati) and insanity (unmādyati). Insanity
or mental disorders is a topic to which the CS and Indian medicine generally devote great attention.30 Asaṅga gives us a list of possible causes, which
includes such things as physical and mental trauma (uttrāsa-bhayata),
strikes to vital spots (marmābhighāta), and other external factors such as
attacks from ghosts (bhūta-samāveśatayā). He explains the causes of sleep
and the causes for awakening from sleep (e.g., a loud noise, bodily discomfort, etc.). He takes this into a somewhat detailed discussion of medical conditions, employing the three doṣa model and various other clearly
medical concerns.31 his leads to a discussion of the causes of health and
longevity, and the causes of the shortening of life span and death (food,
digestive processes, and moral habits are cited as critical factors). Asaṅga
even provides a description of how death occurs, how consciousness leaves
the body.
Interested to discover how typical Asaṅga’s treatment was of Indian
medical theory at that time, my search for Buddhist medical literature
of that period revealed that there is precious little available today on the
Buddhist medical theories and practices of his day. As a result, I turned
to the next best thing, the text considered to be the oldest of the Hindu
medical texts, the only extant medical treatise generally considered to
predate Asaṅga.32 While, unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that
the Hindu medical theories were a closely related but diferent system
(enumerations and models difered), the CS provided charms of its own.
As mentioned above, the CS is usually considered to be the irst text
to introduce the idea of pramāṇa, the means of acquiring knowledge. his
should not come as a surprise, since medicine requires not only a disciplined method of observation to observe symptoms, to take account of
treatments and experiments that work or do not work, etc., but it also
requires a method by which what is unobserved and even potentially unobservable, namely the cause of a disease, can be inferred and known in
order to be treated. he present symptoms displayed by an ill person may
have an etiology that lies in the past, and diseases often progress through
stages. hus the physician must be able to infer from what presents at the
moment to what likely has transpired in the past, just as one would infer a
past ire from ashes and smoke. As the CS itself argues, one also has to be
able to infer predictability, i.e., from the present to the future, in order to
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make an accurate prognosis and to have some conidence in the efectiveness of speciic treatments. he current popularity of forensic medicine
on television shows such as the CSI-style programs illustrates the power
still inherent in such approaches. To the chagrin of idealists and solipsists, physical remainders of past actions can provide deinitive evidence of
what happened – evidence suicient to convict a perpetrator “beyond the
shadow of a doubt.”
Various Indian schools proposed diferent pramāṇas as viable means
of acquiring certain knowledge. Virtually all agreed that perception and
logical inference were pramāṇas. For example, I know that the table is
there because I can see it, feel it, etc. I know it can hold a certain weight,
because when I place objects of a certain weight on it, it doesn’t collapse,
and I have this knowledge even when nothing is presently on the table.
As the CS states, the fact of pregnancy compels one to infer that sexual
intercourse has occurred (unless one is a certain type of theologian).
To these two pramāṇas, some Indian schools wished to add reliable
testimony, meaning testimony from a respectable witness, as in a court
proceeding, or a respectable authority, i.e., an expert. In addition, and more
importantly, this pramāṇa includes the testimony of scripture. Curiously,
the irst school to challenge śabda-pramāṇa (reliable testimony) as a viable
source of knowledge was the Vaiśeṣika, a Hindu school that eventually
merged with Nyāya. Buddhists, rejecting the validity of Hindu scriptures,
also eventually dismissed the validity of śabda-pramāṇa as a pramāṇa (at
least after Dignāga, although Asaṅga in his Abhidharmasamuccaya already
makes it subsidiary to perception and inference). his was because they
argued that claims made by testimony or scripture must themselves be
subjected to test by inference and/or perception to be deemed valid. he
reliability of a witness must be tested, as must the truth-value of claims
made in scripture. Such tests would examine whether the claims conform
to what is evident to the senses or to what is reasonable. hus, Buddhists
insisted, it is perception and inference that guarantees the validity of
knowledge, not the testimony itself. Additional pramāṇas proposed by
others included “comparison,” “analogy,” and even “absence,” but for
Vaiśeṣikas and Buddhists these too are either fallacious or subordinate to
perception and inference.
Pramāṇa-theory irst appears in the eleventh chapter of the irst part
(Sūtra-sthāna) of the CS. Here the CS intriguingly proposes, along with
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the three pramāṇas one would expect (perception, inference, and authoritative testimony), a fourth not found anywhere else: synthetic inductive
reasoning (yukta-pramāṇa). Discussion of pramāṇa occurs in two other
parts of the CS: part 3, Vimāna-sthāna, chap. 4 and chap. 8, but the unique
yukta-pramāṇa is absent from those discussions, a sign of the stratiied
nature of the text.
he discussion in chap. 11 of the Sūtra-sthāna is interesting because it
ofers some explanation for why a discussion of pramāṇas should appear in
a medical text. It begins by stating that for humans there are three basic
desires or impulses (eṣaṇa): (1) desire for life itself (prāṇaiṣaṇā), (2) desire
for material possessions (dhanaiṣaṇā), and (3) desire for (happiness in) the
next world (paralokaiṣaṇā) (11:3). Of these, the irst, the impulse for longevity, is most basic since “when life departs, all departs” (11:4). Since life
without adequate means is miserable, the second impulse comes next.
