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Composite Substances as True Wholes: Toward a Modified Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika Theory of Composite Substances

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

John Kronen  and
Jacob Tuttle
John Kronen
Affiliation:
University of St Thomas, St Paul, MN55105, USA
Jacob Tuttle
Affiliation:
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN47907-2098, USA
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Extract

In the Categories Aristotle defined substance as that which is neither predicable of nor in another. In saying that a substance is not predicable of another, Aristotle meant to exclude genera and species from the category substance. Aman is a substance but not man. In saying that a substance is not in another, Aristotle meant to exclude property particulars from the category. A man is a substance, not his color.

The Categories treats substances as simples. Though a particular substance, Bucephalus the horse, has parts, it is nevertheless a single entity in the category substance and, hence, incomplex in the way a black thing or a running man are not. Black things and runners are complex because they are aggregates of substances and property particulars. Even if a horse is one substance and, thus, an entity (unlike a substance cum some of its attributes or a group of related substances), a horse is made of parts and one may wonder how it is related to its parts, as well as how its being made of parts coheres with the definition of substance given in the Categories.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , June 2011 , pp. 289 - 316
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2011

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References

1 Aristotle, Categories, 1b-5

2 Ibid. 1a20

3 Ibid. 1a25-1b

4 Ibid. 1a16-19

5 Ibid. 3a29-31

6 An ‘orthodox’ school of Indian thought is any school which accepts the authority of the Vedas, ancient religious texts of the Hindus composed over many centuries by different authors (see Dasgupta, Surendranath A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1922;Google Scholar Reprinted, Delhi: Matilal Banarsidas 1997), 67-71). For useful introductions to Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika thought see Phillips, Stephen Classical Indian Metaphysics (Chicago: Open Court 1995),Google Scholar esp. 41-74; Matilal, Bimal Perception: An Essay on Classical Indian Theories of Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1986);Google Scholar Shastri, Dharmendra Nath The Philosophy of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika and its Conflict with the Buddhist Dignāga School (Delhi: Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan 1964);Google Scholar Potter, Karl Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, Vol. II: The Tradtion of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika up to Gaṅgeśa (Delhi: Matilal Banarsidas 1977).Google Scholar

7 On this see Potter, 1-3.

8 On Praśastapāda's importance in the development of the ontological categories of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, see Halbfass, Wilhelm On Being and What There Is: Classical Vaiśeṣika and the History of Indian Ontology (Albany: State University of New York Press 1992), 149–50.Google Scholar

9 See Praśastapāda, Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, translated by Guṅgānaṭha Jhā with the Nyāyakandalī (commentary) of Śrī dhara (900s A.D.) (Delhi: Chaukhambha Orientalia 1982), Text 1, p. 13.

10 The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika did not believe in propositions taken as abstract entities intervening between beliefs and factş But they did believe in them taken as the intentional content of cognitions, a content that can be expressed in sentences and is common to the cognitions of different individuals. See Matilal, Bimal K. The Navya-Nyāya Doctrine of Negation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1968), 11-21;Google Scholar Matilal, Bimal K. Logic, Language and Reality (Delhi: Motilal Barnarsidass 1985), 114–15.Google Scholar

11 On this see Potter, Encyclopedia, 45-9. The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika did not, of course, use the word ‘truthmaker’ in explaining their categories Their word for category was ‘padārtha ’ (literally ‘the meaning or referent of a word’). Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that they thought of their categories as an enumeration of all the kinds of entities that one must posit to constitute the truthmakers for true beliefs, and this fact is often evinced in their definitions of particular categories Thus Udayana, in his Laksanāvalī, #206, defined absence as ‘the object of a notion expressed by a negative particle.’ See Musashi Tachikawa's translation of the Laksanāvalī in The Structure of the World in Udayana's Realism, (Dordrecht: D. Reidel 1981), 85.

12 On this see Tachikawa, The Structure, 3-6, 18-24.

13 According to the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika the verb ‘to be,’ when used of particulars, is always predicative. Thus, if I say ‘A rose is ’ (i.e. exists), that means, according to the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, that the universal existenceness (satt ā) inheres in it. When the verb ‘to be’ is used to speak of universals, or inherence, or individuators, or absences, it is not predicative, but merely indicates that the entities in those categories are real (i.e. mind independent), though they don’t, strictly speaking, exist. On this see Phillips, Classical Indian Metaphysic, 45-51, and Śrīdhara's commentaries on Text 7 and Text 19 of the Pad ārthadharmasaṇgraha, 25-31, and 45-9 in Jhā.

