From willett@suac.ac.jp Fri Feb 8 01:47:16 2002 Received: from mailscan3.cac.washington.edu (mailscan3.cac.washington.edu [140.142.32.15]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.01) with SMTP id g189lAMr089492 for ; Fri, 8 Feb 2002 01:47:11 -0800 Received: FROM mxu3.u.washington.edu BY mailscan3.cac.washington.edu ; Fri Feb 08 01:47:09 2002 -0800 Received: from somail.suac.ac.jp (somail.suac.ac.jp [202.223.132.34]) by mxu3.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.01) with ESMTP id g189l8Wn015731 for ; Fri, 8 Feb 2002 01:47:09 -0800 Received: from sfw ([202.223.132.33]) by somail.suac.ac.jp (8.9.3+3.2W/3.7W) with SMTP id SAA21826 for ; Fri, 8 Feb 2002 18:47:02 +0900 (JST) Received: from c0604 ([172.16.65.182]) by simail2.ist.suac.ac.jp (Mirapoint) with ESMTP id AIP02075 (AUTH k0194002); Fri, 8 Feb 2002 18:46:59 +0900 (JST) Message-Id: <200202080946.AIP02075@simail2.ist.suac.ac.jp> From: "Steven J. Willett" To: X-Mailer: PocoMail 2.6 (1006) - Licensed Version Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2002 18:34:08 +0900 In-Reply-To: <9a.20b47547.2994820e@cs.com> Subject: Re: Latin knowledge systems? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Thu, 7 Feb 2002 20:21:18 EST, GthomGt@cs.com wrote: >Dear List, > >There is currently a dispute among my Indologist colleagues= about >the fact that a colloquium is in preparation that deals with >"Sanskrit knowledge systems" in early modern India. > >An objection has been made by a colleague [and former teacher= of >mine] who insists that there is no such thing as a "Sanskrit >knowledge system." In making his argument, for which I have= some >sympathy, he has suggested that he doubts that one "could find= any >Latinist who would approve the term 'Latin Knowledge Systems.'" > >Well, it seems to me that this would require a Latinist who is >interested in recent studies of "(indigenous) knowledge= systems." > >Two questions: > >1. would anyone on this list in fact accept the use of the >admittidly faddish expression 'Latin Knowledge Systems'? and > >2. would anyone on this list admit to being interested in >"(indigenous) knowledge systems" in general? If (a) "Sanskrit" refers to a language and not a temporally and geographically bounded culture and (b) "knowledge system" equals= "epistemology," then there certainly were Sanskrit= epistemological systems, though the only one I'm familiar with is the Madhyamika.= There is for that matter a highly-developed Sanskrit literary criticism that has its roots in Bharata, who formulated the rasa= theory. V. K. Chari traces its nearly 2000-year development in= his very useful _Sanskrit Criticism_. I have no idea, however, what= epistemological thought was like in early modern India. But if Sanskrit was used for epistemological speculation in that period,= surely then knowledge systems of some kind follow. I myself= would resist the notion that certain types of philosophy, among which epistemology is the most rigorous, are aided or frustrated by certain types of language. If the implication in the colloquium= title is that Sanskrit qua language encourages and facilitates= the exposition of knowledge systems that cannot otherwise be= expressed, then I think Wardy's _Aristotle in China--still unreviewed by the= BMCR--should be an antidote. By the same token, we can find epistemology written in Latin,= though usually derivative summaries of Greek work, like those of Cicero= and Calcidius. "Indigenous" is a loaded word. It would seem, as George uses it,= to suggest a culturally-rooted native epistemology that just= happened to be recorded in Sanskrit or Latin. But then what original epistemology is not native to some culture? The Aristotelian, Platonic, Epicurean, Stoic and Pyrrhonist epistemologies were all= "native" in the sense that some philosopher, who was raised in a= Hellenic culture and spoke Greek, espoused them. What then is= added by adding the word "indigenous" to epistemology? Nothing. The= word may, however, be added to suggest a kind of primitive,= traditional, consensual, pragmatic and entirely unsystematic congeries of= belief about the nature of knowledge. In that case it's more like= practical wisdom and the application of "knowledge systems" probably makes= no sense. ------------------------------------------------------- Steven J. Willett Shizuoka University of Art and Culture 1794-1 Noguchi-cho, Shizuoka Prefecture Hamamatsu City, Japan 430-8533 Japan email: willett@suac.ac.jp US email: sjwillett@earthlink.net .