Faith and Reason in Indian Philosophy

Abstract

The author focuses on the relationship between reason and faith in Indian philo­sophy. He divides the spectrum of possible philosophical views into three areas: 1) the excessive application of critical reasoning, which leads to the rejection of all faiths; 2) the common sense perspective; 3) uncritical adherence to faith. The author distinguishes between “belief” based on common sense and “faith” which is understood as acceptance of metaphysical beliefs. Gokhale speaks at length about pramāṇas (means of valid cognition), of which in India there were basically recognized three: direct perception (pratyakṣa), inference (anu­māna), and the testimony of verbal authority (śabda or āgama). Inferences were usually divided into empirical and non-empirical, and the latter could be used both to justify facts within this-worldly limits and metaphysical facts. Verbal evi­dence, in turn, was divided into ordinary and extraordinary. The former may serve to draw conclusions about “mundane” matters, while the latter are intended to justify dogmatic beliefs. To sum up, the author arranges Indian philosophical teachings as follows (in the direction from more rationalist to more adherent to faith): extreme skepticism, then the teachings of “the learned” Cārvākas (In­dian “materialists”) who accepted inference as means of valid cognition, then Buddhism, which was critical of matters of faith, Jainism, Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, which used non-empirical inference to justify matters of faith, and finally – Mīmāṃsā, Vedānta, Vyākaraṇa (the teaching of the “Grammarians”), and the Dharmaśāstra which insisted on the primacy of faith and scripture