14 On this see Ganeri, Jonardon Philosophy in Classical India (New York: Routledge 2001), 72–7.Google Scholar

15 On Udayana's prominence in the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika tradition see Potter, Encyclopedia, 7-8, and Chakrabarti, Kisor Classical Indian Philosophy of Mind: the Nyāya Dualist Tradition (Albany: State University of New York Press 1999), 220–1.Google Scholar

16 See Ganeri, Philosophy in, 77;Google Scholar Shastri, The Philosophy of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, 374-94.

17 For the classical Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika definition of inherence see Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, Text 157, 675-6 in Jhā. For useful discussions on the nature of inherence in the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika system, see Ganeri, Philosophy in, 74;Google Scholar Shastri, The Philosophy of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, 374-94.

18 See text 157 of the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, 675-6 in Jhā.

19 See Śrīdhara's commentary on Text 9 of the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, 32-3 in Jhā; Sinha, Jadunath Indian Philosohy, Vol. I (Delhi: Matilal Banarsidass 1978), 366–8.Google Scholar

20 On this see Matilal, Bimal K. Epistemology, Logic and Grammar in Indian Philosophical Analysis, ed. by Ganeri, Jonardon (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2005), 32–3.Google Scholar

21 Thus Praśastapāda notes that, in its mereological function, inherence joins causes and effects, while in other cases it does not (Text 157, 675 in Jhā).

22 Unlike the European scholastics, the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika accepted as a definition any set of necessary and sufficient conditions that is able to distinguish the thing to be defined from all other thingş Cf. Phillips, Classical Indian Metaphysics, 63-5.

23 This is the translation of this definition given by Ganeri, Philosophy in, 75. It occurs in the Laksanāvalī, #12, 57 in Tachikawa.

24 See Śrīdhara's commentary on Text 46 of the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, 209-10 in Jhā; Annaṁbhaṭṭa, Tarkasaṁ graha-Dāpikī, trīanslated and elucidated by Gopinath Bhattacharya (Calcutta: Progressive Publishers, 1976), # 3, C I-ii, 28-34; Ganeri, Philosophy in, 76.

24 See Śrīdhara's commentary on Text 46 of the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, 209-10 in Jhā; Annaṁ bhaṭa, Tarkasaṁ graha-Dāpikī, trīanslated and elucidated by Gopinath Bhattacharya (Calcutta: Progressive Publishers, 1976), # 3, C I-ii, 28-34; Ganeri, Philosophy in, 76.

25 See Matilal, Epistemology, 49.

26 The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikas held that supposing universals to inhere in other universals would entail that there is a universal ‘universalhood’ and that would entail an infinite regress similar to the ‘third man’ problem discussed by Plato. On this see Udayana, Kirānavalī, ed. J. S. Jelty, p. 15, line 14 to p. 16, line 21, as translated by Halbfass in On Being, 260-1; Śrī dhara's commentary on Text 19 of the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, 45-6.

27 The traditional Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika definition of substance is just that a substance is that in which qualities inhere. See the Vaiśeṣika Sūtras of Kaṅānda with the Commentary of Śaṅkara Miśra, translated by Nandalal Sinha (Bhuvaneśwari Âśrama: Allahbad 1911), I, 15, 27. This definition, like Udayana's more parsimonious definition, does not entail that a substance cannot inhere in anything.

28 See Śrīdhara's commentary on Text 16 of the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, 42-3 in Jhā; Mohanty, J.N. Classical Indian Philosophy (Rowman & Littlefield), 44–5;Google Scholar Sinha Indian Philosophy, 343-4.

29 Ether was the substance which the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikas posited as the substratum of sound.

30 On the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika conception of eternal substances see Potter Encyclopedia, 73-4; Sinha Indian Philosophy, 343-4.

31 On this, see the celebrated passage from Udayana's Kiranāvalī, translated in Halbfass, On Being, 260, as well as Phillips’ commentary on it in Classical Indian Metaphysics, 60-3.

