Laurent Keiff
15th Jaina Studies Workshop
Date: 22 March 2013 Time: 9:00 AM
Finished: 22 March 2013 Time: 5:00 PM
Venue: Brunei Gallery Room: Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre
Lecturer:
Abstract:
In a recent paper on Siddharṣigaṇi's Handbook of Logic penned by Gorisse, Clerbout and Rahman (2011, JPL), one finds the idea that the viewpoint-knowledge of the Jain gnoseology is an implicit epistemic context that bounds the assertion of statements, not an operator that extends the set of logical constants. Moreover, each viewpoint represents a type of epistemic access to objects of the domain of discourse.
A reconstruction within the frame of dialogical logic is then given, according to which the epistemic contribution of each viewpoint amounts to the acceptance of specific norms for the use of singular terms, quantifiers, identity statements, and assertions. During a debate that takes place within a fixed viewpoint the Opponent settles the predicates.
The present paper aims at providing further explanations about the role of the quantifiers in a modern reconstruction of the logical structure of the naya-vāda. We propose to explore as a possible interpretation of the theory of the multiplexity of reality that it bears on the existential presuppositions (eps) carried by the terms involved in predication. As we would say in the conceptual framework of modern semantics, the domain in which the eps are to be interpreted is many-sorted.
In his argument against a paraconsistent understanding of the syād-vāda, Balcerowicz remarks that when we take into consideration all relevant contextual parameters, identical sentences at the verbal level may well prove to be just homonymic. That is why the seemingly contradictory statement one may justify according to the Jains are not, after all, contradictory.
But in that case, it seems plausible that the so-called pragmatic inferences, by which speakers retrieve the intended meaning of an utterance, play an architectonic role in the syād-vāda, as an analysis modes of assertion. As Fluegel notes, "philosophical perspectivism (anekānta-vāda, syād-vāda, nikṣepa, naya etc.), [...] is seen as an analytic instrument for disambiguation". Consequently, we propose to look at the way the points of view are exposed e.g. in Prabhācandra's Prameya-kamala-mārtanda to locate the elements of a pragmatic theory of disambiguation, where existential presuppositions are made explicit in a refined way.
Video:
