Upamana Pramana (Comparison) and Genus and Species.

 Does the pramana of upamana translated as ‘comparison’ start somewhat in midstream?  We are immediately given the concept of genus and species, the cow in this case so in essence we already have the power to discover genus and species natively.  Taking the single example of the ‘gavaya’ ( bos gaurus) we can be immediately aware that it must be a member of a species and with that awareness comes the knowledge of differentiation which makes a species.  Sharing the same genus as the cow (bos Taurus) is a likely presumption.  

There is an element of the problem of universals lurking beneath the surface of Upamana:

This (upamana) is not possible through perception, for then the cow’s form is not in contact with the eyes.

We only sense particulars and actually to begin with genus and species is logically downstream from the universal ‘cow’.  The problem of universals is not salient in the ‘Vedanta Paribhasa’ of Adhvarindra.  Sankara deals with it in his section of Brahma Sutra Bhasya called ‘Vedic Words’.  I find some similarity (that word) between his treatment and the ideas of William of Ockham.

More anon on that.

Henri Bergson on Recognition

 I am creeping along following  my reading plan for Matter and Memory by Henri Bergson.  No more that 3 or 4 pages at a time writing notes as I read as if each observation was a nail to hold it down.  I can see how this dilatory notation could have exasperated Samuel Johnson during his tour of the Hebrides but for a work like Bergson’s it induces the stasis that allows some of the profound insights to penetrate.  Like recognition as a foundational native power.  How do you know that this perception is similar to another that occurred in the past.  Looking for evidence for this knowledge is the reflex of empiricism but looked at closely it chases its own tail.  We can only recognise similarity if we already have it and in many cases familiarity precedes the memory of our previous encounter.

The advaitin Dharmaraja Adhvarindra writing on the Pramanas (means of valid knowledge)  devotes his shortest chapter to upamana  or comparison - “The instrument of the valid knowledge of similarity is comparison”.  Even those astute observers of the furniture of the mind did not see the difficulty involved in the comparison of what is a present experience with an experience which is past and thereby judge their congruence or not or slight resemblance etc.  Here epistemology trumps neuroscience’s engrams.

“But, along with this definite and perceived resemblance which (pg 107) consists in the common element seized and disengaged by the mind, there is a vague and in some sort objective resemblance, spread over the surface of the images themselves, which might act perhaps like a physical cause of reciprocal attraction.[13] And should we ask how it is, then, that we often recognize an object without being able to identify it with a former image, refuge is sought in the convenient hypothesis of cerebral tracks which coincide with each other, of cerebral movements made easier by practice,[14] or of perceptive cells communicating with cells where memories are stored.[15] In truth, all such theories of recognition are bound to melt away, in the end, into physiological hypotheses of this kind. What they were aiming at, first, was to make all recognition issue from a bringing together of perception and memory; but experience stands over against them, testifying that in most cases recollection emerges only after the perception is recognized.” Matter and Memory

Admit it: the ball joint of the philosopher’s neck is made wry by this confounding of the intuitive question - how do we know?  We just know.  A vertiginous prospect rejected by right thinking empiricists.

Gavaya: Very like a cow Kumarila

I feel like the detective that turns on his way out the door and says: - There’s one thing that bothering me. Why choose a complex illustration for the upamana pramana if all you had in mind was plain similarity? Why the tuppence coloured cow and gavaya, and the knowledgeable forester etc, etc. Why not offer what everyone can understand eg. a similar design, a similar fate, a similar frock, a book with a similar theme etc. If not, why not? 

 My tentative sense of these ready to hand examples is that they involve unitary instances. One hammer is much like any other qua hammer even though there are many kinds with specialised functions; ball pein, cross pein, claw etc.

 Kumarila in Slokavarttika dismisses the idea of ‘twins’ as an exemplar of similarity because there we see that they are. (22/3 pg.226 Jha trans.) The moment you utter the word ‘twin’ you admit similarity, it is not something that you might discover about twins or peas.

In a case where we have the recognition of a single class as belonging to the principle objects themselves (and not to the parts), there we have a notion (of identity) such as “this is that very thing”; and where there is difference, there we have the notion of Similarity only.

