Objectivity

Abstract

Chapter 2 stresses the connection between scholarly identity and intimacy in dialogue as it takes place between scholars. To explore this connection, it approaches the concept of novelty in a skeptical manner by arguing that Sanskrit logicians could and did purposely misrepresent the history of their discipline with the purpose of making their views appear novel, even if they were not. A superb example of this pertains to the debate about the ontological status of a type of relation called the objectivity relation (viṣayatā), which serves to link our cognitions to the objects of the world. A major outcome of this debate was the construction of a philosophical community around putatively novel positions—a process that displays an intimacy between scholars who accept a specific version of nyāya disciplinary history.