Faith and Reason in Indian Philosophy

The author focuses on the relationship between reason and faith in Indian philo-sophy. He divides the spectrum of possible philosophical views into three areas:1) the excessive application of critical reasoning, which leads to the rejectionofall faiths; 2) the common sense perspective; 3) uncritical adherence to faith.The author distinguishes between "belief" based on common sense and "faith"which is understood as acceptance of metaphysical beliefs. Gokhale speaksatlength about pramancas (means of valid cognition), of which in India therewere basically recognized three: direct perception (pratyaksca), inference (anu-mana), and the testimony of verbal authority (sabda or agama). Inferences wereusually divided into empirical and non-empirical, and the latter could be usedboth to justify facts within this-worldly limits and metaphysical facts. Verbal evi-dence, inturn, was divided into ordinary and extraordinary. The former mayserve to draw conclusions about "mundane" matters, while the latter are intendedto justify dogmatic beliefs. To sum up, the author arranges Indian philosophicalteachings as follows (in the direction from more rationalist to more adherenttofaith): extreme skepticism, then the teachings of "the learned" Carvakas (In-dian "materialists") who accepted inference as means of valid cognition, thenBuddhism, which was critical of matters of faith, Jainism, Nyaya-Vaisescika,which used non-empirical inference to justify matters of faith, and finally -Mima mcsa, Vedanta, Vyakaranca (the teaching of the "Grammarians"), and theDharmasastra which insisted on the primacy of faith and scripture.