## 1. Common Presuppositions of Classical Indian Schools




Commonalities in the classical Indian approaches to knowledge and
justification frame the arguments and refined positions of the major
schools. Central is a focus on occurrent knowledge coupled with a
theory of "mental dispositions" called
*samskara*. Epistemic evaluation of
memory, and indeed of all standing belief, is seen to depend upon the
epistemic status of the occurrent cognition or awareness or awarenesses
that formed the memory, i.e., the mental disposition, in the first
place. Occurrent knowledge in turn must have a knowledge source,
*pramana*.


### 1.1 Knowledge and Knowledge Sources




A common failure of translators rendering the technical terms of the
Indian epistemological schools into the technical terms, or even not so
technical, of English and analytic philosophy, is ignorance of the
latter. For example, several words, the most common of which is
'*jnana*', are standardly rendered with the
word 'knowledge' in English (e.g., Bhatt 1989). However, proper
Sanskrit usage allows "false" *jnana*, whereas
there is no false knowledge as the words are used in (analytic)
English. There is a deeper lesson here than that translators should
study Western philosophy, the lesson, namely, that although there may
be false *jnana*--let us say "cognition":
there are true and false cognition--it is commonly assumed in everyday
speech as well as by the Indian epistemologists (with a few exceptions,
notably, the second-century Buddhist Nagarjuna and certain
followers including Sriharsa, the
eleventh-century Advaitin) that cognition is ordinarily by nature true
or veridical. It is error and falsity that are the deviations from the
normal and natural. That is to say, cognition is regarded as knowledge
as a kind of conversational default--and so to translate
'*jnana*' as "knowledge" turns out
not to be so bad after all. When the eighth-century Advaitin
Sankara says that from the
perspective of spiritual knowledge (*vidya*) the
knowledge we recognize in everyday speech turns out to be illusory,
*mithya-jnana*,
"false knowledge," this is supposed to be felt as almost a
contradiction in terms (*Brahma-sutra Commentary*,
preamble).




Now it is argued by practically everyone (save the anti-epistemology
group headed by Nagarjuna) that at least everyday knowledge
is proved by our unhesitating action
(*niskampa-prvrtti*) to
get what we want and avoid what we want to avoid. We would not so act
if we had doubt, guided as we are by our knowledge. Belief, which
cognition embeds, is tied to action, and action, in turn, blunts the
force of skepticism, it is pointed out in several of the classical
schools. Buddhist Yogacara as well as
Mimamsa and (most)
Vedanta view knowledge as inherently known to be true. Even
Nyaya, a school championing a view of knowledge as unselfconscious
of itself as true, subscribes to the epistemological principle of
"Innocent until reasonably challenged" (a slight weakening of the
"Innocent until proven guilty," as pointed out, e.g., by Matilal 1986,
314: "Verbal reports ... are innocent until proven guilty").
Surprisingly (given the rancor in some exchanges across school), the
sixth-century Nyaya philosopher Uddyotakara, who is famous for his
attacks on Yogacara positions, takes a similarly charitable
attitude to be a rule applying to other philosophies: "For it is a rule
with systems (of philosophy) that a position of another that is not
expressly disproved is (to be regarded as) in conformity (with one's
own)" (under *Nyaya-sutra* 1.1.4:
125**).**




Knowledge is cognition that has been produced in the right way.
Cognitions are moments of consciousness, not species of belief, but we
may say that cognitions form beliefs in forming dispositions and that
veridical cognitions form true beliefs. A knowledge episode--to speak
in the Indian manner--is a cognition generated in the right fashion.
Whether this be because it is (as say the realists,
Mimamsa, Nyaya,
Vaisesika) that it has the right
origins in fact, or whether it is because it guides successful action
in helping us get our desires satisfied (as say Yogacara
idealists and pragmatists), knowledge is cognition that arises in the
right way. There are different theories of truth, but everyone sees
knowledge as not only revealing the truth but arising from it.
Knowledge episodes form non-occurrent knowledge (it is assumed, we may
say), and so an examination of what is crucial to the arising of a
knowledge episode is crucial to the evaluations of epistemology.
Knowledge cannot arise by accident. A lucky guess, though true or
veridical, would not count as knowledge because it would not been
generated in the right fashion, would not have the right pedigree or
etiology. The central notion throughout classical Indian epistemology
is the "knowledge source," *pramana*,
which is a process of veridical-cognition generation.




Now the word '*pramana*'
("knowledge source") and the result
'*prama*' ("knowledge"; this is a
technical usage that matches, practically perfectly, the analytic
usages of 'knowledge' in English) along with the words
used for individual knowledge sources, for perception and so on, are
commonly used such that the truth of the resultant cognition is
implied. This runs counter to English usage, along with broad
philosophic supposition, which is different with the words
'perception' and company. For no knowledge source ever
generates a false belief. Yogacara Buddhists--who
subscribe to the metaphysical view known as momentariness, which is a
presentism (only things existing right now are real)--claim that
there is no difference between source and result, process of knowledge
and effect, *pramana* and
*prama*. Thus there can be no wedge driven between cause
and effect such that there could possibly be true belief by accident. The
Vedic schools (Mimamsa,
Vedanta, Nyaya, Vaisesika,
Samkhya, Yoga) do distinguish knowledge from
true belief but also see the concepts of truth and knowledge-producing process as
wedded in that, as indicated, no genuine knowledge source ever produces
a false belief. Only pseudo-sources do. That is to say, no
non-veridical cognition is knowledge-source-generated. A knowledge
source is then not merely a reliable doxastic practice. Being merely
reliable does not fit the bill. The concept of a knowledge source has a
truth logic, like 'knowledge' in English; it is factive. Maybe we
should say perception\*, inference\*, testimony\* to render the classical
Indian ideas. False testimony, for example, does not count as a
knowledge-generator; the Sanskrit word for testimony is used only for
what would be termed in English "epistemically successful testimony,"
i.e., with a hearer having knowledge in virtue of a speaker telling the
truth. A non-veridical perception is not really a perception at all but
a "pseudo-perception"
(*pratyaksa-abhasa*),
"apparent perception," a perception imitator. You don't really
*see* an illusory snake; you only think you see one.


### 1.2 The Touchstone of Everyday Speech


Everyday patterns of speech
(*vyavahara*) are taken as a starting
point for theorizing in epistemology as in other areas of philosophy.
So, for example, perception and inference--more exotic candidate
sources, too--are defended as veritable knowledge-generators by the
observation that people commonly regard them in that way. People cite a
belief's pedigree in questions of justification. Note that even in
English we do commonly recognize perception and some of the others as
certificational. Thus this seems to be a common human practice, not
restricted to classical Indian civilization, for sometimes we say, for
instance, "S is indeed over there, since I see him," and "You couldn't
really have perceived S because condition Y does not hold" ("You can't
see anyone from this distance"). Habits of speech are reinforced by
success in action, classical theorists recognize in accepting the
presumptive authority of common opinion. But "a knowledge source" may
be thought of as a technical term, one that entails factivity, as we
have seen, as a matter of definition. Similarly with justification
(*pramanya*), the having of
which, if veritable (or objective), as opposed to the apparent
(*abhasa*), means that the justified
cognition is true.


### 1.3 Knowledge and World-Transcendence


There is much controversy over the religious goal of life among the
several schools, both among schools accepting Vedic culture (liberation
vs. heaven, individual dissolution into the Absolute Brahman, blissful
yogic "isolation," *kaivalya*, enjoyment of God's presence) and
among outsider schools (Buddhist
*nirvana* or becoming a
*bodhi-sattva* or a Jaina *arhat* as well as
Carvaka's entire rejection of soteriology). But from a
distance, we can see common conceptions linking at least many of the
Indian views. One is to draw a distinction between everyday and
spiritual knowledge and to theorize about their relationship. A
prominent position is that thinking about the world is an obstacle to
spiritual enlightenment. Another is that proper understanding of the
world helps one disengage and to know oneself as separate from material
things, and so is an aid to transcendence. The most distinctive form of
skepticism in classical Indian thought is that so-called worldly
knowledge is not knowledge at all but is a perversion or deformation of
consciousness. Who seems a philosophical skeptic is really a saint
helping us achieve our truly greatest good of world-transcendence by
helping us see paradoxes and other failures of theory.