As to the third impulse, the desire for the next life, CS states that
some have doubts whether such a thing is real. To disabuse its readers
of such skepticism, CS launches into an attack on all sorts of skepticism
(those who disbelieve in gods, sages, siddhis, eicient and material causes,
the necessity for examination and investigation, etc.). He argues, for instance, that non-perception does not entail non-existence. here are numerous reasons why something real may be imperceptible. It may be too
far way, too close, too small, obstructed by something else, a sense-organ
defect, and so on. CS admits that the scriptures are also in conlict on the
question of afterlife. Such conlicts, it recommends, should be resolved by
reason (yukti).
After arguing for the existence of the self (ātman) despite its being
perceptually unobservable, and for a world created by purposeful causes,
and denouncing the nihilist (nāstika) as “the worst of the sinful,”33 CS
states that everything falls into one of two categories: sattva and asattva, i.e., real or unreal, or, perhaps, true and false (11:17). hen the four
pramāṇas are introduced, starting with āpta, traditional authority. his,
the CS informs us, is knowledge passed on by the experts (śiṣta). Instead
of śabda-pramāṇa, CS calls this āptopadeśa, “teachings of the Respected
ones,” and a list of the types of people this includes is given (passages 18–
19). hese people are indubitable because they lack tamas and rajas,34 and
thus are incapable of lying. Next comes perception (pratyakṣa), which is
described as contact between the self and what is present. his is followed
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by inference (anumāna), which CS says is based on having previously perceived or learned something. CS explains that there are three types of
inference, corresponding to inferences about the past, present, and future.
“Fire is inferred from smoke, and sexual intercourse from pregnancy”
(present and past, respectively), and a future fruit can be inferred from
a seed, based on having previously observed, i.e., perceived, that process
(11:21–22).
he fourth pramāṇa, yukta, is explained with the following examples
(11:23–24):35
Growth of crops from the combination of irrigation, ploughed
land, seed and seasons; formation of embryo from the combination of six dhātus (ive mahābhūtas and Ātman); Production
of ire from the combination of the lower-ire-drill, upper-iredrill and the act of drilling; cure of diseases by fourfold eficient therapeutic measures.
Yukta here means something like: the coordination of multiple factors converging into a trajectory in which something is changed or transformed. It
is taking into account the coordination of multiple causes, a process with
contributive factors that might afect the outcome, as in crops or medical
treatments. To plant a crop requires attention to multiple factors, from the
time of planting, the type of seed, properly working the land, fortuitous
seasonal conditions, and so on. If all the factors work properly, the seed
turns into a plant that produces the desired crop. Any of the contributing factors (e.g., amount of rainfall) can alter the outcome. here is no
strict one-to-one cause-efect relation between the seed and the fruit. he
additional factors mediate it. Similarly, an embryo becoming a human
undergoes a process requiring multiple factors in addition to the sex act
that initiated it. Any of these factors could terminate the pregnancy or
inlict permanent damage on the embryo. Producing ire by coordinating ire sticks similarly illustrates the coordination of multiple factors.
Treating illness, likewise, requires coordinating conditions across a trajectory in time in order for the person’s condition to change from sickness
to health. he physician must recognize and coordinate those conditions:
what to watch for in the disease’s progress; what types of treatments are
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PHILOSOPH Y, MEDICINE, SCIENCE, A ND BOU NDA R IES
most efective, and when to administer them; what habits and regimens,
such as diet and exercise, contribute to health or maladies; etc.
Inference (anumāna) was treated (vs. 21–22) as inferring from a specific condition or cause to a speciic efect, i.e., a fruit from a seed. And CS
also insists that inference requires previous perception (pratyakṣa-pūrva).
One recognizes the relation between the fruit and seed on the basis of
prior observations of this process, and so one can predict a future fruit
is likely from a present planted seed. Although CS’s account is terse, the
claim, I believe, is not simply that a seed will become a plant, but the fact
that we recognize by looking at a certain type of seed what type of plant
it will produce. One sees an acorn and knows that it will produce an oak
tree, not a weeping willow. his type of knowledge would be important in
medicine, since it is important to know that certain types of treatments,
medicines, bodily conditions will become or change into something else.
But this does not necessarily happen automatically. Additional contributory causal factors must play a role as well. An acorn sitting on a table
does not become an oak; it must be planted, and it must receive nutrients
from the soil, heat, water, etc. None of these factors is suicient alone.
Each must contribute for the seed to progress along a trajectory in which
it changes into something else.
Yukta (= yukti), which literally implies to tie together, or connect, and
later comes to be one of the numerous terms for “reasoning” or “logic,”
is used in CS speciically to denote combining a group of factors that,
together, produce a result. A doctor cannot diagnose a disease on the
basis of a single symptom but must weigh multiple symptoms together,
many (such as headaches, nausea, etc.) that could be shared by numerous
diseases. his multitude of factors must be taken into account in order
to determine correctly the speciic disease afecting a particular patient.
Diagnosis is inductive, not purely deductive, so, to the old debate about
whether Indian logic is strictly deductive or includes induction, CS at least
provides a case for inductive reasoning.
Unfortunately, yukta-pramāṇa never underwent further development
in India, appearing nowhere else than in this text. It is rich in analytic
possibilities, and one wonders what Indian philosophers, as deeply concerned as most were with causal analyses, might have created had they
explored further possibilities of this inductive tool.
