Instability of Reason

In premodern south Asia, epistemology (pramanasastra)--the study of knowledge and the methods of acquiring it--was rarely construed as a purely theoretical enterprise. It was a discipline intended to serve practical purposes. This approach to epistemology is found in the philosophical tradition called Nyaya. The defenders of this tradition, the Naiyayikas, took Nyaya to be a science of rational in...