Eberhard Guhe, "An Indian Theory of Defeasible Reasoning: The Doctrine of Upādhi in the Upādhidarpaṇa" (Harvard UP, 2022)

New Books in South Asian Studies · Apr 20, 2023 · 1h 13m

An Indian Theory of Defeasible Reasoning: The Doctrine of upādhi in the Upādhidarpaṇa (Harvard University Press, 2022) is the first translation of this anonymous Navya-Nyāya treatise predating Gaṅgeśa. Eberhard Guhe’s book includes a translation as well as an introduction to the important idea of upādhi, which vitiates inferential reasoning. (Suppose smoke accompanies fire only when the fuel being burnt is wet. This fact would be an upādhi for the inference “There is smoke on the mountain because there is fire on the mountain,” since smoke’s existence doesn’t guarantee fire.) In his quest to…