When the person roaming in the forest sees a strange animal, he perceives the beast. At one and the same time he is aware of its ‘cowness’and that it is a gavaya. That is the upamana. To put it portentously we are moving towards a scientifically actionable knowledge of genus and species. 

Kumarila Bhatta on Upamana in Slokavarttika

Bhatta in his Slokavarttika hunts the gavaya out of his forest home into the broad pasture of rational discourse. I mean by that his very full treatment of the pramana known as upamana or analogy/comparison. The view that he controverts is that the Naiyayika school which does not allow that upamana is a pramana. In this note I want to focus on what his positive thesis is.

The fact of "Similarity" (or Resemblance) being a positive entity, however, cannot be denied ; inasmuch as according to them, there exists (or Resemblance) being a positive inasmuch as it consists of the presence, in one class of objects, of such an arrangement (or conglomeration) of constituent parts as is common to another class of objects.

. (18: pg.225) It is not just the discovery of likeness in constituent parts that makes upamana a basic valid means of knowledge, what matters is the identification of what draws together any number of classes which I understand as the discovery of their genus.

And Similarity differs from the {classes) in that it rests upon a conglomeration of classes whereas the classes appear also severally among objects of Sense-perception.

Here Bhatta is disputing the claim that Similarity/Upamana is merely a matter of sense perception or what is termed extraordinary perception which descries similarity or universals in the sensory data pur sang. Ganganatha Jha the translator of this work offers a clarificatory footnote to the discussion whether Upamana might not be a case of inference. Similarity is 'in the cow' and naturally the cow is not present to sense perception in the classical example.

It is the similarity, in the cow, of the gavaya, that is the true object of Analogy ; whereas that which is perceived by the eye is the similarity as located in the gavaya ; and the latter could not give rise to any Inference that would bring about any idea of the similarity in the cow.

(fn.44/45 )

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.

Bergson, Universals, Upamana and the Gavaya

We may then suppose perceptions as different as possible in their superficial details: if only they are continued by the same motor reactions, if the organism can extract from them the same useful effects, if they impress upon the body the same attitude, something common will issue from them, and the general idea will have been felt and passively experienced, before being represented. - Here then we escape at last from the circle in which we at first appeared to be confined. In order to generalize, we said, we have to abstract similarity, but in order to disengage similarity usefully we must already know how to generalize. There really is no circle, because the similarity, from which the mind starts when it first begins the work of abstraction, is not the similarity at which the mind arrives when it consciously generalizes.

(from Matter and Memory)


Here is a move towards the solution of the problem of universals and indeed the upamana pramana. The misunderstanding of the latter problem is underlined by the displacement of the problem into the recognition of a gavaya. Essentially the instruction is simple - the gavaya (bos gaurus) that roams in the jungle is like your domestic cow. Very good but what is a cow like? What do you mean? A cow just a cow, you know what a cow is. The point that Bergson is making, as I understand him, is that the immediate response that generates the sense of sameness is at a different conceptual level from the universal that is a rational construct. An example that he gives from inorganic reactions i.e. hydrochloric acid and marble, does not lead us to believe that one recognises the other.

Upamana: The Gavaya and the Screw Mitre Shoot

We’ve been here before. Has the fog lifted? Can the general lie of the land be discerned? Do we stumble through the forest looking for the fabled ‘gavaya’ (bos gaurus) with the assurance that we will know it when we see it for ‘it is like to your cow itself, without dewlap’. In all the accounts of upamana the gavaya ruminates and how wearying it must be for the correction of papers on the topic to meet it again and again. As I remarked previously the feeling is there that no one quite understands what the force of this pramana is and the security blanket of the canonical story is clung too. Not all schools accept it as a free-standing means of valid knowledge some holding it to be a matter of inference, others a perception. Let me for the sake of this short note simply take the advaitin view as valid which accounts it one of their six pramanas.

