Self-knowledge in Purva Mimamsa

In the section on The Nature of True Knowledge, De Smet begins by saying:

Knowledge as such is always an immediate awareness, but of what? (Guidelines p. 220)

Once again, there seems to be a confusion here between knowledge (pratyaksa, presumably, also from what follows) and consciousness.

He goes on to outline Prabhakara's tri-puti-pratyaksa-vada. For P, knowledge is not eternal but is a self-luminous (svaprakasa) event wich arises and vanishes as a moment in the cognitive process. [Very good.] It is always a triple revelation: it reveals itself (svasamvitti of jnana); the knowable as its object (visaya-vitti of jneya); and the knower as 'I' (aham-vitti of jnatr). Thus it has simultaneously three terms.

The note that follows is interesting:

Note that the self is not self-luminous but known only in cognition and not in its absence as in deep sleep. Dream cognition, though derived only from memory, is of the same general type. To hold, like the N. Vaisesikas, that knowledge is known through another cognition would lead to infinite regress... (Guidelines 220)

K. Bhatta's theory is called jnatata-vada, because he holds, in contrast to P., that the only immediate datum in cognition is the cognizedness (jnatata) or illuminedness (prakatya) of the object., i.e. the object as cognized. Both the act/process of knowing and the knowing ego have to be inferred.

De Smet's judgment:

Prabhakara's theory seems to be closer to the fact. But he fails to distinguish the implicit (awareness of the ego and the knower) and the explicit (awareness of the object as known) in the immediate content of cognition which he erroneously considers as totally explicit. Hence, Bhatta wants to correct him but for the same reason he reduces the immediate to the explicit and thinks that the implicit is not immediate but mediate and inferable only. (Guidelines p. 221)

The active synthesizing nature of intellect in Sankara

What enables us to synthesize disparate sounds and to comprehend their meaning? Here is the solution of Prabhakara (and also Bhatta):

Words are combinations of letters or rather syllables (varna). But how can we understand words and sentences when each syllable vanishes the moment it is uttered? The solution can be found either in our intellect or in sabda itself. For Prabhakara, it is found in the latter. Varnas have each an (eternal) potency of leaving a semantic impression which, combined with that of other varnas brings about the meaning of words and sentences.... (De Smet, Guidelines p. 219)

Sankara was dissatisfied with this solution

because it is too particular to the understanding of a series of syllables. We should have a general solution which would explain our understanding of other kinds of series too (line of ants, of trees, of soldiers, etc.) Besides, in any case the impressions left by the varnas must be synthesized by the intellect. Hence, the solution must be found in the intellect. In fact, it is simpler to admit that our buddhi functions as intellectual memory, i.e., has the power of synthesizing elements apprehended at successive moments of time. This function is samasta-praty-avamarsini buddhi (intellect looking back on past experiences as a whole). Cf. Brahma-sutra-bhasya, 1,3,28. (De Smet, Guidelines p. 219)

Yet more evidence for the active nature of intellect in Sankara.

Prabhakara's dis-essentialized notion of being

Prabhakara of the Purva Mimamsa seems to imply that being is not to be regarded as yet another essence or whatness. De Smet remarks, in fact, on this dis-essentialized notion of being:

There are many jatis but no highest one, called satta (beingness), as acknowledged by Nyaya. Indeed, we can find groups of characteristics common to classes of beings but no set of characteristics common to all. Beings are ultimately disparate. When we call them all sat (being) we do not mean that they have something like a common essence but that each one is an individual "existing in its own way" as endowed with its own particular essence (svarupa-satta). Note the interest of this dis-essentialized notion of being. (De Smet, Guidelines p. 218)

Useful for a history of the notion of being in India.

