Bihar Intermediate Philosophy (BSEB) cheat sheet

Indian philosophy is conventionally divided into āstika (Vedic-affirming: Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā, Vedānta) and nāstika (Charvaka, Jainism, Buddhism) schools.

Āstika is defined by acceptance of Vedic authority, not by belief in God; Sāṃkhya and early Mīmāṃsā are āstika yet non-theistic.

The ṛṣis of the Ṛgveda are poets of hymn-families; the earliest philosophical hymns are Nāsadīya (X.129), Puruṣa (X.90) and Hiraṇyagarbha (X.121).

Ṛta denotes cosmic order/truth in the Vedas; Satya is truth as being; both ground later notions of dharma and pramāṇa.

The four Vedas are Ṛg, Sāma, Yajur and Atharva; each has Saṃhitā, Brāhmaṇa, Āraṇyaka and Upaniṣad layers.

The Upaniṣads (Vedānta, 'end of the Veda') number traditionally 108, with 10-13 principal ones including Bṛhadāraṇyaka, Chāndogya, Īśa, Kaṭha and Māṇḍūkya.

Core Upaniṣadic equations: tat tvam asi (Chāndogya), ahaṃ brahmāsmi (Bṛhadāraṇyaka), ayam ātmā brahma (Māṇḍūkya), neti neti (Bṛhadāraṇyaka).

Recurrent features of Indian schools: pramāṇa theory, karma and rebirth, mokṣa as summum bonum, and sūtra-plus-commentary (bhāṣya) literary form.

Philosophy in India is typically instrumental (mokṣa-śāstra), but schools disagree on whether reason alone suffices (Nyāya) or scripture is independently authoritative (Mīmāṃsā).

Charvaka/Lokāyata is the radical nāstika school: it rejects an afterlife, karma, rebirth, God and Vedic authority.

Its epistemology is strictly perceptual: pratyakṣa is the only pramāṇa; anumāna is rejected as unreliable because universal relations (vyāpti) are unobservable.

Metaphysics: only four material elements (pṛthvī, ap, tejas, vāyu) exist; consciousness (caitanya) is an emergent product of matter, as intoxication arises from fermented ingredients.

The body is the self; 'I' refers to the living material organism, so death is annihilation and liberation is simply release from suffering in this life.

Ethics is hedonistic-eudaemonistic: pursue kāma and artha while avoiding pain; the maxim is 'while life remains, live happily' (yāvaj jīvet sukhaṃ jīvet).

The school is known chiefly from hostile sources: Mādhava's Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha, Jayarāśi's Tattvopaplavasiṃha (sceptical wing), and Buddhist/Jaina polemics.

Jayarāśi's Tattvopaplavasiṃha radicalises the position by showing all pramāṇas collapse (tattva-upaplava), a scepticism distinct from mainstream hedonistic Charvaka.

Charvaka is a decision rule for exam questions: any option asserting 'perception only' plus 'no soul/no rebirth' plus 'material elements' points to Lokāyata.

Anekāntavāda ('many-sidedness') holds that reality has infinite aspects; every object is both permanent in substance and changing in modes (dravya-paryāya).

Syādvāda is the sevenfold predication (saptabhaṅgī) qualified by 'syāt' ('in some respect'): (1) syād asti, (2) syān nāsti, (3) syād asti ca nāsti ca, (4) syād avaktavya, (5–7) combinations of the above with avaktavya.

Syāt is not doubt but a qualifier meaning 'from a particular standpoint'; it prevents unqualified assertion.

Nayavāda describes partial standpoints (nayas); nikṣepa classifies a thing under name, representation, potentiality and actuality.

Jaina karma is a subtle material (pudgala) substance that adheres to the jīva; it is not a cosmic judge but a mechanical bondage.

Eight karma types: jñānāvaraṇīya, darśanāvaraṇīya, vedanīya, mohanīya, āyu, nāma, gotra, antarāya - the first two obscure knowledge and perception.

Bondage arises from āsrava (inflow) caused by passions (kaṣāya); saṃvara is stoppage, nirjarā is shedding, and mokṣa is total separation of jīva from karma.

Ahiṃsā is the supreme dharma (ahiṃsā paramo dharmaḥ); the five vows are ahiṃsā, satya, asteya, brahmacarya, aparigraha, with aṇuvratas for laypeople.

Kevala-jñāna (omniscience) is the state of the liberated jīva; the three jewels are samyag-darśana, samyag-jñāna, samyag-cāritra.

Four Noble Truths: duḥkha (suffering), samudaya (its arising in taṇhā), nirodha (cessation), mārga (the eightfold path).

The Eightfold Path: right view, resolve, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, concentration; grouped as śīla, samādhi, prajñā.

Pratītyasamutpāda: 'When this exists, that comes to be' - the twelve links run avidyā → saṃskāra → vijñāna → nāmarūpa → ṣaḍāyatana → sparśa → vedanā → tṛṣṇā → upādāna → bhava → jāti → jarāmaraṇa.

