Ganeri on Epistemic Pluralism

Epistemic Pluralism : From Systems to Stances is the title of a paper by Jonardon Ganeri which was wafted my way courtesy of Academia.edu. Its aim is to promote the notion of pramanas i.e. means of valid knowlege, as epistemic systems. The number of pramanas accepted by the classic darshanas (views/philosophical schools) can vary from six down to one. Their names as usually translated are Perception, Inference, Comparison, Verbal Testimony, Presumption, and Non-Apprehension. As is well known these means of valid knowledge are supposed to underived and foundational. Whether the conflicting views can be viewed as stances or different ways of attaining knowledge, epistemic pluralism in other words, is the matter under discussion. That is a question well worth exploring but the problem is that Ganeri’s discussion is self sabotaged from the onset by the co-opting of Paul Boghossians categories of the activities involved in doing basic science. They are as follows:

In particular: (Observation) For any observational proposition p, if it visually seems to S that p and circumstantial conditions D obtain, then S is prima facie justified in believing p.
Deduction) If S is justified in believing p, and p fairly obviously entails q, then S is justified in believing q. (Induction) If S has often enough observed that an event of type A has been followed by an event of type B, then S is justified in believing that all events of type A will be followed by events of type B.
4
(And perhaps also Ganeri)
(Inference to the best explanation) If S justifiably believes that p, and justifiably believes that the best explanation for p is q, then S is justified in believing q.

However the superimposition of these epistemic principles or strategies on the classic pramanas as argued over by the classic darshanas ends up falsifying their nature.

Ganeri:

Indian epistemology in general is an analysis of pramanas, methods for interrogating reality, sources of warranted belief. A pramana is, more or less, what Boghossian means by an epistemic principle

Here at this point Ganeri makes what I consider to be the fundamental mistake of mapping the Boghossian system onto the Pramanas in a way which distorts them.

Their names for Observation, Deduction, Inference to the Best Explanation, and Testimony are, respectively, pratyaksa, anumana, arthapatti, and sabda. Yet they might have forgiven him, for they also discussed and disagreed among themselves whether Testimony is a fundamental or a derived epistemic principle, and they were, in general, fully cognizant of the importance of establishing a basic set of underived epistemic principles.

I would hold that he is wrong in principle and wrong in detail. ‘Observation’ is not the same as ‘Perception’/pratyaksa. An observation is a focussed form of perception. What Indian philosophers debated was the validity and nature of perception as such.
Anumana (Inference) is not deduction but more like induction or a judgment based on invariable concomitance.
Arthapatti (Presumption) is not inference to the best explanation/abduction. There is no sheaf of explanations out of which we select one. It is a simple switch. Given that he is alive, Ram is in his house or not.
Finally Sabda or Testimony is the reliance on information from a trustworthy source. Ganeri’s dismissal of Revelation (Vedas) as an accepted valid means of knowledge is not correct.

Indian versions of Revelation and Oracle, for instance, were largely dismissed.

In the closing pages of his paper Ganeri offers an egregious piece of self-stultification:

Dogmatism about the actual practices and modes of production that constituted nineteenth-and early twentieth-century European science combined with a belief in the appropriateness of the use of violence to suppress other stances to constitute the epistemic stance of European colonialism: {European Colonialism} Use the epistemic principles in accordance with the conventions of nineteenth-and twentieth-century European scientific communities, and do so dogmatically, using violence against anyone who disagrees. While it is not the case that dogmatism per se entails the endorsement of violence.

While no violence was used in the writing of this paper clearly the superimposition of Boghossian’s epistemic principles on the Pramanas leads to distortion and erosion of a significant way of grappling with the problem of knowledge.

Consider the Platypus ye scryers by Upamana

The ghost of the forest dweller haunts the simple fable of the Nyaya version of upamana. He it is who gives a name to the cow-like creature you might come across in the forest. The discovery of the denotation of the name ‘gavaya’ is what upamana is about. A contrary view is that denotation of this kind is achieved by the use of upamana but is not its sole fruit. Dharmaraja Adhvarindra of the advaitic vedanta school manages to send off our intrepid explorer without mentioning the ‘forester’. However the name ‘gavaya’ is given which seems to suggest denotation as an end point. If one omitted to mention the name and simply stuck with the core knowledge of ‘like and unlike the domestic cow’ that would be a means of knowledge. As the logical operation of the simple binary, like/unlike, it would tie in with the likewise simple switch of background/foreground of the arthapatti pramana. They both have a simple immediacy.

Another concern is the supposed use of memory when you spot the gavaya. Your memory of the cow may be operative in your judgement of likeness/unlikeness and memory is not regarded as a reliable means of knowledge. The normal counter is that likeness or unlikeness in the gavaya is a contemporary experience and therefore not a memory. I sense here a frail subtlety which is in any case not needed as having a concept does not involve the use of memory once that concept is acquired. You have the capacity to use the concept permanently present to you.

In short the restricted diet of examples of upamana may be due to seeing denotation as its exclusive fruit. Consider the duck-billed platypus:

The platypus is among nature's most unlikely animals. In fact, the first scientists to examine a specimen believed they were the victims of a hoax. The animal is best described as a hodgepodge of more familiar species: the duck (bill and webbed feet), beaver (tail), and otter (body and fur). Males are also venomous. They have sharp stingers on the heels of their rear feet and can use them to deliver a strong toxic blow to any foe.

(from National Geographic: platypus

Utter unlikeness to anything ever seen before may be a means to knowledge in the sense that it mediates an expansion of knowledge.

Arthapatti not Abduction

I see that Elisa Freschi resists the idea that arthapatti is inference to the best explanation.
not I.B.E.
That I think is correct because arthapatti in traditional examples is if anything inference to the only explanation, that is to say the only explanation that will answer in the court of common sense. Plump Devadatta may be a great yogi who is taking his prana directly from sunlight without the necessity of the vulgar medium of food. Of course he could also be a shape shifting alien. ‘The best explanation’ implies a selection but in that pramana you have a simple switch and a reliable result. It may be the ‘atom’ out of which ‘molecular’ abduction is built. Arthapatti is simple and the data which I.B.E. seeks to explain is complex.