Abstract
The present essay elaborately explores the Nyāya understanding of the concept of identity against the background of various metaphysical, epistemological and semantic layers in the notion of identity. The Nyāya refuses to interpret ontological inseparability as identity (tādātmya) and explain the cases of ontological inseparability as paradigm cases of numerical sameness without strict identity. In case of verbal understanding identity is one of the primary sentential cognitive relations. I discuss, following Gadādhara that in case of verbal understanding the interpretation of identity in the strict sense can be maintained by both the tradition that takes identity as a word-meaning and the one which takes it as a mere relation.
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Notes
- 1.
“Tena sambandhena tasya pratiyogyanuyoginorbhedaḥ pratīyate”, p. 43, (Nyāyaratna 1973).
- 2.
Ananvaya is a type of rhetoric in which an object is taken as both the object with which something is compared and the object compared simultaneously.
- 3.
Abhedastādātmyam, tacca svavṛtti asādhāraṇa dharmah, p. 191, (Gadādhara 2002)
- 4.
That which is negated is the counterpositive of that negation. In case of mutual absence of the form ‘x is not y’ or ‘x is different from y’, y is negated in x by the relation of identity. So y is the counterpositive in this absence. There are differences of opinion, though, in this regard. See below.
- 5.
Just like the contact of a pen with the table can appear as the contact in general or as the contact of the pen in particular.
- 6.
For further discussion on these two contrasting views regarding identity please see section “(5)”.
- 7.
The general rule is that the constant absence of a property and the mutual absence of the possessor of that property have the same extension: Constant absence is a kind of relational absence which is eternal.
- 8.
‘Samaniyata’ means ‘having equal pervasion’ (samavyāptiviśiṣṭa).
- 9.
Some scholars, such as V.N. Jha, categorise identity as an occurrence-exacting relation to save the dictum ‘only occurrence-exacting relations can be the delimiting relation of absential counterpositiveness’. He argues that since self-identity is a logical postulation it need not be supported by direct experience. Even though we do not have direct experience of the form ‘the pot is in the pot’, identity should be accepted as an occurrence-exacting relation on logical ground. See Jha (1990). However, Navya-Naiyāyikas like Gadādhara do not accept the above dictum and take non-occurrence-exacting relations as the delimiting relation of counterpositiveness.
- 10.
Further, the problem of identity also crops up relating the thing-in-itself with the thing qualified, the essence with its possessor, the power with its possessor, eternal substance with the ultimate differentiator etc. But these pairs can either be subsumed under the above four well-accepted pairs or there is no consensus in regard to the acceptance of some of these categories; some are accepted only in the metaphysics of specific schools.
- 11.
The Bhāṭṭa view under discussion is based on their texts Śāstradīpikā and Mānomeyodaya.
- 12.
For Bhāṭṭas, cowhood is nothing but the ‘form or structure of cow’.
- 13.
Sāmānyam pratyekam vartate avayavitu vyāsajya vartate (Śāstradīpikā) (Mishra 1988).
- 14.
“Ekāvacchedena bhāvābhābayoḥ ekatrāvṛtter ajñānācca” p. 396, (Gaṅgeśa 2009): samavāyavāda.
- 15.
There is in fact a subtle controversy among Neo-Naiyāyikas as to whether non-difference should be interpreted as mere ‘absence of difference’. We will get a glimpse of that in the next section.
- 16.
“Matupa lopāt abheda upācārādvā nīlapadameva nīlavatparam iti;” p. 398, (Gaṅgeśa 2009), Tattvacintāmaṇi, samavāyavāda.
- 17.
See pp. 11–19, Gadādhara (2003). We are taking ‘cognition’ to mean only ‘valid qualificatory cognition’ in this section.
- 18.
A word of caution: Sanskrit is an inflectional language; which sentences are identity sentences in Sanskrit largely depends upon this feature of the language.
- 19.
Śābdabodhe ca ekpadārtheaparapadārthasya saṃsargaḥ saṃsargamaryādayā bhāsate, p.185, (Gadādhara 2002).
- 20.
‘Abheda’ is better translated as ‘non-difference’ and ‘tādātmya’ as ‘identity’; but Gadādhara in his Vyutpattivāda holds ‘abheda’ as meaning ‘tādātmya’. Therefore we use the terms interchangeably.
- 21.
Numbers greater than one are results of a cognition called apekṣābuddhi.
- 22.
Some Naiyāyikas accept a relation called ‘co-inherence’ (ekārtha-samavāya) which is a special variant of inherence. It is accepted to account for the usages like ‘one colour’ (rupam ekam) etc. where a quality like colour seems to possesses another quality like one (ekatva), a number. But Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika ontology holds that a quality cannot inhere in another quality. That is why, they assert that in this case qualities inhere in the same entity and hence qualities are said to be related by co-inherence. This relation is defined as a special variant of inherence by which inherence itself resides in some entity either through identity or through adjuncthood. Colour-inherence through the relation of adjuncthood resides in ‘one’. In this way, numbers are related to qualities etc. only indirectly, we can verbally apply numbers to qualities but ontologically they are not qualities of qualities.
- 23.
I am deeply indebted to Dr. Shaw for showing me how to read and think Indian Philosophy. This essay is indirectly related to his philosophy by taking clues from many of his papers.
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Sarkar, T. (2016). The Nyāya on Identity Relation and Identity Statements. In: Bilimoria, P., Hemmingsen, M. (eds) Comparative Philosophy and J.L. Shaw. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 13. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17873-8_6
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