lusthaus phi medicine sci boundaries

7/29/2019 Lusthaus Phi Medicine Sci Boundaries

1/39

139

Philosophy, Medicine, Science,and Boundaries

DAN LUSTHAUS

Harvard University

Te Caraka-sahitis widely accepted as the earliest extant Indian med-ical text. Its ounding ideas are attributed to an ancient preceptor namedtreya and his disciple Agnivea, about whom we know very little thatis not deeply drenched in conicting hagiographia. Te core redaction othis text is attributed to someone named Caraka, whose historical identityis equally soaked in conicting hagiographical details.1 In this text, how-

ever, we nd, along with a plethora o medical inormation about sundryphysical and mental illnesses, symptoms, drugs, herbs, diagnostic theory,and principles, methods o prognosis, treatments, anatomical theory, andso on, what is usually considered to be the rst appearance o the theoryoprama, the instruments or means by which knowledge is acquired.Medieval Indian philosophy ater the Nyya-stra (which appears tohave been inuenced by the Caraka-sahit [hereater CS] in its owntreatment o the pramas), and especially ater the innovations in epis-

temology and logic developed by the Buddhist philosophers Dignga and


2/39

PHILOSOPHY, MEDICINE, SCIENCE, AND BOUNDARIES140

Dharmakrti devoted much o its energy and attention to arguments andrenements opramatheory.

For centuries, prama theory was the grounding discipline or all

Indian philosophy, no matter which school or tradition one belonged to.Why did it rst appear in India in a medical text? Does that make the CSa philosophical text or a medical text with some philosophical sections?Is this a question or comparative philosophy or or comparative historyo science? I will try in this paper to both complicate and clariy thosequestions.

COMPARED TO WHAT?

Tis essay will be a departure rom my usual approach, which would be toocus on a careul reading o a text or limited range o texts. Instead, here,I will raise more general issues gathered rom some o the thoughts I havehad over the years as a practitioner o what could be called comparativephilosophy, ideas raised by working on a variety o materials in a varietyo religious and philosophical traditions. For the most part, what will be

oered are, not so much conclusions, but possible research directions orconsiderations or mysel and other practitioners o this sort o philosophy,though, as I will suggest in a moment, in some very important sense, allphilosophy is comparative.

All thinking is comparative:Xand non-X,Xand Y, Qimplicating R;all thinking presupposes notions o identity and dierence. In what waysare Xand Ythe same or dierent? All relations presuppose at least twothings must be dierent rom each other, and at the same time united

in a common relation. When we wish to test whether our students canthink rather than regurgitate, we ask them to write essays that compareand contrast one idea, or system, or theory, etc., with another. Rubbingthings together creates mental riction, which can, under the right condi-tions, ignite insightul and even innovative thinking a type o creativetapasin the g Vedic sense.2 A contemporary philosopher tackling Plato,or Aquinas, or Descartes, or Hegel, or Frege, or Whitehead, or Derridais, in eect, doing comparative philosophy, comparing the thought o an-

other time and/or place, oten in another language, with ones own. Evenwhen philosophizing strictly within ones own contemporaneous idiomwith ones contemporaries, one is thinking comparatively o one idea with


3/39

141Dan Lusthaus

another, or one theory with another, though obviously within a muchmore restricted horizon o comparative possibilities. Hence, there is a risko ideational sterility unless new ideas, imported rom elsewhere, can re-

viviy the ideational pool. Tat other source can be a oreign philosophy,a system rom another time, or simply the appearance o someone withnew ideas that stem rom bringing some new actor or permutation intothe current discourse.3

Someone wrestling with Plato or Aristotle is engaged in somethingvery much like what someone wrestling with medieval Indian or ancientChinese philosophy encounters, i.e., an encounter with a oreign languagethat thinks and expresses itsel dierently than we do today. Tis involves

systems o thought embedded in alien cultural and conceptual horizonswhose meanings and orientations must be recovered through whatevermeans available or devisable. At the same time, translating the ideas inthese alien texts into our thinking patterns oten requires negotiation witha complicated set o texts, commentaries, divergent interpretations, andhermeneutic challenges. Tese in turn may be riddled with painul lacu-nae in terms o missing pieces, unknown opponents, and multiple con-texts, oten indistinct (or less distinct than we might imagine them). Tese

texts and their contexts all remain moving targets that are re-imaginedand re-congured by every generation that attempts to think throughthese text-sets aresh. All o this is wrapped in an ever-increasingly denseaccrual o baggage and assumptions requiring discriminative weeding.Te encounter can engender a massive oedipal conrontation, or a minorre-arrangement o trivial details, or a reashioning to suit current tastesand needs. O these last three alternatives, the rst is likely to producephilosophy; the second, some orm o scholasticism or doxography; and

the last, revisionism or undamentalism.4Yet we tend to think o Greek, or Christian, or German philosophy,

and so on, as part o our tradition, our history, while Caraka-sahit,Digngas Prama-samuccaya,5 Cheng weishilun (reatiseEstablishing Vijapti-mtra),6 and Zhu Xis Jinsi lu (Reections on Tings at Hand7) are not. Some Western philosophersstill insist that non-Western philosophy is not philosophy at all, but eveni generously granted the label o philosophy, they dont practice our

philosophy, i.e., what we consider to be philosophy proper. In a more am-biguous status are works by Islamic and Jewish philosophers such as Ibn


4/39


Sn, Ibn Rushd, Maimonides, Gersonides8 and Crescas.9 Teir ambigu-ity is due to the act that, while they are rarely part o the curriculum oWestern philosophy, it is recognized that important gures in Western

philosophy, such as Aquinas and Spinoza, were aware o and were in-uenced by them. Buber and Levinas have impacted the academy, butRosenzweig and Hermann Cohen still remain primarily tribal reading.One obvious goal o comparative philosophy would be to expand the hor-izons o our sense o our tradition. Laozi and Zhuangzi nowarepart oourtradition. One could even argue, without too much inaccuracy or per-versity, that making the Upaniadsa metonymy or Indian thought was aninvention oourtradition more than a air appraisal o the actual history o

Indian philosophy, one with which certain actions in India became com-plicit. Nonetheless, the status o such divisions between our and theirtradition has become increasingly ambiguous over the last century, as textssuch as the Bhagavad Gt, the Daodejing, and the Zhuangzihave becomestaples o humanities programs (and even popular reading), while, in Asia,Western are has taken rm root in standard curriculums. Te East-Westdivide is more imaginary than real these days more a question o identitypolitics than a characterization o styles o thinking.

We are situated in a very privileged place. Rarely has such a large seg-ment o the world had such access to so much o the worlds philosophicalliterature.

It is an historical truism that philosophies are at their innovative bestwhen located at the intersection o competing systems. Philosophical xeno-phobia leads to stagnation, as the results o the largely successul eortsby Anglo-American philosophers to expel even the philosophy o theirEuropean contemporaries rom the curriculum o philosophy departments

sadly illustrates. Rorty sneaking Heidegger in through the backdoor hasproven insucient to revitalize the analytic project. He ailed partly be-cause so much o what made the German and French philosophies o thetwentieth century vital was lost or distorted in reductionistic translation.10

Philosophy is not just any thought on something novel but a disci-plined orm o thought, at once tradition- and rule-bound, and yet seekingnew discoveries or insights. Dierent philosophical traditions assume di-erent rules and rhetorical styles. Some prize exhaustively detailed prose

exposition in ormalized univocal syntax e.g., a syllogism while otherspreer evocative, poetic multivocality designed to say more with ewer


5/39

143Dan Lusthaus

words. Some seek to express their syllogisms and rigorous method in thepithiest o verses. Whatever its style, philosophy seeks to reason, i.e., toapply reason methodically to a topic or agenda.

My interest at the moment, however, is not to argue or some sense othe universality o comparison. (As soon as universals become sucientlyrestricted to allow comparison with other universals or particulars, theylose some o their presumed universality.) Neither is it to essentialize somenotion o philosophy, but rather to think about what reasoning meansin dierent philosophies, and what sorts o typical gestures and charac-teristics reasoning exhibits in various philosophies. I am not proposinga denition o reason beorehand in order to remain open to possible

suggestions oered by the dierent traditions.

QUESTIONING PARAMETERS

o advance more quickly, let me throw out some questions.Is there something that makes Chinese philosophy i there is any

such unitive discipline as opposed to multiple, divergent philosophical

and religious traditions that we lump together on the basis o a commonhistorical and geographical proximity distinctively a Chinese philoso-phy? And so on or Indian, Islamic, Jewish, etc., philosophies. Decidingthis is important i we wish to know what is being compared to what whenwe propose to do comparative philosophy. As we will see, this also entailsthe question o where our centre o gravity lies: From wheredo we begin tocompare? What sets the agenda? Is comparative philosophy done rom ahome base looking out at the others? Or do we try to locate ourselves in

some privileged neutral or loty position rom which we look down at theobjects being compared, as i implicated by or committed to none o them?Is there any viable standpoint upon which a comparative philosopher cantake his or her stand?

