Analogy in Indian and Western Philosophical Thought

293 Pages·2006·1.38 MB·English

by  David B. Zilberman

Analogy in Indian and Western Philosophical Thought
BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Editors
ROBERT S.COHEN,Boston University
JÜRGEN RENN,Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science
KOSTAS GAVROGLU,University of Athens
Editorial Advisory Board
THOMAS F.GLICK,Boston University
ADOLF GRÜNBAUM,University of Pittsburgh
SYLVAN S.SCHWEBER,Brandeis University
JOHN J.STACHEL,Boston University
MARX W.WARTOFSKY†,(Editor 1960–1997)
VOLUME 243
DAVID B. ZILBERMAN
ANALOGY IN INDIAN
AND WESTERN
PHILOSOPHICAL
THOUGHT
Edited by
HELENA GOURKO
Boston University
and
ROBERT S. COHEN
Boston University
A C.I.P.Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library ofCongress.
ISBN-10 1-4020-3339-7 (HB)
ISBN-10 1-4020-3340-0 (e-book)
ISBN-13 978-1-4020-3339-1 (HB)
ISBN-13 978-1-4020-3340-7 (e-book)
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Editorial Note (by Robert S.Cohen). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Introductory essay (by Helena Gourko) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
On the Composition of this Book (by Helena Gourko) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Analogy in Western Philosophy and Indian Approaches to Analogy:
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
−
Analogy in Navya-Nyaya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
History of Indian Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
The Indian Type of Cultural Tradition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Revelation of Mechanism of Tradition in a Form of Grammatical
Paradigms of Indian Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
The Teaching of S`an.kara−on Intuition and the Organization of
Philosophical Texts in Order to Perceive the Transcendental. . . . . . . . . . 165
Mι−ma−m.sa−/On Certainty of Perception in Mι−ma−m.sa−. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Advaita-Veda−nta:‘S´ariraka-Bha−s.ya’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Upades´a-Sahasri (1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Writing and Tradition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Tradition of the Idea of Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
The Hellenic Type of Cultural Tradition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
V
vi CONTENTS
The Western Type of Cultural Tradition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
(1) Theories of Analogy,Western and Eastern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
(2) Description of the Project (for the Indian Fellowship). . . . . . . . 239
(3) Excerpts from a Scientific Career Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
(4) Syllabus:‘Hindu Systems of Thought:A cultural approach’. . . 243
(5) Karma-M¯ıma¯msa¯:An active mensuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
(6) Analogy in Prachina- Nyaya. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
(7) Analogy in Jaina’sPhilosophy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
(8) Analogy in Buddhism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
(9) Plato/Analogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
(10) Ptolemy/Analogy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
(11) On Kath.a-Upanis.ad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Name Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
EDITORIAL NOTE
Zilberman described his Hindu studies in a brief remark:
This is not a study of Hindu Philosophies – – –
but a methodology of how they are to be studied.
And so he introduced his profound book The Birth of Meaning in Hindu
Thought. Now, three decades later, we have his own example, this set of his
essays in exploration of the use and meanings of analogy. The texts have been
assembled and translated by Helena Gourko, whose Introductory Essay care-
fully interweaves Zilberman’s explanatory passages with her own.
...............
Several paragraphs from my Note to the earlier book are still fitting:
David Zilberman returned to Boston in the Fall of 1975,and we resumed our
brieffriendship ...He came often ot our Boston Colloquium for the Philosophy
of Science,quietly but passionately commenting,disputing,clarifying,instruct-
ing.Quite clearly,he was appreciated as immensely learned,intelligent and wise.
And he was a splendid lecturer, at once lucid, gentle, and rigorous. I recall his
thoughtful and original lecture on ‘Spinoza and Marx ....and his masterful talk
on Hindu epistemologies ....These were his normal qualities as teacher,tutor,
correspondent,conversationalist ...perhaps as dreamer too.
He worked so beautifully and so rapidly, in English as in Russian. Not furi-
ously but yet there was an outpouring, a flood, from a deep and powerful
source within him;he had no time to let pass by,he seemed almost to be liv-
ing as though he sensed there was a deadline soon. Russian, Jew, Buddhist
rationalist and mystic,scientist,philosopher,humanist ....Zilberman was a
man of our time who reached far beyond.He was a sweet genius.
(January 1988)
................
VIII EDITORIAL NOTE
A substantial Bibliography of Zilberman’s works (Russian and English) was
included in The Birth of Meaning. A detailed Zilberman Papers Collection is
located in the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.
David Zilberman died July 25,1977.
ROBERTS.COHEN
Boston University
Center for Philosophy of Science
February 2006
Helena Gourko
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY
It is always hard to be a stranger, no matter why he or she has been thrown
out of his professional community,historical time,or cultural space.It appears
especially painful if this stranger is condemned to alienation even after death;
when his or her memory and heritage is left to the mercy of fate. David
Zilberman (1938-1977), a Russian philosopher who emigrated to the United
States in 1973,seems doomed to ‘outsiderness’due to the circumstances of his
short life.In the Soviet Union,he could not gain recognition mainly due to ide-
ological conflicts with the regime; in America, he did not live long enough to
establish himself among American philosophers. “David Zilberman has
remained until now almost a total stranger to the majority of American philoso-
phers”,- wrote Ellena Michnik-Zilberman,- “partly due to the shortness of the
time he lived,taught and published in the United States,partly due to his pref-
erence to expressing his philosophical thoughts in the Russian language despite
his almost perfect command in English”.(1) Curiously,the language barrier has
now appeared to become an additional obstacle for the dissemination of
Zilberman’s philosophical ideas not only in the United States, but also in the
ideologically transformed Russia (where his ideas have become not only permit-
ted, at last, but also highly desired). The Zilberman Archive at the Special
Collections Division of the Mugar Memorial Library at Boston University lists
in its Catalogue hundreds of manuscripts,both in English and in Russian (sev-
eral dozen of which are of substantial size), consisting of more than 12,000
pages.Out of all this richness,relatively few articles and one book (2) have been
published.The present volume on analogy ought to mediate this regrettable sit-
uation and present to the English-language reader one of the major themes of
Zilberman’s philosophizing.
It seems most appropriate to introduce Zilberman to the reader,in both a pro-
fessional and personal way, by using his own words. A short autobiographical
statement was requested by the editor of the Russian language publication
GNOSIS [N.Y., 1978] for inclusion with Zilberman’s article “Understanding
Cultural Tradition through Types of Thinking”.He wrote as follows one month
prior to his untimely death on July 25,1977:
1