Agnieszka Rostalska

This preface introduces a special issue of Logica Universalis documenting the 3rd and 4th World Congresses on Logic and Religion (WoCoLoR), held respectively in Varanasi (2022) and Sinaia (2023). It situates the Logic and Religion project within a broader philosophical argument: that rationality, as formally represented by logic, and religion are two foundational and historically intertwined dimensions of human nature. The authors — Agnieszka Rostalska and Jean-Yves Beziau — reflect on the personal and intellectual journeys that shaped their involvement, tracing connections to Krishnamurti, Buddhist thought, Jain studies, and Hindu philosophy. The preface also outlines the structure and mission of the Logic and Religion Association (LARA), based in Warsaw, which serves as the institutional framework for fostering dialogue between logicians and theologians across traditions. Both congresses are described in terms of their thematic scope, keynote commitments to gender balance, and the notable Schopenhauer workshops held in Varanasi and Sinaia. The 16 papers gathered in this special issue span topics ranging from Indian religious philosophy and Christian theology to foundational logical questions. Looking ahead, the authors announce the 5th WoCoLoR, to be held in Vancouver in 2026, chosen for its accessibility, political neutrality, and cosmopolitan religious diversity. The issue as a whole reflects the project’s core commitment to inclusive, rigorous, and genuinely interreligious academic inquiry.

This article examines Udayana’s defense of the existence and persistence of the self in the Ātmatattvaviveka. It argues that Udayana’s contribution should be understood as a logical defense in a broad Nyāya sense: an argumentative strategy that combines inference (anumāna), analysis of perception (pratyakṣa), dialectical refutation of rival views, and attention to the conditions of memory, karma, and liberation. The paper first clarifies the Nyāya background and then reconstructs Udayana’s polemical targets, especially Buddhist momentariness, Yogācāra idealism, materialist reductionism, and the objection from non-apprehension. It distinguishes Udayana’s own appeal to indeterminate perception from both earlier inferential accounts of the self and later Naiyāyika theories of internal mental perception. Two central arguments, from memory and from karmic continuity, are reconstructed in formal terms and in a Nyāya five-member format. The article concludes that Udayana’s treatment of the self is not merely a doctrinal defense of ātman, but a sophisticated contribution to global philosophy of religion and to the Logic and Religion project, because it shows how religiously significant metaphysical claims can be assessed through rigorous methods of reasoning.

Much philosophical thinking about religion in the Anglophone world has been hampered by the constraints of Eurocentrism, colonialism and orientalism. Addressing such limitations head-on, this exciting collection develops models for exploring global diversity in order to bring philosophical studies of religion into the globalized 21st century. Drawing on a wide range of critical theories and methodologies, and incorporating ethnographic, feminist, computational, New Animist and cognitive science approaches, an international team of contributors outline the methods and aims of global philosophy of religion. From considering the importance of orality in African worldviews to interacting with Native American perspectives on the cosmos and investigating contemplative studies in Hinduism, each chapter demonstrates how expertise in different methods can be applied to various geographical regions, building constructive options for philosophical reflections on religion. Diversifying Philosophy of Religion raises important questions regarding who speaks for and represents religious traditions, setting the agenda for a truly inclusive philosophy of religion that facilitates multiple standpoints.

Richard Swinburne (Swinburne and Shoemaker 1984; Swinburne 1986) argues that human beings currently alive have non{bodily immaterial parts called souls. In his main argument in support of this conclusion (modal argument), roughly speaking, from the assumption that it is logically possible that a human being survives the destruction of their body and a few additional premises, he infers the actual existence of souls. After a brief presentation of the argument we describe the main known objection to it, called the substitution objection (SO for short), which is raised by Alston and Smythe (1994), Zimmerman (1991) and Stump and Kretzmann (1996). We then explain Swinburne's response to it (1996). This constitutes a background for the discussion that follows. First, we formalize Swinburne's argument in a quantified propositional modal language so that it is logically valid and contains no tacit assumptions, clearing up some notational issues as we go. Having done that, we explain why we find Swinburne's response unsatisfactory. Next, we indicate that even though SO is quite compelling (albeit for a slightly different reason than the one given previously in the literature), a weakening of one of the premises yields a valid argument for the same conclusion and yet immune to SO. Even this version of the argument, we argue, is epistemically circular.

In the Nyāyasūtras (NS), the fundamental text of the Nyāya tradition, testimony is defined as a statement of a reliable speaker (āpta). According to the NS, such a speaker should possess three qualities: competence, honesty and desire to speak. The content of a discourse, including the prescriptions, is also considered reliable due to the status of a given author and the person that communicated it. The Polish philosopher J.M. Bocheński similarly stresses the role of a speaker; he holds that an authoritative source (whose discourse is called testimony) should be competent and truthful. The conditions of trust and superiority also apply. According to Bocheński, being an authority entails a special relation—it has a subject, object and field. Notably, Bocheński develops his own typology of testimony by distinguishing between what he calls epistemic and deontic authority. He asks questions such as: Who can be the subject of an authoritative statement? Which features should the speaker possess? How is authority recognised? Is there a universal or an absolute authority? What is the field of authority? Moreover, which qualities should the listener possess? The Nyāya philosophers, both the ancient ones, like Akṣapāda Gautama, Vātsyāyana, Vācaspati Miśra, and the contemporary scholars of Nyāya, such as B. K. Matilal and J. Ganeri, were also concerned with these issues. The aim of this paper is to discuss the above points in a comparative manner. I will argue that both Bocheński’s and the Nyāya accounts share very similar perspectives and encounter analogous problems.