Bimal Krishna Matilal

Agora

Bimal Krishna Matilal

1935–1991

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

Classical Indian logic and theories of knowledge are real philosophy that can hold its own in today’s debates, not just religious tradition.

Placement

South Asian & Tibetan Philosophy · South Asia · Logic, Epistemology, Language

Oxford philosopher who read classical Indian logic and epistemology with the tools of analytic philosophy – and showed it to be a full partner in contemporary debate.

Key ideas

Indian logic as philosophy
Perception and knowledge
Navya-Nyaya analysed

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Influence

Influenced by 3

Dignaga

influenced by
Matilal reconstructed Dignaga’s theory of meaning as exclusion (apoha) and his account of perception with the tools of analytic philosophy (Epistemology, Logic, and Grammar, 1971; Perception, 1986). B. K. Matilal, Epistemology, Logic, and Grammar in Indian Philosophical Analysis (1971); Perception (1986)
Evidence: AI draft
Dignaga › c. 480–540
Gangesha

influenced by
Matilal’s The Navya-Nyaya Doctrine of Negation (1968) analysed the theory of absence in the school founded by Gangesha, using modern logic. B. K. Matilal, The Navya-Nyaya Doctrine of Negation (1968)
Evidence: AI draft
Gangesha › c. 1300–1360
W. V. O. Quine

influenced by
Matilal, who studied with Quine at Harvard, applied modern logic and questions of reference and ontology to Indian theories (Logic, Language and Reality, 1985). B. K. Matilal, Logic, Language and Reality (1985); J. Ganeri (ed.), Mind, Language and World: The Collected Essays of Bimal Krishna Matilal (2002)
Evidence: AI draft
W. V. O. Quine › 1908–2000

Works

1986Perception
An essay on classical Indian theories of knowledge, argued out in dialogue with analytic epistemology.

Position

Matilal set out to show that classical Indian philosophy is not only spiritual wisdom but rigorous argument that can take part in contemporary debates. With the tools of analytic philosophy he reconstructed Navya-Nyaya’s theory of negation and its technical language, the disputes between Nyaya realists and Buddhist logicians on perception, meaning and the self, and the Jain doctrine of many-sidedness. In Perception he defended a Nyaya-style direct realism against Buddhist phenomenalism and scepticism. Later work explored moral dilemmas in the Mahabharata and the figure of Krishna. Through his teaching at Oxford and pupils such as Jonardon Ganeri, he helped establish Indian philosophy within academic philosophy.

Life & context

Bimal Krishna Matilal was born in 1935 in Joynagar in Bengal. He studied Sanskrit in Calcutta, was trained in Navya-Nyaya by traditional pandits and then took a doctorate at Harvard, where he also studied with Quine. After teaching at the University of Toronto, he held the Spalding Professorship of Eastern Religions and Ethics at Oxford from 1976 until his death in 1991. He founded the Journal of Indian Philosophy.