Ockam's Razor

[Guest guest]

Mani writes in response to Sri Sadananda's exposition on Wed. Sept. 26:

>If you see all your explanations, they posit ideas which

>are taken from *outside* the core texts themselves and which

>seem opposed to logic. You must be familiar with the principle

>of Occam's razor -- when you have two competing theories that

>explain the same situation, the one that is simpler is better.

 

Dear Mani,

 

My question concerns your use of the Ockam's razor principle to

point out flaws in Advaita. Is there any Sastric justification for this.

That is, is the "Rockam's Razor" idea mentioned in our NyAya or Tarka

sastras? If not, how are you justified in using it?

 

The second question concerns the principle of Ockam's razor

itself. It seems to me that what constitutes a "simpler theory" to

explain a certain phenomenon is itself a subjective judgment. To state

that the theory that makes fewer assumptions is the right one, assumes

that those are the correct assumptions. I think we should emphasize the

correctness or reasonable of assumptions rather than focus on their

minimization. Our assumptions are often a function of our conditioning

and this poses a problem by itself as well.

 

Sincerely,

Arun

[Guest guest]

Arun,

 

Your point is correct that Occam's Razor may not

enough to determine whether a given theory is correct

in Vedanta. However, I would argue that it is still

definitely an important tool in *helping* evaluate

validity. If you read Vedarthasangraha, it is very clear

that at times Ramanuja is pleading with Vedantins to look

at elegance and simplicity when reconciling the

shastras, rather than bringing in external ideas which

only further complicate the issues. The idea of two kinds

of sruti bandied about by Advaita -- a higher and lower

kind, one teaching of an attributeless, indivisible (nirvisesha)

Brahman and the other of an attributed, creator-God (saguNa)

Brahman -- is no doubt an ingenious device, but it is an

external imposition upon the Vedas which ends up being

a headache, especially when in Ramanuja's opinion, there is

no need for any such thing. The simple way of looking at the

situation is that the two kinds of sruti both speak of the

same entity in different ways. I define "simple" to mean

that which can be easily drawn from the text itself without

introducing external ideas.

 

Let's take a more absurd case, such as Madhvacharya's

interpretation of 'aham brahmAsmi', one of the great

unity texts of the Upanishads. Madhva abhors any kind

of identity between jIva and paramAtmA and uses grammatical

tricks to make the word 'aham', which nearly always means 'I',

to mean 'aheyam', or 'faultless'. 'asmi' to him means something

like 'Lakshmi', if I am not mistaken. This on the face of

it is farfetched, but it is grammatically justifiable. The

only argument we can make is something similar to Occam's Razor.

The context simply does not justify such complexity. The easy

and natural approach should be taken.

 

Another way Occam's Razor is applied in the controversy

over the vAkya 'tat tvam asi'. Advaita uses 'lakshaNa'

to ascribe secondary, figurative meaning to the words

'tat' and 'tvam' to have them both mean the absolute

non-different Atman (this is known as jahad-ajahad-

lakshaNa). Ramanuja argues that such complexity is simply not

justified when the facial meaning of the words themselves

can be taken and properly understood in the equation.

 

Without simplicity being some sort of measure, we are

left with no way of evaluating competing theories,

particularly when grammar allows multiple meanings

to be ascribed to a text.

 

I am not trained in nyAya and tarka to know if there

is a particular formulation of Occam's Razor in Indian

logic. I invite others who are in the know to

contribute their thoughts.

 

Mani