The Theology of Ramanuja by Bartley C. J

Author:Bartley, C. J.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781136853067
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

Chapter Five

Exegeses of the Mahāvākya, ‘Satyaṃ jñānam anantaṃ Brahma’: ‘The Absolute is Reality, Consciousness, Infinite’

As we have seen, scriptural exegesis is central to Vedāntic theological method. The theologian understands himself as deriving his conclusions (siddhānta) from śruti which, according to the Vedāntic ideology is the sole means of knowing (pramāṇa) about whatever lies beyond the bounds of sense. Interpretations of the mahāvākya, ‘Satyaṃ jñānam anantaṃ Brahma’ (Taitt.Up.2.1.1) illustrate the centrality of the question of the import of syntopical, co-referential constructions (samānādhikaraṇa) in Vedāntic theological dialectic. Sāmānādhikaraṇya is defined as, ‘the application to one entity of a number of words having different grounds for their application.’ The appositional words have the same case ending and express one and the same thing.

At this point attention must be drawn to Frege's distinction (also made by Bhartṛhari) between the sense of a word or expression and the referent which it denotes. The distinction was originally made to explain how a true identity statement could be informative; in the way that ‘Cicero is Tully’ is and ‘Cicero is Cicero’ is not. The reference of a word or expression is the entity for which it stands. Referring expressions or singular terms stand for objects. Predicates stand for concepts which may or not be instantiated. Sentences stand for truth-values. Singular terms and predicates (perse incomplete expressions) combine to form sentences whose referents are a product of the references of their parts. Senses are inter-subjective ‘modes of presentation’ (i.e. not idiosyncratic mental images) of references. The senses of the sentence-constituents (i.e. singular terms and predicates) combine to form the sentential sense which Frege calls a complete thought. The expressions, ‘The Morning Star’ and ‘The Evening Star’ refer to the same object (the planet Venus) in different ways which are their objective or intersubjective senses, modes of presentation or cognitive significances. It may thus come as a surprise to someone to learn that what they called ‘the Morning Star’ and what they called ‘the Evening Star’ are the same thing. If the referent of an expression is the destination, then its sense is the route. The proper name ‘Scott’ and the description, ‘The author of Waverley’ (which Frege classifies as a singular term) have the same referent (the man Walter Scott) but differ in sense. Thus we can explain locutions such as ‘George IV did not know that Scott was the author of Waverley’ without attributing to that monarch ignorance of the fact of Scott's being Scott. That it may come as a surprise to someone to learn that what they called ‘the Morning Star’ and what they called ‘the Evening Star’ are the same thing or that Cicero is none other than Tully or that Mary Ann Evans is George Eliot, is alleged to show that reference is not a constituent of meaning.

Sense is held by Frege to determine reference. He means that or understanding of a locution never consists merely in our associating something with a word or expression. There must be some means by which this association is effected, the knowledge of which constitutes our grasp of the expression's sense.

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