Epistemology

First Published in 2001. The five volumes of this series collect together some of the most significant modern contributions to the study of Indian philosophy. Volume 1: Epistemology is concerned with the nature and scope of Indian pramana theory, i.e. that part of Indian philosophy concerned with the nature and sources of knowledge. Indian philosophers developed a causal theory of knowledge and acknowledged the existence of a number of valid ways of knowing, including perception, inference and testimony. The Indian pramana theorists thus discussed many issues that have also occupied Western epistemologists, often offering importantly different perspectives on these matters. They also sometimes addressed various interesting questions about knowledge that are unfamiliar to Western epistemologists. The selections in this volume discuss Indian treatments of epistemological topics like the means of knowledge, realism and anti-realism, truth, knowledge of knowledge, illusion and perceptual error, knowability, testimony, scepticism and doubt.