that some perceptions are so intense as to force the mind in their direction, not
because it chooses to direct itself towards them, but simply because it is driven
to do so by the intensity of the perception. A conception of the mind as entirely
mechanical in operation has room to allow that this could happen. The “move-
ment” of the mind is an automated scanning of the senses, potentially diverted
by the occurrence of intense perceptions and by the controlling influence of the
soul. The mind is not itself a rational agent, and it is only in a relatively weak
sense that the Indian soul–mind division is what one would now call a “divided
mind” hypothesis.^23
What now is the place of reason in perception? The function of the soul is to
integrate the content of distinct perceptions across times and between sensory
modalities (NB 3.1.1). It has the power to identify the object of some past per-
ception and an object currently being perceived. The identity “this is the same
as that” is not given in perception, but discovered or “imagined” by the soul. The
same is true across sensory modalities at a given time. Physical objects are per-
ceived only by sight and touch, but the identification of an object held in one’s
hand with an object currently being seen with one’s eyes is the work of reason
and not of perception. Such identifications require one to be able to assume a
point of view which spans times and crosses sensory modalities. Rationality then
has a reconstitutive role in aligning our perceptions with each other, so that they
come to represent a world of temporally extended and modality-independent
objects.^24
The possibility of transtemporal and transmodal identification of objects is
said by the Nya ̄ya to be the best argument for the existence of the soul as dis-
tinct from the mind or the senses, and as the final refutation of the Buddhist
analysis of the person as a mere continuum of discrete consciousnesses. For how
is a reidentification of an object possible by one who exists only for a moment?
Only a single consciousness spanning time can “simultaneously” witness the
same object at two different times, and recognize it as time same. Only a single
consciousness spanning sense modalities can “simultaneously” witness a single
object through two modalities, and recognize it as the same. The Buddhist asserts
that a momentary consciousness can compare a current perception with a
current memory (produced by the past perception of an earlier momentary con-
sciousness), and so there is no need for there to be a single subject of the current
and past perceptions. The Naiya ̄yika reply is that there is a logicaldifference
between, on the one hand, judging that an object seen now is the same as an
object seen some time ago, and, on the other, keeping track of an object over
a period of time. It is perhaps like the difference between discovering that two
different names refer to the same thing, and using a single name twice.^25
The ability to turn fleeting modality-specific perceptions into thoughts about
enduring physical objects is a concealed art of the soul. It is rational because it
admits of a standard of correctness. Interperceptual identifications can be right
or wrong – the degree to which one can make them accurately, and the extent
which one can do so for perceptions more distant from one another in time or
appearance, is the index of a rational capacity.
428 jonardon ganeri