Comparison implies contrast and both these intellectual powers are common. We navigate through the strange waters of this world using the knowledge that we have garnered already. We meet a near instance of what we know from previous experience. That previous experience is not present to us as a perception but is referred to by the present perception. It is ‘in’ the present perception, Venn diagram like. The contrasting elements are in the outer non-lapping sections.

Is it simply a matter of memory? Not in a retrieval sense I think. All our conceptual apparatus is present to us as our mind. New stuff finds a fit or fails to find such. I’m at this minute looking at a tool which I bought second hand from a dealer. He called it a clamp. Yes it has a wooden screw that moves a block and it is a holding device. It is a screw mitre shoot so therefore a very specialised sort of clamp. That was the overlap.

Sishyphean Task/Pramana

It occurred to me that by taking pramana as a means of knowledge the focus is taken away from the means as an end in itself. We are shunted into wrangles about whether a particular end might not have been achieved by some other means. Is our knowledge of the denotation of ‘gavaya’ due to the testimony of the forester or an inference and so on and so forth? The logical end point of these diversions are a reduction of all pramana to perception. However if you take like/unlike as a knowledge bearing dyad which is immediate and irreducible to any other, the primitive insight is preserved. The Sisyphean task of contriving an example which isolates the single pramana that plucks the fruit is left as the sport of philosophy.

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.

Tabula rasa with desk-like features.

When my wife points out that I am leaving books on every surface and turning the sitting room table into a desk I respond:
- It's not a desk, I know that, it's a table with desk-like features.

Is this upamana at work? I think so. Moreover, rather than being restricted to the gavaya (bos gaurus) of the standard example and its configuration which seduces us into trying to devise congruent examples; we are in fact using the pramana all the time in various ways. The usage in translation of 'means of knowledge' may be a misdirection. We are inclined then to think of some sort of device that we utilise whereas upamana as a capacity that only exists as it is being used, mysterious as that sounds, may be closer to its reality. My resistance is to a Lockean abstractionist view which sees the the tabula rasa as the primitive condition.

Upamana and Bergson

Upamana (comparison) is a King Charles’s head with me. Like Mr. Dick with the latter (David Copperfield) I am fascinated by it to the extent that I believe that even those who accept it as a pramana aren’t aware of its decisive role in the problem of universals. Nobody understands upamana ! That way lies madness.

When re-reading Matter and Memory I find that Bergson with his sense of the foundational nature of comparison/resemblance takes a similar view:

It would seem, then, that we start neither from the perception of the individual nor from the conception of the genus, but from an intermediate knowledge, from a confused sense of the striking quality or of resemblance: this sense, (pg 206) equally remote from generality fully conceived and from individuality clearly perceived, begets them both by a process of dissociation. Reflective analysis clarifies it into the general idea; discriminative memory solidifies it into a perception of the individual.

Sankara with his theory of vedic words proposes a notion of universals along the same lines as Plato’s. Pramana for Sankara then might be restricted to a way of going from the innately known genus to the unknown particular - from cow to gavaya as per the standard example. Bergson would deny ideas and accept comparison (upamana) which he would term the “striking quality”. Upamana on its own could generate a world of universals and particulars.

Bergson’s statement of the classic problem is succinct:

individual objects. The whiteness of a lily is not the whiteness of a snow-field; they remain, even as isolated from the snow and the lily, snow-white or lily-white. They only forego their individuality if we consider their likeness in order to give them a common name; then, applying this name to an unlimited number of similar objects, we throw
back upon the quality, by a sort of ricochet, the generality which the word went out to seek in its application to things. But, reasoning in this way, do we not return to the point of view of extension, which we just now abandoned? We are then, in truth, revolving in a circle, nominalism leading us to conceptualism, and conceptualism bringing us back to nominalism.
Generalization can only be effected by extracting common qualities; but, that qualities should appear common, they must have already been subjected to a process of generalization.

Moreover what Bergson says about this power of discerning resemblance namely that it is of the nature of a primal force that does not have to be set into motion by a psychological effort, has the true flavour of pramana as irreducible.

