Between-group contests over group-specific public goods with within-group fragmentation

We model a contest between two groups of equal sized populations over the division of a group-specific public good. Each group is fragmented into subgroups. Each subgroup allocates effort between production and contestation. Perfect coordination is assumed within subgroups, but subgroups cannot coordinate with one another. All subgroups choose effort allocations simultaneously. We find that the group that is more internally fragmented receives the smaller share of the public good. Aggregate rent-seeking increases when the dominant subgroups within both communities have larger population shares. Any unilateral increase in fragmentation within a group reduces conflict and increases the total income of its opponent. Strikingly, the fragmenting community itself may, however, increase its total income as well, even though its share of the public good declines. Hence, a smaller share of public good provisioning cannot be used to infer a negative income effect on the losing community.     

A Monstrous Inference called Mahāvidyānumāna and Cantor’s Diagonal Argument

A mahāvidyā inference is used for establishing another inference. Its Reason (hetu) is normally an omnipresent (kevalānvayin) property. Its Target (sādhya) is defined in terms of a general feature that is satisfied by different properties in different cases. It assumes that there is no (relevant) case that has the absence of its Target. The main defect of a mahāvidyā inference μ is a counterbalancing inference (satpratipak?a) that can be formed by a little modification of μ. The discovery of its counterbalancing inference can invalidate such an inference. This paper will argue that Cantor’s diagonal argument too shares some features of the mahāvidyā inference. A diagonal argument has a counterbalanced statement. Its main defect is its counterbalancing inference. Apart from presenting an epistemological perspective that explains the disquiet over Cantor’s proof, this paper would show that both the mahāvidyā and diagonal argument formally contain their own invalidators.     

Tarka as Cognitive Validator

The meaning of the term ‘tarka’ is not clear in the modern literature on Classical Indian Philosophy. This paper will review different modern readings of this term and try to show that what the Nyāyasūtra and its classical commentaries called a ‘tarka’ should be understood as the following: a tarka is a cognitive act that validates a content (of a doubt or a cognition or a speech-act) by demonstrating its logical fitness or invalidates a content by demonstrating its logical unfitness. A tarka can act as a metatheory too. Generating certainty is, according to the Classical Nyāya, a job assigned to an epistemic instrument (pramāṇa). It fails to do so when there arises a doubt regarding it. The moment a tarka dispels the doubt, the epistemic instrument generates certainty. Tarkas of different types will be exemplified by critically analyzing Gaṅgeśa’s applications of tarka in his magnum opus Tattvacintāmaṇi. These examples will clarify the definition of tarka formulated in this paper.     

No Black Scorpion is Falling: An Onto-Epistemic Analysis of Absence

An absence and its locus are the same ontological entity. But the cognition of the absence is different from the cognition of the locus. The cognitive difference is caused by a query followed by a cognitive process of introspection. The moment one perceptually knows y that contains only one thing, z, one is in a position to conclude that y contains the absence of any non-z. After having a query as to whether y has x one revisits one’s knowledge of y containing z and comes to know that x is absent from y. Thus the knowledge of the absence of x logically follows from the knowledge of y containing z through the mediation of a query. This analysis goes against the thesis according to which an absence is an irreducible entity that is to be known through senses, and is inspired by the Mīmā?sā views, especially the Prābhākara views, on absence and its cognition.     

Lak?a?ā as a Creative Function of Language

When somebody speaks metaphorically, the primary meanings of their words cannot get semantically connected. Still metaphorical uses succeed in conveying the message of the speaker, since lak?a?ā, a meaning-generating faculty of language, yields the suitable secondary meanings. Ga?ge?a claims that lak?a?ā is a faculty of words themselves. One may argue: “Words have no such faculty. In these cases, the hearer uses observation-based inference. They have observed that sometimes competent speakers use the word w in order to mean s, when p, the primary meaning of w does not make any semantic sense. In all such cases, s is actually related to p. After having observed this, when the hearer hears the utterance of w, and realizes that w’s primary meaning p is semantically unfit for the sentence-meaning, they infer on the basis of their prior observation that ‘the competent speaker must mean s by uttering w’. Thus lak?a?ā becomes a success.” This apparently well-argued reduction does not stand the critical examination; neither in Ga?ge?a’s framework, nor even in the general theory of language. For one can compose and interpret potentially infinite novel sentences based on lak?a?ā while the observational inferences one can make are finite. Ga?ge?a says very clearly that as far as the secondary meaning is concerned, no prior observation is required. This paper will argue that not only does language yield secondary meanings through lak?a?ā, but it also restricts the use of secondary meanings; for one cannot mean just anything by saying something. Lak?a?ā is a creative function with infinite potential within the limits set up by the language faculty.     

The Identity That Doesn’t Deny Difference: A Non-dualist Argument

Journal of Indian Philosophy - Brahmānanda Sarasvatī has written an elaborate comment on the following inference cited in Advaitasiddhi: attribute etc. are identical to and different from...