Helena Gourko

ON THE COMPOSITION OF THIS BOOK

David Zilberman planned this book to contain two parts:

(1) translation of and commentaries on the Upama−na-Ka−n.d.a (Gan.gesa. TheUpamaÿna-Ka−n.d.a /Chapter from tetralogy Tattvacinta−man.i/ (translated byD.Z.), Commentary to the Upama−na-Ka−n.d.a by Vidya−va−gisa (translatedfrom Sanskrit by D.Z.) (232 pp., manuscript); ‘Epistemological’Commentary to the Upama−na-Ka−n.d.a by D. Zilberman /unfinished/ (trans-lated from Sanskrit by D.Z.) (28 pp., manuscript); ‘Semantical’Commentary to the Upama−na-Ka−n.d.a by D. Zilberman /with Sanskrit orig-inal text, English translation and definitions of terms/ (translated fromSanskrit by D.Z.) (95 pp., manuscript); and Terminological Commentary toUpama−na-Ka−n.d.a by D. Zilberman (translated by D.Z.) (20 pp., manuscript);

(2) various interpretative texts of Zilberman, related to the problem of anal-ogy in Indian and Western philosophical thought (translated fromRussian by Helena Gourko), as well as Notes and Appendices (selectedand translated from Russian by Helena Gourko). These texts of Part Twocomprise the present volume.

It appears that the entire book was initially intended to consist mainly of the firstpart, with some applications of the Indian problematic to Western thought; later,however, Zilberman changed this design and proposed a significantly extendedanalysis of analogy in Western, in addition to classical Indian philosophy.Whatever his plan was, the result is that the first part was almost completed bothtextually and compositionally by Zilberman himself, while materials related to thesecond part remain mostly unfinished and uncoordinated. Clearly, it is impossibleto use these materials to carry out the exploration of Analogy the way Zilbermanproposed in his Syllabus for the course on Analogy (see Appendix 1). This obstaclecreates significant difficulties for an editor trying to combine Zilberman’s texts intoa consistent book. The strategy chosen to compose the book’s second part is togather texts of Zilberman, which not only relate to analogy’s problematic, butwhich connect it to the entire body of Zilberman’s philosophizing, as well as to

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clarify his general approach to analogy, and to show the different treatments ofanalogy both by Zilberman and by those philosophers and philosophies which heanalyzes in conjunction with analogy.

The first part was too lengthy to be included in the present single volume. Initiallyplanned as a two-volume edition this book now appears containing only the secondpart. We may hope that the first part will appear as a separate book. As a brief pre-view it is important to note that Zilberman undertakes the translation of the Upama−

na-Ka−n.d.a which is an extremely complicated and ambitious enterprise due to thehighly unusual and difficult content of the text and because the linguistic gapbetween the two languages involved makes a precise transposition from abstractSanskrit into more ‘mundane’ English almost impossible. As for commentaries onthe Upama−na-Ka−n.d.a, they include Zilberman’s translation of Vidya−va−gisa com-mentaries (not available in English before) and Zilberman’s own commentaries(which he planned to be of three different kinds: textological, semantical, and epis-temological [Zilberman. Letter to Prof.Buitenen. Zilberman Archive, 5.2.8./1, p.1] ).He did not mark his commentaries himself (except for the terminological commen-tary), so editors tentatively attribute these labels to his remaining commentaries.This attribution, however, does not completely reflect Zilberman’s intentions and, infact, is not aimed to do so; rather, it is undertaken as a matter of convenience for adistinction between the three.

Zilberman’s texts in the present book open with his Introduction (‘Analogy inWestern Philosophy and Indian Approaches to Analogy: Introduction’), andcan then be divided into two parts:

(1) analogy in Indian thought (‘Analogy in Navya-Nya−ya. , ‘History of IndianLogic’, ‘The Indian Type of Cultural Tradition’, ‘Revelation ofMechanism of Tradition in a Form of Grammatical Paradigms of IndianLogic’, ‘The Teaching of San. kara− on Intuition and the Organization ofPhilosophical Text in Order to Perceive Transcendental’, ‘Mι−ma−m. sa−/OnCertainty of Perception in Mι−ma−m. sa−, ‘Advaita-Veda−nta Sariraka-Bha−s.ya, Upadesa-Sahasri’);

(2) analogy in Western thought (‘Hellenic Type of ‘Cultural Tradition’,‘Western Type of Cultural Tradition’). Two texts placed between theseparts, ‘Writing and Tradition’, and ‘Tradition of the Idea of Man’, belongto both parts and virtually connect them to each other. As for an intro-duction to both parts, its role is performed by the unified Zilberman text,‘Analogy in Western Philosophy and Indian Approaches to Analogy:Introduction’.

