THE OTHER AND THE SELF: INTERSUBJECTIVITY IN THE IPVV

THE OTHER AND THE SELF: INTERSUBJECTIVITY IN THE IPVV

The other-minds inference refuted, the yogipratyakṣa, and the recognition of the other as myself (V1L, V2F, V2B)

• 026-08-11. If all is the self, how is the other real? This is the hardest problem of the recognition-
• ilosophy — the crux Ratié's Ch. 8 poses (solipsism or intersubjectivity?) and the crux the
• erture-inexternalism flags as the IPVV's open point (the decomposition problem). This essay expounds
• e IPVV's full treatment of the other: the refutation of the other-minds inference (V2F), the
• sitive account of the other's perception in the yogipratyakṣa (V1L), the self-cognition's freedom to
• nifest the other (V2B), and the honest boundary this leaves.*

1. The problem

• e recognition-thesis claims all is the self — the world is the self-articulation of consciousness.
• t then how is the other real? If there is only one self, either:

• The other is a projection over nothing (solipsism) — the self's imagination of another that is not
• ally another; or
• The other is real, a genuine self — but then how, if all is one?

• e Buddhist (Vijñānavādin) has an answer: the other stream of consciousness can be inferred from
• havior. Abhinavagupta attacks this inference, and then supplies the positive account.

2. The refutation of the other-minds inference (V2F)

• e Buddhist hopes to escape solipsism by inferring another's mind — from Maitra's speech, his uttered
• rds and gestures, one can infer what is going on in his mind, the other stream. Abhinavagupta shows
• is inference cannot work:

• The candana/agni example.* To infer the fire *in the sandalwood from the smoke, you must set aside
• e sandalwood's fragrance — the very thing that marks this smoke as coming from sandalwood. Without it
• u establish only fire in general, not the sandalwood-fire. To infer another's mind, you would need
• actly such a further distinction — the "being-gone-to-the-other," the fact that this utterance belongs
• Maitra and not to you. And that distinction cannot be inferred from the mere utterance. "The
• terance could belong to anything; nothing in it, by itself, says 'this is Maitra's intent, this is
• other's mind.'"

• The cow/speckled point.** If every additional feature were a "further distinction," then "cow" and
• peckled" would be separate things, and "the cow is the speckled" would fail. But that statement holds;
• a real further-distinction is something that rests apart from the thing, and the "being-gone-to-the-
• her" does not rest apart from the mere utterance in the way that would make it inferable.

• The samīhitā-niyama.* Only the *aimed action is the wish's effect. A wish produces the action it
• tends, not a mere utterance that could be aimed at anything. So from Maitra's mere utterance one
• nnot infer his wish, since the utterance does not reveal which aim it serves. If the mere utterance
• fficed, then even the piśāca-like case — a grotesque action in someone's appearing — would have to be
• tablished as his intent, which is absurd.

• The conclusion.** The other-stream cannot be inferred; the mere appearances do not reach another's
• nd. "The appearances alone suffice for the dealings of the world" (kārikā 6): we do not need a hidden
• ternal object or a separate stream behind the appearances.

3. The positive account: the yogipratyakṣa (V1L)

• the other cannot be inferred, how is the other known? The IPVV's answer: by perception — the
• gipratyakṣa, the direct perception of the yogin.

"The yogin's knowledge of another is a perception, not an inference. It is the yogipratyakṣa. By

the discipline of the yogin — the holding, the meditating, the samādhi — one comes, in the union with

the other, to meditate the non-difference of the self from the other." (V1L)

• The mechanism.** The yogin, by the discipline, thins the body and meditates the non-difference of the
• lf from the other. That meditation, following the truth of the thing (for in truth there is unity,
• d the conceit of difference is māyā-made), makes the other's cognition shine forth directly, clearly,
• a thing seen — not inferred, not concluded. As the yoga-sūtra says, the knowledge of another's
• gnition comes by the saṃyama.

• The key point.** The other's cognition, thus seen, is a direct seeing (sākṣātkāra), not a conclusion
• out another stream. And in that act, the self that sees and the self that are seen are one. The other
• ower, too, is not manifested by another; he is self-luminous, and in the yogin's perception the two
• e one.

• Why this matters.* The other is not *inferred (the inference fails, V2F); the other is seen — and
• en as one's own self-luminous awareness. This is Ratié's claim ("being conscious of the other's
• istence is recognizing one's own subjectivity outside oneself") given its mechanism: the other is
• cognized as the self, in the direct perception that unifies the two.

4. The self-cognition's freedom to manifest the other (V2B)

• e deep ground of the yogipratyakṣa is the nature of cognition itself. Cognition is self-cognition
• vasaṃvitti) — it is self-luminous, distinguishing it utterly from the inert. And precisely because it
• self-cognition, it is free to manifest the other:

"The inert cannot do this; only the self-luminous awareness can. So the yogin's knowledge of another

is nothing other than the other's own-cognition, self-luminous, which the yogin — by the purity and

the un-opposed spreading of his own cognition — comes to know." (V2B)

• The move.** The self-cognition that knows itself is free, in its freedom, to shine upon another's
• gnition. The other is not an exception to the nature of cognition; it is the overflow of the one
• lf-luminous awareness, which, being aware of itself, is free to be aware of all. Memory and
• airvoyance (the other's perception) are not exceptions; they are the same freedom.

