The Nyāya school of classical Indian epistemology defended (by today’s standards) a radical version of epistemic externalism. They also gave arguments from their epistemological positions to an early version of disjunctivism about perceptual experience. In this paper I assess the value of such an argument, concluding that a modified version of the Nyāya argument may be defensible.

Often translated simply as "logic," the Sanskrit word _nyāya_ means "rule of reasoning" or "method of reasoning." Texts from the school of classical Indian philosophy that bears this name are concerned with cognition, reasoning, and the norms that govern rational debate. This translation of selections from the early school of Nyāya focuses on its foundational text, the _Nyāya-sūtra_, with excerpts from the early commentaries. It will be welcomed by specialists and non-specialists alike seeking an accessible text that both represents (...) some of the best of Indian philosophical thought and can be integrated into courses on Indian philosophy, religion, and intellectual culture. (shrink)

While Nyaya texts seldom address the topic of concepts directly, it is my contention that Nyaya system can accommodate a sustained notion of concepts and clarifying its parameters can help us with a debate in Nyaya epistemology of perception that has been popular in contemporary discussion of Indian philosophy. This debate focuses on the exact nature of nirvikalpaka perception and its viability within Nyaya direct realism. One of the central questions in this regard is the role of concepts in our (...) perception. Using an account of concepts developed in contemporary Western philosophy by Millikan as a template I will articulate a few aspects of Nyaya theory of concepts. One of the outcomes of this undertaking will be that Nyaya theory of concept as developed here will not preclude nirvikalpaka perception. (shrink)

The Nyãya philosophy is primarily concerned with the conditions of valid thought and the means of acquiring true knowledge of objects. Its ultimate end, like that of the other systems of Indian philosophy, is liberation-a state of pure existence- which is free from both pleasure and pain. For the attainment of this liberation, a true knowledge of objects is the surest means. Hence the theory of knowledge is the very foundation of the Nyãya system. The Nyãya Theory of Knowledge is (...) the first systematic, critical and comparative treatment of the Nyãya epistemology. It reveals how, as a thorough-going realistic view of the universe, the Nyãya philosophy supplies an important Eastern parallel to the triumphant modern Realism of the West, and contains anticipations of as well as possible alternatives to many contemporary realistic theories. This book is important as much for the correct understanding of ancient Indian philosophy, as for the evaluation of modern Western philosophy. (shrink)

This is an overview of the Nyaya ("Logic") school of classical Indian philosophy, focusing on the earlier period (up to roughly 1000 CE).

The classical Indian school called Nyāya (literally “logic” or “right reasoning”), is arguably the leading anti-skeptical tradition within all of Indian philosophy. Defending a realist metaphysics and an epistemology of “knowledge sources” (pramāṇa), its responses to skepticism are often appropriated by other schools of thought. This paper examines its responses to skeptical arguments from dreams, from “the three times,” from justificatory regress, and over the problem of induction.

This paper focuses on the relevance of Indian epistemology and the philosophy of language to contemporary Western philosophy. Hence it discusses (1) how perceptual, inferential and verbal cognitions are related to the same object, (2) how to draw the distinction in meaning between transformationally equivalent sentences, such as ‘Brutus killed Caesar’ and ‘Caesar was killed by Brutus’, and (3) why the predicate-expression is to be considered as unsaturated but the subjectexpression as saturated. In order to answer these questions the (...) class='Hi'>Nyāya philosophers have discussed the distinction between several pairs of terms, such as ‘subject–predicate’, ‘qualificand–qualifier’ and ‘the first term–the second term’. This paper also deals with the Nyāya conception of inference for others, and the interpretations of the premise called ‘upanaya’ (‘application’) or the cognition called ‘parāmarśa’ (‘operation’). (shrink)

A Nyaya definition the major purpose of which is efficient use of words and avoiding ambiguities and errors, is the statement of a unique feature that belongs to each definiendum and nothing else so that there is none of the three faults of overcoverage, undercoverage and failure to belong to any definiendum. There should be no circularity that is of three kinds, self-dependence (where the definiendum appears in the definiens); mutual dependence (where the definiendum and the definiens are used in (...) the definition of each other) and defining in a circle. A definition should also be economical: there are mainly three kinds of economy; economy in constitution (that avoids including anything superfluous or unnecessary to distinguish the definiendum from everything else), economy in relation (the directly related is preferable to the indirectly related) and economy in cognition (something cognitively prior is preferable to something posterior). While more than one definition is possible that need not state the essence, the test of economy is in place to avoid redundancy and provide criteria of preference among defining features that are unique and non-circular. (shrink)