Pratītyasamutpāda is the middle way between eternalism (śāśvatavāda) and annihilationism (ucchedavāda).

Three marks of existence: anitya (impermanence), duḥkha, anātman; the five aggregates (skandhas) are rūpa, vedanā, saṃjñā, saṃskāra, vijñāna and none is a self.

Anattā is argued in the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta: each aggregate is 'not mine, not I, not my self' because it is impermanent and subject to suffering.

Nirvāṇa is the extinguishing of craving, aversion and ignorance; it is not annihilation but the end of conditioned existence, realised in life as sopādhiśeṣa and at death as nirupādhiśeṣa.

Buddhist schools: Theravāda (Pāli canon, Abhidhamma), Sarvāstivāda, Sautrāntika, and Mahāyāna schools (Madhyamaka śūnyatā; Yogācāra vijñaptimātratā).

Four immeasurables (brahmavihāras): maitrī, karuṇā, muditā, upekṣā; the four āryasatyas are the diagnostic frame of the whole teaching.

Nyāya pramāṇas: pratyakṣa, anumāna, upamāna, śabda; Mīmāṃsā adds arthāpatti and anupalabdhi, which Nyāya rejects as reducible.

Pratyakaṣa arises from sense-object contact (indriyārtha-sannikarṣa); it is nirvikalpaka (indeterminate) then savikalpaka (determinate).

Anumāna has five members (pañcāvayava): pratijñā, hetu, udāharaṇa, upanaya, nigamana.

Vyāpti is the invariable concomitance of hetu with sādhya; it is established by observation plus tarka and, for Nyāya, by udayāharaṇa examples.

Hetvābhāsas (fallacies of inference): savyabhicāra (deviant), viruddha (contradictory), prakaranasama (counter-balanced), sādhyasama (unproved), kālātīta and badhita.

Vaiśeṣika padārthas: dravya, guṇa, karma, sāmānya, viśeṣa, samavāya, and abhāva (added later); dravya has nine kinds including ākāśa, kāla, dik, ātman, manas.

Vaiśeṣika atomism (aṇu/paramāṇu) holds that four material substances are atomic; samavāya is the inseparable relation, saṃyoga the separable contact.

Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theism: Īśvara creates from atoms and karma, and is the author of the Veda; liberation is the cessation of false knowledge (mithyājñāna).

Nyāya theory of error is anyathākhyāti (misplacement of a real object), contrasted with Advaita's anirvacanīyakhyāti and Buddhism's ātmakhyāti.

Sāṃkhya is dualistic: puruṣa (pure consciousness, plural, inactive) and prakṛti (primordial matter, one, active) are the two ultimate realities.

Prakṛti's three guṇas: sattva (light, clarity), rajas (activity, passion), tamas (inertia, darkness); their equilibrium is the unmanifest (avyakta).

Evolution (pariṇāma): puruṣa's proximity disturbs the guṇa balance; from prakṛti arise mahat/buddhi, ahaṃkāra, manas, five tanmātras, five mahābhūtas, five jñānendriyas, five karmendriyas - 25 tattvas with puruṣa.

Ahaṃkāra is sāttvika, rājasika or tāmasika, generating the eleven senses, the five tanmātras, or both respectively.

Kaivalya is puruṣa's isolation from prakṛti, achieved by discriminative knowledge (viveka-khyāti) between the two.

Yoga's definition: yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ (YS 1.2); citta-vṛttis are pramāṇa, viparyaya, vikalpa, nidrā, smṛti (YS 1.6).

Eight limbs (aṣṭāṅga): yama, niyama, āsana, prāṇāyāma, pratyāhāra, dhāraṇā, dhyāna, samādhi.

Five yamas: ahiṃsā, satya, asteya, brahmacarya, aparigraha; five niyamas: śauca, santoṣa, tapas, svādhyāya, īśvarapraṇidhāna.

Samprajñāta samādhi (with support: vitarka, vicāra, ānanda, asmitā) precedes asamprajñāta samādhi; Yoga adds Īśvara as a special puruṣa (YS 1.24), distinguishing it from Sāṃkhya.

Pūrva Mīmāṃsā (Jaimini) focuses on dharma as Vedic injunction; its pramāṇa set is six, adding arthāpatti and anupalabdhi to the Nyāya four.

Mīmāṃsā holds the Veda to be eternal (nitya) and authorless (apauruṣeya); śabda is intrinsically valid (svataḥ prāmāṇya), and error is positive misapprehension.

Kumārila's bhāṭṭa school accepts abhāva as a separate pramāṇa; Prabhākara's prābhākara school rejects it and holds akhyāti (non-apprehension) as the theory of error.

