Title: Ways of Being and Relevant Alternatives
Abstract:
This talk brings the 8th-9th century Sanskrit philosopher Prajñākaragupta’s distinctive approach to everyday knowledge into conversation with contextualist approaches to skepticism and knowledge ascription in contemporary epistemology. Prajñākaragupta forwards a theory of everyday knowledge in line with his complex picture of existence whereby causal efficacy defines what exists in the everyday world, but what fundamentally exists is only what appears in a present moment of awareness. Prajñākaragupta argues that these two forms of existence are not reducible to each other, and neither are the two forms of knowledge that align with these two forms of existence. Prajñākara’s principled pluralism about existence provides a powerful way of acknowledging the force of radical skepticism, while still diffusing the threat that it seems to pose to everyday knowledge ascriptions. At the same time, he articulates a hierarchy of conventions that provides additional precision on how contextually-bound judgments of efficacy set the standards for everyday knowledge. Although it is true that knowledge ascriptions will be vindicated or not depending on their context, some ascriptions are more robust than others on the basis of what it is that these ascriptions exclude. It is therefore possible to refute or affirm various conventional knowledge claims even as no everyday knowledge claim is vindicated at the level of fundamental existence.
Bio:
My research engages Classical Sanskrit philosophies with a focus on how these traditions contribute to our contemporary understanding of human experience. I work within the Classical Sanskrit pramāṇa framework, which focuses on what and how we can know about reality given our embodied position within an intersubjective world. I find that the 7th century Buddhist Dharmakīrti’s apoha (exclusion) theory of concept formation, especially as modified by the 10th-11th century Hindu Pratyabhijñā Śaiva tradition, offers compelling insights into fundamental questions surrounding the intersubjective world construction, the nature of agency, and the ethical implications of how we form our worlds.
