The Nyaya Buddhist Debate On Perception

 

THE NYAYA BUDDHIST DEBATE ON PERCEPTION

 

[This article is a very brief presentation of an interpretation of the debate between Nyaya and Buddhism on Indeterminate and Determinate Perception. I try to bring to the fore the main philosophical issues in the debate and in the end show that Gangesha’s solution of the problem of the ‘myth of the given’ is very different from Kumarila or Vacaspati Mishra and is a vindication of the theory of perception found in Nyaya Sutras.]

 

The question before us is about the intentionality of perception or in other word’s its world directedness. Exactly what in perception is revealed to us purely because of our senses and how much is ‘conceptually interpreted’ so to say. The nature of the philosophical problem in front of us is nicely elaborated in the words of Sextus Empiricus when he said that sight, “is receptive of figure and size and colour but the substance is neither figure nor size nor colour, but if anything, is that in which these coincide and because of this, sight is incapable of grasping the substance…..This putting together of one thing with another and apprehending a certain size with a certain figure belongs to a reasoning power. For sight is non-rational.” Senses have the power to reveal to us only sensible qualities but that is not the only thing we are aware of in perceptual consciousness; for we perceive objects which are the bearers of these qualities. Sensible Qualities are concrete whereas objects are abstract and as a consequence more likely to be perceived due to intellectual influences in perception. This however goes against our intuitive picture of the relation between perception and thought; that thought gains an anchorage in the world due to perception and not visa-versa. Can senses by themselves reveal to us objects or should perceptual reference to objects be explained in terms of conceptual reference to objects? Are we to explain perceptual intentionality in terms of conceptual intentionality or the other way round? This issue marks the beginning of a schism between realism and idealism as is found both in Indian Philosophy in the debates between Nyaya and Buddhism and again also in Western Philosophy especially in Kant. This paper is a brief review of the debate and the various strategies employed by philosophers to defuse the problem.

 

Dignaga of the Buddhist school defines perception as devoid of imaginative constructions (kalpana). What are these imaginative constructions? They are being seen as possessing a name, genus, quality, action etc. Such a perception is called Savikalpa (determinate) because in it we see something as something e.g. a table as brown, a man as walking, a horse as belonging to the species horse-ness etc. Such a perception has a qualificand i.e. the subject of the perceptual judgment and a qualifier that which is predicated of a qualificand. Since this is what normally we consider to be perception, the question is why it should not be regarded as a perception? Now perception for Dignaga is indeterminate or Nirvikalpa. The reason is that such a perception reveals an object but objects are not fit to be perceived; objects are conceptual constructions born from an intellectual process. To elaborate; objects have definite criteria for identity and difference. Realists of the Nyaya school believe that the criteria for identity of an object is due to its having an essence; a universal. For e.g. an individual cow is an instance of the Universal Being-A-Cow; it cannot be an individual entity without possessing that universal; and it is a universal because different individual cows can possess the universal of being-a-cow. This is a mind-independent property of an object; it is an essential qualification that resides in an individual object. Dignaga argues that perception never reveals anything that allows us to individuate objects. His reasons are:

1.     The function of our senses is merely to grasp their objects not to make them known. Our sense of familiarity with the world breaks down when we see something for the first time in our lives and when we consider perception in infants and non-linguistic animals. Apprehending an object is the function of the discriminative faculty of the intellect because determinate perception is not seeing simpliciter but seeing something as something; it involves predication. Perceptual reference to a cow for instance is achieved through concept formation activity of the intellect called Apoha or exclusion of the other. So a cow is referred to not in virtue of its possessing a universal cow-ness but cow-ness is analyzed as Not-Being-A-Non-Cow. Objects do not have real essences but nominal essences i.e. the essence of an object is conceptual or in other words a word is the essence of the object; where Apoha informs the process of concept formation. A determinate perception is really inferential not perceptual; it is inferential in the sense that an object is not cognized in itself but on basis of something else. It is defined as capable of being associated with words. Being associated with words implies that the word does not have to be explicitly recalled but that the content of determinate perception is infused or mixed with the words which functions implicitly. The point of including the qualification ‘capable’ is to include infants and non-linguistic animals in the definition, since they lack conceptual abilities not being language users but yet can be said to possess inarticulate representations or proto-concepts due to which they can have determinate perceptions. Objects are thus thought constructs not percepts since their cognition presupposes not just sensory but also intellectual operations. 

