Logic in Earliest Classical India

by Brendan S. Gillon and Petteri Koskikallio and Asko Parpola

The last two decades of Indological research have led to a marked increase in the investigation of logic in India, especially in the earliest period of classical India. A panel of senior and junior scholars from America, Asia, and Europe, all specialists working in this area, was concerned at the 12th World Sanskrit Conference, held in Helsinki in the summer of 2003.

This volume contains not only their papers, which address both philosophical and philological matters pertaining to logic as propounded in texts from this period, but also an introduction designed to permit non-specialists, whether non-Ideologists or non-philosophers, to learn about Indian logic in its infancy.

Table of Contents:

1. Logic in Early Classical India : An Overview/Brendan s. Gillon
2. Reasoning as a Science, its Role in Early Dharma Literature, and the Emergence of the Term Nyaya/Karin Preisendanz
3. On the Proof Passage of the Carakasamhita : Editions, Manuscripts and Commentaries/Ernst Prets
4. The Logical Reason Called Virodhin in Vaisesika and its Significance for Connection-based Theories of Reasoning/Birgit Kellner
5. The Discussion of Pramanas in the Spitzer Manuscript/Eli Franco
6. The Logic of the Samdhinirmocanasutra : Establishing Right Reasoning Based on Similarity (Surupya) and Dissimilarity (Vairupya)/Chizuko Yoshimizu
7. Obversion and Contraposition in the Nydyabhasya/Brendan S. Gillon
8. Anumama in Bhartrhari's Vakyapadiya/Akihiko Akamatsu.

About the Author:

Brendan S. Gillon is an associate professor at McGill University. In addition to his translation work in collaboration with Richard P. Hayes on key portions of the Svathanumana chapter of Dharmakiriti’s Pramanavarttika, a watershed text in the development of logic in India, he is the author of many articles on logic in early classical India as well as numerous articles on natural language semantics. He is also the coeditor of Semantics: A Reader, published by Oxford University Press (2004).