Much of classical Hindu thought has centered on the question of self: what is it, how does it relate to various features of the world, and how may we benefit by realizing its depths? Attempting to gain a conceptual foothold on selfhood, Hindu thinkers commonly suggest that its distinctive feature is consciousness (caitanya). Well-worn metaphors compare the self to light as its awareness illumines the world of knowable objects. Consciousness becomes a touchstone to recognize the presence of a self. A (...) rock is insentient, void of consciousness, and purely an object. Selves, however, are loci of awareness and thus subjects. Some schools, most notably classical Sāṁkhya and Advaita Vedānta, take this approach to its furthest conclusion: consciousness is not only unique to the self, but is the fundamental feature of selfhood. Other putative features of the self—feelings, memories, moral responsibility, and importantly, agency (kartṛtva)—are taken to be the impositions of insentient matter (prakṛti) or symptoms of primordial illusion (avidyā). Against this position, Nyāya defends a more robust notion of selfhood, placing qualities like desire, aversion, volition, and moral responsibility alongside cognition as the self’s distinctive qualities. These various aspects of selfhood come together neatly when we consider agency. An agent performs intentional actions under her volition, which is triggered by her own cognitive and affective states. Her volitional acts further generate moral consequences which she must bear, and which are, in the Indian context, embodied in the form of karmic merit and demerit. For Nyāya, agency is, therefore, a special expression of the self’s different capacities and potentialities, which coherently binds them together. Nyāya’s view is an important contribution to Indian theories of self as it is a counterpoint to what we may call exclusively cognitive accounts of selfhood in other influential Hindu schools, as noted above. The first half of this paper will consider Nyāya’s conception of agency in relation to selfhood. The second half will discuss Nyāya’s arguments with other Hindu schools—specifically Sāṁkhya—in support of the thesis that the self must be an agent as well as a knower. (shrink)

In contemporary Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind, "attention" is a burgeoning field, with ever-increasing amounts of empirical research and philosophical analysis being directed toward it.1 In this essay I make a first attempt to contrast how Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikas2 and Buddhists would address some aspects of attention that are discussed in that literature. The sources of what I attribute to "Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikas" are the sections dealing with the manas in the Nyāyabhāṣya, Nyāyamañjarī, and Praśastapādabhāṣya. The words "Buddhist" and "Buddhism" in (...) this essay refer specifically to the Sautrāntika Buddhism of Vasubandhu's Abhidharmako-śabhāṣya.3 A comparison... (shrink)

One of the aims of this paper is to discuss the different senses of the term 'existence' as used by the nyaya philosophers. this discussion leads us to a discussion on absence or negation and its role in logic. a discussion on empty terms has also been introduced in this context. according to the nyaya, existence, knowability and nameability are considered as universal properties. the distinction between these universal properties has been discussed in this context. i have also discussed the (...) question whether the nyaya has used redundant terms in designating the same imposed property by using three different terms. a distinction between different senses of the term 'property' has also been discussed in this context. (shrink)

