J. N. Mohanty
Classical Indian thinkers argued as rigorously about knowledge, truth and meaning as Western philosophers, and phenomenology and Nyaya can learn from each other.
Placement
Philosopher from Cuttack, trained in Navya-Nyaya in Calcutta and with a doctorate from Göttingen, who taught in Calcutta and then in Oklahoma, New York and at Temple University; he wrote on Husserl’s theory of meaning and on Gangesha’s theory of truth and argued that classical Indian thought is rational argument, not only spiritual teaching.
Key ideas
- Husserl’s theory of meaning
- Gangesha and the Nyaya theory of truth
- Reason and tradition in Indian thought
- Intentionality and transcendental philosophy
Influence
Influenced by 2
Gottlob Frege
influenced by
Mohanty used Frege’s distinction of sense and reference to compare him with Husserl, arguing in Husserl and Frege (1982) that Husserl reached it independently. J. N. Mohanty, Husserl and Frege (1982)
Evidence: AI draft
Gottlob Frege › 1848–1925
Edmund Husserl
influenced by
Mohanty defended Husserl’s theory of meaning – meanings as ideal entities intended by consciousness, not psychological events – in Edmund Husserl’s Theory of Meaning (1964). J. N. Mohanty, Edmund Husserl’s Theory of Meaning (1964); The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl (2008)
Evidence: AI draft
Edmund Husserl › 1859–1938
Works
An edition, translation and analysis of the section on truth (pramanyavada) in Gangesha’s Tattvacintamani, the founding text of Navya-Nyaya, with a long introduction comparing it with modern theories of truth.
An essay on epistemology, logic and ontology in classical Indian philosophy, arguing that its schools engage in rational argument with each other and are not only expressions of a spiritual tradition.
Position
Mohanty worked in two fields that he saw as connected. In phenomenology he defended Husserl’s theory of meaning: meanings are ideal entities, not psychological events, and consciousness is intentional, directed towards objects through such meanings. In “Husserl and Frege” (1982) he argued that Husserl had arrived at the distinction between sense and reference and at his critique of psychologism independently of Frege, against the view that Frege’s review of 1894 converted him. In Indian philosophy he took the Nyaya school seriously as a theory of knowledge: his study of Gangesha examined the debate over whether the truth of a cognition is known intrinsically or only through further cognitions, and showed its relevance to modern theories of truth. In “Reason and Tradition in Indian Thought” (1992) he argued that classical Indian philosophy is a tradition of rational argument; the goal of liberation is a value it serves, but it does not determine the validity of its arguments. He also compared the transcendental subject of phenomenology with Indian conceptions of consciousness and the self, without reducing one to the other.
Life & context
Jitendra Nath Mohanty was born on 26 September 1928 in Cuttack, Odisha. He studied philosophy at Presidency College and the University of Calcutta, and alongside his university studies he learned Navya-Nyaya, the “new logic” of classical Indian philosophy, with a traditional pandit. He then went to Göttingen, where he took his doctorate in 1954. He taught at the University of Calcutta and at the University of Burdwan and in 1970 moved to the United States, first to the University of Oklahoma, later to the New School for Social Research in New York and to Temple University in Philadelphia, where he taught for many years. He was a leading voice in Husserl scholarship and in comparative philosophy. In his autobiography “Between Two Worlds: East and West” (2002) he described his life between the Indian and the European traditions. He died on 7 September 2023.
Further main works
- Edmund Husserl’s Theory of Meaning (1964)
- Husserl and Frege (1982)
- Transcendental Phenomenology: An Analytic Account (1989)
- Classical Indian Philosophy (2000)
- The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl: A Historical Development (2008)
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