## 2. Skepticism


With an eye to the alleged power of inference to prove the
existence of God or personal survival, the Carvaka
materialist school recognizes perception as a knowledge source but not
inference nor any other candidate. Inference depends upon
generalizations which outstrip perceptual evidence, everything F as a
G. No one can know that, Carvaka claims. Testimony is also no
good since it presupposes that a speaker would tell the truth and
thus is subject to the same criticism of lack of evidence. And so on
through the other candidates (Madhava,
*Sarva-darsana-samgraha*). The
standard response is pragmatic. We could not act as we do if we could
not rely on inference (etc.) albeit inference does depend on
generalization that (often, not invariably) outstrips experience. The
skeptic himself relies on such generalizations when he opens his mouth
to voice his skepticism, by using words with repeatable meanings
(Gangesa, inference
chapter, *Tattva-cinta-mani*).


The Carvaka argument identifying the problem of induction
is turned by both Buddhist and Nyaya philosophers into an argument
for fallibilism about inference. What we take to be the result of a
genuine inference may turn out to hinge on a fallacy, a
*hetv-abhasa*, an apparent but misleading "reason" or
sign (see the section below on inference). But to accept that sometimes
we reason in ways that mimic but fail to instantiate right forms is not
to be a skeptic. Indeed, the very concept of a fallacy
(*hetv-*abhasa) presupposes that of the veritable
reason or sign (*hetu*), a veritable prover making us have new
knowledge.



A different kind of skepticism is broader in scope, not restricted to
inference or other candidate sources. It appears both in Buddhism and
Advaita Vedanta, but let us rehearse only the Buddhist version. By
discerning absurdities that arise in viewing anything as having an
independent existence, one realizes, as Nagarjuna says, that
everything is *nihsvabhava, "*without a
reality of its own." Applying this to oneself, one comes to see the
truth of the Buddha's teaching of *anatman,* "no-self,"
which is viewed as a decisive step toward the *summum bonum* of
enlightenment and perfection
(*prajna-paramita*). In
particular, Nagarjuna identifies a problem of a justification
regress in the *pramana* program
(*Vigraha-vyavartini*, v. 33), which assumes
that process and result can be separated, along with various conundra
or paradoxes concerning relations (such as the so-called Bradley
problem). The *Nyaya-sutra* argues that the
Nagarjunian type of skepticism is self-defeating (4.2.26-36),
but many of the problems identified by the Buddhist (and his
intellectual inheritors such as
Sriharsa) occupy the
reflections of philosophers for centuries, Buddhist as well as
Nyaya and Mimamsa among Vedic schools in particular.



## 3. Knowing That You Know




One of the philosophic problems that Nagarjuna raised for
epistemology has to do with an alleged regress of justification on the
assumption that a *pramana* is
required in order to know and that to identify the source of a bit of
knowledge is to certify the proposition embedded. Nagarjuna
claims that this is absurd in that it would require an infinite series
of *pramana*, of identification of a
more fundamental *pramana* for every
*pramana* relied on.




Mimamsa and Vedanta
philosophers argue that such a threat of regress shows that knowledge
is self-certifying, *svatah
pramanya*. Vedantins connect
the Upanishadic teaching of a truest or deepest self
(*atman*) as having "self-illumining awareness"
(*sva-prakasa*) with a
Mimamsa epistemological theory
of self-certification: at least in the case of spiritual knowledge
(*vidya*) awareness is self-aware. From this it follows
that only awareness is right concerning all questions about awareness,
since only awareness itself has, so to say, access to itself. Awareness
itself is the only consideration relevant to any question about
awareness itself, its existence or its nature.




Mimamsa defends Vedic truth
by claiming that knowledge of it wears its certification on its sleeve
like everyday knowledge where the initial credibility of an occurrent
cognition seems practically absolute. According to Prabhakara
Mimamsa (from the late seventh
century), no cognition that in itself purports to be veridical is
indeed non-veridical; no cognition is absolutely wrong but at worst a
confusion. The same causal nexus that produces a veridical cognition
produces knowledge of its veridicality. According to
Bhatta
Mimamsa (deriving from
Kumarila, Prabhakara's teacher), veridicality is known
through the process of inference whereby a cognition itself would be
known as having occurred. A cognition, which is an act, produces a
feature in the object it cognizes, a "cognizedness," and then from
apprehension of this feature both the original cognition and its
veridicality are known. Certification is thus intrinsic to a
cognition's being known, that is, with cognitions that are veridical.
With respect to knowledge of non-veridicality, extrinsic certification
is necessary.




Nyaya takes an extrinsicality view of certification
(*paratah
pramanya*)--it denies that
*Kp* entails *KKp*; to know that you know requires
apperceptive certification--and so seems vulnerable to the regress
charge. The solution involves the notion of "apperception"
(*anuvyavasaya*), which is a second-level cognition that
has another cognition as its object without
itself being self-aware. Certification, psychologically considered,
involves apperception, a seeing that a challenged, target cognition is
false or true.



Vatsyayana (fourth century, whose
*Nyaya-sutra* commentary is the oldest extant)
expressly rebuts the regress charge (we do sometimes certify our claims
without having to certify the certifiers) under
*Nyaya-sutra* 2.1.20 (448-49, translation
mine):




> 
> If comprehension of perception or another (knowledge source) landed us
> in infinite regress, then everyday action and discourse would not go
> on through comprehension of self-consciously known objects and their
> known causes. (However) everyday action and discourse do proceed for
> someone comprehending self-consciously known objects and their known
> causes: when (self-consciously) I grasp by perception an object or I
> grasp one by inference or I grasp one by analogy or I grasp one by
> tradition or testimony (the four knowledge sources according to
> Nyaya), the (apperceptive) cognition that occurs goes like this:
> "My knowledge is perceptual" or "My knowledge is
> inferential" or "My knowledge is from analogy" or
> "My knowledge is testimonial."
> 
> 
> 
> And motivation to seek righteousness (*dharma*), wealth,
> pleasure, or liberation proceeds through these comprehensions (whereas
> if there is doubt, no such goal-directed activity would occur), as
> likewise motivation to reject their opposites. Everyday discourse and
> action would cease (to be possible for such a subject) if what is
> alleged were indeed to hold (justificational regress).
> 
> 
> 



Nyaya's strategy is then (1) to charge the objector with making a
"pragmatic contradiction," (2) to take veridicality as cognitive
default, and (3) to certify cognitions by source identification as well
as by inference from the success or failure of the activity that they
provoke and guide. We assume without checking that our cognition is
veridical, but sometimes we need to check. Note that the practical
pursuits that Vatsyayana mentions as guided by second-order,
reflective knowledge are: "righteousness (*dharma*), wealth,
pleasure, [and] liberation."