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Since the CS arrived here by attempting to refute skepticism about
after-lives, it is not surprising that, having now established a basis for
knowledge, the CS next turns to arguing for the validity of rebirth, the
issue that instigated this excursion into epistemology in the irst place.
To do this, it ofers arguments from each of the pramāṇas in turn, i.e.,
arguments from authority, perception, inference, and yukta. A modern
reader would not ind the arguments very convincing, and apparently neither did the ancients, since we do not ind them repeated, or improved
upon, in subsequent literature. In fact, one of the striking things about
the CS’s attempt to provide arguments supporting the idea of rebirth and
reincarnation is the fact that it does so at all, since such arguments are
surprisingly rare in Indian philosophical texts. Indian philosophers seem
to have understood that it would be very diicult to mount a reasonable
argument for the validity of the theory of reincarnation, and thus largely
chose to avoid embarrassing themselves with such attempts. hus the CS’s
boldness in this regard is refreshing, even if the arguments themselves are
far from compelling.
his CS chapter has explained that the pramāṇas can help resolve
doubts about the objectives of one of our basic impulses, the desire for the
next life. It also demonstrates that, in addition to the pramāṇas employed
by some other Indian schools, the physician requires a pramāṇa suited to
the needs of his profession. his is yukta-pramāṇa that deals inductively
with synthetic judgments about changes and alterations (pariṇāma, etc.)
afected, in temporal phases, by multiple contributory causes. Illness is
a transformation of bodily factors from a healthy balance to imbalance;
restoring health is a transformation back to proper functioning. Birth, life,
health, sickness, old age, and death are transformations involving multiple
factors that the physician must learn to recognize and manipulate. he
physician is a philosopher who lacks the luxury of indulging in speculation. Either his knowledge is true, or the patient dies.
But this matter, along with such other fascinating topics in the CS
as its use of the idea of “intellectual blasphemy” (prajñā-parādha36) as an
explanation for some diseases, must await another occasion.
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CONCLUDING SUMMARY
So what does it mean to do comparative philosophy of religion? Since
all thinking is comparative, comparative philosophy of religion draws its
strength from expanding the range of philosophies and religions it “compares.” Expanding the horizon of our exploration provides more than
additional data; it enriches the possibilities of thinking. For a Western
philosopher to think about Indian or Chinese or Arabic or Jewish philosophies, etc., is basically no diferent from a North American philosopher
thinking about Plato, Spinoza, Hegel, or Wittgenstein. Each task requires
looking at the other through similarities and diferences of language,
culture, context, foundational categories, historical developments, and a
host of other factors. For a Chinese, Indian, Jewish, etc., philosopher to
think, philosophically, about Western philosophy is no diferent. Starting
from a diferent standpoint, however, might entail that diferent priorities
and categories set the agenda. he basic diferences are not between East
and West, as is often assumed, but between styles of philosophizing and
the root metaphors from which diferent traditions take their orientation.
Similarly, philosophy, religion, and medicine have always been intertwined, especially in ancient and medieval philosophy.
As homas H. Huxley, the biologist, noted:37 “he only medicine for
sufering, crime, and all the other woes of mankind, is wisdom.”
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Notes
1
2
3
164
Some attempt to date Caraka to
as early as the sixth century BCE,
though most date the bulk of the
Caraka-saṃhitā to ca. the irst century
CE, with some obvious later interpolations and additions. Our received
edition is based on an eleventh-century CE commentary and redaction
by Cakrapāṇi.
Tapas eventually came to mean the
heat of austerities that burn of bad
karma, thus, like the ire of sacriice,
purifying the practitioner; but its earlier meaning in the Ṛg Veda is the heat
from friction produced in the sex act,
which is creation par excellence. Cf.
RV 10.129.3: “tuchyenābhvapihitaṃ
yadāsīt tapasastanmahinājāyataikam”
(“that One which had been covered
by the void, through the heat of
desire [tapas] was manifested,” trans.
Antonio de Nicolas).
his is easier to assert once a dominant paradigm or theory has run its
course, marked by the repetition,
reiteration, and reinement of previous
insights rather than the inspirational
introduction of truly novel ones, as
some view the situation today for
both analytic and postmodern styles
of philosophy. When caught in the
throes of the creative possibilities
that are being opened by a new paradigm, the mere implementation of
its directives, or putting into motion
permutations merely implied by the
new paradigm – analogous to Frege’s
indication that all of mathematics
springs from 1 + [i.e., a unit and a
function] – may give the feeling of
opening onto limitless horizons with
boundless future potential. Hence
the exuberance and heady feeling of
having brought something new and
momentous into the world that often
accompanies “movements” in their
early phases.
4
“Living adherents,” i.e., old traditions
that have modern-day exponents,
introduce other sorts of problems,
since modern exponents typically
are not transplants from another
time, but instead embody all sorts
of permutations and sensibilities
derived from centuries of changing
interpretations that become embedded in the transmission. And the
modern exponent’s motivations are,
consciously or unconsciously, geared
toward accommodating modern issues
and modes of expression that a careful
researcher would have to take into account and isolate.