 

2.     The content of indeterminate and determinate perception has to be regarded as different since an object as qualified is cognized only in determinate perception but bot in indeterminate perception; hence they cannot be regarded as having identical contents. The content of an indeterminate perception is a unique momentary particular (svalakshana) on which in a post perceptual process concepts get superimposed; determining the identity and the difference of that particular aggregate of particulars which gets to be regarded as an unitary object due to the activity of the mind.

 

3.     Illusions are always the product of intellect; like seeing nacre as silver, rope as snake - it involves predicating an absent qualifier to an object. But perception in virtue of being produced solely by senses is unerring in grasping its object. It is only at the level of determinate perception that errors arise hence in such cases perception of x does not entail x exists.

 

4.     An object is multi modal i.e. it can be grasped by more than one sense organ. We can see an object, touch it, and smell it at the same time i.e. it is seen as the common object of different sense organs. But one sense-organ cannot be credited with having the capacity to grasp the object of another sense organ. Hence such a perception cannot be regarded as produced solely by sense organs; a multi modal object is thus a thought construct.

 

From the realist camp Kumarila responded to these objections. He admitted that there is indeterminate perception but he argues that both the qualificand and qualifiers; most importantly universals are perceived in indeterminate perception. But exactly what is the content of indeterminate perception according to Kumarila? He says at this stage an object is apprehended in both its particular and general aspects but the particular aspect is not seen as particular and a general aspect is not seen as general. The individual and the universal are both perceived but not qua their being an individual and universal. The object is perceived as two-fold; the analytic activity of the intellect dissects it into a qualificand and a qualifier but not arbitrarily as the distinction is an objective one. In the first stage of perception thus an individual and universal are perceived but as unrelated to each other, then there arises memory aided by past impressions where a universal was perceived as a feature of a similar object. This leads to recognition of the universal as a qualifier and now that the universal is grasped in its role of being a qualifier it leads to seeing the present instance of perception as similar to a previous one. In this transition indeterminate perception of a universal plays a key role since otherwise there would not be any basis for memory to seek out previous similar instances in which universal was a qualifier in another instance of perception. Hence the difference of indeterminate perception to determinate perception must not be seen as one involving different contents but as different stages of a single perceptual process. Determinate perception is perceptual because a) it involves no alien elements that were absent in indeterminate perception and b) the primary causal role here belongs to the senses; memory is only an auxiliary cause.

This view was subject to some interesting criticisms:

1.       If in indeterminate perception the universal is already apprehended why the need for a further intellectual operation to re-cognize it?

 

2.       If both the particular and the universal are simultaneously apprehended in indeterminate perception; why is one seen as the qualifier of the other and not the other way round?

 

 

3. It is clear that language and memory are involved in determinate perception even for the Realist. But memory and use of words cannot be anchored in indeterminate perception; since they already presuppose a determinate perception. If perception is not already infused with concepts then it cannot ground memory or concept acquisition since they presuppose that unitary objects are perceived which cognition itself presupposes presence of concepts. Recall here the words of Ludwig Wittgenstein. He tried to show that the relation of reference between word and object is not a basic relation but rather presupposes a linguistic framework. For instance when you point out a rare mushroom to an individual while strolling in a garden and name him, ‘The Old Man In the Woods’, this naming ceremony presupposes in Wittgenstein’s words that your, “companion has some acquaintance with plants and knows, for example, that they are classified into kinds. This is important for him to know, but it is such a general fact that we tend to pass it by unnoticed. It is also important for him to know that we do not, in general, give plants proper names, although there are exceptions to this. It is against the general background of a great many assumptions of this kind that an ostensive definition can secure immediate uptake…..the ostensive definition explains the use—the meaning—of the word when the overall role of the word in language is clear”. Kumarila has succumbed to what Wilfrid Sellars calls the myth of the given. Concepts are inferentially linked to other concepts for e.g. the possession of concept ‘green’ presupposes one has the concept of being coloured; hence mere reference to an outside world will not ground our conceptual practices within the world; both memory and language presuppose determinate cognition; that is the explanandum is presupposed in the explanans. The challenge is to show that thought is responsive to the way that world is as it is revealed independently in perception. The realist has to show how thought can hook onto the world as revealed in perception without the influence of thoughts themselves. Since Kumarila cannot show how thought anchors itself in the world without presupposing other thoughts his account fails.

