Skepticism in Indian philosophy

[Steve Farmer]

Dmitri writes:

> 2. Is there anything in Indian philosophical thought similar to systematic
> doubt techniques of Pyrrho, Socrates or Descartes?

Can I offer the opinion not of an Indologist but of a comparative
historian, since the question touches on some of my interests?
Let's leave the question of Descartes aside, for the moment, and
limit the discussion to ancient skeptical tendencies of the kind
popularly associated with Pyrrho and Socrates.

I think that evidence suggests that tendencies like this
(typically linked to strong anti-textual movements, arising in
the context of major exegetical crises) started popping up all
over over Eurasia by the 4th century BCE, at a minimum -- no less
in India than elsewhere (see the examples below). In China,
strong skeptical tendencies like this first appeared in the
period of the so-called hundred schools, beginning in the 4th
century, exactly contemporaneous with skeptical tendencies in the
Pyrrhonian tradition and in certain parts of the Socratic
literature (but not all of it: witness Xenophon's Memorabilia).

I don't think there was anything mysterious about these near
simultaneities. Once textual traditions (including orally fixed
as well as written "texts") became complex enough for many
opposing schools to develop -- something that was clearly evident
by the 4th century in India, China, and Greece -- anti-textual
tendencies closely linked to the birth of skeptical movements
(and mystical movements as well) began to emerge as one rather
natural reaction to that complexity. The problem of warring
schools was compounded by the mass of internal contradictions
that had piled up by that time in older "authoritative"
traditions (like those in late Vedic documents), manifested in
the increasingly complex layering of those traditions.

One natural reaction to this situation was to develop elaborate
exegetical methods to harmonize the internal contradictions. One
byproduct of the repeated ause of these methods was the rise of
the kind of early syncretic/scholastic cosmologies that we find
emerging everywhere in Eurasia in the last third of the
millennium. (It is important to note that the *abstract*
mirroring structures of those cosmologies were similar throughout
Eurasia, as a consequence of similarities in those exegetical
methods. Much of my own work revolves around cross-cultural
studies of these methods.) But an equally natural reaction to
hightened levels of textual complexity -- the opposite of the
extreme syncretic response -- was to reject the views of the old
traditions altogether (or at least to claim to do so) and often
so-called rational thought as well -- giving rise to much
discussion of logical paradoxes and the like. A great deal of the
materials used to develop such paradoxes lay in the internal
contradictions found in those earlier traditions.

My point here is that skepticism in antiquity of the kind we find
developing in Pyrrho and similar figures after around the middle
of the 4th century BCE was a natural response to the complexity
of textual traditions that had emerged by that period. It wasn't
so much an invention of speculative thought but an outgrowth, of
sorts, of exegetical processes. This view is supported by the
strong links that we can find between early developments in
formal logic throughout Eurasia in this period and exegetical processes.

Specifically in respect to India, you don't have to go any
further than the wonderful materials provided in Nirukta 1.15
(the words here ascribed to Kautsa) to see tendencies of this
nature. While the dates of different strata of the Nirukta are,
of course, controversial, the probability that the skeptical
tendencies seen here reflect events around this same period
(i.e., the 4th century) is raised by the similar tendencies that
we find in other works -- e.g., in the extreme skepticism
portrayed in logical "wigglers" like Sanjaya Belatthaputta, who
skepticism is satirized so hilariously in the Digha Nikaya (cf.,
e.g., Sutta 2.31 ff.). Other skeptical tendencies, of course,
including strong anti-textual views, can also be identified
elsewhere in the Pali canon. Similar tendencies also show up in
the Upanisads -- e.g., in many of the stories told in later
strata of the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad about Vajnavalkya, whose
character had evolved by that point from his earlier portrait as
a rather straightforward Vedic commentator (seen in certain
strata of the Satapatha Brahmana) to an anti-textual mystic, with
many strong "Socratic" traits, who upholds a via negativa against
"one-legged Brahmins" representing more conservative exegetical
viewpoints. (The conjunction of textual skepticism with mystical
tendencies in the premodern world was, of course, common --
extending right up to the time of Descartes 2000 years later.)

Other early skeptical tendencies also show up in battles between
different Vedic branches (e.g., in disagreements over the
authority of the Atharvaveda) occurring at possibly a slightly
earlier date.

Again, however, this is the view of a comparativist, not of an
Indologist. I would certainly expect that specialists in the
traditions that I've briefly mentioned above might dispute some
of my claims, or could add much better examples.

Steve Farmer