5
Interest has recently been rekindled
in Dignāga’s foundational Buddhist
work on pramāṇa-theory. Until a
few years ago Pramāṇasamuccaya was
only available in two poor Tibetan
translations. Jinendrabuddhi’s
Sanskrit commentary, found in Tibet,
which contains much of Dignāga’s
original text, is now coming out. he
irst volume has appeared – Ernst
Steinkellner, Helmut Krasser, and
Horst Lasic (eds.), Jinendrabuddhi’s
Pramāṇasamuccayaṭika, chap 1, part
1: Critical Edition; part 2: Diplomatic
Edition (Beijing: Österreichischen
Akademie der Wissenschaft, 2005) –
with more to follow.
6
his is the only “translation” by
Xuanzang (600–664) – the famous
Chinese pilgrim who travelled to
India and, on his return to China,
became the most proliic translator
PHILOSOPH Y, MEDICINE, SCIENCE, A ND BOU NDA R IES
of Buddhist texts – that is not a strict
translation of a single text but instead
a redacted compendium based on a
number of Sanskrit commentaries
on Vasubandhu’s Triṃśikā (hirty
Verses). his “translation” incorporates a host of other materials as
well, resulting in an encyclopedic
work on the Buddhist Yogācāra system as it was debated in India in
the seventh century. Louis de la
Vallée Poussin’s French translation,
Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi: Le Siddhi
de Hiuan-tsang (Paris: Geuthner,
1928, 2 vols.), is overly interpretive,
transforming the text into a tract on
idealism, an interpretation that has
largely stuck. Wei Tat published a
bilingual edition, Cheng Wei-shih lun:
he Doctrine of Mere-Consciousness
(Hong Kong, 1973), that contains an
English rendering of Vallée Poussin’s
French (minus Vallée Poussin’s extensive annotations) on facing pages
with the original Chinese. Swaty
Ganguly, Treatise In hirty Verses on
Mere-Consciousness (Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 1992), ofers an abridged
translation. Francis Cook, hree
Texts on Consciousness Only (Berkeley:
Numata, 1999), is sometimes an
improvement over Vallée Poussin
but too frequently follows his misinterpretation. On the philosophy of
Yogācāra as relected in Cheng weishilun, see my Buddhist Phenomenology: A
Philosophical Investigation of Yogācāra
Buddhism and the Ch’eng Wei-shih lun
(London: Routledge Curzon, 2002).
7
his has been translated by Wing
Tsit-Chan, Relections on hings
at Hand (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1967). Zhu Xi’s
name may be more familiar to
some Western readers by its older
transcription: Chu-hsi. his is only
one of the many works of Zhu Xi
(1130–1200), the most prominent
Neo-Confucian thinker.
8
A number of Gersonides’ (i.e., Rabbi
Levi ben Gershon, whose name in
acrostic is Ralbag; 1288–1344) works
have been translated. His major work,
he Wars of the Lord, is available as:
(1) Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides),
he Wars of the Lord: Book One:
Immortality of the Soul, trans. Seymour
Feldman (Philadelphia: Jewish
Publication Society, 1984); (2) Levi
ben Gershom (Gersonides), he
Wars of the Lord: Book Two: Dreams,
Divination, and Prophecy; Book hree:
Divine Knowledge; Book Four: Divine
Providence, trans. Seymour Feldman
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication
Society, 1987); a third promised
volume to complete the work has not
yet appeared. Book Five of the Wars
includes treatises on trigonometry
(which sparked the development
of trigonometry in Europe); a
description of the meguleh ‘amuqot
(“revealer of profundities”), a device
Gersonides invented to measure the
angular distances of heavenly bodies
(this also circulated as an independent text); astronomical tables and
critiques of astronomical theories.
An alternate translation, with analysis, of Book hree of the Wars is
Norbert Samuelson, Gersonides on
God’s Knowledge (Toronto: Pontiical
Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1977).
His style as a Biblical commentator
is displayed in Menachem Kellner
(trans.), Commentary on Song of Songs:
Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides) (New
Haven, CT: Yale, 1998).
9
Harry Wolfson’s translation of
Book One of Crescas’ Or Adonai
Dan Lusthaus
165
essay’s purpose was an analysis of a
particular philosopher, and reverence
for a philosopher instead of appreciation for an argument was simply
bad taste. Today not only must one
recite and acknowledge a pantheon
of analytic philosophers to make
even the most trivial argument, but
publishers are producing an endless
stream of books with simple titles
such as Quine, Ayer, Strawson, etc.,
typically with a photo or drawing of
that person adorning the cover. he
cult of personality is now embraced.
While analytic philosophers of the
past would ind all that shocking, it
is perhaps a belated recognition that
philosophy without philosophers is a
platonic fantasy, as well as a curious
attempt to breathe new life and sustainability into the analytic project.
Others would object that even with
these changes, unlike philosophers
of the past who wrestled with the
“big issues” of perennial interest to all
thinking individuals, the issues that
analytic philosophy engages and the
parameters within which it permits
what it accepts as legitimate analysis
have become so restricted and narrow that few outside the ranks of the
analytic philosophers themselves ind
their discussions pertinent or even
interesting.