Might it be the case that so-called Western philosophy is also dis-tinctively Christian philosophy, even when practised by non-Christians(such as Spinoza, Aristotle, Nietzsche, modern secularists, etc.), such thatHegel despite coining the phrase death o God is ater all at bottom

a Christian thinker? Does his Encyclopedia consisting o the tripartiteLogic, Nature, Spirit bear only a supercial structural and conceptualparallel with the rinity, or is there something more undamental at play?


6/39


Has Spinoza become a Buddhist when he identies the three primaryaects the aects rom which all other aects are derived by permuta-tional combinations as pleasure, pain, and desire? In Buddhist jargon

pleasure-pain is called vedan while desire in a primary sense is calledt. Vedan and t are two o the most important nidnas in thetwelve-old chain oprattya-samutpda (conditioned co-arising), otenconsidered Buddhisms premier doctrine. Pleasure, pain, and desire inSpinozas system o aects play a similar primary role as do vedan andtin Buddhist discourse. Or is this model Jewish, since Spinoza partlydraws on Crescas ethical philosophy or these and other components ohis own?11 What else would Spinoza have to include or exclude beore

we see his philosophy as Buddhistic, in the same way that Pure Land,Huayan, or antra are seen as, at one and the same time, deeply similaryet prooundly dissimilar to the Buddhist teachings o the early Pali can-on? Might Spinoza be closer to, or instance, Pali Buddhism or HuayanBuddhism, than either is to Pure Land or antra?

What makes these distinctive types o philosophy distinctive? What,aside rom their dierent narrative histories and accidental dierences(language, socio-political actors, institutional support or suppression,

changing ashions in styles and rhetoric, etc.), makes them distinctiverom each other as philosophies? Are there characteristic actors that canbe enumerated? How do we bracket our expectations o what is properlyphilosophy in order to inquire airly into such a question? Even moreproblematically, how do we circumscribe what counts as religion?

It is axiomatic in Indian philosophy that a denition must be su-ciently restricted so as to exclude anything that is not the case, andbroad enough to include everything that is the case. Western scholars

will quickly recognize that this is rarely as simple as it seems, especiallywhen trying to nd a stable reerent or a term as amously dicult todene adequately as religion. Christian or so-called Western presuppos-itions concerning what counts as a religion quickly exclude many o theworlds leading religions, such as Buddhism, Conucianism, Mmsa,Skhya, Jainism, etc. Tis is because these either reject or give shortshrit to deities and especially deny a central role to a Divinity with a cap-ital D. Tese are major religions explicitly devoid o God. Responding

to that by enlarging the denition o religion into something as inclusiveas illichs mans ultimate concern ails to exclude Marxism, health


7/39

145Dan Lusthaus

care, sports, romance, ego-gratication, and a host o other -isms and hu-man pursuits. Similarly, the Western notion that religion is grounded inaith and belie rather than reason and logic would be anathema to many

Indian traditions (and even some pre-Renaissance Western religions). Ithe essence o religion requires neither God nor belie, such that theseare contingent properties appropriate only or describing some religions,then what essentially marks a religion as a religion? We partially run intosuch problems because we start within the assumptions and evidenceo our Western traditions and then try to explain the other traditionsin terms o how well or adequately they mirror our own. In this way, weset the agenda and prioritize the importance o issues based on what our

religions claim is important. Since other religions revolve around dierentcentres o gravity, inconvenient anomalies invariably emerge. I we believethat our religion is paradigmatic or all religions, then its concerns mustalso constitute the paradigmatic underpinnings o any proper religion.Consequently, when aced with the aorementioned anomalies, i ourconcerns and denitions render other traditions marginal or insucientrelative to what we deem the ultimate and most essential concerns, theault lies with them, not us.

What would this look like i, instead o taking Christian assump-tions as the baseline, we let other traditions ormulate their own con-sensus among themselves as to what counts as central concerns? What iChristianity was deemed marginal or insucient by that exercise? Whati, or example, one places ethical canons (halakhah, shria, dharma-stra,vinaya, Conucian codes, even Daoist ethical treatises) at the core o whatwould constitute a religion? Ten Christianity becomes the odd religionout. Christianity emits a great deal o moralism (much o it centred on

bedroom ethics), but it lacks a oundational ethical canon that plays acomparable role to shria in Islam, or halakhah in Judaism, or dharma-stra in Hinduism, vinaya in Buddhism. Tese ethical canons are typ-ically more important than belie in determining the degree o onesparticipation in these religions.Tis is not merely an ethnographic ques-tion but has immediate philosophical import. For instance, is it, as somehave conjectured, due to the strong emphasis on the ethical in Judaismthat Jewish philosophers predominantly embraced Aristotle rather than

Plato or explicit orms o Neo-Platonism during medieval times, andKant in modern times? What is lacking, in the Western study o religion


8/39


or in Western philosophical method, is a well-ormed discipline that dealswith the canons and reasoning styles o religious jurisprudence. (Tis isin contradistinction to such well-worn and traditionally Christian disci-

plines as ontology, myth, epistemology, and exegesis.) As such, this lackis a symptom o an evident myopia, and thus a potentially atal challengethat is presently threatening to render Western scholars irrelevant to thegrowing religious conrontations. Such conrontations are occurring notonly abroad but within our own shores (despite however relevant we mayeel ourselves to be rom within our own rameworks). For instance, webecome reduced to mouthing questionable ideological, ahistorical claimswhen we insist that Islamists in Somalia are misusing the term jihadas

they declare Holy War on their government and suspected Ethiopian(which, in their eyes, means Christian) intererence. As a result, we ail toexplain adequately to our students how jurisprudential reasoning works.At the same time, while searching or alternatives to military conronta-tion, we lack a commonly respected language and the recognized disci-plined reasoning skills to address the holders o such worldviews on theirown terms. Tis is very obvious in discussions o the role o women inIslam, caste inequities with Hindutvas, or abortion rights with evangel-

ical and undamentalist Christians. (In contrast, e.g., Palestinians andIranians have demonstrated det command oour rhetorical polemics orights, sel-determination, post-colonial ressentiment, etc.) One might askthereore whether Kants Practical Reason (and its spawn) include or oc-clude jurisprudential thinking? Is his ethical thinking the same or dier-ent as ethical thinking within religious traditions?

In a lighter but equally serious vein, as one surveys the religions othe world one nds in every religion except Christianity a sacred hu-

mour tradition. Midrashic and Hasidic tales in Judaism, Zen anecdotesand kan collections in Buddhism, the ironic parodies in Zhuangzi, thetales o Mullah Nasruddin in Islam, ivas ll(play), and so on, are bestknown, but only the tip o a largely unexplored iceberg. For most reli-gions, sacred humour is an important component o the spiritual path,an attunement to the Cosmic Giggle, as some have called it. In contrast,Christians, as Umberto Ecos Name o the Rose highlighted, have otencondemned comedy, laughter, humour, and even smiling as sacrilegious.12

Tis was not merely a medieval predilection but still inuences contem-porary Christianity. When, in the 1950s, inspired by Aldous Huxleys


9/39

147Dan Lusthaus

Doors o Perception,13 the British scholar o Indian and Iranian religion,Richard Zaehner, decided to experiment with mescaline under clinicalsupervision, he subsequently declared the experience proane rather than

sacred. Tis was largely because all o his attempts to have a sacredexperience while under the inuence o mescaline (visiting his avouritecathedral, looking at pictures o the Virgin Mary, etc.) resulted in laugh-ter, either an urge within himsel, or hallucinations o the gures in thestained glass windows laughing at him, etc. Te book he wrote on this isin two parts.14 Te second part is an abridged but still lengthy transcripto his trip, in which one neednt be a clinical psychologist to discern thathis experiences were concertedly advising him to lighten up and enjoy the

humour a message he not only resisted but ound shocking and disturb-ing. Te result was the books rst part in which, clothed in the guise oobjective scholarly discourse, he laid out a hierarchic typology o religiousmysticisms, with such labels as pantheism and panentheism.15 Teobvious purpose was to rearm the superiority o the Roman Catholicvariety to which he had converted, deeming the mysticisms o other re-ligions less sacred and even proane. His typology was inuential in theeld or some time, but, as an example o bald apologetics, should stand as

a cautionary tale or all comparativists.Such assumptions concerning what counts as a religion or as legit-

imate philosophy lead us to become selective about which literature wepay attention to, and even what parts to ocus on in the literature we doselect. What is Buddhist or Hindu ontology? Is there a Daoist theoryo language? What are Neo-Conucian metaphysics? Such are our typ-ical questions, but are they typical, much less prominent eatures o thesetraditions, as our sustained and narrow attention to them would seem to

imply?I a Hindu and an observant Jew begin to converse, they would quick-

ly discover that dharma-straand halakhah which are more constitutiveo eachs sense o identity and practice within their own traditions speakthe same language. Tey share similar concerns about proper and im-proper oods, business aairs, daily behaviour, hygiene, amilial and socialobligations, ways to celebrate, etc. However, a Christian observer o thatdiscussion might wonder what the bulk o their discussion had to do with

religion. He may be envious o the poignant traditional humour talesthey trade. And the Christian would likely overlook or resist that or the


