Volume 12 (2023): Edizione 3 (April 2023)
Indian Philosophy

Vedānta is one of the oldest philosophical systems. While there are many detailed commentaries on Vedānta, there are very few mathematical descriptions of the different concepts developed there. This article shows how ideas from theoretical computer science can be used to explain Vedānta. The standard ideas of transition systems and modal logic are used to develop a formal description for the different ideas in Vedānta. The generality of the formalism is illustrated via a number of examples including saṃsāra, Patañjali’s Yogasūtras, karma, the three avasthās from the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad and the key difference between advaita and dvaita in relation to mokṣa.

This paper considers the matter of representation in Vedānta by examining key claims in the Ṛgveda and the Upaniṣads, which are some of its principal texts. Specifically, we consider the logic behind the paradoxical verses on creation and the conception of consciousness as the ground on which the physical universe exists. This also is the template that explains the logical structure underlying the principal affirmations of the Upaniṣads. The five elements and consciousness are taken to pervade each other, which explains how gross matter is taken to consist of all the four different kinds of atoms that get manifested in different states of the substance. The verses on creation are an example of the use of catuṣkoṭi in Indian philosophy prior to the use of it by Nāgārjuna in the Madhyamaka tradition. It also contrasts central ideas of Vedānta with the corresponding contemporary scientific ideas on consciousness.

The author enters an already old dispute, that is, whether a countеrpart of the notion of philosophy could be encountered in the traditional India, upholds the view that the term ānvīkṣikī (lit. “investigation”) was nearest to it and traces its meaning along the texts on dharma, politics, poetics and philosophy properly. Two main avenues to the understanding of philosophy’s vocations in India have been paved in the Mānavadharmaśāstra, along with the commentaries thereon and by Kamandaki, the author of the Nītisāra (as the knowledge of Ātman) and in the Arthaśāstra and the Nyāya texts composed by Vātsyāyana and Uddyotakara (as a metascience helping the other branches of knowledge bear their fruits). Therefore philosophy in India as well was regarded as the duality of ideological and methodological constituents, while the emphasis on analytic practice in the definitions of ānvīkṣikī (Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy as a practice is also referred to in this context) paves a good promise for comparative philosophy.

This paper is devoted to the methodology of history of philosophy. There are considered two approaches: the Hegelian and Schellingian ones. It is shown that the Hegelian approach has many weak points. Both approaches are demonstrated on the material of Indian philosophy. The Schellingian approach was hammered out then by Foucault as archeology of philosophy.

The interview given by Lluis Oviedo, a full Professor for Theological Anthropology at the Pontifical University Antonianum of Rome, and Fundamental Theology at the Theological Institute of Murcia (Spain). He is team member of research group on Creditions, based in Graz University (Austria). He edits a book series on “New approaches to the scientific study of religion” (Springer) and the bibliographic bulletin Reviews in Science, Religion and Theology. Research interests focus on the dialogue between theology and sciences, including the new scientific study of religion, and more recently to the interaction between religious belief and AI, and to how religious beliefs and behaviors are related to personal and social wellbeing.