Pratyaksa of the universal in Purva Mimamsa

Indian thinking seems to be Platonic also in this respect, that no clear distinction is drawn between mode of thinking (grasping something as universal, for instance) and mode of being. Thus De Smet says:

The universal (jati) is a different kind of whole than the dravyas.... The question of its perception and its nature arises as a knot of difficulties in India because, (like in Platonism), no neat distinction is generally made between mode of thinking and mode of being and, hence, the universal being valid in thought is also judged to be an ontological reality (vastu). (De Smet, Guidelines, p. 218)

Still, Prabhakara at least does not hold that jati has separate existence apart from the individuals, as Nyaya supposes.

Pratyaksa pramana in Purva Mimamsa: knowing as confrontation

Back to Purva Mimamsa in De Smet's Guidelines.

Pratyaksa, perception. Most difficult pramana, most ambiguous. Is it merely Lonergan's first level, 'experience'? or is it the three levels, so that it is, properly, the sensitivo-rational judgment (De Smet or Marechal language)?

De Smet, Guidelines p. 217:

Although we do infer after perceiving that it arises by means of senses, its immediacy is an original, underived and first-hand datum of consciousness.

Here pratyaksa is described as immediate; this immediacy is a first-hand datum of consciousness. This sounds very much like Lonergan's description of consciousness.

More complications.

Prabhakara defines it as direct apprehension (saksat pratitih). Bhatta defines it as direct knowledge arising from the contact free from defects of the sense-organs with the presented objects.... Four contacts have to be admitted: (i) of the sense-organs with the object, (ii) of the sense-organs with the qualities of the object, (iii) of the manas with the sense-organs, and (iv) of the manas with the atman.

If P's direct apprehension is still ambiguous, Bhatta's direct knowledge is not ambiguous. What is interesting is that Bhatta presupposes the Platonic theorem of knowledge as confrontation. Very interesting. (The next para reveals that P also presupposes this theorem. Also, the other theorem of like as known by like.)

Possible papers

Possible papers for Boston:

1. Raising the category of 'creation' in Sankara with the help of De Smet and Lonergan.

2. Studying the contrast between traditional organically related hierarchical societies and modern societies - democracies among them - based on an atomic conception of the individual. Which is more respectful of persons? The former vibes well with an organic notion of the person as intrinsically social; the latter, as we have said, presupposes the atomic individual, such that society has to be a construct. Gandhi opted for the former (see the brilliant articles of Howards and Swanger in the last 3 issues of Divyadaan), while Ambedkar clearly opted for the latter as alone destroying the caste system (very much a hierarchical traditional system) and ensuring liberty, equality, fraternity.

3. Economics. What is Lonergan saying? is that pertinent to the global crash that we now seem to be slowly getting out of? what explanations?

Knowledge as self-validating

The Purva-Mimamsas held that knowledge is self-validating, svatah-pramanya. I find this thesis extremely interesting. De Smet calls it a "profound and inescapable view" that contradicts Nyaya-Vaisesika and is rejected by Buddhism, but espoused by Sankara and practically all the Vedantins. What is it?

The cornerstone of Mimamsa epistemology is that knowledge is self-ascertained as true. It carries within itself its own evidence.

Reason:

Any other position leads into a vicious infinite regress (anavastha).

Further:

It belongs to the very nature of knowledge to be self-certified. It is not true knowledge which demands explanation but error. And the conditions of error are not to be found in knowledge but outside it.

Knowledge reveals all things, and it directly reveals itself: it is svayam-jyoti both with regard to its arising (utpatti) and its proper effect (sva-karya) which is to inform the knower about all realities. In short, the validity of knoweldge is independent whereas its accidental invalidity is dependent on extraneous defects (jnanasya pramanyam svatah, apramanyam paratah).

From De Smet, Guidelines p. 216.

I need to study this better, in comparison with Lonergan. I think Lonergan also would hold something like this. I remember him saying somewhere that transitions (from one ordering of doctrine to another) are by themselves valid; if they are invalid, it is because of extraneous circumstances or elements. Also, in the Introduction to Insight: not whether we know, but the nature of knowledge. And the chapter on Self-affirmation too.