## 4. Perception




All the classical schools that advance epistemologies accept
perception as a knowledge source although there is much disagreement
about its nature, objects, and limitations. Are the objects of
perception internal to consciousness or external? Are they restricted
to individuals, e.g., a particular cow, or are universals, e.g.,
cowhood, also perceived? How about relations? Absences or negative
facts (Devadatta's not being at home)? Parts or wholes? Both? A self,
awareness itself? There are issues about perceptual media such as light
and ether, *akasa*, the purported medium
of sound, and about what is perceptible yogically (God, the
*isvara*, the *atman* or
self, *purusa*). What are the environmental
conditions that govern perception, and how do these connect with the
different sensory modalities? Are there internal conditions on
perception (such as attention or focus, viewed by some as a voluntary
act)? Is a recognition, e.g., "This is that Devadatta I saw yesterday,"
perceptual? And does it prove the endurance of things over time
including the perceiving subject? Do we perceive only fleeting
qualities (*dharma*), as Buddhists tend to say, or qualifiers as
qualifying qualificanda (a lotus as qualified by being-blue), as say
realist Nyaya and
Mimamsa? Does all perception
involve a sensory connection with an object that is responsible for
providing its content or intentionality
(*nirakara-vada*, Nyaya), or is the content
of perception internal to itself (*sakara-vada*,
Yogacara)? How do we differentiate veritable perception,
which is defined as veridical, and pseudo-perception (illusion), which
is non-veridical? How is illusion to be explained? These are some of
the outstanding issues and questions that occupy the schools in all
periods of their literatures.




Yogacara subjectivism views perception as
"concept-free," whereas the holist grammarian
Bhartrhari of the third century finds it all to be clothed in
language. Mimamsa and Nyaya realists
emphasize the "concept-laden" nature of at least the type
of perception that is epistemically foundational for observation
statements containing basic sensory predicates. To be sure,
Mimamsa and later Nyaya also admit
concept-free perception. Kumarila Bhatta mentions the
cognition of an infant as an example
(*Sloka-varttika* commentary on the perception
sutra of the *Mimamsa-sutra*,
verse 112, p. 94; see also Matilal 1986, 321-322). Phenomenologically
humans would seem to have much in common with infants and animals
considering this type of perception. But according to the great
Mimamsaka, perception does not so much divide into
types as form a process with the concept-free as the first
stage. Awareness of the object is only quasi-propositional in the
first moment, and at the second has its content filled out to become
the means whereby an individual is ascertained to have a certain
character, to be a certain kind of substance or to possess a universal
or an action, etc. (verse 120, p. 96). The object perceived, the lotus
(or whatever), is known in the first stage as an individual whole,
both in its individuality and as having a character. But the
character, the thing's being blue as opposed to red, and its being
here right now, are not known without the mediation of concepts which
are supplied internally. Seeing is ultimately "seeing as"
and is "shot through with words," to use the expression of
Bhartrhari (*Vakyapadiya*, ch. 1, verses
123-124, p. 199; see also Matilal 1986, 342). However, the mind or
self does not, according to the realists, have any innate ideas
(unlike then Yogacara, which postulates a collective
"storehouse
consciousness," *alaya-vijnana*).
Concepts are the records of previous experiences.




Yogacara holds that all predication, including the
sensory, depends on ideas of unreal generality. All predication
involves repeatable general terms. Thus the realists' "propositional
content" is suspicious just because this is not raw perception which
alone is capable of presenting the truly real, the
*sva-laksana*, "that
which is its own mark," the unique or particular. Classical Indian
realists hold that perception is none the worse for being concept-laden
in that concepts are features of the world as impressed upon the mind
or self. Perception founds true beliefs, and the repeatable predicates
and concepts (cowhood) perceptually acquired and re-presented and
employed in verbalizations pick out constituents of real objects,
things that do re-occur (there are lots of cows in the world). For late
Nyaya philosophers, concept-laden perception comes so to dwarf in
importance the indeterminate, concept-free variety that the latter
becomes problematic. Perception in its epistemological role is
concept-laden. Otherwise, it could not be certificational. Perception
as a knowledge source is a doxastic, belief-generating process. Beliefs
(or anyhow perceptual cognitions and their verbalizations) are
dependent on concepts (to believe or say that there is a pot on the
floor, one must possess the concepts of "pot" and "floor").



The Yogacara Buddhists' best argument for their
subjectivism--which one suspects derives more fundamentally from a
commitment to the possibility of a universal
*nirvana* experience, although this is
not said--is perceptual illusion. Illusion proves that a perception's
object is not a feature of the world but is contributed somehow from
the side of the subject. A rope can be perceived as a snake, with no
difference, from the perspective of the perceiver, between the illusion
and a veridical snake perception. Similarly, dreams are the
"perceptions" of a dreamer but do not touch reality. (Our world is a
dream, say Buddhists, and we should try to become *buddha*,
"Awakened.")



One way to resist the pull of the illusion argument belongs to
Prabhakara Mimamsa
which insists that not only is perception invariably veridical but also
cognition in general, *jnana*. Nyaya
philosophers hold in contrast that illusion is a false cognition. Rich
debate occurs over Nyaya's "misplacement" view of illusion and a
Prabhakara "no-illusion" or "omission" theory (illusion is a
failure to cognize of a certain sort, an absence of cognition, for
example, an absence of cognition of the difference between a
remembering of silver and a perceiving of mother-of-pearl when holding
in hand a piece of shell S exclaims, "Silver!"). Here Nyaya agrees
with the subjectivists: sometimes a person S apparently perceives
*a* to be F--has an apparently perceptual cognition embedding
F*a*--when *a* is not in fact F, while S cannot discern
from her own first-person perspective that the cognition is
non-veridical. Nevertheless, the predication content, according to
Nyaya as also Mimamsa,
the presentation or indication of F-hood, originates in things' really
being F, through previous veridical experience of F-hood.



Here we touch the heart of classical Indian realism. Snakehood is
available to become illusory predication content through previous
veridical experience of snakes. It gets fused into a current perception
by means of a foul-up in the normal causal process through the arousing
of a snakehood memory-disposition
(*samskara*) formed by previous
experience. The content or intentionality
(*visayata*, "objecthood") of an
illusion is to be explained causally as generated by real features of
real things just as is genuine perception though they are distinct
cognitive types. Illusion involves the projection into current
(determinate) cognition (which would be pseudo-perception) of
predication content preserved in memory. Sometimes the fusion of an
element preserved in memory is cross-sensory, tasting sourness, for
instance, when perceiving a lemon by sight or smelling a piece of
sandalwood which is seen at too far a distance for actual olfactory
stimulation. These are cases of veridical perception with an obvious
admixture or tinge of memory. Illusion, according to Nyaya, is to
be analyzed similarly, but unlike veridical cases of projection
illusion involves taking something to be what it is not, a seeing or
perceiving it through a "misplaced" qualifier. This means that
concept-laden perception is necessarily combinational--a position taken
by Gautama himself, the "sutra-maker," and much elaborated
by Vatsyayana and the other commentators in text apparently
aimed at an early form of Buddhist subjectivism
(*Nyaya-sutra* 4.2.26-36). The upshot of these
sutras is that, first, the concept of illusion is
parasitic on that of veridical experience (not all coins can be
counterfeit), and, second, that illusion shows a combinational
(propositional) structure: this is a something or other. According to
Nyaya, perceptual illusion is right in part, that there is
something there, but wrong about what it is. Ontologically, Nyaya takes a disjunctivist position: an illusion is a different kind of critter than a genuine perception, since its intentionality is different.




To fill out the realist account in late Nyaya, thought-laden
perception, determinate perception, gets its content or intentionality--its "object-directedness"--not only from the
object in connection with the sense organ but also from the
classificational power of the mind (or self). With the perceptual
cognition, "That's a pot," for instance, the pot as an individual in
connection with a sensory faculty is responsible for the awareness of a
property-bearer, for what is called the qualificandum portion of the
perception, without admixture of memory. But the sensory connection is
not by itself responsible for the qualifier portion, the pothood, that
is to say, the thing's classification as a pot. A qualificandum as
qualified by a qualifier is perceived all at once
(*eka-vrtti-vedya*), but a determinate
perception's portions have distinct etiologies. Now the
classificational power of the mind (or self) is not innate, as pointed
out, but is rather the product of presentational experience
(*anubhava*) over the course of a subject's life. Repeatable
features of reality get impressed on the mind (or self) in the form of
memory dispositions. For most adults, prior determinate cognition
is partly responsible for the content predicable of a particular, or a group of things,
presented through the senses. That is, in perceiving *a* as an
F, an F-*samskara* formed by previous
knowledge-source-produced bits of occurrent cognition of things F would
be a causal factor. The perception's own content includes the
repeatable nature of the qualifier through the operation of this
factor. We see the tree as a tree.



