Absence and the A Priori: A Note on Taber’s Argument

Following J. N. Mohanty’s (1992) “Reason and Tradition in Indian Thought: An Essay on the Nature of Indian Philosophical Thinking”, John Taber offers an account of why the a priori is absent in Indian epistemology. His account is comprehensive, well-argued, and plausible. However, in this essay, I argue for three points. First, that Taber’s argument conflates the faculty view of the a priori with the status view of the a priori. Second, that there is one place where a case for the presence of the a priori can be made in Indian philosophy. It is in the pramāṇa debates concerning knowledge of absences, especially with respect to the Bhātta-Mīmāṃsā school. Third, in contrast to Mohanty and Taber, that it is incorrect to see Indian epistemology as a kind of epistemology that eschews the a priori in favor of the a posteriori; or one that favors empiricism over rationalism. Rather, it is better to see the general outlines of Indian epistemology as one where there is an insensitivity to the distinction between a priori vs. a posteriori knowledge, because there is an insensitivity to the enabling vs. evidential role of sense experience used to draw the distinction. Following contemporary work by Timothy Williamson (2020) “Reason and Tradition in Indian Thought: An Essay on the Nature of Indian PhilosophicalThinking” on how the a priori—a posteriori distinction is not epistemically joint carving, I defend the view that Indian epistemology is best cast as neither a posteriori nor a priori centered because the distinction is not joint carving. Indian epistemology was ultimately on the right track in not drawing this distinction. It is a mistake to think that the kind of epistemology they produced was impoverished compared to the West because they didn’t acknowledge the a priori.