Much of classical Hindu thought has centered on the question of self: what is it, how does it relate to various features of the world, and how may we benefit by realizing its depths? Attempting to gain a conceptual foothold on selfhood, Hindu thinkers commonly suggest that its distinctive feature is consciousness (caitanya). Well-worn metaphors compare the self to light as its awareness illumines the world of knowable objects. Consciousness becomes a touchstone to recognize the presence of a self. A (...) rock is insentient, void of consciousness, and purely an object. Selves, however, are loci of awareness and thus subjects. Some schools, most notably classical Sāṁkhya and Advaita Vedānta, take this approach to its furthest conclusion: consciousness is not only unique to the self, but is the fundamental feature of selfhood. Other putative features of the self—feelings, memories, moral responsibility, and importantly, agency (kartṛtva)—are taken to be the impositions of insentient matter (prakṛti) or symptoms of primordial illusion (avidyā). Against this position, Nyāya defends a more robust notion of selfhood, placing qualities like desire, aversion, volition, and moral responsibility alongside cognition as the self’s distinctive qualities. These various aspects of selfhood come together neatly when we consider agency. An agent performs intentional actions under her volition, which is triggered by her own cognitive and affective states. Her volitional acts further generate moral consequences which she must bear, and which are, in the Indian context, embodied in the form of karmic merit and demerit. For Nyāya, agency is, therefore, a special expression of the self’s different capacities and potentialities, which coherently binds them together. Nyāya’s view is an important contribution to Indian theories of self as it is a counterpoint to what we may call exclusively cognitive accounts of selfhood in other influential Hindu schools, as noted above. The first half of this paper will consider Nyāya’s conception of agency in relation to selfhood. The second half will discuss Nyāya’s arguments with other Hindu schools—specifically Sāṁkhya—in support of the thesis that the self must be an agent as well as a knower. (shrink)

Inductive inference faces the problem of induction, while Nyāya inference confronts Cārvāka objections. It has been generally agreed that the problem of induction is essentially similar to the Cārvāka objections against the validity of Nyāya inference. In this article, I will endeavor to refute this claim. The objections Cārvāka raised against inference, I shall argue, do not construe the problem of induction. I will analyze Udayana and Mādhavācārya's works on Cārvāka objections against inference to support my claim. Following (...) Udayanācārya, I will distinguish between naive and sophisticated versions of the Cārvāka attack on inference and try to show that neither version of the Cārvāka objection poses the problem of induction. I will also examine Mādhava's formulation of Cārvāka objection to support the same. Moreover, a detailed analysis and interpretation of Udayanācārya's replies to the Cārvāka objections against inference will be presented. I will conclude the paper by showing that Udayanācārya's replies also do not constitute a solution to the problem of induction. (shrink)

Scholarly disquisitions on Nyāya(-Vaiśeṣika) philosophy in the English language generally agree in calling it “metaphysical realism” or simply “realism.” Metaphysical realism or realism as understood in the West is the doctrine that (1) substances (particulars)/things and events exist independently of the knowing/thinking mind, and that (2) they exemplify properties/qualities and enter into relations—in short, universals—independently of the concepts by which we know them and, Nyāya would add, even of the language with which we describe them. This mind-independent world (...) is supposed to be something correspondence with which renders our particular beliefs/cognitions determinately true or false. Thus, realism, in all .. (shrink)

This paper elaborates upon various responses to the Problem of the One over the Many, in the service of two central goals. The first is to situate Huayan's mereology within the context of Buddhism's historical development, showing its continuity with a broader tradition of philosophizing about part-whole relations. The second goal is to highlight the way in which Huayan's mereology combines the virtues of the Nyāya-Vaisheshika and Indian Buddhist solutions to the Problem of the One over the Many while (...) avoiding their vices. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the navya-Nyaya school of indian philosophy determines the truth or falsity of a sentence which contains an empty term, And to point out some similarities and differences between its method of analysis and truth-Value determinations of such sentences and that of bertrand russell.

In his celebrated treatise of Navya-nyāya, the Tattvacintāmaṇi, Gaṅgeśa offers a detailed formulation of the inference of God’s existence. Gaṅgeśa’s inference generated significant commentarial literature among Naiyāyikas in Mithilā, Navadvīpa and Vārāṇasī, but also attracted the attention of South Indian scholars, notably Vyāsatīrtha, who comments on it extensively in the Tarkatāṇḍava. In the wake of Vyāsatīrtha’s pioneering critique, the 16th-century Sanskrit polymath Appaya Dīkṣita developed a revised version of Gaṅgeśa’s inference in his magnum opus of Śivādvaita Vedānta, the Śivārkamaṇidīpikā. (...) This article highlights that Appaya was thoroughly acquainted with the technical idiom of Navya-nyāya and sufficiently conversant with its literature to address authoritatively one of its key problems. Appaya’s contribution sheds new light on how the Navya-nyāya tradition continued to flourish in South India during the late medieval period. (shrink)