But we relegate nothing to the unconscious, for the very simple reason that it is not, in our opinion, an effort of a psychological nature which here disengages similarity; this similarity acts objectively like a force, and provokes reactions that are identical in virtue of the purely physical law which requires that the same general effects should follow the same profound causes.

Note on Substance

Substance ought to be easy. 'Thus I assert thee' as I stumble over a stone, as it were. That's fine but then we are obliged to distinguish between 'stone' as stuff, generic stone and this particular stone called by Aristotle the primary substance and the former the secondary. By the way none of the interpretations of Aristotle's views are uncontroverted so shop around. However the primary/secondary division seems to me a sensible view of the basic furniture of the world or the floor we start from. The Advaitins who employ different criteria of what really is regard 'stuff' as more fundamental than individual items. In their airy way they assert that 'clay alone is real, things made from clay are mere names'. The changeless element, the material cause in the Aristotelian schema, is the clay and the various forms that are made out of clay are simply conventional names. We can see this view in some Western ontologists who would regard a table as 'timber arranged table-wise'. Is this a monist view which would regard our primal encounter as being with an undifferentiated continuum? Given evolution this seems unpersuasive as animals seem to be 'designed' to fit a habitat and prey. For the fox is a rabbit 'food arranged rabbit-wise'?

The pramana of upamana seems to contradict the primacy of 'stuff' (cf various posts on the topic of upamana by label). Recognising genus and species is a basic function of this innate means of knowledge ie. a means of knowledge not reducible to any other. Once we have decided on the criteria of division we can place everything. Encountering anything precipitates automatic sorting on however crude a basis. True but for the Advaitins their concept of 'the real' as changeless supervenes so the opposition may be more a contrast than a contradiction.

The contrast that exists between everyday awareness and knowledge and the reality that underpins that knowledge is brought out in the concept of the primal reality of the substratum. At the risk of confusion it is arguable that the clay/vessels dichotomy with clay alone as real is merely an analogy for the reality of the substratum and the unreality of the upadhis/forms of limitation which the substratum manifests.

Or the characteristic of Brahman is Its being the material cause of the entire universe. By 'material cause' is meant the substratum of the superimposition of the universe, or the substratum of the cosmic illusion (maya) that transforms itself in the shape of the universe. It is in view of such material causality that Brahman and the universe have been described as identical in Sruti texts like the following: “This all is the Self” (Br.II.iv.6) “It became the gross and the subtle (Tai:II.6) and “Let Me multiply, let Me be effectively born (Ibid II.6, Ch.Up. VI, ii, 3) Conventional statements like, “The jar exists,” “The jar is manifest,” and “The jar is desirable,” are also on account of the superimposition of its identity with Brahman, the Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute.

(from Vedanta Paribhasa tranlated by Swami Madhavananda.)

Upamana once again

The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something - because it is always before one’s eyes.) The real foundations of his enquiry do not strike a man at all. Unless thatfact has at some time struck him. - And this means: we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful.

Philosophical Investigations #121 by Ludwig Wittgenstein.

I quote this in full because the valid means of knowledge (pramana) known as upamana (comparison) is so fundamental and basic to consciousness of the world, i.e. classification, differentiation, exclusion and inclusion, specification etc., that we no longer see it as such. Moreover the continued use of a single example in its traditional Nyaya explication misleads us as to this global nature. I refer back to my earlier thoughts on the matter at
upamana
but I will reproduce the entry on upamana in Vedanta Paribhasa in full. My present thinking on the matter arises out of my comments on the topic at the blog:cidabhasa


To save going back and forth to my earlier note I will reproduce in full the entry on upamana in V.P.

Now comparison is being described. The instrument of the valid knowledge of similarity is comparison. For instance a man who has seen a cow's form in cities and has gone to a forest, where his eyes have come in contact with a gayal (gavaya - bos gaurus) has the cognition, "This thing is like a cow". Then he has the conviction, "My cow is like this." Here by a process of agreement and difference, the knowledge of the likeness of a cow which exists in a gayal is the instrument, and the knowledge of that likeness of a gayal which exists in a cow is the result.

this is not possible through perception, for then the cow's form is not in contact with the eyes. Nor is it possible through inference, for that likeness of a cow which exists in a gayal cannot be the sign (reason) for inferring the likeness of a gayal in a cow. Nor can it be urged that this is possible through the following inference:

My cow is like this gayal.
Because it corresponds to its likeness existing in a gayal.
That which corresponds to its likeness existing in a thing is like the latter.

