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The gentle murder paradox in Sanskrit philosophy. (English) Zbl 07655698

Liu, Fenrong (ed.) et al., Deontic logic and normative systems. 15th international conference, DEON 2020/2021. London: College Publications. 17-35 (2021).
Summary: For decades, the gentle murder paradox has been a central challenge for deontic logic. This article investigates its millennia-old counterpart in Sanskrit philosophy: the śyena controversy. We analyze three solutions provided by Mīmāṃsā, the Sanskrit philosophical school devoted to the analysis of normative reasoning in the Vedas, in which the controversy originated. We introduce axiomatizations and semantics for the modal logics formalizing the deontic theories of the main Mīmāṃsā philosophers Prabhākara, Kumārila, and Maṇḍana. The resulting logics are used to analyze their distinct solutions to the śyena controversy, which we compare with formal approaches developed within the contemporary field of deontic logic.
For the entire collection see [Zbl 1504.03010].

MSC:

03B45 Modal logic (including the logic of norms)
03B60 Other nonclassical logic
03B20 Subsystems of classical logic (including intuitionistic logic)
03A05 Philosophical and critical aspects of logic and foundations
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