32 For the classical account and defense of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika atomism see the Nyāya Sūtras of Gautama with the Bhāsya (commentary) of Vātsyāyana and the Vārṭika (commentary) of Uḍḍyoṭakara, Vol. IV, translated by Guṅgānaṭha Jhā (Delhi: Matilal Banarsidass 1985), 4, 2, 17-25, 1606-28. For a good account of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣ-ika argument that souls are ubiquitous, see Bhattacharya's commentary on the Tarkasaṭgraha-Dīpikā, # 17, 98-103. For an excellent overall account of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika doctrine of the soul, see Chakrabarti, Classical Indian Philosophy of Mind, 19-29.

33 On the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theory of composite substances see Vātsyāyana's and Uḍḍyoṭakara's commentaries on the Nyāya Sūtras, 2, 3, 34-6, in Jhā, Vol. II, 757-97.

34 On this see Shastri, The Philosophy of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣ ika, 238-43.

35 On this point see Śrīdhara's commentary on Text 88 of the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, 308-12 in Jhā; Vātsyāyana's and Uḍḍyoṭakara's commentaries on the Nyāya Sūtras, 4, 1, 50, pp. 1537-44 in Vol. IV of Jhā.

36 See Shastri, 261.

37 On this see Text 88 of the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, 301-4 in Jhā.

38 See the Tarkasaṁ graha-Dīpikā, #27, 133 in Bhattacharya. On the nature of conjunction as being non-locus-pervading, see Potter, Encyclopedia, 114-15; Mohanty, Classical Indian Philosophy, 82. On technical aspects of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika distinction between locus-pervading and non-locus-pervading qualities that were developed by Gaṅgeśa, see Ganeri, Philosophy in, 87-9.

39 See Texts 72-3 of the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha along with Śrīdhara's commentary, 223-4 in Jhā; see also Matilal, Perception, 286.

40 See Thomas Reid, Essays on the Active Powers of Man, chapters 5-6, in Inquiry and Essays, Beanblossom, Ronald E. and Lehrer, Keith edş (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company 1983), 304–13.Google Scholar

41 See Hiriyanna's comment that the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikas (like Plato) thought that only souls, in virtue of their volitions, could be initiators of motion, material substances being, by nature, inactive. This notion played a key role in certain of their proofs for God's existence. M. Hiriyanna, The Essentials of Indian Philosophy (London: Harper Collins 1985), 93-4.

42 See text 88 of the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, along with Śrīdhara's luminous commentary, 301-11in Jhā.

43 For an excellent brief account of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikas causal theory, see Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli Indian Philosophy, Vol. II (New York: Macmillian 1927), 96.Google Scholar

44 The main reductionist foes of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṅikas were the Buddhists, but some of the Cāravākas (Indian materialists), also held a reductionist account of composite material entitieş On Cāravāka reductionism, see Sinha, Indian Philosophy, 270-3.

45 Strictly speaking cats are not composite substances for the Nyāya-Vaiśeṅikas but rather accidental unities consisting of the soul of a cat conjoined with the body of a cat. But the Nyāya-Vaiśeṅikas themselves often ignore this particular aspect of their doctrine and speak loosely of cats and cows and humans as ‘wholes,’ even though, on their view, only the bodies of such kinds of ‘things’ are wholeş

46 For a detailed discussion of this kind of cause see Śrīdhara's commentary on Texts 71, 73 and 88 of the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, 222-4, 305-8 in Jhā.

47 Śrīdhara's definition of the non-inherence cause (p. 222 in Jhā) is not a happy one since it applies only to the non-inherence causes of qualities and does not apply to the non-inherence causes of substances, even though Śrīdhara, like all Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikas, did recognize that composite substances have non-inherence causeş

48 See Śrīdhara's commentary on Text 36 of the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, 70-1in Jhā, and Udayana's Kiranavalı, 117-18 in Tachikawa.

49 An anonymous reviewer for the Canadian Journal of Philosophy has also noted this difficulty with the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikas theory of wholes.

50 See Śrīdhara's commentary on Text 129 of the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, 566 in Jhā.

51 See his article, ‘On Being in the Same Place at the Same Time,’ in Material Constitution, Michael Rea, ed. (New York: Rowman & Littlefield 1997), 3-8.

52 The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikass did not suppose that aggregates are real ‘thingş’ According to them an army or a row of trees is nothing more than a number of substances related by certain non-monadic qualititeş See Uḍḍyoṭakara's commentary on the Nyāya Sūtras, 1, 1, 14, Vol. I, 257-8 in Jhā, and Shastri's commentary on it in The Philosophy of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikas, 187.

