The Denotation of Generic Terms in Ancient Indian Philosophy: Grammar, Nyaya, and Mimamsa.

• Author: SCHARFE, HARTMUT
• Position: Review

The Denotation of Generic Terms in Ancient Indian Philosophy: Grammar, Ny[bar{a}]ya, and M[bar{i}]m[bar{a}]ms[bar{a}]. By PETER M. SCHARE Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 86, pt. 3. Philadelphia: AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, 1996. Pp. x + 336.

Peter Scharf, in this meticulously researched study, investigates the use of some crucial terms in ancient Indian philosophical texts: the words denoting form, generic property, class property, generality, individual objects, and matter as well as their mutual relations. There were differences between intellectual traditions: the grammarians held that a word denotes a generic property as it manifests itself in individual objects, the logicians took it to refer to generic property, form, and individual objects in shifting degrees of preference, and the ritualists of the M[bar{i}]m[bar{a}]ms[bar{a}] thought that it denoted primarily the generic property. They were driven by the needs of their systems of thought (the ritualists considered the Veda text to be eternal; hence its eternal words must be linked with an eternal meaning, i.e., not the perishable individual object but a permanent generic property) and by criticism of their rivals (the Buddhists in the case of the Ny[bar{a}]ya philosophers). The investig ation is more complex than one might expect, because different authors use the same words in different shades of meaning, and because even one and the same author may use a term in a primary and in a derived meaning. When the word [bar{a}]krti "form" is also used to denote a class property, the question arises whether we should follow the Indian author and use the same word in our translation in all instances (maybe with an indication of its secondary meaning where necessary), or should we shift from "form" to "class property"? Scharf opts for the second alternative, which might be appropriate in the translation of a philosophical text, especially one addressed also to non-specialists (pp. 12-18; 30). Dravya similarly has a dual meaning of "individual object" and "matter, materia." The situation is more problematic in the case of j[bar{a}]ti, which Scharf translates as "generic property" and considers--at least in the grammatical texts--as synonymous with [bar{a}]krti in the meaning "class property." He suppo rts his view mainly with two arguments: features attributed to j[bar{a}]ti in two stanzas quoted in Pata[tilde{n}]jali's comment on P[bar{a}]nini's rule IV.1.63 are...