Non Non-Contradiction

“There are no false statements in Indian philosophy.”

With that quote in today’s yoga sutras and chanting class, Dr. Narasimhan cleared up something that’s been puzzling me: you’ve got all these various schools and perspectives in the Indian spiritual and philosophical tradition and commentators like Swami Prabhavananda seem to be cool with all of them, even though they stand on different sides of long-standing debates in philosophy, like between idealism and materialism, or dualism and monism, or even theism and atheism.

But, if they’re all true, then I guess there’s really no problem, after all.

Dr. N. explained from the Indian perspective, truth is relative, or at least contextual. The madman is only mad from the perspective of the sane person; as he goes on about space aliens abducting him or whatever, he’s speaking what he takes to be true; and while I would want to say that just because he thinks it’s true doesn’t mean it is, the Indian philosopher is comfortable with accepting multiple versions of the truth, depending on the context.

I suppose that this is in part because our everyday statements of what we take to be true, say, for instance, “I have two arms and two legs” are, metaphysically speaking, false. After all, if the world of our experience is essentially illusion and all that really exists is pure undifferentiated consciousness, then all of my utterances about things are actually mistaken. But if I’m okay with considering them true on pragmatic grounds, then why not allow other statements, even if they contradict with mine, to be true, as well?

But does this mean that anything, anything goes? Apparently not; there is still absolute truth, but, as Dr. N put it, “Absolute truth cannot be expressed absolutely in the relative world.”

Consequently, I guess, we’re stuck with making relative statements which means, apparently, that the so-called “law of non-contradiction” which we take for granted in Western philosophy can be broken at will.

Makes perfect sense. And none at all.

But now, I understand. And don’t.