But sometimes neither a prior determinate cognition nor a memory
disposition is at all responsible for the predication content, for example, when a
child sees a cow for the very first time. Rather, an "in the raw"
perceptual grasping of the qualifier (cowhood) delivers it to an
ensuing concept-laden and verbalizable perception. In other words,
there are cases of determinate cognition where
indeterminate, concept-free perception furnishes the qualifier independently and the
ensuing concept-laden perception is not tinged by memory. Normally,
*samskara*, "memory-dispositions," do
play a causal role in determinate perception, according to Nyaya
and Mimamsa and indeed
epistemologists of all flags. But sometimes an immediately prior
concept-free perception of a qualifier plays the role of the
*samskara*, furnishing by itself the concept, the
predication content, the qualifier portion of an ensuing determinate,
proposition-laden perception, which is the type of cognition that
founds our beliefs about the world.



If this were not an "immaculate perception" but itself a grasping of a
property through the grasping of another property, we would be faced
with an infinite regress and direct perception of the world would be
impossible. Concept-free perception need not provide the classifying not
only with second and third-time perceptions of something as F but not
even, strictly speaking, with a first-time perception, since there
could be an intervening cognitive factor (provided, say, by analogy:
see below). But with that factor again the question would arise how it
gets its content, and so since an indeterminate perception has to be
posited at some point to block a regress it might as well be at the
start. This is the main argument of
Gangesa, the late Nyaya
systematizer, in defense of positing the concept-free as a type or
first stage of perception (Phillips 2001).



Nevertheless, for all intents and purposes, perception embodies
beliefs, according to the realists. More accurately, a perceptual
belief is the result of the operation of perception as a knowledge
source. Everything that is nameable is knowable and vice-versa. There
is nothing that when we attend to it cannot bear a name, for we can
make up new names. We can in principle verbalize the indications of our
experience, though many of them are not named since we are indifferent
(pebbles perceived along the road). Concept-free perception is the
classical Indian realist rendering of our ability to form perceptual
concepts by attending to perception's phenomenological side.
Epistemologically, it plays no role, since it is itself a posit and is
unverbalizable and not directly apperceived (A. Chakrabarti 2000 gives
this and other reasons for jettisoning the concept from Nyaya's
own realist point of view).





As mentioned, Yogacara takes issue with the realist theory
of perception, viewing all perception as concept-free. What is
perceived is only the unqualified particular,
*sva-laksana*. The
realists' "qualifiers" such as cowhood are mental constructions,
"convenient fictions." Various reductio arguments are put forth to show
the incoherence of the realists' conception of a qualificandum
perceived at once to be qualified by a qualifier
(*eka-vrtti-vedya*). The different views of
the objects of perception feed different views of inference.


## 5. Inference




Logic is developed in classical India within the traditions of
epistemology. Inference is a second knowledge source, a means whereby
we can know things not immediately evident through perception. Oetke
(2004) finds three roots to the earliest concerns with logic in India:
(1) common-sense inference, (2) establishment of doctrines in the frame
of scientific treatises (*sastra*), and (3)
justification of tenets in a debate. The three of these come together
(though the latter two are predominant) within the epistemological
traditions in an almost universal regard of inference as a knowledge
source.



Seeing classical Indian logic as part of epistemology, as explaining
how we know facts through the mediation of our knowledge of other
facts, makes it easy to understand why both the Buddhist and Vedic
schools count a valid but unsound argument as fallacious: knowledge
is not generated. Classical Indian philosophers are not focused on logic
per se, but rather on a psychological process whereby we come to know
things indirectly, by way of a sign, *hetu* or
*linga*, an indication of something
currently beyond the range of the senses, whether at a distance
spatially or temporally or of a sort (such as atoms or God or the
Buddha mind) that by nature cannot be directly perceived.



The two greatest names for classical Indian logic belong to logicians
of the Buddhist Yogacara school, Dignaga (sixth century)
and Dharmakirti (early seventh century). Dignaga laid
out all the possible relationships of inclusion and exclusion for the
extensions of two terms called the prover or "sign," *hetu*, and
the probandum, *sadhya*, the property "to be proved."
Thereby he revealed the underpinnings of the
*pramana* of inference in terms of
sets of particulars, which, according to Yogacara ontology,
are the only reals. Dharmakirti classified inferences based
on the ontological nature of the class-inclusion relationship that
underpins all inference as a knowledge source. Earlier philosophers,
both Buddhist and non-Buddhist, provide examples of everyday reasoning,
several of which are abductive in character, informal reasoning to the
best explanation, from sight of a swollen river, for example, says
Vatsyayana in his commentary on the inference
sutra (1.1.5) of the
*Nyaya-sutra*, to the conclusion that it has
rained upstream. But there are also instances of inferences comprised
of deductive, extrapolative, and sometimes properly inductive reasoning
on topics of everyday life as well as philosophy in numerous
pre-Dignaga texts of several schools. It is not true, as is
sometimes claimed, that no one before Dignaga had the notion of an
inference-underpinning "pervasion," *vyapti*, of a prover
property by a property to be proved. Dignaga does however get the
credit for the earliest systematization, which employs three terms, a
site or subject of a proposed inference
(*paksa*, the mountain in the stock example
of an inference from sight of smoke on a mountain to knowledge of fire
on the mountain), the prover or prover property (*hetu*,
smokiness), and the probandum (*sadhya*, fieriness).




Dignaga, it should be stressed, as a nominalist sees inference
as proceeding from knowledge of particulars to other knowledge of
particulars (avoiding the universals of the realists, as nicely
explained by Hayes 1988 with reference to the Buddhist *apoha*,
"exclusion," theory of concepts). Dignaga formulates a threefold
test for a good prover, *trairupya-hetu*:


1. the prover's occurrence on the inferential subject of a proposed inference must
be known to the subject S
2. the prover's occurrence at least once together with the probandum
must be known to S
3. no counter-case of a prover occurring without the probandum must
be known to S.




Uddyotakara in his *Nyaya-sutra* commentary
incorporates Dignaga's ideas to formalize many of
Vatsyayana's informal inferences. The Nyaya philosopher
owes almost everything to his Buddhist adversaries, as opposed to his
Nyaya predecessors, but he does criticize and alter what he sees
as the certification conditions of inference as a knowledge source,
combining Dignaga's second and third tests into a single
requirement, knowledge of pervasion. He also adds a third condition,
the subject's having to "reflect" and put the information together, so
to say:


1. *paksa-dharmata*: the prover
has to be known to S as qualifying the inferential subject
2. *vyapti-smarana*: the prover's
being pervaded by the probandum has to be remembered by S
3. *linga-paramarsa*: S
must connect by reflection the pervasion with the inferential subject.




The upshot of the addition may be interpreted as the recognition
that knowledge is not closed under deduction considered in abstraction
from the psychological process of "reflection." But through that
process, epistemic warrant--or "certainty,"
*niscaya*--passes from premises to conclusion, and
we act unhesitatingly, for example, to put a fire on yonder mountain
out.




