As a part of the Inaugural UNM Asian Philosophy Graduate Conference, Professor Nilanjan Das will present Udayana on Learning by Memory. See abstract below. 

In premodern South Asia, philosophers often claimed that memory is not a means of knowledge-acquisition. But some—especially Jain epistemologists—dissented from this standard view. They argued that conscious memories can help us learn novel truths about past objects and experiences. In doing so, these thinkers countenanced the possibility that we can acquire purely self-locating knowledge—knowledge about ourselves or our spatial or temporal location—by means of memory alone. In this talk, I will focus on a Nyāya philosopher, Udayana (10th-11th century CE), who defended the standard view against this objection. I will reconstruct Udayana's account of memory, and explain how he rules out the possibility of gaining purely self-locating knowledge by means of memory alone. I will then argue that Udayana's response to the Jaina objection is unsuccessful, and in fact reveals a deeper tension within the Nyāya account of memory.