 

Gangesha, belonging to the Nyaya School seeks to remedy the situation by developing an account of perceptual content that is richer than Kumarila’s and is capable of anchoring thought in a non-inferential way. The problem before the realist is threefold:

 

a)     How to show that thought is non-inferentially grounded in the world via perception?

b)    Why is universal seen to qualify the individual but not visa-versa?

c)     Are there mind-independent Universals?

 

For c) Gangesha presupposes the validity of the criticism of Apoha theory as given by Udayana in Atma-Tattva-Viveka a polemical work against Buddhist views considered to be definitive.

 

Gangesha frames the discussion in terms of finding the cause of determinate perception. A determinate cognition is a relational cognition; in which something is seen as or as qualified by something else. If its cause is taken to be memory then that too being a product of an impression left by determinate cognition would presuppose it. And the same can be said of cognition born through a word. Hence we will be off to an infinite regress; since every determinate cognition would presuppose a previous determinate cognition and that a previous one. For the Buddhists however the regress is benign; past cognition condition future one in beginningless series and hence the regress is not vicious as in the paradox of the chicken and the egg. Gangesha however rejects this view for if we are to have cognition at all; that cognition has to have limits. If for instance a horse is cognized as qualified by horse-ness then horse-ness cannot be further seen as qualified and that as qualified by another qualifier. Hence the limit of the cognition has to terminate somewhere and that he argues terminates in indeterminate perception. The reason is that every cognition in virtue of being a relational cognition is caused by the cognition of the qualifier as in the case of inference. When we infer fire on a mountain on the basis of smoke; fire is the major term in the inference which is seen as qualifying the mountain in the conclusion. But this presupposes prior familiarity with fire or one could not make that inference. Now imagine a child is seeing a horse for the first time in his life, such a cognition is a determinate cognition and hence must have been caused by a cognition of the qualifier i.e. horse-ness in indeterminate perception.

 

How does this solve the problem of non-inferential grounding of concepts in perception of the world? First of all we need to note that classification of perception into determinate and indeterminate is not a mutually exclusive classification for the same cognition can be both determinate and indeterminate; which depends on the object perceived. A cognition of a horse is determinate as long as we see the horse as qualified by horse-ness but it is indeterminate with reference to horse-ness for that is perceived in and by itself and not through a further qualifier. The reason is that the cognition of a universal is not a relational cognition; we have seen that a cognition of an object is always relational; it is caused in virtue of the cognition of the qualifier; a relational property like ‘being a father’ cannot be cognized in and by itself but only in relation to seeing someone else as a son, an absence is always an absence of something; we cannot notice an absence without noticing it as an absence of something. However cognition of a universal does not presuppose relating it to something else and a Universal can exist independently of a particular; it can be cognized without any qualifiers and hence it plays a role fit for grounding our concepts. As to why it is seen as a qualifier of cognition; it is because the second term of the relation determines the nature of the relation. Hence we cognize a thing as possessing a colour but not a colour as possessing a thing.

 

But on what basis can we see the cognition of a child or any first time cognition to be a determinate cognition since they lacks appropriate concepts and if we lack concept of horse-ness how can we be credited to seeing a horse as a horse? Wasn’t then Kumarila right in classifying these cases as indeterminate perception and has Gangesha merely made a verbal change in calling an indeterminate perception as determinate so that the original problem remains untouched?