This work is a translation of selected sutras of the Nyāya-sūtra, together with relevant extracts from three commentaries: Nyāya-sūtra-bhāṣya of Vātsyāyana; Nyāya-vārttika of Uddyotakara; and Nyāya-vārttika-tātparya-ṭīkā of Vācaspatimiśra. The translators' introduction gives a general overview of the Nyāya school, its overall aims, and its place within classical Indian philosophy. Each of the nine chapters covers a particular topic in the Nyāya scheme: knowledge sources, philosophical method, the Nyāya defense of metaphysical realism, the self, (...) substance and causation, God, theory of meaning, value theory, and debate. For a given topic there will be sūtras... (shrink)

Samavaya, the sixth category in the Kanada-sutra, the corner stone of the Nyaya-Vaisesika system of philosophy, on which the grand edifice of the said school has been assiduously built by the followers, from Prasastapada to Sridhara, Uddyotakara to Udayana and Gangesa, has been dealt with in this work, in its entirety and established that the theory of causality depends on Samavaya.The criticism against the concept of Samavaya by the other schools of philosophy, more particularly the attack mounted on it by (...) Buddhist logicians Dharmakirti, Asoka Pandita, Santaraksita, et al. and the Jain scholars such as Akalanka, Manikyanandin and Prabhacandra have been presented in their full vigour. The arguments in defence of Samavaya marshalled by scholars of the Navya-Nyaya school are also put forward, maintaining their flavour, strength and sharpness. By presenting the strength and weakness of all arguments for and against the concept of Samavaya, the present work establishes the concept of Samavaya in its true perspective. This comprehensive work on Samavaya, published for the first time, helps to understand the basic theory of creation and the emergence of the world order as propounded and upheld by the Nyaya-Vaisesika school of philosophy. This is a significant contribution to the modern review of Indian philosophy. (shrink)

The Bhagavad-Gita, as a multivalent text, has been a source of inspiration for all areas of Indian thought. This paper identifies elements in the Bhagavad-Gita which may have influenced the formation of Nyaya philosophy in the centuries after it was written. Part one of the paper reviews Nyaya epistemology as a whole, focusing on aspects that play an important role in the Bhagavad-Gita: perception (pratyaksa), inference (anumana), ‘syllogism’, verbal utterance (sabda) and the practical orientation of knowledge. The second part shows (...) how those aspects appear in the text of the Bhagavad-Gita. In praticular, Krishna relies on a number of techniques in convincing Arjuna of his obligation as a ksatria which would later be formalized in Nyaya philosophy as pramana or methods of knowing. As a whole, the Bhagavad-Gita also emphasizes the Nyaya view that knowledge is only useful insofar as it helps the knower achieve a particular goal. This paper does not, and has no pretention to prove the existence of a direct line of influence connection the Bhagavad-Gita and Nyaya philosophy; readers will instead gain an appreciation of the shared cultural context which gave rise to both of these forms of Indian thought. Abstrak Bhagavad-Gita, sebagai teks yang multitafsir, telah menjadi sumber inspirasi bagi segala pemikiran India. Makalah ini mengidentifikasikan unsur-unsur dalam Bhagavad-Gita yang mungkin memengaruhi pembentukan filsafat Nyaya selama beberapa abad setelah Bhagavad-Gita ditulis. Bagian pertama makalah meringkas epistemologi Nyaya secara keseluruhan dengan berfokus pada aspek-aspek yang memainkan peran penting dalam Bhagavad-Gita: persepsi (pratyaksa), penyimpulan (anumana), ‘silogisme’, saksi verbal (sabda), dan orientasi praktis pengetahuan. Bagian kedua memperlihatkan bagaimana aspek-aspek tersebut muncul dalam teks Bhagavad-Gita. Secara khusus, Krishna mengandalkan berbagai teknik dalam meyakinkan Arjuna akan kewajibannya sebagai ksatria yang kemudian diformalkan dalam filsafat Nyaya sebagai pramana atau sarana pengetahuan. Secara keseluruhan, Bhagavad-Gita juga menekankan pandangan Nyaya bahwa pengetahuan hanya berguna sejauh dapat membantu si penahu mencapai tujuan tertentu. Makalah ini tidak dapat membuktikan adanya garis pengaruh langsung yang menghubungkan Bhagavad-Gita dengan filsafat Nyaya; namun, kita tetap dapat mengapresiasi suatu ‘kemiripan keluarga’ di antara keduanya yang menunjukkan kekayaan konteks kebudayaan yang menghasilkan kedua buah pemikiran peradaban India ini. (shrink)

