ABSTRACT
The empirical argument for the universality thesis about knowledge holds that there is a convergence of intuitions about knowledge across cultures, the convergence shows that there is a shared common core to what knowledge is, and that the features that are in common match what Western analytic and experimental philosophers have been studying when studying ‘to know’ and ‘knowledge’ in English. In this paper we explore two ways in which the empirical argument for the universality thesis about knowledge might be undermined. On the one hand, we explore whether or not subjects in India really count as having “Indian” intuitions about knowledge, when many of the subjects themselves are educated in institutions which are a consequence of colonialist ideas about education. Another way to put the point is that, one might legitimately wonder whether bilingual or trilingual Indians, who speak English and live in India, have “Indian” intuitions as opposed to intuitions deriving from a multilingual speaker, where the mixing of languages in cognition makes it much more difficult to say that the intuition derives purely from the “Indian” part of the subject. On the other hand, we explore whether or not “jñāna” or “pramā” really are good translations for testing purposes of ‘to know’ or ‘knowledge’. We argue that ‘jñāna’ is not, since it is not factive, but ‘knowledge’ is. We argue that ‘pramā’ is a better translation for the purposes of testing, but that ‘pramā’ is still far from optimal, since knowledge cleanly applies to both a priori and a posteriori cases in the history of Western philosophy, but pramā does not so easily apply across a priori and a posteriori cases in Sanskrit, Hindi, or Bengali. Finally, we articulate and defend the importance of using cross-cultural historical research in both analytical and experimental philosophy. We advocate a method known as ACE philosophy which uses the analytical analysis of conditionals, informed by cross-cultural historical research, prior to experimental investigation. We also suggest that bi-directional testing in experimental philosophy would improve research in that genre.
