More things in heaven and earth

Abstract

In his work, The Problem of Universals in Indian Philosophy,1 Raja Ram Dravid has done an excellent job of locating and elucidating a large number of the major discussions of the problem of universals in the Indian tradition. In so doing, he succeeds in demonstrating that all of the major positions which are associated with the problem in the Western tradition — extreme realism, moderate realism, conceptualism, and extreme nominalism — are to be found as well in Indian philosophy. The picture which emerges from his account is that of an often heated debate in which the strengths and weaknesses of various approaches to the problem are thoroughly explored. Dravid's discussions of this debate reveal him to be possessed of a remarkable command of an extensive and widely varied literature. He has done other scholars in the field of Indian philosophy a great service by providing an illuminating guide to the relevant portions of a sometimes bewildering array of texts. There are, nonetheless, a number of problematic areas in Dravid's work. In what follows I shall be focusing on these, not because I wish to belittle Dravid's accomplishment, but rather because I feel there are some important methodological issues here which require comment. The general question which informs my remarks is this: To what use should we put those materials on the problem of universals which we discover in the Indian tradition. This question arises in part because it is not clear that Dravid feels there is much, if anything, which we can learn about the problem from the examination of these materials. I wish to suggest that a study of the Indian debate on the question of universals can play an important role in our attempts at under standing this issue, for instance by suggesting to us possible approaches which have not been extensively explored in the Western tradition. I shall confine my remarks to two issues: the status of qualities, and the possibility of a consistent extreme nominalism. On the first point, the consensus in at least the modern Western tradition is that if there are universals, these are of the nature of recurrent qualities. In the Indian tradition, on the other hand, it is assumed by realists and nominalists alike that the qualities of a particular