Things are yet more complicated. Inferential knowledge is defeasible,
or, more precisely stated, what a subject takes to be inferential
knowledge may turn out to be pseudo, non-genuine, a false cognition
imitating a true one, or even in Gettier-style cases an accidentally
true cognition masquerading as one genuinely inference-born. Knowledge
has a social dimension. Not only would awareness of a counterexample
be a defeater, but also if someone were to present a counterinference
to a conclusion opposed to ours, no longer would we have inferential
knowledge. Awareness of any of several kinds of "blocker"
of "reflection" can undermine the generalization on which
such reflection depends. There are potential preventers of inferential
awareness, "defeaters," *badhaka*, leading to
belief relinquishment by someone who has hitherto not noticed a
counterexample or the like and who has thus drawn a conclusion
erroneously.




However, one should not think that the epistemologists' inference is
non-monotonic, as established by Taber (2004) against Oetke (1996) in
particular. The paradigm logical form embedded in a good inference is
monotonic. New information is irrelevant to the validity of the
pattern itself, although it may well be relevant to a subject's
justification for acceptance of the premises. Examples of inferences
in classical texts often seem non-monotonic because fallibility
attaches to the premises. Such fallibility of course passes to the
conclusion, too. (Cf. Israel 1980 who similarly voices an
epistemological complaint against the very idea of
non-monotonic *logic*, according to Koons 2013.)




Targeting the relationship of pervasion in Uddyotakara's second
condition, *vyapti-smarana*, which
appears to be the ontological underpinning of Dignaga's conditions
(2) and (3), Dharmakirti divides inferences into three
kinds:


* *sva-bhava* (self-nature: "It's a tree because it's a
*simsapa* oak")
* *tad-utpatti* (causality: "Fire is there because
smoke is there")
* *anupalabdhi* (non-perception: "There is no pot
here because none is perceived").




Yogacara holds that with the first type of inference the
underpinning pervasion is "internal" (*antar-vyapti*). We
may think of this as an internal relation between concepts and thus as
similar to the *a priori* of Western philosophy. But it is
actually a technical point about whether the term that picks out the
inferential subject or subjects--think of the
*paksa* as a set--closes it off from being
included in the inductive base of the generalization (or extrapolation,
according to Ganeri 2001b) that gives us knowledge of a pervasion
relationship. Mimamsa and
Nyaya rule out this kind of inference as begging the question: we
want to know whether the inferential subject possesses the probandum
property and so to cite that subject itself, even a part of it, runs
counter to the very purpose of inference.



Later Nyaya divides inferences not according to the ontology of
pervasion (which is mapped onto the
Nyaya-Vaisesika ontology and
causal theory, sometimes not very successfully) but rather by the way a
pervasion is known:


* *anvaya-vyatireka* ("positive and negative"): inferences
based on positive and negative correlations where both are available,
i.e., cases where, for example, smokiness and fieriness have been known
to occur together, kitchen hearths, campfires, etc., like (it is
claimed) yonder smoky mountain where being-fiery is to be proved, taken
along with negative examples where the prover as well as
the probandum is known not to occur
* *kevala-anvaya* ("positive only"): inferences based on
positive correlations only, where there are no known examples of an
absence of the probandum property, such as would have to be the case
with the universally present property, knowability (there is nothing
that is not knowable)
* *kevala-vyatireka* ("negative only"): inferences based on
negative correlations only where outside of the inferential subject there
are no known cases of the probandum.


Many of the inferences that Buddhists identify as hinging on an
"internal pervasion" (*antar-vyapti*)
Nyaya philosophers see as "negative only"
(*kevala-vyatireka*). Taking a
particular *simsapa* oak as
the *paksa*, we have the negative correlation proving it
is a tree: whatever is not a tree, is not a
*simsapa*
oak, for example, a lotus.



Western interpretations and representations of inference as classically
conceived have often missed its unity as a knowledge source. Ganeri
(2001b: 20) claims that it is better to understand both the Buddhist and
early Nyaya patterns as "not enthymematic," not skipping a step of
generalization and then implicitly using universal instantiation (UI)
and modus ponens (MP) in applying the rule to a case at hand.
Case-based reasoning need not be interpreted as relying on universal
quantifiers, and the representation of Schayer (1933) and others which
uses them is misleading. Theirs is indeed misleading, and Ganeri
appears to be right with regard to the early theories. But with late
Nyaya Schayer's argument form of UI and MP misleads for yet
another reason, namely, failing to be sufficiently sensitive to the
logic of occurrence and non-occurrence of properties at a location, or
qualifying a property-bearer, as Staal (1973) and others have brought
out. Furthermore, Ganeri is right that in analyzing the pattern one
tends to miss the unity of the causal theory that has one mental state
brought about by another. In the Nyaya theory, everything is
integrated in the notion of "reflection,"
*paramarsa*, as an inference's proximate
instrumental cause or "trigger," *karana*.
While not the only necessary condition, this one is the last in place,
securing the occurrence of inferential knowledge.



Following Matilal (1998), we can reconstruct such "reflection" as a
singular inference:



> 
> 
> (K)(SpH*a*) - (K)S*a*
> 



This says that on the condition that a subject knows that
H-as-qualified-by-being-pervaded-by-S
qualifies *a*, then the subject knows that S*a*. The arrow
should be interpreted as depicting causal sufficiency, in line with
Uddyotakara and the later tradition. "Reflection" is a
complex mental state that is nevertheless a unity, both as a
particular cognition that can be a causal factor for the rise of
another cognition and as having intentionality, or "objecthood,"
expressible in a single sentence. Attempts to find a single rule are
in consonance with both of these dimensions of the theory. But a lot
of inductive depth is packed into the idea of a pervasion being known,
and a lot about it is said that shows that there is generalization, at
least in the later Nyaya theory. Knowing a general rule is
considered crucial, not just extrapolation to a next case. From
Uddyotakara on, Nyaya philosophers treat pervasion as the
equivalent of a rule stating that--to use the language of sets
and terms--the extension of the probandum term includes that of
the prover term, includes it entirely such that there is nothing that
locates the pervaded property (the prover) that does not also locate
the pervader (the probandum), as argued by Kisor Chakrabarti (1995)
among others.



 The centralmost issue with inference, to consider the effort of
late Nyaya philosophers, is to make plain the logic of pervasion
as well as how we know the universalized items, or entire extensions,
of the terms figuring in our knowledge of such rules, the items that
underpin our knowledge of such inclusions, such naturally necessary
pervasions of a prover by a probandum property. Lots of work from the
earliest focuses on fallacies and inference in the context of formal
debate. And there are many philosophical inferences advanced in the
literatures of the various schools, such as proofs of momentariness,
the existence of God, the possibility of liberation from birth and
rebirth, and dozens more.


## 6. Testimony




Vaisesika among the Vedic schools
along with Buddhists who of course impugn the "testimony" of the Veda
reject testimony as an independent knowledge source,
*pramana*. Buddhists claim that their
religious teachings are founded on nothing other than reasoning and
experience, albeit mystical experience, the
*nirvana* experience that makes a
Buddha an expert about spiritual matters. As with memory, whose
correctness is dependent on the veridicality or non-veridicality of the
cognition that forms the *samskara*
memory-impression, the veridicality of testimony depends on the
knowledge of the testifier, the speaker, whose source has to be bona fide, namely,
depending on the epistemological theory,
perception or inference or perhaps testimony in a series where an original testifier 
would know by means of a source other than testimony . Vaisesika
and Yogacara join together in seeing a hearer H's knowledge
that *p* which other philosophers see as flowing from testimony
as really resulting from an inference having as one premise that the
speaker S is trustworthy and as another that S has said *p*, assuming
that trustworthy people who know the truth communicate it faithfully, to
conclude that *p* is true. Nyaya resists such as
inferentialist account from the earliest, in the sutras of
Gautama, claiming that the inferentialist conflates inferential
certification of the truth of *p* with testimonial knowledge
that *p* at a first or unreflective level (as nicely explained
by Mohanty 1994). Vatsyayana and others argue (under
*Nyaya-sutra* 2.1.52) that the certification
conditions are different for the two knowledge sources. The
eighth-century Jayanta Bhatta
writes (*Nyaya-manjari* 322):
"The conditions that determine inferential knowledge and those that
determine verbal knowledge are not the same." The Nyaya position
is that comprehension and acceptance are normally fused such that
(normally) we do get knowledge immediately (non-inferentially) from
being told. Here they join
Mimamsa, though there is also
much controversy on this matter between the two schools.



