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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 June 2014
Adopting the framework of Anglo Analytic Virtue Epistemology, I ask of the Sanskrit epic, the Mahābhārata, the question: What sort of character or ‘intellectual virtues’ must a ‘good knower’ have? Then, inspired by broadly feminist sensibilities, I raise the concern whether dispositions for knowing the world can be associated with motivations to rectify injustices in that world – whether, in other words, a good knower is also a ‘just knower.’ I go on to explore the structure of humility and shame as ‘virtues of truth’ in the epic to see whether they can establish a connection between knowing and justice.
1 Bhattacharya, Sibesh, Understanding Itihāsa (Shimla: Indian Institute for Advanced Study, 2010) 44–45Google Scholar
2 Ibid., 44
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7 Vana Parvan, 197–216. Though the details of the narrative are important, what I present here is not a translation but a short summary of the story. All references to the Mahābhārata are from Ramchandra Shastri Kinjawadekar (ed.) The Mahābhāratam with Bharata Bhawadeepa Commentary of Nilakaņṭha (New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation, n.d.).
8 Bandyopadhyay, Sibaji, ‘A Critique of Non-Violence’, Seminar 608 (2010)Google Scholar
9 Dalmiya, Vrinda and Alcoff, Linda, ‘Are “Old Wives” Tales Justified?’ in Alcoff, Linda and Potter, Elizabeth (eds) Feminist Epsitemologies (New York: Routledge, 1993), 217–244Google Scholar gives an epistemological reading of the episode which is different from the one suggested here.
10 Verse 6: ācārāniha satyasya yathāvadanupûrvaśah.
11 Williams, Bernard, Truth and Truthfulness (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 7Google Scholar
12 Verse 9 lists the thirteen virtues as satyākārāstroydaśa which literally means ‘thirteen forms of truth’.
13 Dignaga, Pramāņasamuccaya, 1.1
14 brahma jānāti iti brāhmaņa.
15 Williams, Truth and Truthfulness, 92–93. This discussion is referenced by Ganeri, Jonardon, The Concealed Art of the Soul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 231CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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17 Jonardon Ganeri, The Concealed Art of the Soul, 233
18 Ibid., 54
19 I have developed this more elsewhere. See for example, ‘Care Ethics and Epistemic Justice: Some insights from the Mahābhārata’ in Mahābhārata Now: Narration, Aesthetics, Ethics (eds) Bandyopadhyay, Sibaji and Chakrabarti, Arindam (New Delhi: Routledge, forthcoming).Google Scholar
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27 Ibid., 213
28 The notion of ignorance as a positive state is a take on Advaita metaphysics. See Bhattacharya, K.C., ‘Studies in Vedantism’ and ‘Fact and Thought of Fact’ in Studies in Philosophy (ed.) Bhattacharya, Gopinath (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1958)Google Scholar.
29 See also Rae Langton's notion of Kantian Humility. Langton, Rae, Kantian Humility: Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves (Oxford: Oxford University press, 1998).Google Scholar
30 Code, Lorraine, ‘The Power of Ignorance’, in Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance (eds) Sullivan, Shannon and Tuana, Nancy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007), 213–229Google Scholar
31 Ibid., 215
32 Nuyen, A.T., ‘Just Modesty’, American Philosophical Quarterly 35(1) (1998): 101–109Google Scholar (106)
33 Alcoff, Linda (2007) ‘Epistemologies of Ignorance: Three Types’, in Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance (ed.) Sullivan, Shannon and Tuana, Nancy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007), 56Google Scholar
34 Ben-Ze'ev, Aaron, ‘The Virtue of Modesty’, American Philosophical Quarterly 30(3) (1993): 235–246Google Scholar.
35 See Woodcock, Scott, ‘The Social Dimensions of Modesty’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 38(1) (2008): 1–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
36 Ibid., 18
37 Ibid.
38 Manion, Jennifer, ‘The Moral Relevance of Shame’, American Philosophical Quarterly 39(1) (2002), 73–79Google Scholar
39 Locke, Jill, ‘Shame and the Future of Feminism’, Hypatia 22(4) (2007), 146–162CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tarnopolsky, Christina, ‘Prudes, Perverts, and Tyrants: Plato and the Contemporary Politics of Shame’, Political Theory 32(4) (August 2004), 468–494CrossRefGoogle Scholar
40 Nussbaum, Martha, Hiding From Humanity: Disgust, Shame and the Law (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004)Google Scholar.
41 Fisher, Berenice, ‘Guilt and Shame in the Women's Movement: The Radical Idea of Action and Its Meaning for Feminist Intellectuals’, Feminist Studies 10(2) (Summer, 1984), 185–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar. 188
42 Probyn, Elspeth, Blush: Faces of Shame (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005)Google Scholar, x
43 Vana Parvan 206.5
44 Ibid.
45 Elspeth Probyn, Blush. 28
46 The BhagvadGītā in 16.2 lists ‘divine excellences’ (daivī sampad) which includes hrī. Samkara's commentary glosses hrī as lajjā. The commentarial elucidation of the term explains it as a disposition of self-chastisement that helps us desist from repeating bad actions. An alternative exposition claims it to be a mindfulness of the public eye (lokalajjā) that stops us in our tracks as it were if we happen to have embarked on the path of something unsavory. Shame is thus a self-disciplinary disposition based on internalization of public norms. In both instances, shame is linked to the possibilities and regulation of action.
47 Woodward, Kathleen, ‘Traumatic Shame: Toni Morrison, Television Culture, and the Cultural Politics of the Emotions’, Cultural Critique 46 (Autumn, 2000), 210–240CrossRefGoogle Scholar
48 Scheman, Naomi, ‘Epistemology Resuscitated: Objectivity as Trustworthiness’ in Tuana, Nancy and Morgen, Sandra (eds) Engendering Rationalities (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), 23–52Google Scholar (38).
49 Thanks to audiences in London, Singapore and Shimla for comments. Also to Arindam Chakrabarti.