As Caitra, who corresponds to his likeness existing in Maitra, is like him.

For even without this sort of inference, the cognition, "My cow is like this," is a matter of common experience, and has also the apperception, "I am comparing the two,". Hence comparison is a distinct means of knowledge.

In my first comment on the general topic at cidabhasa I began at the aspect of genus/species differentiation.
Whenever the example chosen is always the same you can be virtually certain that the proposer does not understand what is at issue and is staying close to the shore of the canonical. Even the translation of upamana sends one in the wrong direction. It’s not really a comparison but more of a slipping back from the specific into the generic. You don’t know, by virtue of having no experience of, a bos gaurus but you do know a bos bos. By falling back into the generic concept of bos, (an unexperienceable conception), divided hoof, horned etc you can recognise another species the bos gaurus. The knowledge gained from a reliable source that there exists such creatures is an unnecessary addendum in my opinion. Zoologists find new species without that.

Why is this a valid means of knowledge not reducible to any other? I believe that it is due to the mystery of how general concepts arise, if in fact they do arise. We know what red, green, yellow objects are by ostensive definition but how is the concept coloured arrived at. This is a concept which is required for the experience of various colours but which itself cannot be arrived at by experience. Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations talks of the procedure of going on as in 2, 4, 6, 8 now go on. We know what the answer is but how can we be taught what going on is. All our examples of it assume it.

This may be part of Plato’s puzzlement about universals and curiously enough Shankara in B.S.B. I.iii.28 offers the notion of vedic words which is not a long way off the same aporia.

In short we have a means of attaining valid knowledge which is embedded within us. It is not reducible to any other means of knowledge and is therefore a pramana. This is of course anathema to the empiricist tradition.

In my second comment on Cidabhasa blog I get down to the task of discovering in the V.P. treatment of upamana a deictic demonstration of a facet of differentiation i.e. the discovery of similarity.

The text that I am familiar with on the subject of pramanas is Vedanta Paribhasa and of course the bos gaurus comes out to play there too. Now the question I put to myself is: suppose upamana is a separate pramana distinct from perception and inference etc. Does the classical account bear the weight of this position? The empiricist account with perception as its mainstay seems to be a stronger candidate for the power behind the naming of this strange beast. We have seen domestic cattle, we have seen their hooves and horns, we now see this new creature. By a sort of mental Venn diagram it moves partially into the cow area. Prior to this we have been primed by a reliable source so we can now name it with confidence.

To answer this story I propose the view that you can’t gain the concept of common as in common features without having the concept common already and that is not perceptible or inferential etc. If I accept the notion of upamana as a pramana this is the direction I find I am pushed in. On the face of it this seems to be a sustainable interpretation.

Here by a process of agreement and difference the knowledge of the likeness of a cow which exists in the gayal is the instrument, and the knowledge of that likeness of a gayal which exists in a cow is the result.

(Vedanta Paribhasa)

knowledge of the likeness is the common of common feature

In Vedanta Paribhasa the establishing of the concept of upamana as a means of knowledge not reducible to any other is done by showing that the alternatives are impossible.

This is not possible through perception, for then the cow’s form is not in contact with the eyes. Nor is it possible through inference for that likeness of a cow which exists in a gayal cannot be the sign (reason) for inferring the likeness of a gayal in a cow. Nor can it be urged that this is possible through the following inference:
My cow is like this gayal.
Because it corresponds to its likeness existing in a gayal.
That which corresponds to its likeness existing in in a thing is like the latter.