Gautama provides a definition at *Nyaya-sutra*
1.1.7: "Testimony is the (true) statement of an expert
(*apta*)." An "expert," *apta*, is a
trustworthy authority such that "expert" is not entirely adequate as a
translation. Vatsyayana in defining the term outlines a moral
dimension. An *apta* is a person who not only knows the
truth but who wants to communicate it without deception
(Vatsyayana's commentary under
*Nyaya-sutra* 1.1.7). The commentator also
brings out a certain egalitarianism in the workings of the knowledge
source. Contra the privilege afforded the priestly caste in matters of
Vedic interpretation, he says that even foreigners--"barbarians,"
*mleccha*--can be the experts whose statements convey to us
testimonial knowledge, provided, as always, they know the truth and
want to communicate without deception.



According to those who accept testimony as a genuine knowledge source, the process of generating testimonial knowledge begins with a speaker S
who knows a proposition *p* by perception, inference, or
testimony (chains of testimony are okay) and who has a desire to
communicate *p* to someone or other. A hearer H gains knowledge
through a speech act of S communicating *p* to H, who has to be
competent in the language in which *p* is expressed, to know the
words and grammatical forms, which H has learned, on most accounts,
also chiefly through testimony but also in other ways such as analogy
(according to some).



Mimamsa, whose leaders Kumarila and
Prabhakara are followed by many Vedantins and by some
Nyaya philosophers, comes to the debate about testimony with an
axe to grind, namely, to defend Vedic authority. The words of the Veda
are not spoken by anyone originally. Speakers are subject to error but
not the Veda, whose verses are not originally composed
(*apauruseya*). Vedantic theists, in the main, along
with almost all Nyaya philosophers, take the position that like
all sentences, those of the Veda should be understood as spoken (or
composed, etc.) by someone with the intention to communicate. Thus
the Lord, *isvara*, is the author of the Veda (the best or
only candidate, according to Udayana, eleventh century,
*Nyaya-kusumanjali*).
Mimamsa, however, is atheistic, viewing the Veda
as primordial, resounding in the ether that surrounds the universe,
heard and memorized by great rishis in
their pellucid consciousness (not cluttered by ordinary thought). Thus
according to Mimamsa, sentences can be meaningful
without having a speaker with an intention to communicate.
Vedantin and Nyaya theists generalize from the everyday to
assume that, no, statements and sentences require a speaker, a
composer, who, in the case of S's knowledge passing to H, must be an
*apta* expert, i.e., someone who knows the truth and wants
to tell it without a desire to deceive. The Lord is this speaker in the
case of the Veda, it is inferred by some.



The Prabhakara takes the view that everyday testimonial
knowledge wears, like all knowledge, its truth on its sleeve; similarly
Vedic knowledge. Speaker's intention is irrelevant. A parrot can make
us know something like a tape-recorder. And even a liar (S) deceived
into believing *p* can communicate !*p* trying
to deceive H who nevertheless learns the truth through S's statement.
Nyaya, in contrast, champions speaker's intention,
*tatparya*, as epistemically relevant. According to the
later writers, speaker's intention is not the trigger of testimonial
knowledge on H's part (which is instead the transmitting sentence under
the interpretation of H), but is a slightly upstream causal factor
relevant for certification. If we knew it were a parrot or a liar who
was responsible for the statement, we would no longer believe. It is
true that H has to understand something in the case of the parrot, etc.
Otherwise, there would be nothing to check in finding out that the
parrot's speaking is a case of "apparent testimony,"
*sabda-abhasa* (e.g.,
Gangesa,
*Tattva-cinta-mani*, testimony
chapter, 329). But discerning speaker's intention is championed as
necessary for disambiguation in some cases of testimony and as relevant
to triggering figurative speech according to many including writers in
the aesthetics literature called
*alankara-sastra*.



Testimonial knowledge is a matter of comprehending a statement, a
transmitting sentence, and to be a transmitting sentence certain
conditions must be met. The following three necessary conditions for a
meaningful statement are proposed and discussed throughout the
philosophical and grammatical literatures (Kunjunni Raja 1969:
149-169).



1. words' mutual "expectancy,"
*akanksa*
2. semantic "fittingness," *yogyata*
3. contiguity (or proper presentation, pronunciation and the like),
*asatti*



The words in a sentence have their "expectancy" mutually
satisfied in the completion of the sentence as a string of words. This
and the third condition are pretty obviously required for sentential
meaning, but not the second, at least not to philosophers of language
in the West, although the notion seems related to the *a priori*
as understood in early modern philosophy. In any case, semantic
"fittingness" is connected to a theory of figurative meaning throughout
the schools including the aesthetics literature. A stock negative
example is "The gardener is watering the plants with fire"
(*agnina sincati*). Watering cannot be done
with fire, and so the meanings of the words do not fit together except
possibly figuratively. Some define *yogyata* in a positive
fashion, but it seems easy to find counterexamples (Kunjunni Raja 1969:
164-166). Language has to be flexible so that we can report novelties.
Furthermore, we understand something when we understand a false
statement. Otherwise, again, we would not know where to look to
determine its falsity, or truth, for that matter.
Gangesa says explicitly that false
statements as well as statements of doubt meet the requirement of
semantic fittingness
(*Tattva-cinta-mani*,
testimony chapter, 372-373). Even statements that are not just false
but that we know are false can pass the semantic-fittingness test, as,
for example, (in the quip by A. Chakrabarti 1994) the views of one's
opponents! For these and other reasons,
Gangesa, for one, defines
*yogyata* negatively as "absence of knowledge of a blocker
(of testimonial knowledge)"
(*Tattva-cinta-mani*,
testimony chapter, Sanskrit, IV.iii.6, p. 136). This shows a coherence
tie. We cannot even understand testimony way out of whack with what we
know already.



Two Mimamsa views compete to explain sentential
unity, along with a third, a sentence holism belonging to the
grammarian Bhartrhari (third century), who holds that words have
no meaning outside the context of the sentence, which is the basic
semantic unit. Words are abstractions from sentences, and a sentence
is understood holistically "in a flash"
(*sphota*; Bhartrhari's theory is
called *sphota-vada*). This is an easy target for
the Mimamsakas, who point to our abilities to use
the same words in different sentences. But the one camp, the
Prabhakara, agrees with the grammarian that words do not
convey meaning apart from the full sentence being understood, that is
to say, apart from the full fact indicated being known "in a
flash," as it were. The other camp, the Bhatta,
whose theory comes to be taken over by Nyaya, claims that
individual words have reference in isolation, and that in
understanding a sentence we understand the meaning of the individual
semantic units which get combined not so much by the sentence as by
the fact that makes a true sentence true, the relation holding the
fact together becoming reflected in the unity of the sentence, so that
each word's meaning or referent is hooked up with every other. These
two views are termed in
Sanskrit *anvita-abhidhana-vada*, "reference of
the connected," which Siderits (1991) translates as the
"related designation view,"
and *abhihita-anvaya-vada,* "connection of the
referents," which Siderits translates as the
"words-plus-relation view." However, the latter might not
be the best rendering, since its advocates argue that the relation is
nothing other than the individual denotees as related.



