("real-world
prejudice") Ramanuja, the eleventh-century philosopher and creator of
Vishishthadvaita Vedanta, proposed an error theory.
Yathakhyati ("discrimination [of things] as they
are") is another name for this idea.
The goal of all error theories is to explain why individuals
make mistakes in judgment, with the most common example being mistaking a
glittering flash of sea shell for a piece of silver.
Ramanuja's theory is founded on the idea that everything is
made up of the five elements, and that the varying proportions of the
components account for the variations between them.
Because this is a feature shared by both shell and silver,
the spectator is accurate in seeing the silvery flash.
The mistake is in assuming the item is silver—in other
words, in taking the portion of the judgment that is right and making an
erroneous assumption based on it.
According to some of the other ideas, the fundamental reason
one "sees" silver and not other silvery objects is due to karmic
dispositions arising from avidya, notably the desire for silver that drives us
to seek out such valuable stuff.
Bijayananda Kar, Theories of Error in Indian Philosophy,
1978; Karl H. Potter (ed. ), Presuppositions of India's Philosophy, 1972.
