ABSTRACT

This chapter investigates the representative Hindu account of knowledge: what we have to converge on while we disagree about knowledge, but using Hindu resources to model the disagreement. While usual accounts of knowledge from the West identify knowledge as a kind of propositional attitude, the previous investigation showed reasons for adopting a representative Hindu account of thought, which entails that thinking is not about an attitude toward a proposition, but engaging in disciplinary practice from diverse perspectives. We locate the concept of knowledge as the Justified or the True —what theories of knowledge converge on while we disagree—and find that the Indian group of five political values, the Mahāvrata-s, are the justificatory process of knowing. Just as thinking is not a peculiarly human or language-requiring exercise, so too is knowing something that creatures can do via a practice they undertake from differing perspectives.