10/39


11/39

149Dan Lusthaus

Te greatest tribute paid to the Indian [medical] system came romAvicenna [Ibn Sn], who categorically acknowledged in Al Qanun (TeCanon) that he had beneted tremendously rom the Indian jogishe used

as one o his sources.20Te convergence o philosophy and medicine was not a creation o the

Middle Ages. In the West, philosophy and medicine have been intim-ately related at least since Diocles o Carystus (ourth century BCE) andAristotle. As van der Eijk states: the relationship between Aristotelianismand medicine has long been a neglected area in scholarship on ancientmedicine.21One might add that the same neglect is evident in scholarshipon ancient philosophy. While the present essay cannot substantially rem-

edy that neglect, a ew o van der Eijks observations about Greek medi-cine and philosophy which have striking parallels in the case o India may help bring some attention to what it is we have been neglecting.

more recently there has been a greater appreciation o theact that Greek medical writers did not just reect a derivativeawareness o developments in philosophy something whichled to the long-standing qualication o medicine as a sister or

daughter o philosophy but also actively contributed to thedeveloping concepts and methodologies or the acquisition oknowledge and understanding o 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 relation-ship between doctors and philosophers in terms o inter-action between science and philosophy, the empirical and

the theoretical, the practical and the systematical, theparticular and the general, or observation and specu-lation. o do this would be to ignore the philosophical,speculative, theoretical, and systematic aspects o Greekscience as well as the extent to which empirical research andobservation were part o the activities o people who have gonedown in the textbooks as philosophers. Tus Empedocles,Democritus, Parmenides, Pythagorus, Philolaus, Plato, Aris-

totle, Teophrastus, Strato, but also later thinkers such asSextus Empiricus, Alexander o Aphrodisias, Nemesius o


12/39


Emesa, and John Philoponus took an active interest in subjectswe commonly associate with medicine, such as anatomy andphysiology o the human body, mental illness, embryology and

reproduction, youth and old age, respiration, pulses, evers, thecauses o disease and o the eects o ood, drink and drugs onthe body. (p. 10)

Galen wrote a treatise advocating the view that the bestdoctor is, or should be, at the same time a philosopher. It is nocoincidence that Aristotles comments on the overlap betweenstudents o nature and doctors are made in his own Parva

naturalia, a series o works on a range o psycho-physiologicaltopics sense-perception, memory, sleep, dreams, longevity,youth and old age, respiration, lie and death, health and dis-ease that became the common ground o medical writers andphilosophers alike. (p. 11)

interaction also took place in the eld o methodologyand epistemology. As early as the Hippocratic medical writers,

one nds conceptualizations and terminological distinctionsrelating to such notions as a nature (phusis), cause (aitia,prophasis), sign (smeion), indication (tekmrion), proo(pistis), aculty (dunamis), or theoretical reection on epis-temological issues such as causal explanation, observation,analogy, and experimentation. Tis is continued in ourth-century [BCE] medicine, with writers such as Diocles oCarystus and Mnesitheus o Athens, in whose works we nd

striking examples o the use o denition, explanation, divisionand classication according to genus and species relations, andtheoretical reection on the modalities and the appropriatenesso these epistemological procedures, on the requirements thathave to be ullled in order to make them work. (p. 12)

Some [philosophers] are known to have put their ideas intopractice, such as Empedocles, who seems to have been engaged

in considerable therapeutic activity, or Democritus, who is re-ported to have carried out anatomical research on a signicant


13/39

151Dan Lusthaus

scale, or, to take a later example, Sextus Empiricus, who com-bined his authorship o philosophical writings on Scepticismwith medical practice. (p. 13)

It is interesting in this connection that one o the rst attesta-tions o the word philosophia in Greek literature occurs in amedical context the Hippocratic workOn Ancient Medicine.(p. 19)

Comparable observations could be made concerning the early Indianmedical literature, such as Caraka-sahitand the slightly later Suruta-

sahit, as a survey o those texts, or even their tables o contents, wouldquickly show. Space limitations preclude documenting that here in detail,but one example should suce. Te core o chapter 8 o part 3 (Vimna-sthna) o the CSconsists o a rigorous, detailed description o the com-ponents o debate (vda). Tis includes a ull discussion o the partso a ormal inerence, the pramas, distinguishing sound rom unsoundarguments, and the value and protocols o argument.22 Passage 68 liststen topics a physician should explore by the threepramaso authorita-

tive tradition, perception, and inerence. (Here, unlike in part 1, chap.11, where pta-prama, authoritative tradition, is given great weight,several indications place pta-pramain a subservient, even expendableposition in relation to perception and inerence.23) Te ten topics are:kraa (the cause or agent initiating action, i.e., the physician), karaa(instrument assisting the agents action, e.g., pharmaceuticals), kryayoni(the matrix rom which the action emerges), krya(what is being done),kryaphala(the result or purpose o the action), anubandha(what the ac-

tion is bound to entail), dea(the locus o the action, viz. the place and thepatient), kla(time, viz. seasonal actors and the state o progress o thedisease),pravtti(the process), and upya(procedure or device, i.e., prop-er preparations and initiation o proper actions). All students o Indianphilosophy will instantly recognize these ten terms are central, pervasivecategories o Indian philosophy. Here, where a patients lie or death (notto mention the reputation o the physician, an issue the CSalso takes veryseriously) hang in the balance, these terms acquire not only concreteness

but a sense o urgency. Tis list could serve as the program or virtually


14/39


any Indian religion or philosophy. Tat the rst ve items are conceptuallyand etymologically24 linked to the term karmaunderlines this.

Are we ailing to produce philosophers o the stature and acuity o

Ibn Sn and Maimonides because philosophy departments do not requiretheir majors or graduate students to attend medical school, much less ser-iously practice the hard sciences?

What then are the limits or horizons o philosophy proper? Somestyles o philosophy strive or univocality. Tinking can only be clear,goes the claim, when words are drained o all ambiguity or multivocality.oday the implications o the desire to reduce all voices to one, to elim-inate alternatives, or to reduce a word to a single meaning, strike many

o us as disconcerting. We learn more rom exploring dierent styles ophilosophy, dierent ways o accounting or the human condition, thanwe benet rom silencing alternatives.

Are there meaningul lines to be drawn between philosophy and reli-gion? Let me suggest two:

(1) Borrowing Neitzschean vocabulary, we might say thatreligion is a will to meaning, while philosophy is a will to

knowledge. Tese two types o wills may converge, wheneither meaning is understood as equivalent to knowledgeor vice versa. Yet there are conceivably meaningulendeavours that do not rest on knowledge per se, e.g.,romance.25

Religion thus seeks to make lie meaningul, to providepurpose and meaning to ones existence and ones lieexperiences. Philosophy, in contrast, seeks to know, tounderstand, and to make lie comprehensible throughevidence and reason. When meaning and knowledgeconverge, 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 becauseit is scripture). autology can be a handmaiden toauthoritarianism (Its so because I say so!). Philosophy,

however, considers tautology a logical error, and thus itpreers (i) reasoning rom premises to conclusions. Tisis Aristotles preerred method (derived rom the third


15/39

153Dan Lusthaus

segment o Platos divided line) and is a cornerstoneo scientic method. Even more importantly andradically, however, philosophy preers (ii) reasoning rom

premises to their presuppositions (as in recovering thearch; the ourth segment o Platos divided line). Sucha procedure can be ound in Ngrjunas quieting oall presuppositions (prapacopaama) and perspectivalattachments (di). He undertakes this in order to exposethe absurdities masquerading as reasoned positionsto which we attach and with which we construct ouridentities (tma-di). It is also ound in Husserls search

or a presuppositionless philosophy in order to groundthe sciences, Wissenschaten.

With such considerations in mind, we might ask the ollowing questions:

(1) Does Hegels teleological view o history, as a rediscoveryo the sel by itsel through the other, nally onlyrearm a Christian tautological telos? (Te result hereis that historys destiny is already decided beore it hasbegun, the alpha in the omega, so that the eschaton ispregured in the creation. One moves all the way romone end o history to the other only to rediscover whatwas already there at the beginning:A=A. History andtime become nothing more than the working out o the =that declares tautological sel-coincidence as a discoveryupon which all history awaits.)

(2) What signicance or insight lurks in the tension betweenhis Being vs. Nonbeing sublating into Becoming, i.e.,his amousAuhebungoered in the Logic? On the onehand, Hegel seems to suggest that a dynamic processnecessarily arises rom, and then supersedes staticcontraries. On the other, he positsBecoming, seen as

Geists search or itsel, as ultimately terminating ina static teloso authentic sel-realization at the end o


16/39


history. Does this result in a terminus in which themovement o mind, spirit, and history itsel comes toa stop once reaching its actualized sel-recognition?

Does Becoming emerge rom the tension o two staticcontraries only to culminate eventually, with historicaland ultimate nality, in a new stasis where the contrarieshave been replaced by a tautological sel-coincidence?(Tis sel-identity will have auheben-ed all contrastivetensions.)

