Prāmāṇya’s Interpretation Question

Abstract

This work is devoted to the problems of true knowledge in Indian philosophy. As a starting point of the study, the author analyzes the article of the American philosopher and indologist Karl Potter (1927–2022) “Does Indian Epistemology Concern Justified True Belief?” The author of the introductory article briefly outlines the main problematics of Potter’s work concerning the problem of the truth of knowledge in the Indian philosophical tradition, which is built around the Sanskrit term prāmāṇya and the classical controversy between the theories of svataḥ-prāmāṇya and parataḥ-prāmāṇya, and also the author analyzes the interpretation of the term prāmāṇya proposed by Potter from the point of view of a pragmatic attitude, expressed by the concept of workabil­ity, borrowed from representatives of American pragmatism.