(Light of Our Lord) – Crescas’
Critique of Aristotle: Problems of
Aristotle’s Physics in Jewish and
Arabic Philosophy (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1929) – is
a classic treatment of a work that
deeply inluenced Spinoza and moved
Western thought closer to the end
of the Middle Ages. Crescas’ critique is comparable to al-Ghazzali’s
Tahafut al-falsifa (he Incoherence
of Philosophy) in that its motive is
to purge Aristotelian contamination
from religious thought, though it is
very diferent in style and conclusion. Crescas (Ḥasdai ben Abraham
Crescas, ca.1340–1410/11) delves
deeply into Aristotle’s arguments and
principles and concludes they are not
scientiic enough, i.e., they are merely
reiied speculations that inadequately
and incorrectly interpret the physical
world.
10
166
Defenders of analytic philosophy may
contend that it is still going strong,
but what is practised under that name
today would be unrecognizable to
its practitioners of only a couple of
decades ago. he label “analytic”
philosophy was supposed to signal
above all that only the quality of
arguments (propositions sequentialized into logical entailments) counted,
not personalities or the authors of the
arguments. he cult of personality
was considered a serious error committed by philosophies of the past.
A proper essay, they believed, should
begin with a rational exposition accessible to all that subsequently would
be developed into more technical
implications. he essay’s merit rested
in the cogency of the argument, not
the weight of its author. Citing others
was to be largely avoided, unless the
11
“Spinoza’s distinction between attributes and properties is identical
with Crescas’ distinction between
attributes subjectively ascribed and
their objective reality in God. he
connection between Spinoza’s views
on creation and free will, on love
of God and of others, and those
of Crescas has been established by
[Manuel] Joël in his ‘[Spinoza’s
heologisch-Politischer Tractat auf
PHILOSOPH Y, MEDICINE, SCIENCE, A ND BOU NDA R IES
on. For an overview of Maimonides’
works on medicine, including a
translation of two of his treatises, see
Ariel Bar-Sela, Hebbel E. Hof, and
Elias Faris, “Moses Maimonides’ Two
Treatises on the Regimen of Health:
Fi Tadbir al-Sihhah and Maqalah i
Bayan Ba’d al-A’rad wa-al-Jawad
‘anha” (Philadephia: Transactions of
the American Philosophical Society,
New Series, v. 54, 4, 1964), 3–50.
Also cf. Gerrit Bos (trans.), Medical
Aphorisms: Treatises 1–5 (Provo,
UT: Brigham Young University,
2004) (the irst of six volumes on
Maimonides’ summary of Galen); and
Fred Rosner, Medicine in the Mishneh
Torah of Maimonides (Northvale: NJ:
Aronson Press, 1997).
Seine Quellen Geprüft] Zur Genesis
der Lehre Spinoza’s’ (Breslau,
1871).” From the article, “Crescas,
Ḥasdai ben Abraham,” by Kaufmann
Kohler and Emil G. Hirsch, in
JewishEncyclopedia.com, http://www.
jewishencyclopedia.com [square
brackets added]. See also Harry
Wolfson, Crescas on the Problem of
Divine Attributes (Philadelphia:
Dropsie College, 1916); Warren
Zev Harvey, Physics and Metaphysics
in Ḥasdai Crescas (Amsterdam: J.C.
Gieben, 1998).
12
Umberto Eco, he Name of the Rose,
trans. William Weaver (Boston and
New York: Harcourt, 1983). While
Church complicity in suppressing
Aristotle’s lost work on comedy
remains speculative, the medieval
debates between Dominicans, etc., on
whether laughter is permitted or sinful are grounded in history.
13
Aldous Huxley, he Doors of Perception
and Heaven and Hell (New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1954, 1956).
14
R.C. Zaehner, Mysticism: Sacred and
Profane (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1957. Reprint: London: Oxford
University Press, 1961).
15
he term “panentheism” was coined
by the German philosopher, Karl
Christian Friedrich Krause (1781–
1832), a student of Fichte, Hegel, and
Schelling, and one of Schopenhauer’s
teachers.
16
Jewish tradition often uses acrostics
of the names of prominent igures
as their oicial nicknames. Hence
Maimonides, e.g., Rabbi Moshe
Ben Maimon, becomes RaMBaM;
Gersonides, Rabbi Levi Ben
Gershon, becomes RaLBaG, and so
17
Dan Lusthaus
On Ibn Sīnā, see note 19. As Hamed
Abdel-reheem Ead, Professor of
Chemistry at the Faculty of Science,
University of Cairo, Giza, Egypt,
and director of the Science Heritage
Center, states on a web page (http://
www.levity.com/alchemy/islam21.
html) devoted to Ibn Rushd’s medical
contributions (slightly modiied):
•
Ibn Rushd … spent a great part
of his fruitful life as a judge and
as a physician. Yet he was known
in the West for being the grand
commentator on the philosophy
of Aristotle, whose inluence
penetrated the minds of even the
most conservative of Christian
Ecclesiastes in the Middle Ages,
including men like St. homas
Aquinas. People went to him for
consultation in medicine just as
they did for consultation in legal
matters and jurisprudence.
•
Ibn Rushd’s major work
in medicine, al-Kulliyyat
167
(“Generalities”), was written
between 1153 and 1169.
•
Two Hebrew versions of alKulliyyat are known, one by an
unidentiied translator, another by
Solomon ben Abraham ben David.
•
he Latin translation, Colliget, was
made in Padua in 1255 by a Jew,
Bonacosa, and the irst edition was
printed in Venice in 1482, followed
by many other editions.
•
Ibn Rushd wrote an (abstract) of
Galen’s works, parts of which are
preserved in Arabic manuscripts.
He showed interest in Ibn Sīnā’s
Urjūzah fī al-ṭibb (“Poem on
Medicine,” Canticum de medicina),
on which he wrote a commentary,
Sharh Urjuzat Ibn Sina.
•
It was translated into Hebrew prose
by Moses ben Tibbon in 1260; a
translation into Hebrew verse was
completed at Beziers (France) in
1261 by Solomon ben Ayyub ben
Joseph of Granada.
•
Further, a Latin translation of
the same work was made by
Armengaud, son of Blaise, in 1280
or 1284, and a printed edition was
published at Venice in 1484.
•
168
Its subject matter leans heavily
on Galen, and occasionally
Hippocrates’ name is mentioned.
It is subdivided into seven books:
Tashrih al-a’lda’ (“Anatomy of
Organs”), al-Sihha (“Health”),
al-Marad (“Sickness”), al-’Alamat
(“Symptoms”), al-Adwiya wa
‘ l-aghdhiya (“Drugs and Foods”),
Hifz al-sihha (“Hygiene”), and
Shifa al-amrad (“herapy”).
•
•
translated Ibn Rushd’s Maqala
‘ l-tiryaq (“Treatise on Remedies,”
Tractatus de theiaca).
Another revised Latin translation
was made by Andrea Alpago, who
•
Ibn Rushd’s unsuccessful attempts
to defend philosophers against
theologians paved the way for a
decline in Arabic medicine.
•
he great image of the Hakim
(physician-philosopher), which
culminated in the persons of
al-Razi and Ibn Sīnā, has been
superseded by that of faqih
musharik i ‘ l-ulum (a jurist who
participates in sciences), among
whom were physician-jurists and
theologian-physicians.
•
he German physician Max
Meyerhof remarked that: “In
Spain, the philosophical bias
predominated among medical men.
he prototypes of this combination
are the two Muslims, Ibn Zuhr
(Avenzoar) and Ibn Rushd
(Averroës).”
•
According to Draper, Ibn Rushd
is credited with the discovery of
sunspots.
18
Gersonides’ main scientiic contributions were in mathematics,
astronomy, and logic. For a collection of essays detailing his scientiic
achievements, especially his innovative astronomy which inluenced the
astronomical revolution we usually associate with Galileo and Copernicus,
see Gad Freudenthal, ed., Studies
on Gersonides: A Fourteenth-Century
Jewish Philosopher-Scientist (Leiden:
E.J. Brill, 1993).
19
he Wikipedia entry on Avicenna
(Ibn Sīnā) correctly summarizes his contributions thus <http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avicenna>:
PHILOSOPH Y, MEDICINE, SCIENCE, A ND BOU NDA R IES
Ibn Sīnā … was a Persian polymath
and the foremost physician and philosopher of his time. He was also an
astronomer, chemist, geologist, logician, paleontologist, mathematician,
physicist, poet, psychologist, scientist,
soldier, statesman, and teacher.
Ibn Sīnā wrote almost 450 treatises
on a wide range of subjects, of which
around 240 have survived. In particular, 150 of his surviving treatises
concentrate on philosophy and forty
of them concentrate on medicine.
His most famous works are he Book
of Healing, a vast philosophical and
scientiic encyclopaedia, and he
Canon of Medicine [in fourteen volumes], which was a standard medical
text at many medieval universities.
he Canon of Medicine was used as
a text-book in the universities of
Montpellier and Louvain as late as
1650. Ibn Sīnā developed a medical
system that combined his own personal experience with that of Islamic
medicine, the medical system of the
Greek physician Galen, Aristotelian
metaphysics (Avicenna was one of the
main interpreters of Aristotle, and
ancient Persian, Mesopotamian and
Indian medicine. He was also the
founder of Avicennian logic and the
philosophical school of Avicennism,
which were inluential among both
Muslim and Scholastic thinkers.)
Ibn Sīnā is regarded as a father of
early modern medicine, and clinical
pharmacology, particularly for his
introduction of systematic experimentation and quantiication into
the study of physiology, his discovery
of the contagious nature of infectious diseases, the introduction of
quarantine to limit the spread of
contagious diseases, the introduction
Dan Lusthaus
of experimental medicine, evidencebased medicine, clinical trials,
randomized controlled trials, eicacy
tests, clinical pharmacology, neuropsychiatry, risk factor analysis, and
the idea of a syndrome, and the importance of dietetics and the inluence
of climate and environment on health.
He is also considered the father of the
fundamental concept of momentum
in physics and is regarded as a pioneer
of aromatherapy for his invention of
steam distillation and extraction of
essential oils. He also developed the
concept of uniformitarianism and law
of superposition in geology.
Also, from http://www.isesco.org.ma/
pub/Eng/Architects/P20.htm:
Ibn Sīnā mastered medicine in particular. He made new discoveries in
this ield; he was the irst to describe
a worm that he called the “round
worm,” currently known as “anklestoma.” He also studied neurological
dysfunctions and was able to reach
certain pathologic and psychological
facts through psychoanalysis. He
believed in the existence of an
interaction between psychology and
physical health. He also described the
brain’s apoplexy resulting from excess
in the blood low.
Ibn Sīnā made original contributions
in medicine, based on his own observations. He founded his conclusions
on experiments and was able to reach
new observations, including the contagious nature of tuberculosis and the
propagation of diseases through water
and soil. He also described at length
dermatological and sexually transmitted diseases. Moreover, he described
the pharmaceutical preparation of
some medicines.
169
Ibn Sīnā was also the irst to describe
the irritation of the brain’s envelope,
distinguishing it from other chronic
irritations. He elaborated the irst
clear diagnostic of neck’s scleroses
and of meningitis He also described
the facial paralysis and its causes. He
made the distinction between the
paralysis caused by a dysfunction in
the brain and that resulting Scientiic
contributions in other ields.
22
his chapter is important, not only
because of its description of debate
and its epistemological elements, but
because it also informs us that debate
(between diferent physicians as well
as between physicians and others)
was a professional obligation of physicians. It was part of their pedagogy,
how they learned, how they defended
their theories and practice, and how
they practiced medicine.
Ibn Sīnā made important contributions in physics, through the study of
several natural phenomena such as
motion, force, vacuum, ininity, light
and heat. He made the observation
that if the perception of light is due to
the emission of some particles from
a luminous source, the speed of light
must be inite.
23
When we think of “authoritative
tradition” in a medical context, rather
than, as is more usual, in a religious
or philosophical context, the value
and indeed necessity of a respect for
tradition becomes obvious, since, if
every physician had to re-invent the
full inventory of medical lore and
acquired knowledge all over again,
everyone’s health would be at greater
risk. Medicine learns from the trial
and error of preceding generations;
its accumulated knowledge can be
supplemented and modiied by fresh
observations and discoveries, but
accumulated traditional knowledge
can only be ignored at the peril of the
physician and his patients.
24
Deriving philosophical categories
by inlecting a key verb, in this case
the verbal root of “action,” karma
(from the root √kṛ), is an inheritance from the other great inluence
on Indian philosophy, the grammatical tradition. See below under
“Logical Styles.” For an example
in a decidedly philosophical context that draws on the same root,
compare the following kārikā from
Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
(8:4): “If a cause [for an action] does
not actualize (asat), the enacted
(kārya) and activator (kāraṇa) are
not found. | hose not having come
Ibn Sīnā made contributions in geology with a treatise on the formation
of mountains, precious stones and
metals. In this treatise, he discussed
the efect of earthquakes, water, the
degree temperature, sediments, fossilisation and erosion.
Ibn Sīnā was also an outstanding
mathematician and astronomer. He
studied ininite bodies from religious,
physical, and mathematical perspectives. His indings helped Newton
and Leibniz to develop ininite numerals in the seventeenth century.
20
Mansura Haidar, “Medical Works of
the Medieval Period from India and
Central Asia,” Diogenes 55, no. 27
(2008): 28.
21
Philip J. van der Eijk, Medicine and
Philosophy in Classical Antiquity
(Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005), 15.
170
PHILOSOPH Y, MEDICINE, SCIENCE, A ND BOU NDA R IES
to be (abhāva), activity (kṛiya), actor
(kartā), and acting (karaṇa) are not
found.” (hetāvasati kāryaṃ ca kāraṇaṃ
ca na vidyate | tadabhāve kriyā kartā
karaṇaṃ ca na vidyate)
25
he Tevijja sutta of the Dīgha Nikāya
of the Buddhist Tipiṭaka gives a
humorous, satirical parody of religious devotionalism, comparing it to
someone who proclaims he is in love
with the most beautiful woman in the
world, but when asked what does she
look like, what type of hair, eyes, and
so on does she possess, what is her
caste, etc., he replies: “I don’t know.”
Devotionalism, Buddha concludes, is
as inefective as someone who, wishing to get to the other shore of a river,
builds a ire and sits down, chanting
to the other shore to “come here,”
rather than building a raft and making his way across.
26
Kant, in a letter to Christian Garve.
Quoted in Immanuel Kant, Opus
postumum, ed. Eckart Förster; trans.
Eckart Förster and Michael Rosen
(Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1993), “Introduction,” p. xvi.
27
Ibid.
28
Geofrey Lloyd and Nathan Sivin,
he Way and the Word: Science and
Medicine in Early China and Greece
(New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 2003).
29
(1) Duḥkha (dis-ease, a.k.a.
“sufering”), (2) samudaya (identifying the causes of duḥkha), (3) nirodha
(assurance that the causes can be
eliminated), and (4) mārga (the way to
eliminate the causes).
30
For instance, it is the topic of chap.
7 of part 2 (Nidāna-sthāna) of the
Caraka-saṃhitā.
31
he three doṣas – vāta, pitta, and
śleṣman, based respectively on the
three elements wind, ire-heat, and
water – are fundamental categories of
Indian medicine into which diseases,
symptoms, pharmaceuticals, foods,
etc., are classiied and analyzed. For
a general discussion that includes
Buddhist usages, see Hartmut
Scharfe, “he Doctrine of the hree
Humors in Traditional Indian
Medicine and the Alleged Antiquity
of Tamil Siddha Medicine,” Journal of
the American Oriental Society 119, no.
4 (1999): 609–29.
