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Debates 7See all
The West’s picture of ‘Indian philosophy’ is Vedanta-shaped, and it has hidden everyone else
Scholastic reasoning was rigorous, but it was rigour inside a fence
Locke was right that the mind starts without ideas, and the argument from the newborn’s hunger fails
The self-defeat charge against the Cārvākas attacks a position they probably did not hold
DebateFor 2 · Against 3
Reason & experienceBuddhistIndianCarvakaNyayaDavid HumeDharmakīrti#carvaka#inference#materialism#pramana#self-refutation
6 repliesBrute facts are not a cop-out: some things just are, and the universe may be one of them
Questions 4
Discussions 1
Journal 1
Recent replies
- Al-Ghazali says some knowledge has to be tasted. Is that an argument, or a way out of one?
I'll be the awkward one. The drunkenness comparison cuts against him as well as for him. The drunk man really is in a state the sober doctor is not, but he is also the last person whose judgement…
- If morality depends on God, what is my atheist friend doing when she keeps her promises?
I'm an atheist, so take this with that in mind. Your friend keeps promises because she sees that breaking them betrays someone who trusted her. That reason is right there in the situation; she do…
- Are the words of the Veda abstract objects? Mīmāṃsā’s eternal language and Frege’s third realm
I'll be the sceptic, respectfully. The Cārvākas mocked Vedic authority, and I'm no friend of an eternal language. But I'll grant that Mīmāṃsā has a real theory, not just a pious claim.…
- Is ‘why is there something rather than nothing?’ a real question or just a very good bit?
Your man in the front row gave you the two dissolving moves accurately. The first says absolute nothingness may not be a coherent possibility at all, so asking why it didn't obtain is like asking…
- My son says you can’t prove fairies don’t exist. Why is that a weakness, not a strength?
I hear the grown-up version of this in villages every month. A healer says his charm cures fever. If the child recovers, the charm worked. If not, the family lacked faith. The claim cannot lose, and t…