53 Wiggins, ‘On Being in the Same Place at the Same Time,’ 4.

54 Rea, Material Constitution, xxix.

55 See Shastri, The Philosophy of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikas, 171-6, 239-40, 277-81.

56 For their answer to the contact objection see Uḍḍyoṭakara's commentary on the Nyāya Sūtras, 4, 2, 25, Vol. IV, 1623-8 in Jhā. For their answer to the criterion objection, see Matilal's exposition of the their theory of natural kinds in Perception, 417-25.

57 On this see Matilal (1986), 378; Halbfass, 95; Vātsyāyana's commentary on 3, 1, 11 of the Nyāya Sūtras, Vol III, 1132 in Jhā; Śrīdhara's commentary on Text 36 of the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, 78-9 in Jhā.

58 The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikass certainly held that the relation of a whole to its parts is transitive. See Śrīdhara on Text 36 of the Padarthadharmasaṇgraha 77 in Jhā and Śaṇkara Miśra on IV, 1, 8 of the Vaiśeşika Sūtras, 151-2 in Sinha.

59 An anonymous reviewer has helpfully pointed out that, given all that we have said so far, it would be consistent to suppose that a whole loses a proper part without also ceasing to inhere in it. Suppose, for example, that Bucephalus loses a skin cell at t. Although this supposition is inconsistent with the claim that Bucephalus inheres in that skin cell as a whole in a part at t, it is consistent with the claim that he inheres in that cell as a universal or a property-particular at t. Although this position is logically available, it entails the implausible thesis that the composite substance Bucephalus is either a universal or a property-particular at some time during his existence. It is thus natural to suppose — as the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikass seem to have — that whenever a composite substance ceases to inhere in a part as a whole in a part, it ceases to inhere in that part simpliciter.

60 See Śrīdhara's commentary on Text 36 of the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, 77-8 in Jhā.

61 Of course, mereological essentialism is generally construed as the claim that either the loss of a part or the addition of a part is a sufficient condition for the destruction of an object. The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikass endorsed the second disjunct as well (see Śrīdhara on Text 36 of the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, 78-9 in Jhā), but discussion of the first disjunct is sufficient for us to make our point.

62 Shastri, The Philosophy of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikas, 277-9.

63 On this, see Halbfass, On Being, 95.

64 John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, chapter XXVIII, 4.

65 See Aquinas, De Ente et Essentia, chapter 2, in Aquinas; Selected Philosophical Writings, edited and translated by Timothy McDermott, 93-4.

66 We should note that the number of the members of S or T need not be a specific group of individuals; that is, it could be (and probably always is) the case that either this group of the members of S numbering n (whatever number n is), or that group of the members of S numbering n, and so on, are necessary for the continued existence of a certain whole.

67 See Śrīdhara's commentary on Text 38 of the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, 91-2; Mohanty, Classical Indian, 44.

68 See the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, Text 154, 651-3 in Jhā; Shastri, The Philosophy of Nyāya Vaśeşika, 314-15.

69 See Shastri, The Philosophy of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikas, 314-16; Sinha, Indian Philosophy, 364.Google Scholar

70 It should be noted here that for the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikass a simple substance is a substance that does not inhere in another substance. This entails, according to them, that every simple substances is eternal, never coming into or going out of existence. But they did not think it entails that every simple substance is unextended. Some simple substances, viz., atoms, are unextended, but souls, space and time have infinite extension, though no parts strictly speaking.

71 Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, Text 156, 671-3 in Jhā.

72 See Śrīdhara's commentary on Text 7 of the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, 30 in Jhā; Udayana, Laksanāvalī, # 203, 85 in Tachicawa.

73 This means that individuators, like universals, inherence, and absences, though real and mind independent entities, do not, strictly speaking, exist, since only entities that instantiate the universal existenceness exist. See Phillips, Classical Indian Metaphysics, 50.

74 See Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, Text 156, 672 in Jhā.

75 See Ganeri, Philosophy in, 77-8; Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy, Vol. II, 216.Google Scholar

76 We are indebted to Jonathan Stoltz, Jeffrey Brower, Michael Rota, and an anonymous reviewer for CJR for insightful criticisms of earlier drafts of this paper.