32
he next oldest Indian medical text,
Suśruta-saṃhitā, contains materials roughly contemporaneous with
Asaṇga (4th century) but is recognized to also contain much later material in the redaction that has come
down to us.
33
Pātakebhyaḥ paraṃ caitat pātakaṃ
nāstikagrahaḥ. I have consulted two
editions of the Caraka-saṃhitā,
both containing the original text in
devanagri and an English translation:
(1) Caraka-saṃhitā: Agniveśa’s treatise
reined and annotated by Caraka and redacted by Dṛḍhabala: text with English
translation, Priyavrat Sharma (editortranslator) (Varanasi: Chaukhambha
Orientalia, 1981–83), 4 vols.; and
(2) Agniveśa’s Caraka saṃhita: text
with English translation & critical
exposition based on Cakrapāṇi Datta’s
Āyurveda dīpikā, Ram Karan Sharma
and Bhagwan Dash (trans. and ed.)
(Varanasi: Chowkhamba Sanskrit
Series Oice, 1976–2002), 7 vols. he
translation above is from passages
14–15 of chap. 11, vol. 1, p. 209 of
Sharma and Dash.
Dan Lusthaus
171
34
he CS in its available redaction is
heavily steeped in Sāṃkhyan theory,
which holds that the world consists of
varying proportions of three constituent factors: sattva (light, pure, etc.),
rajas (passionate, active), and tamas
(dark, dull, inert). By implication, CS
is claiming that someone devoid of
rajas and tamas (skewering passions
and stupidity) must be sattvic (pure,
enlightened), and thus constitutionally incapable of lying.
35
Sharma and Dash, vol. 1, 213.
36
Prajñā-parādha is translated by
Sharma and Dash as “intellectual
blasphemy” and “intellectual error”
by P.V. Sharma. It literally means
“an ofense to reason,” i.e., acting
172
unreasonably. he CS uses the term in
a number of ways, but what they seem
to have in common is acting or having
an attitude that is unreasonable, i.e.,
endangering one’s health in ways that
one should know better than to engage in. E.g., Sūtra-sthāna, chap. 38:
39-40 states: “Due to prajñāparādha,
he indulges in unwholesome sense
objects, suppression of natural urges
and taking up risky jobs. he ignorant
one is attached to temporarily pleasing objects but the learned is not so
because of his understanding having
been clear” (P.V. Sharma, vol. 1, 231).
37
Relection #90, Aphorisms and
Relections, selected by Henrietta A.
Huxley (London: Macmillan, 1907).
PHILOSOPH Y, MEDICINE, SCIENCE, A ND BOU NDA R IES
After
Appropriation
© 2011 Morny Joy
University of Calgary Press
2500 University Drive NW
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Canada T2N 1N4
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any
form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
After appropriation [electronic resource] : explorations in intercultural philosophy and
religion / edited by Morny Joy.
Based on papers presented at the workshop: Comparative Philosophy and Relgion, held at the
University of Calgary, Calgary, Alta., in 2006.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Also issued in print format.
ISBN 978-1-55238-503-6 (PDF).--ISBN 978-1-55238-584-5 (PDF).--ISBN 978-1-55238-585-2
(HTML)
1. Religions. 2. Philosophy, Comparative. 3. Philosophy and religion. I. Joy, Morny
BL51.A48 2011
201’.61
C2011-906853-2
he University of Calgary Press acknowledges the support of the Government of Alberta through
the Alberta Multimedia Development Fund for our publications. We acknowledge the inancial
support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing
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Cover design, page design, and typesetting by Melina Cusano
edited by
Morny Joy
After
Appropriation
E XPLOR ATIONS IN INTERCULTUR AL
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Morny Joy
Comparative Studies in Philosophy/Religion and
Dialogue as Mutual “Strangiication” (Waitui 外推)
Vincent Shen
vii
1
he Philosopher as Stranger: he Idea of Comparative
Philosophy
Michael McGhee
25
Locating Intercultural Philosophy in Relation to Religion
Tinu Ruparell
41
he Connecting Manas: Inner Sense, Common Sense, or
the Organ of Imagination
Arindam Chakrabarti
57
Studying the “Other”: Challenges and Prospects of
Muslim Scholarship on World Religions
Ahmad F. Yousif
77
he Vices of Ethics: he Critique of Morality in
Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Daoism
Katrin Froese
95
Comparative Philosophy of Religion and Modern Jewish
Philosophy: A Conversation
Michael Oppenheim
119
Philosophy, Medicine, Science, and Boundaries
Dan Lusthaus
139
v
vi
Religious Intellectual Texts as a Site for Intercultural
Philosophical and heological Relection: he Case of
the Śrīmad Rahasyatrayasāra and the Traité de l’Amour de
Dieu
Francis X. Clooney, S.J.
173
Phenomenology of Awakening in Zhiyi’s Tiantai
Philosophy
Chen-kuo Lin
203
Ibn Rushd or Averroës? Of Double Names and Double
Truths: A Diferent Approach to Islamic Philosophy
Tamara Albertini
221
he Use of Lakṣaṇā in Indian Exegesis
Christopher G. Framarin
239
Women’s Rights as Human Rights: Explorations in
Intercultural Philosophy and Religion
Morny Joy
257
Notes on Contributors
281
Index
287
A F T E R A P P R O P R I AT I O N - Morny Joy