Śaṅkara's Advaita: Brahman alone is real (brahma satyaṃ jagad mithyā), the world is māyā/avidyā, and the self is Brahman (tat tvam asi).

Advaita's two levels of truth: pāramārthika (Brahman) and vyāvahārika (empirical world); māyā is anirvacanīya (indescribable as sat or asat).

Advaita error theory is anirvacanīyakhyāti; the classic illustration is the rope mistaken for a snake (rajju-sarpa).

Rāmānuja's Viśiṣṭādvaita: one Brahman qualified by cit and acit as body to Brahman's self; bheda and abheda are both real; mokṣa is eternal service (seṣatva).

Madhva's Dvaita: five real differences (pañcabheda) - God/souls, God/matter, souls/souls, souls/matter, matter/matter; mokṣa follows bhakti and grace.

Advaita mokṣa is jñāna of identity; Viśiṣṭādvaita and Dvaita hold that the individual soul remains distinct and subordinate, so bhakti and prapatti are the paths.

Presocratics: Thales (water), Anaximander (apeiron), Anaximenes (air), Heraclitus (flux, logos), Parmenides (being, denial of change), Democritus (atoms and void).

Socrates shifts philosophy to ethics via the elenchus and 'virtue is knowledge'; Plato's theory of Forms and allegory of the cave; Aristotle's four causes (material, efficient, formal, final) and hylomorphism.

Aristotle's logic: the syllogism, ten categories, and the principle of non-contradiction; he calls man a political animal.

Descartes (rationalist): cogito ergo sum, methodic doubt, mind-body dualism, clear and distinct ideas; Spinoza: substance monism, deus sive natura, necessitarianism; Leibniz: monads and pre-established harmony.

Bacon and Hobbes lead empiricism's political wing; Locke: tabula rasa, primary vs secondary qualities; Berkeley: esse est percipi; Hume: impressions and ideas, causation as custom, the is-ought gap.

Kant's synthesis: synthetic a priori judgments, phenomena vs noumena, categories of the understanding; 'concepts without intuitions are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind'.

Key contrasts for exams: rationalism (innate ideas, reason) vs empiricism (experience, no innate ideas); Plato's universals in re/ante rem vs Aristotle's in re.

Hegel's dialectic (thesis-antithesis-synthesis) and absolute idealism follow Kant; existentialism (Kierkegaard, Sartre) reacts against system-building.

Moral concepts: right/wrong, good/bad, duty, obligation, virtue, conscience, freedom and responsibility; 'good' is the value term, 'right' the deontic term.

Cognitivism holds moral judgments express propositions that can be true or false; non-cognitivism (emotivism, prescriptivism) denies this.

Consequentialism judges acts by outcomes: utilitarianism (Bentham's hedonic calculus; Mill's greatest happiness, quality of pleasure), act vs rule variants.

Deontology (Kant): act from duty on the categorical imperative - universalisability and the formula of humanity as an end in itself; consequences are irrelevant to moral worth.

Virtue ethics (Aristotle): eudaimonia via habituated virtues and the doctrine of the mean; care ethics foregrounds relationships and responsiveness.

Indian ethics centres on dharma, karma and mokṣa: svadharma and varṇāśrama duties, the five yamas, and the Bhagavadgītā's niṣkāma karma (action without attachment to results).

Buddhist ethics: the precepts and the four brahmavihāras; Jaina ahiṃsā extends to all life; Nyāya ties right action to dharma and scriptural injunction.

Metaethical positions: naturalism, intuitionism (Moore's naturalistic fallacy, good as indefinable), error theory, and relativism vs objectivism.

Free will matters for ethics: determinism, compatibilism and libertarianism determine whether praise, blame and punishment are justified.

A proposition is the truth-bearer expressed by a declarative sentence; sentences are its linguistic vehicle, and the same proposition can be expressed by different sentences.

An argument is a set of premises plus a conclusion; the conclusion is what the premises purport to support.

Validity is a formal property: an argument is valid iff it is impossible for all premises to be true and the conclusion false; validity says nothing about actual truth.

Soundness = validity + all premises actually true; a sound argument necessarily has a true conclusion.

Deduction aims at validity with certainty; induction is evaluated as strong or weak by the probability the premises confer on the conclusion.

Truth theories: correspondence, coherence, pragmatic, and deflationary/semantic (Tarski's 'P' is true iff P).

Formal fallacies: affirming the consequent (P→Q, Q ∴ P), denying the antecedent (P→Q, ¬P ∴ ¬Q); informal: ad hominem, straw man, begging the question, false dilemma.

Categorical propositions A/E/I/O: universal affirmative, universal negative, particular affirmative, particular negative; contradiction, contrariety and subalternation describe their relations.

Indian pramāṇa theory parallels: pratyakṣa (perception), anumāna (inference), śabda (testimony); svataḥ-prāmāṇya is intrinsic validity of knowledge, parataḥ its extrinsic validation.