Part 3: The Need for Reviving the Tradition of Tarka/Anvikshiki in India

The Resurrection of Tarka

It is time to challenge the banishment of our philosophies and our culture and to throw the challenge back to them.

The main areas of contemporary Western philosophy’s focus are:

• Logic
• Language
• Consciousness / mind

Indian philosophy has the richest history in all these three areas, while the West has hardly any. The West excludes us from these discussions, while its research in these three areas shapes the world. The ideas engendered by them are often confused and are directly against the principles and tenets of our own tradition. If we choose to remain excluded while the West is shaping the world contrary to our Dharma, whose fault will it be?

WESTERN LOGIC

The contentious issues in Western logic from the Nyaya point of view are

• The definition of logic
• The conception of truth
• On the idea of logic being ontology-free
• Logic independent of the “categories”

The Definition of Logic

Logic is defined in contemporary Western tradition as that which provides validity to deductive inferences alone, i.e., to truth-preservation and not truth-determination. Is not the truth determination of a proposition part of logic? If not, the determination of the truth of a proposition becomes something other than, or beyond, logic. Is such a definition justified?

The result of such a definition is a divide between logic and epistemology as if they are two separate and independent disciplines. The consequence is that Western philosophers’ resort to the language of ontological commitment as if it is a private affair—a private commitment—of the philosopher. For this reason, the Western philosophical tradition has abandoned the concept of the meta-narrative.

The Conception of Truth and the Unresolved Problem of Ontology

Ontology (‘onto’- real or existence; ‘logia– science) studies what is real and what exists. When it comes to perceiving objects in the external world, the standard Western paradigm is that light falls on an object first. This reflected light enters the eyes and falls on the retina, from where neural impulses travel via the nerves to a region of the brain. Here, an image is reconstructed, and the person ‘sees’ the object. The same sequence is true for all the other senses too, like hearing, touch, smell, and taste. This is the ‘stimulus-response theory of perception,’ a stimulus of some sort evoking a response inside our brains through an intermediate causal chain.

Thus, contemporary science and philosophy subscribes to the idea what we perceive in the external world is not as it really exists but how the interpretation occurs in our brains, which depends on our endowed senses. This is Representationalism – the perceived world as only an internal representation of an external world; hence, it is an indirect form of reality. The world outside is not a true world in this sense. In Kantian philosophy, the original unknown is the ‘noumenon’ (in modern parlance, ‘the non-linguistic’ world), and the known constructed reality is the ‘phenomenon’. Representation gets the term ‘Scientific Realism’ or ‘Indirect Realism’ and forms the basis of both philosophy and neuroscience.

In contrast, Indian philosophy for thousands of years has been clear on its stand on ’Natural Realism’ or ‘Direct Realism’ as explained in the book “Natural Realism and the Contact Theory of Perception” by Chittaranjan Naik. Indian philosophy, with some minor variations, propound an active theory of perception where the perceiver, central in the scheme of things, goes out and reaches the object in the world. This is the ‘contact-theory of perception’ where contact with the object by the perceiver gives direct information about the world as it exists. Hence, the external world, as seen or heard, is an actual world in its reality and not a construction.

This establishes the role of pratyakṣa, or direct perception, as a valid pramāṇa, or means of knowledge. This contrasts with Western philosophy, where the world can never be known; hence, perception is never a valid source of knowledge in western traditions.

In the overwhelming contemporary position, which says that the world is mind-dependent, there are two further subgroups of explanations: a) Representationalism (Scientific Realism or Indirect Realism) believes that the perceived world is an indirect form of reality.  b) Idealism believes that the world we perceive is a construction. The world has no existence independent of the mind or our subjective perceptions of the world. Thus, in the “mind-dependent world” position, the mind either constructs an image of an existing outside world or the world itself with no outside world at all. If there is a mind-dependent world only, then what is the ontological status or the true reality of the world? All we ever know is the ‘phenomenon’, with the true ‘noumenon’ always unknown.

By the beginning of the 20th century, there was an impasse in the philosophical world, which was the ‘problem of the external world’: The perceived world appears to be external to us and to exist independently of our minds. Yet, what we perceive are secondary qualities, as presented to our sensory faculties and their specific powers. They are not the primary qualities that belong to the objects themselves. All Representationalist systems cannot thus effectively address the topic of ontology (reality), as the real world (noumenon) is always beyond our capacity of comprehension.

Even the intervening medium, such as space or air, through which data transmits from the object to the mind, would have existed prior to the appearance of the representations. In other words, they are noumena. In which case, how can we speak of the ideas of motion, medium, space, time, and their relations when they are all categories applicable to phenomena? The stimulus-response theory of perception presents a riddle. If we do not possess the capacity to speak of the real world external to us (or the noumenon) in meaningful terms, how would we indeed be able to investigate the topic of ontology? In the field of Western philosophy, this problem is unresolved to this day.

Due to its inability to determine the ontological status of the world, Western epistemology has become muddled in its conception of truth. They have taken various themes into consideration.

• Naïve Realism
• Idealism (the world as idea)
• Phenomenalism (transcendental epoche and objects of intentional consciousness)
• Representationalism (separation between phenomenal or folk view and scientific view)

The Western theory of perception has thrown the Western tradition out of balance. As a result, Western philosophy has produced a variety of theories of truth, like Correspondence theory, Coherence theory, Pragmatic theory, Deflationary theory, Consensus theory, Semantic theory, etc.