In other words, according to the more radically referentialist view,
which is incrementalist, the relation is not just an additional
element: it's not words-*plus*-relation. No word is
"unsaturated"; 'bringing' for example,
requires that its referent be related to both an agent and an object
and no reference to bringing would generate a bit of new testimonial
knowledge if these were not also mentioned or the ideas of them
supplied. There are only a few purely logical and syntactically
binding words in Sanskrit, only a few (mainly connectives) that are
just syncategorematic, since every other word is inflected and there
is no need for prepositions, etc. Alternatively, we could say that
every word is unsaturated because no word, no single semantic unit,
conveys the meaning of a sentence by itself alone independently of its
relation to at least one other unit. The main difference between the
two Mimamsa views is that the former insists that
only a sentence successfully refers, not the individual words of which
a sentence is composed, whose meanings have to be connected to one
another in order for there to be reference (*abhidha*, the
primary mode or power,
*sakti*, of language); whereas the latter holds
that words do have reference individually but not to the connection of
the things mentioned, which is given by the sentence as a whole. In
both cases, the fact or object known by way of a sentence has
constituents. On the second view, the fact is the relatedness of the
words' referents as they are in the world, a relatedness
(*anvaya*) not indicated by a semantic unit. The connection is
to one another of the things referred to, a connection in the world
which we become aware of because of the order and connectedness
(*anvaya*) of the words. Gopinath Bhattacharya writes apropos
(seventeenth-century) Annambhatta's
discussion of the Bhatta
theory (Annambhatta: 301-302): "It
comes to this then that the understanding of a statement, i.e., of what
is signified by the constituent terms in relation to one another,
depends among other things on the presentation of the terms *in the
required order*. But the order of arrangement of the terms is not
itself a term of the sentence, so that it cannot be said that this
order has its own *sakti* like the terms."



Just what a word refers to is sometimes ambiguous not just apart from
sentential context but within it. Still we know what the word means. We
know that a speaker wants salt when S asks for it even though in
Sanskrit the word used for salt, '*saindhava*', is a homonym
with a word that means horse. S's intention to communicate *p*
is in such a case crucial to disambiguation in that S speaks in a
context (*prakarana*). Ordinarily, the
overall context need not be taken into account, according to New
Nyaya philosophers, to ascertain the meaning of a sentence, which
has to meet only the three conditions of grammaticality, semantic
fittingness, and proper pronunciation. But we do have to take into
account the overall context--let us say "speaker's intention,"
*tatparya*--it is stressed (e.g., by
Annambhatta: 294-295), in some
cases of ambiguity as also of figurative speech, which involves a
second power of words, the power (*sakti*) to
express meaning indirectly.



However, we have to be able to understand a spoken sentence to be able
to determine a speaker's intention, which we infer from what is said
supplemented sometimes by contextual cues. Thus knowing the intention
is not an invariable antecedent of testimonial knowledge. Understanding
S's intention is not a fourth condition on a statement's meaningfulness
from the perspective of H--except in some cases of ambiguity and
indirect, figurative speech. But in those cases it is indeed crucial,
and there is no way to get around the need to make it out in order to
fix the meaning, which cannot be gathered at, so to say, a first pass.



But on a second pass, we are able to gather not only indirect,
secondary meaning but also more information through inference. In this
way, Annambhatta would explain what
others see as the results of the activation of a third power of words,
namely, *dhvani*, also called *vyanjana*,
"suggestion" (289-293). In other words, if a sentence contains an
ambiguous word or indirect, figurative meaning (admitted as a *bona
fide* second power of words, *sakti*), there
may well be no way to tell what it means without considering S's
intention. Now advocates of the third power analyze the stock example
of indirect speech where a village is said to be *in* the
Ganga as suggesting that the village is cool
and purified by association with the Ganga.
The whole point, they argue, of poetic use of indirect, figurative
speech is to release the third power of suggestion. Why otherwise not
simply say that the village is on the river bank? The speaker uses the
figurative speech to *suggest* the attributes of coolness and
purification. Annambhatta responds
that if one understands from the statement these attributes then the
indirect, figurative meaning
(*laksana*) of "in
the Ganga" is not just being on the bank of
the river but on a bank that lends coolness and fosters purification.
This is then just a more complex case of
*laksana*,
which is indeed a second power of words (but there is no third),
indicating a cool and purifying location on the indicated bank.



Finally we might mention that with veridical testimonial knowledge not
involving figurative meaning where all three sentential conditions are
met, we do not notice the grammaticality, etc., of the transmitting
sentence or sentences. These factors have to be present, but we do not
have to be aware of them. For figurative meaning, in contrast, we have
to notice a blocker (Uddyotakara under
*Nyaya-sutra* 2.2.59), which paradigmatically
may be thought of as a violation of semantic fittingness (Kunjunni Raja
1969: 166), though this is not precisely correct according to several
theorists who provide examples of figures where semantic fittingness is
not violated. Examples of less severe misfit occur than to water with
fire. Violating *yogyata* is not the only way to trigger
the second power of words. Yet further exploration of figurative
meaning and of "suggestion" (*dhvani*) would carry us outside of
the epistemological into the aesthetics and grammatical
literatures.


## 7. Analogy and Other Candidate Sources


### 7.1 Analogy and Similarity




Briefly we may consider the more exotic candidate sources proposed
in the classical literature mainly within
Mimamsa (often elaborated by
Vedantins), beginning with analogy, which is viewed as the
*pramana* for knowledge of similarity
in Mimamsa and Vedanta
but is rejected by the other schools, Vedic and non-Vedic alike, except
for Nyaya which however provides a radical reinterpretation. To
provide a hermeneutics of Vedic injunctions to make them suitable for
practice in actual performances, the
Mimamsa exegetes need to be
able to designate substitutes, of one type of grain for another, for
example, or one animal for another, depending upon availability in the
first place but upon similarity in the second place. In Vedanta,
analogy is useful for understanding the Upanishads which make
comparisons between spiritual or yogic experience and the experiences
of ordinary humans, as pointed out by Kumar (1980: 110).
Yogacara, Jaina, and Nyaya logicians find similarity--or
relevant similarity--to figure in inference as a knowledge-generating
process. It is through cognizing similarity and dissimilarity that we
arrive at knowledge of pervasion as required for inferential knowledge.
A kitchen hearth counts as an "example" in the stock inference because
of its relevant similarity to the mountain which is the center of
inquiry. It is part of what is called the
*sapaksa*, the set of positive correlations,
that make us know an inference-underpinning pervasion. Knowledge of
similarity is not viewed in Nyaya (or Yogacara, etc.) as
the result of analogy as a knowledge source--for Nyaya, analogy is
restricted to a subject's learning the meaning of a word (and
Yogacara does not countenance it as a separate
*pramana*). But pervasion is known
typically through generalization from cases (although in some cases a single observation, some
say, will suffice), presupposing
knowledge of relevant similarity which can be a matter of
perception.



Vedanta and Mimamsa
philosophers, who take similarity to be a special object known through
this special source, give examples different from the stock scenario
provided by Gautama and elaborated by Vatsyayana (under
*Nyaya-sutra* 1.1.8) who limit the scope of
analogy to learning the meaning of a word. But for brevity's sake, let us
take up only the Nyaya theory. A subject S inquires of a forester
about a *gavaya*, which is a kind of buffalo, having heard the
word '*gavaya*' used among his schoolmates but not knowing what
it means, i.e., not knowing what a *gavaya* is. Questioned by S,
the forester replies that a *gavaya* is like a cow mentioning
certain specifics as also some dissimilarities. To simplify, Nyaya
philosophers say that the forester makes an analogical statement ("A
*gavaya* is like a cow"), whereby our subject S now knows in
general (*samanyatah*) what the
word means, according to Gangesa and
followers (*Tattva-cinta-mani*,
analogy chapter). But S does not yet know how it is used, does not know
its reference, which is deemed a word's primary meaning. Later
encountering a *gavaya* buffalo, S says, "This, which is similar
to a cow, is the meaning of the word '*gavaya*'," a statement
which expresses S's new analogical knowledge. The knowledge has been
generated by analogy, its "knowledge source,"
*pramana*.