The latter reasoning underscores the question begging aspect of seeing common features.
(End Comment)

Now that last sentence might be better expressed as the circularity of abstracting the concept ‘common’ from features that we know are common. In short upamana is a power which is innate like perception itself. It might well be said to be the eye of the mind in that it distinguishes ‘forms’/eidoi. Henry Bergson uses the term ‘cut’ for this cutting out of whole cloth. What is this whole cloth? More, much more can be written on this topic. Anon.

Lastly I leave you with an alteration of Leibniz’s Question: Why is there something rather than nothing? -- Why are there some things rather than an undifferentiated continuum?

Upamana

To begin with I think it is worth while quoting the entire treatment of the valid means of knowledge (pramana) knows as upamana as given in the locus classicus of Vedanta Paribhasa by Dharmaraja Adhvarindra who seems to have flourished in the 17th. Century. It will be noted just how short a treatment is given of what I hope to show is an extremely important pramana.

Now comparison is being described. The instrument of the valid knowledge of similarity is comparison. For instance a man who has seen a cow's form in cities and has gone to a forest, where his eyes have come in contact with a gayal (gavaya - bos gaurus) has the cognition, "This thing is like a cow". Then he has the conviction, "My cow is like this." Here by a process of agreement and difference, the knowledge of the likeness of a cow which exists in a gayal is the instrument, and the knowledge of that likeness of a gayal which exists in a cow is the result.

this is not possible through perception, for then the cow's form is not in contact with the eyes. Nor is it possible through inference, for that likeness of a cow which exists in a gayal cannot be the sign (reason) for inferring the likeness of a gayal in a cow. Nor can it be urged that this is possible through the following inference:

My cow is like this gayal.
Because it corresponds to its likeness existing in a gayal.
That which corresponds to its likeness existing in a thing is like the latter.

As Caitra, who corresponds to his likeness existing in Maitra, is like him.

For even without this sort of inference, the cognition, "My cow is like this," is a matter of common experience, and has also the apperception, "I am comparing the two,". Hence comparison is a distinct means of knowledge.

The first thing that must be remarked is the insistence that upamana is a distinct means of knowledge which is to say that it cannot be reduced to anything more basic or primitive. It thus takes its place along with the others such as Perception and Inference. There are 6 in all accepted within the philosophical system known as Advaitic Vedanta. It would take us too far out of our way to go into any detail about the rest of them though later I may offer a note on anupalabadhi or non-apprehension of existence.

Let me first make the point that perhaps 'comparison' may not be quite the apposite word in relation to this means of knowledge. I will be staying with the canonical example of the gayal for the moment. When the cow is seen in the gayal where is there what we would strictly in English call a comparison? When one speaks of comparison one generally requires that there be two things, a eye-witness description and a known individual. The one is compared to the other and a match is declared or a partial match or a mismatch. This seeing of the cow in the gayal seems to me to more like the successful deployment of the concept 'cow'. Our having the concept 'cow' allows us to 'see' the cow in the gayal. There is no comparison as such, having the concept is what enables us to do this, to have this recognition so to speak. For this basic reason I would stay with the term upamana to avoid what I think is an erroneous identification with the notion of comparison.

In Mental Acts Peter Geach speaks of concepts as capacities exercised in acts of judgement. Does exercising the concept just involve 'seeing' the cow in the gayal? Is the notion of comparison a misunderstanding that the translation of upamana underlines? We can construe what we have done as comparison only after the fact. That is what we must be doing we say to ourselves presenting an analysis that makes sense to us. It makes sense to us because of the inherent hankering after empiricist explanations. Evidence is required even if we have to make it up to have a likely story.

Why do we find it hard to accept that there things that we can do, that there are powers we just have and concept acquisition and concept utilisation are those sort of powers or they are perhaps a single power of double aspect. Having the concept 'white' means among other things seeing it in milk and chalk. No comparisons needed.

I am I have to admit ignorant of later speculation about pramanas and specifically this one amongst that school known as the New Logicians (Navya Nyaya) in its later phase. The perennial focus on the gavaya (bos gaurus) by commentators in general leads me to think that the general understanding of what was at issue was not clear. The canonical example is often a lifebuoy to cling to in a sea of incomprehension. My own speculations may be a matter of my own fancy and no better.