From pc, on Indian and Chinese logic

["Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <lojbab@lojban.org>]

>From: Pycyn@aol.com
>Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 12:01:04 EST

>Indian Logic:  The main line is called Nyaya.  The line runs from Akshapada's
>Nyayasutra through a number of minor lights to Uddyotakara's (spelling
>problem, I don't have references handy) commentary to a renewal under
Gangesha
>in the roughly 13th century (Navya-Nyaya), which then developed mightily into
>the 16th century at least.  The Navya-Nyaya has been studied a lot, mainly by
>DHH Ingalls from Harvard and his pupils, especially BK Matilal. It is here
>that the intensional underpinnigs get their fullest exposition -- which have
>never been fully reworked in Western form.
>The "lesser light" period is mainly filled by Buddhists, Dignaga (various
>spellings -- its got n's in it we have no idea how to represent) and
>Dharmakirti and followers. 
>I have seen a book on Tibetan relics of the Buddhist system but it mainly on
>debate and the dance that accompanies it, I think.
>Jains also do a bit of logic work (seven-fold oppositions).  
>A short (but old) sketch is in Bochenski's History of Formal Logic, a more
up-
>to-date on in Matilal's posthumous Character of Logic in India.  A muddled
>sketch in Walker' Hindu World.  Karl Potter is grinding out most of the texts
>with commentaries and there are studies of various degrees of intelligibility
>dating back to the '20's (Vidyabhushana's History especially and Randle's
>Indian Logic and Atomism).
>
>The Buddhist stuff got carried to China and Japan, of course, but did not
>flourish there, being saved mainly unadapted as rote rules.  But China, at
>least, had the beginning of logical studies in the classical period
(Confucius
>to the First Emperor).  Large parts of the Motzu can only be called proto-
>logic or even some real stuff -- a step beyond debate and rhetoric in any
>case.  There are also the Dialecticians (the School of Names?): Kung-sun Lung
>and Hui Shih (memory at work here, use with care) and some parts of the
>Chuangtzu (including some real Chuang, when he blows Hui away).  There is
very
>little follow-up in the Han or later.
>Standard textbooks on Chinese philosophy are pretty bad on this.  About the
>clearest stuff I can think of offhand is in Graham's Disputers of the Tao,
>which spends a lot of time on these movements and gives some evidence that
>Graham knows some modern logic.  Someone told me that Hao Wang, a major
>mathematical logician, had written a study of the Chinese tradition, beyond
>his short talk at the East-West Philosophy Conference in 1973, but I have
>never seen it. 
>Hopes this helps.  I can get more details given a little time to rummage in
>still not quite organized book boxes.

>pc
>