The ontology of similarity is controversial. Several different theories
are proposed, one of the best of which belongs to
Gangesa, who sees it as a relational
property supervening on other properties and defined as something's
having a lot of the same properties as something else. It is not a
universal, he argues, for similarity relates a correlate (the
*gavaya* buffalo) and a countercorrelate (the cow), whereas a
universal, in contrast, rests as a unity in, for example, with cowhood,
all individual cows. In this way it is like contact, *samyoga*,
but there are also rather obvious differences. It is not reducible to
any single category among the traditional seven (substance, quality,
motion, universal, individualizer, inherence, and absence), for some
substances are like one another as are certain qualities and actions.
But similarity also is not, *pace* the Prabhakara, a
category over and above the recognized seven.
Gangesa's main argument there is
that similarity is not uniform. It is to an extent a property that is
mind-imposed in that the counterpositive (the cow) is supplied from our
side. Moreover, it supervenes on other properties.


### 7.2 "Presumption" (*arthapatti*)




Another candidate source championed by Mimamsa
and Vedanta philosophers but rejected by everyone else as an
independent *pramana* is *arthapatti*, a
kind of reasoning to the best explanation which Nyaya views as
the same as "negative-only" inference (see above). A stock
example: from the premise, "Fat Devadatta does not eat during
the day" (known by perception and/or testimony), the conclusion
is known (by *arthapatti*), "He eats at
night." For Nyaya, the inference (which is no special
source) can be reconstructed where F = "is fat but does not eat
during the day" and G = "eats at night": Whoso F,
that person G; what is not so (F) is not so (G), like Maitra (who eats
during the day and not at night). This would be a
"negative-only" inference so long as not only has
Devadatta not been observed to eat at night but also there is no one
else known to be like him in being fat and having been observed to eat
only at night. We do know that he eats at night (though this has not
been observed), and our inductive base is comprised only of negative
correlations. Mimamsa rejects this analysis and
holds in contrast that presumption is an independent
knowledge source and an important one, operative in basic language
comprehension as well as in knowledge of various everyday facts. The
reasoning is not inferential because no pervasion is known, it is
commonly argued.


### 7.3 "Non-cognition" (*anupalabdhi*)




How do we know absences? I know that my glasses are not on the table
but how? Dharmakirti would answer, "By inference,"
inferential knowledge of an absence being one of three fundamental
types identified by the Yogacarin (see above). "If an
elephant were in the room, I (S) would perceive it. I (S) do not
perceive an elephant. Therefore, there is no elephant in the
room"--similarly for my glasses not being on the table (presuming the
table is not so cluttered that they could be concealed). Gautama and
Vatsyayana, without elaborating, agree that absences are
known inferentially (*Nyaya-sutra* 2.2.2). But
Uddyotakara and the later tradition argue that we know absences
sometimes perceptually. I cognize immediately my glasses' absence when
I look for them on the table.



Bhatta
Mimamsa says no, there is
operative here a special knowledge source called "non-cognition" or
"non-perception," *anupalabdhi*. The main arguments center on
the sufficiency of perception, or inference, to make known such
negative facts, which clearly we do know. The
Bhatta argues, for example,
that perception makes known only presences. Indeed, Nyaya has a
difficult time assimilating such knowledge to its theory of perception,
in particular since the difficulty widens into what is known in
analytic philosophy as the generality problem. Nyaya recognizes
that an absence has a peculiar relational structure, namely, to relate
a locus (the table) to a counterpositive (my glasses) and that the idea of the counterpositive
is furnished by the cognizer entirely from memory. If memory can have such a
crucial role in a type of perception, how then to draw the limits on
what is perceptible? The Nyaya project threatens to spin out of
control. Not surprisingly, therefore, there is a large literature on
absence and its epistemology.


### 7.4 Gesture and Rumor


We learn some things from gesture
(*cesta*), such as to
come when beckoned by a conventionalized movement of the hand.
Gangesa says this is an aid to
testimonial knowledge, not really a form of it since it depends on other
semanitc items, he says, being supplied 
(*Tattva-cinta-mani*, testimony
chapter, 922-926). Rumor (*aitihya*) is defined by
Vatsyayana (under *Nyaya-sutra*
2.2.1) as a testimony chain whose originator is unknown. The Nyaya
attitude is to regard even it as presumptively veridical in consonance
with the school's overall theory of testimony.


## 8. "Suppositional Reasoning" (*tarka*)



Many classical Indian philosophers held that apparent certification
may not be enough to warrant belief in some instances. Even if our
beliefs/cognitions have indeed been generated by processes that would
be counted knowledge sources did they not face counterconsiderations,
in facing counterconsiderations--in being reasonably
challenged--they are not trustworthy and do not guide
unhesitating effort and action. There is a social dimension to
knowledge, where reasoning reigns resolving controversy in ways over
and above the sources. These are the ways of *tarka*,
"hypothetical" or "suppositional reasoning."
Paradigmatically, *tarka* is called for in order to establish a
presumption of truth in favor of one thesis that has putative source
support against a rival thesis that also has putative source support,
a thesis and a counterthesis both backed up by, for example,
apparently genuine inferences (the most common situation) or by
competing perceptual or testimonial evidence. By supposing the truth
of the rival thesis and (in Socratic style) showing how it leads to
unacceptable consequences or breaks another intellectual norm, one
repossesses a presumption of truth, provided--the classical
epistemologists never tire of emphasizing--provided one's own
thesis does indeed have at least the appearance of a knowledge source
in its corner. The consensus across schools is that such arguments are
not in themselves knowledge-generators, but they can swing the balance
concerning what it is rational to believe.



Suppositional reasoning is what a philosopher is good at, drawing out
of implications of opposed views and testing them against mutually
accepted positions, according to, broadly speaking, criteria of
coherence but also of simplicity. Here we come to the vital center of
the life of a classical philosopher, which is reflected in honorific
appellations and book titles, dozens of which use '*tarka*' as
in "Crest Jewel of Reasoning"
(*tarka-siro-mani*).



Udayana (Nyaya, eleventh century) appears to inherit a sixfold
division of *tarka* according to the nature of the error in an
opponent's position, and expressly lists five types (a sixth,
"contradiction" or "opposition," either being
assumed as the most common variety, or subsumed under Udayana's fifth
type, "unwanted consequence"). Philosophers from other
schools present distinct but overlapping lists. The Nyaya
textbook-writer, Visvanatha, of the early seventeenth
century, mentions ten, Udayana's five plus five more, many of which
are used by the Advaitin Sriharsa (probably
Udayana's younger contemporary) among other reasoners. They are: (1)
self-dependence (begging the question), (2) mutual dependence (mutual
presupposition), (3) circularity (reasoning in a circle), (4) infinite
regress, and (5) unwanted consequence (including contradiction
presumably)--Udayana's five--plus (6) being presupposed by
the other, the first established (a form of "favorable"
suppositional reasoning), (7) (hasty) generalization, (8)
differentiation failure, (9) theoretic lightness, and (10) theoretic
heaviness.



It is *tarka* that establishes a presumption against
skepticism. Gangesa (fourteenth century): "Were a
person *P*, who has ascertained thoroughgoing positive
correlations (F wherever G) and negative correlations
(wherever no G, no F), to doubt that an effect might
arise without a cause, then--to take up the example of smoke and
fire--why should *P*, as he does, resort to fire for smoke (in the
case, say, of a desire to get rid of mosquitoes)? (Similarly) to food
to allay hunger, and to speech to communicate to another
person?" (Translation from Phillips 1995: 160-161, slightly
modified.) The argument, which is found in the
*Nyaya-sutra* and other works (e.g.,
Vatsyayana, preamble to
*Nyaya-sutra* 1.1.1), is that without the
confidence that presupposes knowledge, we would not act as we do.