Answer the following questions in about 150 words each:

(a) Do you think Cārvāka's philosophy is positivistic in nature ? Give reasons and justifications for your answer. 10 marks

(b) Explain the six reasons offered by the Naiyāyikas to prove the e

Question

Answer the following questions in about 150 words each:

(a) Do you think Cārvāka's philosophy is positivistic in nature ? Give reasons and justifications for your answer. 10 marks

(b) Explain the six reasons offered by the Naiyāyikas to prove the existence of the self. 10 marks

(c) Do these two sentences "Air does not have heat" and "Air is not fire" refer to the same type of absence or abhāva, according to the Vaiśeṣikas ? Discuss. 10 marks

(d) How does Bhāṭṭa's view of nature of word-meaning and sentential-meaning differ from Prābhākara's view ? Critically discuss. 10 marks

(e) "In Viśiṣṭādvaita philosophy, the relationship between God and the world is parallel to that between an individual self and its body." Critically discuss. 10 marks

UPSC Answer Check · Accepted Answer

Cārvāka and positivism. Cārvāka, or Lokāyata, is positivistic only in a limited, methodological sense. Its fragments, including those attributed to the Bṛhaspati Sūtra, accept pratyakṣa as the sole pramāṇa and reject anumāna and śabda as independent sources of knowledge; they also deny ātmā, heaven, karma and dharma as metaphysical realities. This resembles Comtean positivism in restricting valid knowledge to what is observable or empirically accessible and rejecting transcendent metaphysics. However, the resemblance is not exact. Comtean positivism is a doctrine of the development of science and society, whereas Cārvāka is a materialist naturalism with an ethical aim of pleasure and avoidance of pain. Cārvāka does not merely adopt a method; it asserts a metaphysical naturalism, holding that only matter and its combinations exist. Thus it is anti-metaphysical in its rejection of the unseen, but not identical to modern positivism; it is better described as empiricist, materialist and hedonistic rather than strictly positivistic.

Naiyāyika proofs of the self. Naiyāyikas prove the self through six arguments in Nyāya Sūtra 3.1.18–23. First, āyuṣaḥ saṃyogāt: life is a quality of the self, so life in a body implies a self as substratum. Second, indriyārthasaṃyogaḥ: sense-object contact produces perception, which requires a conscious self as subject. Third, pratibandhāyogāt: memory occurs only when there is no obstruction to the self’s recollection, so memory implies a self. Fourth, hṛdayapradeśa: the heart-region is the seat of consciousness, indicating the self’s location. Fifth, prāṇāyāma: voluntary breath control shows an agent distinct from the body, namely the self. Sixth, mṛtyukāla: at death the self leaves the body, proving its reality. The self is the permanent substratum of these changing bodily and mental events. Thus the self is inferred from life, perception, memory, heart, breath and death, not from revelation. These arguments are meant to establish the self as a real, conscious substance.

Vaiśeṣika absence. According to the Vaiśeṣikas, the two sentences do not denote the same type of abhāva. Praśastapāda’s Bhāṣya treats absence as a sixth padārtha and distinguishes its forms. ‘Air does not have heat’ expresses dharmābhāva, the absence of a quality in a substrate: heat, a property, is not present in air. ‘Air is not fire’ expresses a mutual or numerical absence, anyonyābhāva, also described as saṃsargābhāva in the sense of absence of identity or contact: air and fire are different substances. The first is a negative predication about a quality; the second is a distinction between two entities. This distinction matters because Vaiśeṣika realism makes abhāva ontologically real, not merely a mental negation. However, a critic may argue that both are simply negative judgments. Still, for Vaiśeṣika, the difference between absence of a dharma and mutual absence of substances is essential.

Bhāṭṭa and Prābhākara. Bhāṭṭa and Prābhākara differ on how word-meaning yields sentential meaning. Bhāṭṭa’s abhihitānvayavāda holds that words have nominative, denotative meanings of individual entities, and their syntactic connection is understood only after the whole sentence is heard. The verb denotes action, and in injunctions its meaning is bhāvanā, a causative or injunctive force that prompts the agent to perform the action. Lakṣaṇā is not needed ordinarily; it is a separate secondary function only when the primary meaning fails. Prābhākara’s anvitābhidhānavāda holds that words denote already syntactically connected entities, so sentence meaning is immediate, not a post-verbal construction. For him the verb denotes the action itself, and the sentence’s meaning is the prescribed action (vidhi). Bhāṭṭa’s view preserves the simplicity of word-meaning but adds a mental operation; Prābhākara’s view is more linguistically economical because comprehension is direct, though it makes word-meaning more complex by embedding syntactic relations. Thus the issue is whether grammar is post-semantic or lexical.

Viśiṣṭādvaita. Rāmānuja’s Viśiṣṭādvaita compares God and the world to an individual self and its body. Brahman is the antaryāmin, the inner controller; jīvas and matter are his body. This śarīra-śarīri-bhāva is inseparable (apr̥thak-siddhi), not identity. God is distinct from the world, yet the world cannot exist apart from him. God’s body includes nitya-vibhūti, the eternal spiritual realm, and liṅga-śarīra, the material body; nitya-vibhūti is not God’s form, the divya-maṅgala-vigraha. The analogy resembles Fichte’s absolute ego or Spinoza’s modes in making the world dependent on an absolute, but differs because Rāmānuja’s God is personal and conscious, not an impersonal substance. Critics may say that if the world is God’s body, the distinction becomes too thin and the view approaches pantheism. Rāmānuja would reply that it is panentheism: God is in the world, but the world is not all of God. Thus it preserves immanence and transcendence, but needs defence against pantheism.

Answer the following questions in about 150 words each: (a) Do you think Cārvāka's philosophy is positivistic in nature ? Give…

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