 

Gangesha’s theory is a return to pre-Dignaga days; it vindicates the original Nyaya theory of perception where perception was defined as inexpressible yet determinative of its object. Gangesha defines an indeterminate perception as (i) bereft of association with words, (ii) non-relational and (iii) without a qualifier. The key here is to realize that while ‘being associated with words’ implies a ‘relational cognition’, being a ‘relational cognition’ does not imply ‘being associated with words’, hence the two separate denials. A determinate perception is not seen as qualified by genus, quality, quantity, activity etc. for that would require concepts; but it is a cognition of a y in an x such that that y becomes the basis of differentiating that x from everything that is non-y. Seeing something as qualified does not imply we have a concept for recognizing the qualifier. The former is a primitive ability that allows perceptual discrimination in a subject even if he lacks appropriate concepts. Rather the initial determinate perception is so structured that it allows eventual concept acquisition that was not possible in Kumarila’s indeterminate perception.

 

Comparing this view with Husserl’s would help. Husserl too raises the question of an infinite regress and solves the issue by making a distinction between passive synthesis and active synthesis. The object of perception is synthesized but not conceptually rather as Husserl says, “Every judgment presupposes a readymade object that confronts us in life as an existent mere physical thing”. Categorial Intuition does not arise unless something is given as an object in passive synthesis which is taken to be a pre-predicative experience of an object. This becomes the basis of a perceptual judgment; the stage where active synthesis takes over and we have a categorial intuition of an object. For Gangesha a passive experience cannot be pre-predicative; for it has to be appropriately structured to render it thinkable and also we would not be able to demonstrate the priority of the second term of the relation and eventual predicative structure of the cognition. For Gangesha and Kant but not for Husserl passive or perceptual synthesis involves or is informed by categorial synthesis and such a synthesis does not presuppose that the subject needs to have any concepts for this. The bone of contention between Gangesa and Buddhists and Kant is whether intuition is blind or it grasps a momentary particular or else can we be said to have in Russell’s terminology knowledge by acquaintance of mind independent objects – in this case to Universals. Gangesha shows that every determinate cognition is founded in indeterminate perception; that does the job of passive synthesis to give us an object that is qualified by a universal; not like in Kumarila’s view an individual and a universal as given separately for there is no evidence that they are apprehended separately. The reason he thinks a determinate cognition is founded on indeterminate cognition is because of the psychological causal law that every determinate cognition is caused by the cognition of the qualifier. Our conceptual practices according to him cannot be grounded in a cognition where an individual and universal are given separately nor in a perception of a svalakshana; but in a universal for an individual object cannot be cognized without cognition of a universal but a universal can be cognized in and by itself; its cognition alone does not presuppose any other cognition.

 

Gangesha and Kumarila differ in this that for the latter it is not enough to have cognition of the qualifier alone but the qualifier has to be seen as the qualifier. A similar view is found in Bhasha Parichedda where in technical Nyaya terms it is said that it is the limitor of the qualifier-ness which is the cause of determinate cognition. Gangesha discusses such a view in Tattvacintamani and the gist of his reply is that in a simple determinate cognition like ‘a jar’, jar-ness is the qualifier but there is no limitor of the qualifier-ness like jar-ness-ness. Hence in this case the cognition of a qualifier is the cause and a general causal statement to the effect can be formulated.

 

One cannot but extrapolate a deeper metaphysical insight in this view. It is that for Nyaya there are no ineffable realities like Kantian Thing-In-Itself and Advaita’s Brahman. For everything that is nameable or thinkable is knowable because the knowable is such that it allows itself to be thinkable. And also from Nyaya’s standpoint it would make no sense to predicate either existence or non-existence to such ineffable entities for then the significance of such terms would be changed and we would be outstretching the bounds of sense. Thus despite being committed to mind-independent objects in the world there is a streak of idealism in Nyaya for the knowable necessarily has a certain affinity with thought and both in a way limit each other.