Becoming stops becoming. In what way, then, might this terminal histori-cism o Hegel be compared with the Kashmiri Shaivite idea o ll, as agame iva plays with himsel? In this game, iva repeatedly, even eternal-iva plays with himsel? In this game, iva repeatedly, even eternal-plays with himsel? In this game, iva repeatedly, even eternal-iva repeatedly, even eternal-repeatedly, even eternal-ly, alienates himsel rom himsel, multiplying himsel into others intowhich he orgets himsel in order to nd himsel again. He thus continu-ally engenders and wanders through various realms o existence that arethe orgotten aspects o himsel. Eventually, he rediscovers himsel as thesource o the game o orgetulness, only to orget himsel again once he is

ound, in order to keep the game in play. Each o us is nothing more thanmoves in this game o hide-and-seek, mere acets o ivas orgetulness.For Hegel, History becomes a nite search by Spirit or itsel consisting oa series o logical predictable moves with a guaranteed climax. Te notiono Becoming with which Hegel reintroduced Western thought to timeand historicality nally leads to its own static culmination. No such nitelimits restrict ivas ll. Te divines game o hide and seek with himselnot only plays out perpetually, restarting once completed, but time and

temporality are byproducts o the game. Te game is not only a temporalnarrative conceived chronologically, but synchronically all levels o thegame are at play simultaneously, so that remembering and orgettinghappen simultaneously as well as sequentially. History plays out, but ullrealization is always available and instantaneous. It is a telosthat is oreverculminating because it never really culminates. Te joy o realization isonly one more joyous moment in a joyous game. Te game and the joycontinue nonetheless. Te cosmic cards are reshufed. iva orgets once

again, and the game continues.


17/39

155Dan Lusthaus

LOGICAL STYLES: ROOT METAPHORS

Let me suggest a quick rubric or dierentiating Western philosophy rom

Indian philosophy, and each rom Chinese philosophy, though I will notexpand this here into a ull analysis. Each is grounded in certain rootmetaphors, basic models or disciplines which become, rom the begin-ning, undamental and constitutive o what ollows and thereby counts asphilosophy in each o these traditions.

For the Greeks (and still in the West), the oundational disciplineswere physics and mathematics. For India, the root models were grammarand medicine. For China, it was the amily viewed, on the one hand, as

hierarchical relations (parents over children, elder sibling over youngersibling, etc.), and, on the other hand, as dialectical relations betweenamily members (the give and take between a couple, parents and chil-dren, etc.). Family relations, combined hierarchically and dialectically,yield a pattern in which individuals both change and keep roles througha stable system: Te youngest daughter, starting out lie at the bottom othe amily hierarchy, can gradually raise her status until she is matriarcho the amily, overlording her sons and their wives. Social order, the web

o correlative thinking into which all natural and articial entities andorces including medical theories were plotted, and ascension throughthe stages o the spiritual path ollowed that model.

For the West, then, we think we are at our most proound when en-gaged in questions o innity, ontology, and the translation o time andspace into mathematical equations. Tis osters the illusion that sot sci-ences become hard once they adopt a mathematical method, etc. Te senseo proundity that wells up in us when such topics are broached is our

inheritance rom the Greek presuppositional oundation o mathemat-ics and physics. Te word meta-physicsresonates. Innity, or instance,has had neither the prominence nor the emotional aect in other culturesthat it has held in ours. Kant, having completed the three critiques, stillthought his philosophy unnished, or else a gap will remain in the critic-al philosophy.26 In a letter to Kiesewetter, Kant explains what remainsto be done: Te transition rom the metaphysical oundations o naturalscience to physics must not be let out o the system. [W]ith that work

the task o the critical philosophy will be completed and a gap that nowstands open will be lled.27 He died beore completing this task that the


18/39


Western tradition tacitly insisted he address. It is like a voice o conscienceor internalized imperative that had become categorical, unavoidable, anurgent need that now dened him and his system. Conversely, Nathan

Sivin has to argue, in his treatment o Chinese science, 28 that Chinesescientists did not deal with Nature in the sense ophusis. Understandingwhat they have been concerned with thus becomes a conceptual stretch orthe Western mindset.

For Indians, grammar disclosed the structure o reality. Just aswords are means to apprehend reerents (artha), so does perception ap-prehend objects (artha). Te detailed relations and variations denoted bySanskrit grammatical inections mirror and reveal the relational realities,

variations, and even the eternal verities o the operations o the cosmos.Medicine is about saving beings rom sickness, illness, and suering, re-storing them to health. Buddhas amous our Noble ruths29 is taughtthese days, in an expanded orm, in medical schools throughout the Westunder the label Pathological Model, i.e., symptom, diagnosis, prognosis,and treatment. When early Buddhist texts spoke o the Buddha as theGreat Physician, one who turns poison into medicine, etc., they were notspeaking metaphorically. Buddhism itsel, these texts explain, is medi-

cine, consisting o specic therapeutic devices designed to cure dis-ease(dukha). Like all-powerul medicines, it is orged rom toxic materialsspecically designed to treat specic illnesses; when the medicine hasdone its task one should stop taking it, or else it also can make one sick.

Hence, that we should nd pramas (means o knowledge) beingintroduced in the medical text, the CS, should not surprise us.

THE CARAKA-SAHIT, INSANITY, AND THE PRAMAS

I came to the CS as a result o work on the Mano-bhmika section oAsagas encyclopedic Yogcrabhmi. Asaga is the nominal oundero the Yogcra school o Buddhism, one o the two Mahyna systemsin India. Te Yogcrabhmis rst chapter, on the ve bodily conscious-nesses (paca-vijna-kya-bhmi), discusses the sense organs, percep-tion, karma, and related topics.For the second chapter, the mental stage

(mano-bhmi), Asaga makes the transition rom physical, bodily pro-makes the transition rom physical, bodily pro-cesses to more exclusively mental conditions through a medical survey o


19/39

157Dan Lusthaus

psycho-somatic topics, specically physical conditions that aect mentalstates, such as intoxication (mdhyati) and insanity (unmdyati). Insanityor mental disorders is a topic to which the CSand Indian medicine gener-

ally devote great attention.30 Asaga gives us a list o possible causes, whichincludes such things as physical and mental trauma (uttrsa-bhayata),strikes to vital spots (marmbhighta), and other external actors such asattacks rom ghosts (bhta-samveatay). He explains the causes o sleepand the causes or awakening rom sleep (e.g., a loud noise, bodily dis-comort, etc.). He takes this into a somewhat detailed discussion o med-ical conditions, employing the three doamodel and various other clearlymedical concerns.31 Tis leads to a discussion o the causes o health and

longevity, and the causes o the shortening o lie span and death (ood,digestive processes, and moral habits are cited as critical actors). Asagaeven provides a description o how death occurs, how consciousness leavesthe body.

Interested to discover how typical Asagas treatment was o Indianmedical theory at that time, my search or Buddhist medical literatureo that period revealed that there is precious little available today on theBuddhist medical theories and practices o his day. As a result, I turned

to the next best thing, the text considered to be the oldest o the Hindumedical texts, the only extant medical treatise generally considered topredate Asaga.32 While, unortunately, it quickly became apparent thatthe Hindu medical theories were a closely related but dierent system(enumerations and models diered), the CSprovided charms o its own.

As mentioned above, the CSis usually considered to be the rst textto introduce the idea oprama, the means o acquiring knowledge. Tisshould not come as a surprise, since medicine requires not only a disci-

plined method o observation to observe symptoms, to take account otreatments and experiments that work or do not work, etc., but it alsorequires a method by which what is unobserved and even potentially un-observable, namely the cause o a disease, can be inerred and known inorder to be treated. Te present symptoms displayed by an ill person mayhave an etiology that lies in the past, and diseases oten progress throughstages. Tus the physician must be able to iner rom what presents at themoment to what likely has transpired in the past, just as one would iner a

past re rom ashes and smoke. As the CSitsel argues, one also has to beable to iner predictability, i.e., rom the present to the uture, in order to


20/39


make an accurate prognosis and to have some condence in the eective-ness o specic treatments. Te current popularity o orensic medicineon television shows such as the CSI-style programs illustrates the power

still inherent in such approaches. o the chagrin o idealists and solip-sists, physical remainders o past actions can provide denitive evidence owhat happened evidence sucient to convict a perpetrator beyond theshadow o a doubt.