Misperception is part of the human condition. Consider a classic case of coming to confirm that one has had a misperception. On a stroll through the woods you see, in the distance, what seems to be a person. As you draw near, what looked like a person now appears to be a wooden post with a hat on it. On arrival you touch the post to confirm that it is not a person. From a pre-theoretical perspective, what has happened? On (...) your approach you judged that there was a person, based on what you saw. When near, you judged that it was a post and not a person, and then by touch you confirmed that what you initially saw was a misperception.In examining cases of misperception it is important to ask: what role does concept .. (shrink)

In this paper I revisit the early Nyāya argument for the existence of a self. In section 1, I reconstruct the argument in Nyāya-sūtra 1.1.10 as an argument from recognition following the interpretation in the Nyāyasūtra-Bhāṣya and the Nyāya-Vārttika. In Section 2, I reassess the plausibility of the Nyāya argument from memory/recognition in the Bhāṣya and the Vārttika in the light of recent empirical research. I conclude that the early Nyāya version of the argument from (...) recognition can only establish a minimal conclusion that self is a unitary and persisting conscious agent, in contrast to the ontological conclusion that the self is distinct a substance qualified by consciousness. In the final section, I address the tension between the two conclusions in Nyāya and suggest how it might be resolved. (shrink)

It is commonly believed that the given consists of particulars cognized as such in perceptual experiences. Against this belief it is argued that perceptual cognition must be restricted to universal features. A Nyāya-Kantian argument is presented to reveal the incoherence in the very idea of a conception-free awareness of particulars. For the Naiyāyika philosophers and Kant, conceptualization is a necessary ingredient of perceptual experience, since perceptual cognition requires the possibility of recognition. From this it follows that perceptual cognition must (...) be restricted to universal features. This is surprising, for it rules out the possibility of knowledge of particulars. This counterintuitive consequence can be avoided by reconsidering our intuitive notion of knowledge of particulars. (shrink)

In this book, Phillips gives an overview of the contribution of Nyaya--the classical Indian school that defends an externalist position about knowledge as well as an internalist position about justification. Nyaya literature extends almost two thousand years and comprises hundreds of texts, and in this book, Phillips presents a useful overview of the under-studied system of thought. For the philosopher rather than the scholar of Sanskrit, the book makes a whole range of Nyaya positions and arguments accessible to students of (...) epistemology who are unfamiliar with classical Indian systems. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present the Nyāya concept of number in the light of contemporary philosophy and to show that the Frege-Russell concept of number does not contradict the Nyāya concept of number but rather supplements it.

Although a number of authors have used diagrams extensively in their studies of Navya-Nyāya, they have done so to explain and illustrate concepts, not with the goal of reasoning with the diagrams themselves. Adherents of diagrammatic reasoning have made claims for its potential by pointing to key structural correspondences between diagrams and logical concepts, arguably lacking in sentential representations, and describing these relations using concepts such as “well matchedness” and “iconicity”. A canonical example of this iconicity is the use (...) of Euler diagrams to depict categorical syllogisms. Since the meaning of expressions in Indian logic differs in so many important ways from logic in the Western tradition, the use or adaptation of diagrams developed in the latter would seem to preclude iconicity. Thus, the development of diagrams which reflect the nature of inference in Navya-Nyāya, which centres on the anumāna inference schema, is motivated. In this paper we extend Ganeri’s method of depicting the Vaiśeṣika ontology with graphs to include syntax intended to expose the nature of anumāna. The diagrams are given a formal basis: i.e. abstract syntax, inference rules defined abstractly and a graph-theoretic semantics. These are the first formalised logical diagrams that aim to reflect the nature of the anumāna inference. This paper lays the way for further work in extending the formalism to cover more of Navya-Nyāya, and in exploring a dialogue between properties of the formalism and of Navya-Nyāya. (shrink)