Context-Sensitivity in Jain Philosophy: A Dialogical Study of Siddharṣigaṇi's Commentary on the Handbook of Logic

In classical India, Jain philosophers developed a theory of viewpoints (naya-vāda) according to which any statement is always performed within and dependent upon a given epistemic perspective or viewpoint. The Jainas furnished this epistemology with an (epistemic) theory of disputation that takes into account the viewpoint in which the main thesis has been stated. The main aim of our paper is to delve into the Jain notion of viewpointcontextualisation and to develop the elements of a suitable logical system that should offer a reconstruction of the Jainas’ epistemic theory of disputation. A crucial step of our project is to approach the Jain theory of disputation with the help of a theory of meaning for logical constants based on argumentative practices called dialogical logic. Since in the dialogical framework the meaning of the logical constants is given by the norms or rules for their use in a debate, it provides a meaning theory closer to the Jain context-sensitive disputation theory than the main-stream formal model-theoretic semantics. 1 Jain philosophy of logic In classical India, Jain philosophers developed a theory of viewpoints (nayavāda) according to which any statement is always performed within and ∗[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] †Univ Lille Nord de France, F-59000 Lille, France. UdL3, STL, F-59653 Villeneuve d’Ascq, France. CNRS, UMR 8163.