Various Indian schools proposed dierent pramasas viable meanso acquiring certain knowledge. Virtually all agreed that perception andlogical inerence were pramas. For example, I know that the table isthere because I can see it, eel it, etc. I know it can hold a certain weight,

because when I place objects o a certain weight on it, it doesnt collapse,and I have this knowledge even when nothing is presently on the table.As the CSstates, the act o pregnancy compels one to iner that sexualintercourse has occurred (unless one is a certain type o theologian).

o these two pramas, some Indian schools wished to add reliabletestimony, meaning testimony rom a respectable witness, as in a courtproceeding, or a respectable authority, i.e., an expert. In addition, and moreimportantly, thispramaincludes the testimony o scripture. Curiously,

the rst school to challenge abda-prama(reliable testimony) as a viablesource o knowledge was the Vaieika, a Hindu school that eventuallymerged with Nyya. Buddhists, rejecting the validity o Hindu scriptures,also eventually dismissed the validity oabda-pramaas a prama(atleast ater Dignga, although Asaga in hisAbhidharmasamuccayaalreadymakes it subsidiary to perception and inerence). Tis was because theyargued that claims made by testimony or scripture must themselves besubjected to test by inerence and/or perception to be deemed valid. Te

reliability o a witness must be tested, as must the truth-value o claimsmade in scripture. Such tests would examine whether the claims conormto what is evident to the senses or to what is reasonable. Tus, Buddhistsinsisted, it is perception and inerence that guarantees the validity oknowledge, not the testimony itsel. Additional pramas proposed byothers included comparison, analogy, and even absence, but orVaieikas and Buddhists these too are either allacious or subordinate toperception and inerence.

Prama-theory rst appears in the eleventh chapter o the rst part(Stra-sthna) o the CS. Here the CS intriguingly proposes, along with


21/39

159Dan Lusthaus

the threepramasone would expect (perception, inerence, and authori-tative testimony), a ourth not ound anywhere else: synthetic inductivereasoning (yukta-prama). Discussion oprama occurs in two other

parts o the CS: part 3, Vimna-sthna, chap. 4 and chap. 8, but the uniqueyukta-prama is absent rom those discussions, a sign o the stratiednature o the text.

Te discussion in chap. 11 o the Stra-sthnais interesting because itoers some explanation or why a discussion opramasshould appear ina medical text. It begins by stating that or humans there are three basicdesires or impulses (eaa): (1) desire or lie itsel (praia), (2) desireor material possessions (dhanaia), and (3) desire or (happiness in) the

next world (paralokaia) (11:3). O these, the rst, the impulse or lon-gevity, is most basic since when lie departs, all departs (11:4). Since liewithout adequate means is miserable, the second impulse comes next.

As to the third impulse, the desire or the next lie, CS states thatsome have doubts whether such a thing is real. o disabuse its readerso such skepticism, CS launches into an attack on all sorts o skepticism(those who disbelieve in gods, sages, siddhis, ecient and material causes,the necessity or examination and investigation, etc.). He argues, or in-

stance, that non-perception does not entail non-existence. Tere are num-erous reasons why something real may be imperceptible. It may be tooar way, too close, too small, obstructed by something else, a sense-organdeect, and so on. CSadmits that the scriptures are also in conict on thequestion o aterlie. Such conicts, it recommends, should be resolved byreason (yukti).

Ater arguing or the existence o the sel (tman) despite its beingperceptually unobservable, and or a world created by purposeul causes,

and denouncing the nihilist (nstika) as the worst o the sinul,33 CSstates that everything alls into one o two categories: sattva and asat-tva, i.e., real or unreal, or, perhaps, true and alse (11:17). Ten the ourpramas are introduced, starting with pta, traditional authority. Tis,the CSinorms us, is knowledge passed on by the experts (ita). Insteadoabda-prama, CScalls this ptopadea, teachings o the Respectedones, and a list o the types o people this includes is given (passages 1819). Tese people are indubitable because they lacktamasand rajas,34 and

thus are incapable o lying. Next comes perception (pratyaka), which isdescribed as contact between the sel and what is present. Tis is ollowed


22/39


by inerence (anumna), which CSsays is based on having previously per-ceived or learned something. CS explains that there are three types oinerence, corresponding to inerences about the past, present, and uture.

Fire is inerred rom smoke, and sexual intercourse rom pregnancy(present and past, respectively), and a uture ruit can be inerred roma seed, based on having previously observed, i.e., perceived, that process(11:2122).

Te ourth prama,yukta, is explained with the ollowing examples(11:2324):35

Growth o crops rom the combination o irrigation, ploughed

land, seed and seasons; ormation o embryo rom the com-bination o six dhtus(ve mahbhtasandtman); Productiono re rom the combination o the lower-re-drill, upper-re-drill and the act o drilling; cure o diseases by ourold e-cient therapeutic measures.

Yuktahere means something like: the coordination o multiple actors con-verging into a trajectory in which something is changed or transormed. It

is taking into account the coordination o multiple causes, a process withcontributive actors that might aect the outcome, as in crops or medicaltreatments. o plant a crop requires attention to multiple actors, rom thetime o planting, the type o seed, properly working the land, ortuitousseasonal conditions, and so on. I all the actors work properly, the seedturns into a plant that produces the desired crop. Any o the contribut-ing actors (e.g., amount o rainall) can alter the outcome. Tere is nostrict one-to-one cause-eect relation between the seed and the ruit. Te

additional actors mediate it. Similarly, an embryo becoming a humanundergoes a process requiring multiple actors in addition to the sex actthat initiated it. Any o these actors could terminate the pregnancy orinict permanent damage on the embryo. Producing re by coordinat-ing re sticks similarly illustrates the coordination o multiple actors.reating illness, likewise, requires coordinating conditions across a tra-jectory in time in order or the persons condition to change rom sicknessto health. Te physician must recognize and coordinate those conditions:

what to watch or in the diseases progress; what types o treatments are


23/39

161Dan Lusthaus

most eective, and when to administer them; what habits and regimens,such as diet and exercise, contribute to health or maladies; etc.

Inerence (anumna) was treated (vs. 2122) as inerring rom a speci-

ic condition or cause to a specic eect, i.e., a ruit rom a seed. And CSalso insists that inerence requires previous perception (pratyaka-prva).One recognizes the relation between the ruit and seed on the basis oprior observations o this process, and so one can predict a uture ruitis likely rom a present planted seed. Although CSs account is terse, theclaim, I believe, is not simply that a seed will become a plant, but the actthat we recognize by looking at a certain type o seed what typeo plantit will produce. One sees an acorn and knows that it will produce an oak

tree, not a weeping willow. Tis type o knowledge would be important inmedicine, since it is important to know that certain types o treatments,medicines, bodily conditions will become or change into something else.But this does not necessarily happen automatically. Additional contribu-tory causal actors must play a role as well. An acorn sitting on a tabledoes not become an oak; it must be planted, and it must receive nutrientsrom the soil, heat, water, etc. None o these actors is sucient alone.Each must contribute or 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 o the numerous terms or reasoning or logic,is used in CS specically to denote combining a group o actors that,together, produce a result. A doctor cannot diagnose a disease on thebasis o a single symptom but must weigh multiple symptoms together,many (such as headaches, nausea, etc.) that could be shared by numerousdiseases. Tis multitude o actors must be taken into account in order

to determine correctly the specic disease aecting a particular patient.Diagnosis is inductive, not purely deductive, so, to the old debate aboutwhether Indian logic is strictly deductive or includes induction, CSat leastprovides a case or inductive reasoning.

Unortunately,yukta-pramanever underwent urther developmentin India, appearing nowhere else than in this text. It is rich in analyticpossibilities, and one wonders what Indian philosophers, as deeply con-cerned as most were with causal analyses, might have created had they

explored urther possibilities o this inductive tool.


24/39


Since the CS arrived here by attempting to reute skepticism aboutater-lives, it is not surprising that, having now established a basis orknowledge, the CSnext turns to arguing or the validity o rebirth, the

issue that instigated this excursion into epistemology in the rst place.o do this, it oers arguments rom each o the pramas in turn, i.e.,arguments rom authority, perception, inerence, and yukta. A modernreader would not nd the arguments very convincing, and apparently nei-ther did the ancients, since we do not nd them repeated, or improvedupon, in subsequent literature. In act, one o the striking things aboutthe CSs attempt to provide arguments supporting the idea o rebirth andreincarnation is the act that it does so at all, since such arguments are

surprisingly rare in Indian philosophical texts. Indian philosophers seemto have understood that it would be very dicult to mount a reasonableargument or the validity o the theory o reincarnation, and thus largelychose to avoid embarrassing themselves with such attempts. Tus the CSsboldness in this regard is rereshing, even i the arguments themselves arear rom compelling.

Tis CS chapter has explained that the pramas can help resolvedoubts about the objectives o one o our basic impulses, the desire or the

next lie. It also demonstrates that, in addition to the pramasemployedby some other Indian schools, the physician requires a pramasuited tothe needs o his proession. Tis isyukta-prama that deals inductivelywith synthetic judgments about changes and alterations (parima, etc.)aected, in temporal phases, by multiple contributory causes. Illness isa transormation o bodily actors rom a healthy balance to imbalance;restoring health is a transormation back to proper unctioning. Birth, lie,health, sickness, old age, and death are transormations involving multiple

actors that the physician must learn to recognize and manipulate. Tephysician is a philosopher who lacks the luxury o indulging in specula-tion. Either his knowledge is true, or the patient dies.

But this matter, along with such other ascinating topics in the CSas its use o the idea o intellectual blasphemy (praj-pardha36) as anexplanation or some diseases, must await another occasion.