The first part of this book starts with an exploration of analogy in Navya-Nya−ya. This piece is chosen as an introductory one for two reasons: (1) as a sys-tem of philosophical logic within Hindu darsanas, Nya−ya presents the mostcomprehensive analysis of analogy; (2) the text is clearly the most complete andimportant in comparison to other texts on analogy in Indian thought. Notes to

42 ANALOGY IN INDIAN AND WESTERN PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT

this piece are also quite significant. They are taken from others of Zilberman’smanuscripts, as well as from texts that he previously published, and suppliedwith editorial comments. (These notes, as well as editorial notes and commentsto other chapters of the book, are prepared by Helena Gourko.)

Further clarification is sought by means of excerpts from Zilberman’s‘History of Indian Logic’. This exploration is connected to the text, which fol-lows, ‘The Indian Type of Cultural Tradition’. Although the direction of theentire analysis may seem to be reversed (when the more general exploration ontypes of cultural tradition precedes the analysis of logic as part of it, while thislater analysis tries to explain Nya−ya as a summarized version of Indian classicallogic), it is nevertheless relevant when applied to the problem of analogy. Itshows analogy in various degree of approximation and attempts to grasp itsentire cultural perspective. In addition, material discussed in all three texts isclosely interconnected and presents, in fact, a unified field of analysis withinZilberman’s philosophical system.

The following text, ‘Revelation of the Mechanism of Tradition in a Form ofGrammatical Paradigms of Indian Logic’, represents a different kind of explo-ration of analogy. Although a link to major ideas is still preserved, analogy isanalyzed in a more technical fashion. There are two major reasons why this textis included within the book: (1) to characterize analogy as inherent to any formof thinking in Indian culture, not only to its ancient form; (2) to analyze con-crete types of deduction by analogy (as placed within the strategies dvam’dvam,samahara, bahuvrihi).

Important strategic questions concerning analogy are analyzed in ‘Teaching ofSan. kara− on Intuition and on the Structure of a Philosophical Text in Order toPerceive What Is Transcendental’. There are several such questions: on the twophysics, of nature and of language, on intuition of philosophical cognition asreverberation of different levels within consciousness, on auto-analogizing ofthinking with itself, on the peculiar cognitive technics of netiva−da, and others.

The text on Mι−ma−msa− (‘Mι−ma−msa−/ On Certainty of Perception in Mι−ma−msa−

) is notable for its exploration of a particular view of knowledge as a result of apreceding activity of consciousness and being, thus, of a distinctively analogicalnature. What follows from this text is that thinking constructs its world of a spe-cific super-natural content, by developing through peculiar steps of analogizing.

Advaita-Veda−nta:Sariraka-Bha−s.ya is distinctive for its originality, not only forthe literary merit, certainly outstanding. The text is of crucial significance forunderstanding Zilberman’s idea of philosophy as analogy and of philosophicaltrends as different analogies, philosophizing as analogizing and thus, thinking asa peculiar strategy of analogizing.

The following text, ‘Upadesa-Sahasri, covers knowledge as well, but in a muchbroader sense. Knowledge is analyzed as the result of cognitive activity, whichresembles material activity to the extent that it becomes indistinguishable frombeing; thinking creates knowledge as being, and this creativeness is analogical, byits nature. What is remarkable here is the analysis of the human world as the world

ON THE COMPOSITION OF THIS BOOK 43

of a knowledgeable culture in all its concreteness, including processes of its cre-ation and maintenance which inevitably presuppose analogizing.

Two following texts (as well as the preceding one, ‘The Indian Type ofCultural Tradition’, and the two concluding ones, ‘The Hellenic Typeof Cultural Tradition’ and ‘The Western Type of Cultural Tradition’) combineexcerpts from Zilberman’s Ph.D. thesis on cultural tradition, as well as asequence of ‘Writing and Tradition’ and ‘Tradition of the Idea of Man’. Threemajor ideas were in the center of this enormous one-thousand page thesis: ‘tra-dition’, ‘culture’ and ‘knowledge’. Although not elevated to the same level (or,rather, not mentioned side by side with them) analogy connects all of themtogether. Its thesis not only presents a ‘generalized’ portrait of analogy as cor-related with culture, tradition, and knowledge; Zilberman sketches in these textssignificant details and peculiarities of analogizing as applied to different cul-tures and cultural traditions.

The final two sections of this book consist of Notes and Appendices. TheNotes combine Zilberman’s thoughts important to the entire analysis, thoughthey are fragments of texts not related to the problem of analogy. TheAppendices present Zilberman’s plans, and sketches on the subject of hisAnalogy book which, although very important, have been either left fragmen-tary and unfinished, or were not intended by the author to be a part of his book.

44 ANALOGY IN INDIAN AND WESTERN PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT