How can Nyāya philosophy teach us to argue better, spot bad reasoning, and still live well amid uncertainty?
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1. Guest
Malcolm Keating is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Smith College. His work focuses primarily on Indian philosophy. In this interview, we focus on his book, "Reason in an Uncertain World: Nyāya Philosophers on Argumentation and Living Well".
Check out his book!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DG5ZTTCP/
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/reason-in-an-uncertain-world-9780197634257
Check out his page!
https://www.youtube.com/@UCtmzNhD4qq9HZYKkqBV3C8A
2. Book Summary
Reason in an Uncertain World argues that Nyāya philosophers offer something modern “critical thinking” usually doesn’t: a unified picture of how reasoning and argumentation connect to living well. Keating starts from the fact that we now face an overwhelming stream of claims and controversies, and while people often look to “ancient wisdom” for emotional stability, they look elsewhere for tools to sort truth from fiction. Nyāya, he argues, can do both: it treats reasoning skills and debate practices as socially embedded ways of getting to truth and as crucial for leading happy, virtuous, meaningful lives.
The first half of the book develops Nyāya’s epistemology as a response to uncertainty and suffering. Chapter 1 sets the historical stage and introduces the Nyāya thought that understanding (especially epistemology) can relieve pain and suffering, orienting inquiry toward an “excellent” human goal; Keating illustrates this with Nyāya reflections on duḥkha and the attraction of a final state without pain and suffering. Chapters 2–6 then build a toolkit of “ways of knowing” (including perception, inference, and testimony), highlighting the idea of “certification” (reflectively checking that one really knows), the structure and varieties of inference (and how counterfeit inferences arise through pseudo-reasons), how to evaluate testimony and handle conflicting reports, and how doubt—especially doubt arising from controversy—can be a rational trigger for further inquiry rather than a skeptical dead-end.
The second half turns from knowing to arguing: how people should (and often do) reason together when disagreements become interpersonal. Nyāya distinguishes truth-seeking “discussion” from competitive formats like disputation (aimed at victory), and Keating uses that contrast to analyze fallacies, equivocations, misleading objections, and the “points of defeat” that explain how someone can lose a debate even without directly refuting their view. The closing chapter draws the ethical lesson: because real debates often mix truth-seeking with ego, politics, and high stakes, Nyāya thinkers sometimes allow even morally serious arguers to use less-than-ideal argumentative tactics in special circumstances—while still treating reasoned discourse as a practice that shapes (and is shaped by) character and virtue.
3. Interview Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
00:59 - Overview of book
02:27 - Modern relevance
10:34 - Background of Nyāya
20:00 - Perception
25:44 - Concerns with perception
31:38 - Inference
36:40 - Probabilistic inferences
42:38 - Testimony
50:04 - Reasoning errors
58:34 - Doubt
1:07:56 - Debate and argumentation
1:15:00 - Wrangling
1:18:55 - Living well
1:25:04 - Value of philosophy
1:28:56 - Conclusion