25/39

163Dan Lusthaus

CONCLUDING SUMMARY

So what does it mean to do comparative philosophy o religion? Since

all thinking is comparative, comparative philosophy o religion draws itsstrength rom expanding the range o philosophies and religions it com-pares. Expanding the horizon o our exploration provides more thanadditional data; it enriches the possibilities o thinking. For a Westernphilosopher to think about Indian or Chinese or Arabic or Jewish philoso-phies, etc., is basically no dierent rom a North American philosopherthinking about Plato, Spinoza, Hegel, or Wittgenstein. Each task requireslooking at the other through similarities and dierences o language,

culture, context, oundational categories, historical developments, and ahost o other actors. For a Chinese, Indian, Jewish, etc., philosopher tothink, philosophically, about Western philosophy is no dierent. Startingrom a dierent standpoint, however, might entail that dierent prioritiesand categories set the agenda. Te basic dierences are not between Eastand West, as is oten assumed, but between styles o philosophizing andthe root metaphors rom which dierent traditions take their orientation.Similarly, philosophy, religion, and medicine have always been inter-

twined, especially in ancient and medieval philosophy.As Tomas H. Huxley, the biologist, noted:37 Te only medicine orsuering, crime, and all the other woes o mankind, is wisdom.


26/39


Notes

1 Some attempt to date Caraka toas early as the sixth century BCE,though most date the bulk o theCaraka-sahitto ca. the rst centuryCE, with some obvious later inter-polations and additions. Our receivededition is based on an eleventh-cen-tury CE commentary and redactionby Cakrapi.

2 apaseventually came to mean theheat o austerities that burn o bad

karma, thus, like the re o sacrice,puriying the practitioner; but its ear-lier meaning in the g Vedais the heatrom riction produced in the sex act,which is creationpar excellence. C.RV10.129.3: tuchyenbhvapihitayadst tapasastanmahinjyataikam(that One which had been coveredby the void, through the heat odesire [tapas] was maniested, trans.

Antonio de Nicolas).

3 Tis is easier to assert once a domin-ant paradigm or theory has run itscourse, marked by the repetition,reiteration, and renement o previousinsights rather than the inspirationalintroduction o truly novel ones, assome view the situation today orboth analytic and postmodern styles

o philosophy. When caught in thethroes o the creative possibilitiesthat are being opened by a new para-digm, the mere implementation oits directives, or putting into motionpermutations merely implied by thenew paradigm analogous to Fregesindication that all o mathematicssprings rom 1 + [i.e., a unit and aunction] may give the eeling o

opening onto limitless horizons withboundless uture potential. Hencethe exuberance and heady eeling o

having brought something new andmomentous into the world that otenaccompanies movements in theirearly phases.

4 Living adherents, i.e., old traditionsthat have modern-day exponents,introduce other sorts o problems,since modern exponents typicallyare not transplants rom anothertime, but instead embody all sortso permutations and sensibilities

derived rom centuries o changinginterpretations that become embed-ded in the transmission. And themodern exponents motivations are,consciously or unconsciously, gearedtoward accommodating modern issuesand modes o expression that a careulresearcher would have to take into ac-count and isolate.

5 Interest has recently been rekindledin Digngas oundational Buddhistwork onprama-theory. Until aew years ago Pramasamuccayawasonly available in two poor ibetantranslations. JinendrabuddhisSanskrit commentary, ound in ibet,which contains much o Digngasoriginal text, is now coming out. Terst volume has appeared Ernst

Steinkellner, Helmut Krasser, andHorst Lasic (eds.), JinendrabuddhisPramasamuccayaika, chap 1, part1: Critical Edition; part 2: DiplomaticEdition (Beijing: sterreichischenAkademie der Wissenschat, 2005) with more to ollow.

6 Tis is the only translation byXuanzang (600664) the amous

Chinese pilgrim who travelled toIndia and, on his return to China,became the most prolic translator


27/39

165Dan Lusthaus

o Buddhist texts that is nota stricttranslation o a single text but insteada redacted compendium based on anumber o Sanskrit commentaries

on Vasubandhus riik(TirtyVerses). Tis translation incorpor-ates a host o other materials aswell, resulting in an encyclopedicwork on the Buddhist Yogcra sys-Yogcra sys-sys-tem as it was debated in India inthe seventh century. Louis de laValle Poussins French translation,Vijaptimtratsiddhi: Le Siddhide Hiuan-tsang(Paris: Geuthner,1928, 2 vols.), is overly interpretive,transorming the text into a tract onidealism, an interpretation that haslargely stuck. Wei at published abilingual edition, Cheng Wei-shih lun:Te Doctrine o Mere-Consciousness(Hong Kong, 1973), that contains anEnglish rendering o Valle PoussinsFrench (minus Valle Poussins ex-

tensive annotations) on acing pageswith the original Chinese. SwatyGanguly, reatise In Tirty Verses onMere-Consciousness(Delhi: MotilalBanarsidass, 1992), oers an abridgedtranslation. Francis Cook, Treeexts on Consciousness Only(Berkeley:Numata, 1999), is sometimes animprovement over Valle Poussinbut too requently ollows his misin-

terpretation. On the philosophy oYogcra as reected in Cheng weishi-lun, see myBuddhist Phenomenology: APhilosophical Investigation o YogcraBuddhism and the Cheng Wei-shih lun(London: Routledge Curzon, 2002).

7 Tis has been translated by Wingsit-Chan, Refections on Tingsat Hand(New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1967). Zhu Xi sname may be more amiliar tosome Western readers by its older

transcription: Chu-hsi. Tis is onlyone o the many works o Zhu Xi(11301200), the most prominentNeo-Conucian thinker.

8 A number o Gersonides (i.e., RabbiLevi ben Gershon, whose name inacrostic is Ralbag; 12881344) workshave been translated. His major work,Te Wars o the Lord, is available as:(1) Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides),Te Wars o the Lord: Book One:Immortality o the Soul, trans. SeymourFeldman (Philadelphia: Jewish

Publication Society, 1984); (2) Leviben Gershom (Gersonides), TeWars o the Lord: Book wo: Dreams,Divination, and Prophecy; Book Tree:Divine Knowledge; Book Four: DivineProvidence, trans. Seymour Feldman(Philadelphia: Jewish PublicationSociety, 1987); a third promisedvolume to complete the work has notyet appeared. Book Five o the Wars

includes treatises on trigonometry(which sparked the developmento trigonometry in Europe); adescription o the meguleh amuqot(revealer o proundities), a deviceGersonides invented to measure theangular distances o heavenly bodies(this also circulated as an independ-ent text); astronomical tables andcritiques o astronomical theories.An alternate translation, with an-alysis, o Book Tree o the WarsisNorbert Samuelson, Gersonides onGods Knowledge(oronto: PonticalInstitute o Mediaeval Studies, 1977).His style as a Biblical commentatoris displayed in Menachem Kellner(trans.), Commentary on Song o Songs:Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides) (NewHaven, C: Yale, 1998).

9 Harry Wolsons translation oBook One o Crescas Or Adonai


28/39


(Light o Our Lord) CrescasCritique o Aristotle: Problems oAristotlesPhysics in Jewish andArabic Philosophy(Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press, 1929) isa classic treatment o a work thatdeeply inuenced Spinoza and movedWestern thought closer to the endo the Middle Ages. Crescas cri-tique is comparable to al-Ghazzalisahaut al-alsia(Te Incoherenceo Philosophy) in that its motive isto purge Aristotelian contaminationrom religious thought, though it isvery dierent in style and conclu-sion. Crescas (asdai ben AbrahamCrescas, ca.13401410/11) delvesdeeply into Aristotles arguments andprinciples and concludes they are notscientic enough, i.e., they are merelyreied speculations that inadequatelyand incorrectly interpret the physicalworld.

10 Deenders o analy tic philosophy maycontend that it is still going strong,but what is practised under that nametoday would be unrecognizable toits practitioners o only a couple odecades ago. Te label analyticphilosophy was supposed to signalabove all that only the quality oarguments (propositions sequential-ized into logical entai lments) counted,not personalities or the authors o thearguments. Te cult o personalitywas considered a serious error com-mitted by philosophies o the past.A proper essay, they believed, shouldbegin with a rational exposition ac-cessible to all that subsequently wouldbe developed into more technicalimplications. Te essays merit restedin the cogency o the argument, notthe weight o its author. Citing otherswas to be largely avoided, unless the

essays purpose was an analysis o aparticular philosopher, and reverenceor a philosopher instead o appre-ciation or an argument was simply

bad taste. oday not only must onerecite and acknowledge a pantheono analytic philosophers to makeeven the most trivial argument, butpublishers are producing an endlessstream o books with simple titlessuch as Quine,Ayer, Strawson, etc.,typically with a photo or drawing othat person adorning the cover. Tecult o personality is now embraced.While analytic philosophers o thepast would nd all that shocking, itis perhaps a belated recognition thatphilosophy without philosophers is aplatonic antasy, as well as a curiousattempt to breathe new lie and sus-tainability into the analytic project.Others would object that even withthese changes, unlike philosophers

o the past who wrestled with thebig issues o perennial interest to allthinking individuals, the issues thatanalytic philosophy engages and theparameters within which it permitswhat it accepts as legitimate analysishave become so restricted and nar-row that ew outside the ranks o theanalytic philosophers themselves ndtheir discussions pertinent or even

interesting.11 Spinozas distinction between at-

tributes and properties is identicalwith Crescas distinction betweenattributes subjectively ascribed andtheir objective reality in God. Teconnection between Spinozas viewson creation and ree will, on loveo God and o others, and thoseo Crescas has been established by[Manuel] Jol in his [SpinozasTeologisch-Politischer ractat au


29/39

167Dan Lusthaus

Seine Quellen Geprt] Zur Genesisder Lehre Spinozas (Breslau,1871). From the article, Crescas,asdai ben Abraham, by Kaumann

Kohler and Emil G. Hirsch, inJewishEncyclopedia.com, http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com [squarebrackets added]. See also HarryWolson, Crescas on the Problem oDivine Attributes(Philadelphia:Dropsie College, 1916); WarrenZev Harvey, Physics and Metaphysicsin asdai Crescas(Amsterdam: J.C.Gieben, 1998).

12 Umberto Eco, Te Name o the Rose,trans. William Weaver (Boston andNew York: Harcourt, 1983). WhileChurch complicity in suppressingAristotles lost work on comedyremains speculative, the medievaldebates between Dominicans, etc., onwhether laughter is permitted or sin-ul are grounded in history.

13 Aldous Huxley, Te Doors o Perceptionand Heaven and Hell(New York:Harper & Brothers, 1954, 1956).

14 R.C. Zaehner,Mysticism: Sacred andProane(Oxord: Clarendon Press,1957. Reprint: London: OxordUniversity Press, 1961).

15 Te term panentheism was coined

by the German philosopher, KarlChristian Friedrich Krause (17811832), a student o Fichte, Hegel, andSchelling, and one o Schopenhauersteachers.

16 Jewish tradition oten uses acrosticso the names o prominent guresas their ocial nicknames. HenceMaimonides, e.g., Rabbi Moshe

Ben Maimon, becomes RaMBaM;Gersonides, Rabbi Levi BenGershon, becomes RaLBaG, and so

on. For an overview o Maimonidesworks on medicine, including atranslation o two o his treatises, seeAriel Bar-Sela, Hebbel E. Ho, and

Elias Faris, Moses Maimonides woreatises on the Regimen o Health:Fi adbir al-Sihhah andMaqalah Bayan Bad al-Arad wa-al-Jawadanha (Philadephia: ransactions othe American Philosophical Society,New Series, v. 54, 4, 1964), 350.Also c. Gerrit Bos (trans.),MedicalAphorisms: reatises 15(Provo,U: Brigham Young University,2004) (the rst o six volumes onMaimonides summary o Galen); andFred Rosner,Medicine in the Mishnehorah o Maimonides(Northvale: NJ:Aronson Press, 1997).

17 On Ibn Sn, see note 19. As HamedAbdel-reheem Ead, Proessor oChemistry at the Faculty o Science,University o Cairo, Giza, Egypt,

and director o the Science HeritageCenter, states on a web page (http://www.levity.com/alchemy/islam21.html) devoted to Ibn Rushds medicalcontributions (slightly modied):

IbnRushdspentagreatpart

o his ruitul lie as a judge andas a physician. Yet he was knownin the West or being the grand

commentator on the philosophyo Aristotle, whose inuencepenetrated the minds o even themost conservative o ChristianEcclesiastes in the Middle Ages,including men like St. TomasAquinas. People went to him orconsultation in medicine just asthey did or consultation in legalmatters and jurisprudence.

IbnRushdsmajorwork

in medicine, al-Kulliyyat


30/39


(Generalities), was writtenbetween 1153 and 1169.

Itssubjectmatterleansheavily

on Galen, and occasionallyHippocrates name is mentioned.It is subdivided into seven books:ashrih al-a lda (Anatomy oOrgans), al-Sihha(Health),al-Marad(Sickness), al-Alamat(Symptoms), al-Adwiya wal-aghdhiya(Drugs and Foods),Hiz al-sihha(Hygiene), andShia al-amrad(Terapy).

TwoHebrewversionsofal-Kulliyyatare known, one by anunidentied translator, another bySolomon ben Abraham ben David.

eLatintranslation,Colliget, wasmade in Padua in 1255 by a Jew,Bonacosa, and the rst edition wasprinted in Venice in 1482, ollowedby many other editions.

IbnRushdwrotean(abstract)ofGalens works, parts o which arepreserved in Arabic manuscripts.

HeshowedinterestinIbnSns

Urjzah al-ibb (Poem onMedicine, Canticum de medicina),on which he wrote a commentary,Sharh Urjuzat Ibn Sina.

ItwastranslatedintoHebrewprose

by Moses ben ibbon in 1260; atranslation into Hebrew verse wascompleted at Beziers (France) in1261 by Solomon ben Ayyub benJoseph o Granada.

Further,aLatintranslationof

the same work was made byArmengaud, son o Blaise, in 1280or 1284, and a printed edition was

published at Venice in 1484. AnotherrevisedLatintranslation

was made by Andrea Alpago, who

translated Ibn RushdsMaqalal-tiryaq(reatise on Remedies,ractatus de theiaca).

IbnRushd sunsuccessfulattemptsto deend philosophers againsttheologians paved the way or adecline in Arabic medicine.

egreatimageoftheHakim

(physician-philosopher), whichculminated in the persons oal-Razi and Ibn Sn, has beensuperseded by that oaqihmusharik l-ulum (a jurist who

participates in sciences), amongwhom were physician-jurists andtheologian-physicians.

eGermanphysicianMax

Meyerho remarked that: InSpain, the philosophical biaspredominated among medical men.Te prototypes o this combinationare the two Muslims, Ibn Zuhr

(Avenzoar) and Ibn Rushd(Averros).

AccordingtoDraper,IbnRushd

is credited with the discovery osunspots.

18 Gersonides main scientic con-tributions were in mathematics,astronomy, and logic. For a collec-tion o essays detailing his scientic

achievements, especially his innova-tive astronomy which inuenced theastronomical revolution we usually as-sociate with Galileo and Copernicus,see Gad Freudenthal, ed., Studieson Gersonides: A Fourteenth-CenturyJewish Philosopher-Scientist(Leiden:E.J. Bril l, 1993).

19 Te Wikipedia entry on Avicenna

(Ibn Sn) correctly summar-izes his contributions thus :


31/39

169Dan Lusthaus

Ibn Sn was a Persian polymathand the oremost physician and phil-osopher o his time. He was also anastronomer, chemist, geologist, logi-

cian, paleontologist, mathematician,physicist, poet, psychologist, scientist,soldier, statesman, and teacher.

Ibn Sn wrote almost 450 treatiseson a wide range o subjects, o whicharound 240 have survived. In par-ticular, 150 o his surviving treatisesconcentrate on philosophy and ortyo them concentrate on medicine.

His most amous works are Te Booko Healing, a vast philosophical andscientic encyclopaedia, and TeCanon o Medicine[in ourteen vol-umes], which was a standard medicaltext at many medieval universities.Te Canon o Medicinewas used asa text-book in the universities oMontpellier and Louvain as late as1650. Ibn Sn developed a medical

system that combined his own per-sonal experience with that o Islamicmedicine, the medical system o theGreek physician Galen, Aristotelianmetaphysics (Avicenna was one o themain interpreters o Aristotle, andancient Persian, Mesopotamian andIndian medicine. He was also theounder o Avicennian logic and thephilosophical school o Avicennism,which were inuentia l among bothMuslim and Scholastic thinkers.)

Ibn Sn is regarded as a ather oearly modern medicine, and clinicalpharmacology, particularly or hisintroduction o systematic experi-mentation and quantication intothe study o physiology, his discoveryo the contagious nature o inec-

tious diseases, the introduction oquarantine to limit the spread ocontagious diseases, the introduction

o experimental medicine, evidence-based medicine, clinical trials,randomized controlled trials, ecacytests, clinical pharmacology, neuro-

psychiatry, risk actor analysis, andthe idea o a syndrome, and the im-portance o dietetics and the inuenceo climate and environment on health.He is also considered the ather o theundamental concept o momentumin physics and is regarded as a pioneero aromatherapy or his invention osteam distillation and extraction oessential oils. He also developed theconcept o uniormitarianism and lawo superposition in geology.

Also, rom http://www.isesco.org.ma/pub/Eng/Architects/P20.htm:

Ibn Sn mastered medicine in par-ticular. He made new discoveries inthis eld; he was the rst to describea worm that he called the round

worm, currently known as ankles-toma. He also studied neurologicaldysunctions and was able to reachcertain pathologic and psychologicalacts through psychoanalysis. Hebelieved in the existence o aninteraction between psychology andphysical health. He also described thebrains apoplexy resulting rom excessin the blood ow.

Ibn Sn made original contributionsin medicine, based on his own obser-vations. He ounded his conclusionson experiments and was able to reachnew observations, including the con-tagious nature o tuberculosis and thepropagation o diseases through waterand soil. He also described at lengthdermatological and sexually transmit-

ted diseases. Moreover, he describedthe pharmaceutical preparation osome medicines.


32/39


Ibn Sn was also the rst to describethe irritation o the brains envelope,distinguishing it rom other chronicirritations. He elaborated the rst

clear diagnostic o necks sclerosesand o meningitis He also describedthe acial para lysis and its causes. Hemade the distinction between theparalysis caused by a dysunction inthe brain and that resulting Scienticcontributions in other elds.

Ibn Sn made important contribu-tions in physics, through the study o

several natural phenomena such asmotion, orce, vacuum, innity, lightand heat. He made the observationthat i the perception o light is due tothe emission o some particles roma luminous source, the speed o lightmust be nite.

Ibn Sn made contributions in geol-ogy with a treatise on the ormation

o mountains, precious stones andmetals. In this treatise, he discussedthe eect o earthquakes, water, thedegree temperature, sediments, os-silisation and erosion.

Ibn Sn was also an outstandingmathematician and astronomer. Hestudied innite bodies rom religious,physical, and mathematical perspec-tives. His ndings helped Newtonand Leibniz to develop innite num-erals in the seventeenth century.

20 Mansura Haidar, Medical Works othe Medieval Period rom India andCentral Asia, Diogenes55, no. 27(2008): 28.

21 Philip J. van der Eijk,Medicine andPhilosophy in Classical Antiquity

(Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2005), 15.

22 Tis chapter is important, not onlybecause o its description o debateand its epistemological elements, butbecause it also inorms us that debate

(between dierent physicians as wellas between physicians and others)was a proessional obligation o phys-icians. It was part o their pedagogy,how they learned, how they deendedtheir theories and practice, and howthey practiced medicine.

23 When we think o authoritativetradition in a medical context, rather

than, as is more usual, in a religiousor philosophical context, the valueand indeed necessity o a respect ortradition becomes obvious, since, ievery physician had to re-invent theull inventory o medical lore andacquired knowledge all over again,everyones health would be at greaterrisk. Medicine learns rom the trialand error o preceding generations;

its accumulated knowledge can besupplemented and modied by reshobservations and discoveries, butaccumulated traditional knowledgecan only be ignored at the peril o thephysician and his patients.

24 Deriving philosophical categoriesby inecting a key verb, in this casethe verbal root o action, karma

(rom the root k), is an inherit-ance rom the other great inuenceon Indian philosophy, the gram-matical tradition. See below underLogical Styles. For an examplein a decidedly philosophical con-text that draws on the same root,compare the ollowing krikromNgrjunasMlamadhyamakakrik(8:4): I a cause [or an action] does

not actualize (asat), the enacted(krya) and activator (kraa) arenot ound. | Tose not having come


33/39

171Dan Lusthaus

to be (abhva), activity (kiya), actor(kart), and acting (karaa) are notound. (hetvasati krya ca kraaca na vidyate | tadabhve kriy kart

karaa ca na vidyate)

25 Te evijja suttao the Dgha Nikyao the Buddhist ipiaka gives ahumorous, satirical parody o reli-gious devotionalism, comparing it tosomeone who proclaims he is in lovewith the most beautiul woman in theworld, but when asked what does shelook like, what type o hair, eyes, and

so on does she possess, what is hercaste, etc., he replies: I dont know.Devotionalism, Buddha concludes, isas ineective as someone who, wish-ing to get to the other shore o a river,builds a re and sits down, chantingto the other shore to come here,rather than building a rat and mak-ing his way across.

26 Kant, in a letter to Christian Garve.Quoted in Immanuel Kant, Opuspostumum , ed. Eckart Frster; trans.Eckart Frster and Michael Rosen(Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1993), Introduction, p. xvi.

27 Ibid.

28 Georey Lloyd and Nathan Sivin,Te Way and the Word: Science and

Medicine in Early China and Greece(New Haven, C: Yale UniversityPress, 2003).

29 (1) Dukha(dis-ease, a.k.a.suering), (2) samudaya(identiy-ing the causes odukha), (3) nirodha(assurance that the causes can beeliminated), and (4) mrga(the way toeliminate the causes).

30 For instance, it is the topic o chap.7 o part 2 (Nidna-sthna) o theCaraka-sahit.

31 Te three doas vta,pitta, andleman, based respectively on thethree elements wind, re-heat, andwater are undamental categories o

Indian medicine into which diseases,symptoms, pharmaceuticals, oods,etc., are classied and analyzed. Fora general discussion that includesBuddhist usages, see HartmutSchare, Te Doctrine o the TreeHumors in raditional IndianMedicine and the Alleged Antiquityo amil Siddha Medicine,Journal othe American Oriental Society119, no.4 (1999): 60929.

32 Te next oldest Indian medical text,Suruta-sahit, contains materi-als roughly contemporaneous withAsaga (4th century) but is recog-(4th century) but is recog-nized to also contain much later ma-terial in the redaction that has comedown to us.

33 Ptakebhya para caitat ptakanstikagraha. I have consulted twoeditions o the Caraka-sahit,both containing the original text indevanagri and an English translation:(1) Caraka-sahit: Agniveas treatiserened and annotated by Caraka and re-dacted by Dhabala: text with Englishtranslation, Priyavrat Sharma (editor-translator) (Varanasi: Chaukhambha

Orientalia, 198183), 4 vols.; and(2)AgniveasCaraka sahita: textwith English translation & criticalexposition based on Cakrapi Dattasyurveda dpik, Ram Karan Sharmaand Bhagwan Dash (trans. and ed.)(Varanasi: Chowkhamba SanskritSeries Oce, 19762002), 7 vols. Tetranslation above is rom passages1415 o chap. 11, vol. 1, p. 209 o

Sharma and Dash.


34/39


34 Te CSin its available redaction isheavily steeped in Skhyan theory,which holds that the world consists ovarying proportions o three constitu-

ent actors: sattva(light, pure, etc.),rajas(passionate, active), and tamas(dark, dull, inert). By implication, CSis claiming that someone devoid orajasand tamas(skewering passionsand stupidity) must be sattvic(pure,enlightened), and thus constitution-ally incapable o lying.

35 Sharma and Dash, vol. 1, 213.

36 Praj-pardhais translated bySharma and Dash as intellectualblasphemy and intellectual errorby P.V. Sharma. It literally meansan oense to reason, i.e., acting

unreasonably. Te CSuses the term ina number o ways, but what they seemto have in common is acting or havingan attitude that is unreasonable, i.e.,

endangering ones health in ways thatone should know better than to en-gage in. E.g., Stra-sthna, chap. 38:39-40 states: Due toprajpardha,he indulges in unwholesome senseobjects, suppression o natural urgesand taking up risky jobs. Te ignorantone is attached to temporarily pleas-ing objects but the learned is not sobecause o his understanding havingbeen clear (P.V. Sharma, vol. 1, 231).

37 Reection #90, Aphorisms andRefections, selected by Henrietta A.Huxley (London: Macmillan, 1907).


35/39

AfterAppropriation


36/39

2011 M J

U C P2500 U D NW

C, AC 2N 1N4www.p.m

N p p m p, m m, m m, w p w p.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

A ppp [ ] : xp pp / M J.

B pp p wkp: Cmp Pp R, U C, C, A., 2006.I p x.A p m.ISBN 978-1-55238-503-6 (PDF).--ISBN 978-1-55238-584-5 (PDF).--ISBN 978-1-55238-585-2(HML)

1. R. 2. Pp, Cmp. 3. Pp . I. J, M

BL51.A48 2011 201.61 C2011-906853-2

T U C P kw pp Gm A A Mm Dpm F p. W kw fpp Gm C C Bk F p. W kw f pp C C A p pm.

T k p w m S S HmR C C.

C , p , p M C


37/39

EXPLOR ATIONS IN INTERCULTURAL

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

edited by

Morny Joy

AfterAppropriation


38/39

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

IMorny Joy

Cv S P/Rg Dg M Sg (Waitui)

Vincent Shen

T P Sg: T I Cv

PMichael McGhee

Lg I P R Rginu Ruparell

T CgManas: I S, C S, Og Ig

Arindam Chakrabarti

Sg O: Cg P M S W Rg

Ahmad F. Yousi

T V E: T Cq M Nz, Kg, D

Katrin Froese

Cv P Rg M JwP: A Cv

Michael Oppenheim

P, M, S, BDan Lusthaus

v

1

25

41

57

77

95

119

139


39/39

Rg I x S IP Tg R: T C rmad Rahasyatrayasra Trait de lAmour de

DieuFrancis X. Clooney, S.J.

Pg Awg Z P

Chenkuo Lin

I R Av? O D N D

: A Df A I Pamara Albertini

T U Laka I ExgChristopher G. Framarin

W Rg H Rg: Ex I P Rg

Morny Joy

N C

Ix

173

203

221

239

257

281

287

lusthaus phi medicine sci boundaries

Documents