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Classical Indian Philosophy of Mind: The Nyaya Dualist Tradition. By Kisor Kumar Chakrabarti. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. Pp. xx + 309.
This book is an exposition and defense of classical Nyaya-Vaisesika psychophysical dualism, the theory that mind and matter are ontologically different and irreducible to each other. Traditionally Naiyayikas are substance dualists, holding that the self (atman) is a permanent, immaterial substance that possesses perceptible qualia like cognition and desire. However, Nyaya substance dualism is importantly different from Cartesian substance dualism; it is also different from other forms of Indian substance dualism, like Samkhya.
In fourteen chapters Chakrabarti explains Nyaya dualism's ontological presuppositions and expounds the many arguments that Naiyayikas offer for their theory. Chapter 1 briefly outlines the background Nyaya ontology and epistemology. Among the seven fundamental categories admitted by the Nyaya are substances (dravya) and qualia (guna). Substances can be physical (bhautika) or spiritual (cetana), and the self is held to be a spiritual substance. Conscious states are qualia of the underlying self, which can exist without them. Nyaya epistemology is causal-reliabiIist and admits perception, inference (inductive and deductive), and testimony as reliable means of knowledge. In order to justify their dualism Naiyayikas utilize a set of arguments that draw upon all of these recognized means of knowledge.
Chapter 2 distinguishes Nyaya dualism from Cartesian dualism, arguing that Nyaya interactionists do not have Descartes' interaction problem because (1) they allow that the immaterial self has location although not extension, and (2) they embrace a "Hume-like" account of causation. This is debatable. First, I agree that a plausible dualism needs to allow that immaterial minds are located, even if they have no dimension. Moreover, there is a sense in which this concession just takes a little further the implications of Descartes' own belief that the nonspatial mind worked through a particular material place in the body: the pineal gland. However, if the im material-location claim is to be intelligible, the dualist also owes us a developed ontology of immaterial points that are distinct from material points, even though the spatial properties of the two kinds of points are indistinguishable.
Second, while it has often been noted that Descartes has no interaction problem if causation is nothing but Humean constant conjunction...