Global Philosophy Group Talk (Nilanjan Das, University College London)

The newly created Global Philosophy Research Interest Group is thrilled to welcome Nilanjan Das as its inaugural speaker. Dr. Das is a permanent lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at University College London. He completed his PhD at MIT, was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and taught at NYU Shanghai. His interests lie in epistemology. classical Indian philosophy in Sanskrit, and moral philosophy. Dr. Das’s current work in epistemology focuses on topics related to knowledge, rational defeat, and externalist conceptions of evidence. In classical Indian philosophy, he is at the moment primarily concerned with texts belonging to the Nyāya tradition.

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Talk Title

The KK Principle in Early Nyāya

Talk Abstract

Early Nyāya epistemologists rejected the KK Principle, i.e., the principle that, if one knows that p, then one is also in a position to know that one knows that p. But one of them, Vācaspatimiśra (9th century CE), endorsed a restricted version of this principle for inferential, and possibly also introspective, knowledge. According to Vācaspati, if one inferentially (or introspectively) knows that p, then one is in a position to know that one knows that p. Vācaspati’s own commentators—Udayana (10th/11th century CE) and Vardhamāna (14th century CE)—contested this principle. In my presentation, I will try to locate where the disagreement among these writers lies. I will also explore what this debate about the KK principle can teach us about iteration principles about knowledge and evidence.

About the Global Philosophy Group

The Global Philosophy Research Group explores the benefits of drawing on diverse traditions of thought in approaching philosophical questions. These include novel insights into familiar problems, new questions and research directions, and fresh methodologies. We work to deprovincialize and decolonize all aspects of philosophy in the academy. The group currently has strengths in Sanskrit philosophy, and Chinese philosophy, Indian philosophy in English, and classical Islamic philosophy.