5. The objection: can a cognition be the object of another? (V2C)

• e epistemologist objects: a cognition can never be the object of another cognition — the two would
• ve to stand in the relation of object and holder, and between two cognitions no such relation is
• ssible. Abhinavagupta takes this seriously:

• The sārūpya analysis.* A thing is an object of a cognition when the awareness *assimilates its form
• when it takes on the form of the thing. This requires the object to be both like and unlike the
• gnition: in total identity the thing would be the cognition itself, and in total difference there
• uld be nothing to assimilate. But a cognition has no such difference from another cognition. Two
• rrors can reflect one another (their forms, being of place and time, are genuinely distinct); two
• gnitions cannot (their form is the self-luminous awareness, which has nothing in it to be set over
• ainst another awareness).

• The conclusion.** The object-holder relation between two cognitions is impossible. The cognition is
• lf-luminous and never the object of another. This is the establishment of the not-inert knower (the
• aḍa pramātṛ), with which the vimarśa on memory comes to its close.

• The tension with the yogipratyakṣa, resolved.** If a cognition is never the object of another, how
• es the yogin perceive another's cognition? The resolution is that the yogin does not perceive the
• her's cognition as an object; he perceives it as his own self-luminous awareness, in the union. The
• her's cognition is not objectified; it is the yogin's own awareness, self-luminous. The two are one —
• there is no object-holder relation to be impossible.

6. The honest boundary: the decomposition problem

• e IPVV's account of the other is rich — the inference refuted, the yogipratyakṣa as direct seeing,
• e other as the self's own luminous awareness. But the aperture-inexternalism flags the crux the IPVV
• es not fully close:

• The decomposition problem.* If all is one self, why are the contractions *opaque to each other? Why
• n't I feel your pain, or know your mind, without the yogin's discipline? The IPVV explains the
• ontraction* (the body, the upādhis, the māyā-power); it does not explain why the contractions are
• enuinely private* — why the one self's self-manifestations do not co-sense.

• The IPVV's implicit answer.** The privacy is the māyā-power — the manifestation of the distinct known
• other than the self (V3L). But this is a description, not a mechanism. Why the māyā contracts the one
• to genuinely private fields is the crux the IPVV leaves at the level of the māyā's mystery.

• The honest verdict.** The IPVV refutes the inference of the other [T] and gives the positive account
• he yogipratyakṣa, the other as the self) [T]. But the decomposition problem — why the fields are
• aque — is not closed; it is the point at which the aperture-inexternalism keeps the fields distinct
• d the Śaiva posits the one. The other is recognized as the self [T]; why it appears as other is the
• undary.

7. The map

• Move | Locus | Content |
• -----|-------|---------|
• The other-minds inference refuted | V2F | the candana/agni; the "being-gone-to-the-other"; the samīhitā |
• The appearances suffice | V2F | the ābhāsa is real and enough |
• The yogipratyakṣa | V1L | the other is seen, not inferred, as one's own awareness |
• The self-cognition's freedom | V2B | the self-luminous awareness is free to manifest the other |
• The cognition never an object | V2C | the sārūpya analysis; the ajaḍa pramātṛ |
• The decomposition problem | — | why the fields are opaque (the honest boundary) |

• The thesis.** The IPVV's account of the other is twofold: negatively, it refutes the inference of
• e other stream (V2F); positively, it gives the other as directly perceived in the yogipratyakṣa, as
• e's own self-luminous awareness (V1L, V2B). The other is not inferred but recognized as the self —
• tié's intersubjectivity claim, given its mechanism. And the honest boundary is the decomposition
• oblem: why the one appears as genuinely private others is the crux the IPVV describes (the māyā) but
• es not fully explain. The other is recognized as the self; why it appears as other is the boundary.

• his is the intersubjectivity essay. The IPVV refutes the other-minds inference (V2F), gives the
• her as directly perceived in the yogipratyakṣa (V1L), grounds it in the self-cognition's freedom
• 2B), and protects it against the object-objection (V2C). The other is recognized as the self — and
• e decomposition problem (why the one appears as private others) is the honest boundary.*

SOURCES AND KEY PASSAGES

• IPVV L2: V2F (the other-minds inference refuted; the candana/agni; the samīhitā-niyama), V1L (the yogipratyakṣa; "the yogin's knowledge of another is a perception, not an inference"), V2B (the self-cognition's freedom to manifest the other), V2C (the cognition never an object; the sārūpya analysis). In sanskritree/translations/_stack/ipvv/pilot/.
• Ratié, Ch. 8 (intersubjectivity): "être conscient de l'existence d'autrui, c'est reconnaître hors de soi sa propre subjectivité" (in Le Soi et l'Autre).
• The decomposition problem (the honest boundary): research-library/recognition-aperture/aperture_inexternalism_position.md.