On Logic Being Content-Neutral Due to Argument-Form

In logic, it is important to have a method of argumentation that is content-neutral so that it can be applied to all topics of human discourse. The term ‘formal logic’ in contemporary Western philosophy refers to logic as content-neutral or topic-neutral because of the argument form it adopts. This theme of content neutrality deriving from the argument-form has its genesis in a certain reading of Aristotle and it has percolated very deeply into the Western tradition. This was one of the prime motivations behind the attempts of Analytic philosophers to go beyond the surface grammatical structure of language and develop a Symbolic Logic or Predicate Calculus similar to the functions of mathematics.

Logic thus came to be considered as dependent on argument form only, i.e., on the form of the argument independent of its content. Today, formal logic is seen as an unquestionable truth, and a lot of work is being put into figuring out the building blocks of the logical form, such as logical operators, logical constants, and so on. Such a conception of logic directly mitigates against the Indian tradition, which holds logic to be dependent on the natures of the objects themselves. Knowledge, or epistemology, is intricately linked to and is the prime purpose of Indian logic.

The Descartes argument serves as an example. This goes as follows:

1) I can pretend that the material human Descartes does not exist.

2) I cannot pretend that I do not exist.

3) So, I am not the material human Rene Descartes.

We can now have a hypothetical argument based on the above:

1) I can pretend that Stalin was not a Georgian.

2) I cannot pretend that the only Georgian dictator of the Soviet Union was not a Georgian.

3) So, Stalin was not the only Georgian dictator of the Soviet Union.

The conclusion of the hypothetical argument (on RHS) is wrong. However, its argument form is the same as that of Descartes’ argument. Therefore, the conclusion of Descartes’ argument is wrong. (This example is from ‘Mind and Its World’ by Gregory McCullock.)

Logic in Indian traditions does not allow such inconsistencies while seeking knowledge about the world.

The Banishment of the Categories

Aristotle’s logic was based on the categories—the “Predicamentia.” The rise of empiricism saw the rejection of the categories as figments of the human imagination. The debate between rationalists and empiricists, which pitted a priori reasoning against a posteriori reasoning, has shifted the balance in favour of the empiricists. Modern Symbolic Logic / Predicate Calculus entirely dispenses with categories.

After displacing the categories from logic, the Western tradition now attempts to study them as part of metaphysics. By what means can it do so? But this is what Nyaya says: “Reasoning is impossible in the absence of knowledge of the categories (padarthas).” It also says,“Knowledge of the categories is the means (though not the direct means) that produces knowledge of the self.” (Annambhatta’s Dipika on Tarka Samgraha (X.24))

Nyaya Challenges

The challenges placed on Nyaya in the context of Western logic are manifold.

1. Refutation of the Western definition of logic
2. Refutation of Representationalism and establishment of a Coherent Direct Realism (and thereby of recovering the meaning of truth as correspondence to the object ‘as it is’).
3. Establishing that logic is directly related to cognitive episodes and hence married to epistemology and the determination of truth.
4. Refuting the idea that the content-neutrality of logic derives from logic being ontology-free.
5. Re-establishing that the “categories” are indispensable elements of the structure of logic by showing that the content-neutrality of logic derives from the generality of the padarthas that pervade all objects.

LANGUAGE

A few issues in Western philosophy of language and semantics concern with the definition of meaning, the liar’s paradox, and the origin of language.

The Definition of Meaning

There have been many attempts to define “meaning” itself. The Indirect Reference theories (Sense and Reference theory; Descriptivist theory) suggest that words or phrases do not directly refer to a thing in the world but instead rely on context, descriptions, or shared knowledge to identify the intended meaning. This is pointing to something without explicitly naming it. Direct Reference theory is the idea that a proper name or a definite description directly refers to an object without the mediation of any descriptive content.

In Western traditions, knowledge is defined as “Justified True Belief.” In the realm of epistemology or knowledge theories, competing theories such as “Internalist” and “Externalist” exist to elucidate the process of justification. Externalism contends that the meaning or content of a thought is partly determined by the environment. This refutes Descartes’ traditional Internalism assumption, which holds that the content of a thought remains fixed regardless of the external world. Descartes believed that he could know the content of his thoughts while suspending all judgement about his environment. There is a serious debate between the two positions, and it pertains to many central concerns of philosophers, such as the nature of knowledge, the relation between mind and world, memory, and so on. There are also other debates regarding knowledge about the world, like a “phenomenal view” versus a “scientific view.”

Knowledge is the supreme ideal in Indian traditions. One of the attributes of Brahman, or the Self, which is the ground of the universe, is knowledge, and hence the pursuit of knowledge is the most divine pursuit in human endeavors. Indian texts developed an extensive theory of knowledge. Without such a theory, we could not have produced the enormous amounts of literature covering all aspects of life in the material (aparā) and spiritual realms (parā).

Any knowledge must have a certain means of acquiring it. Pramāṇa (proof or a valid ‘means of true knowledge’) plays an important role in Indian philosophical traditions. The first three are the main ones, and the other three are auxiliaries. These are:

• Perception or direct sensory experience (pratyakṣa)
• Inference (anumāna)
• Testimony of reliable authorities (śabda)
• Comparison and analogy (upamāna)
• Postulation and derivation from circumstances (arthāpatti)
• Non-perceptive negative proof (anupalabdhi)

However, Western philosophy had failed to provide a sound basis for epistemology (the theory of knowledge), and it became a complex maze of verbiage that ultimately led to the discrediting of everything metaphysical and of philosophy itself. The justified true belief definition of knowledge is the basis of its knowledge, and Gettier showed many problems with this notion by providing counterexamples. It is once again surprising to note that the West, which prides itself on so many scientific and technological developments, does not have a proper theory of knowledge.

In traditional Indian philosophy, assertions about the objects of the world are grounded either in perception or in inference. Hence, there is no scope for these assertions to stray into speculative thought. If they do stray, it is only due to the incorrect application of the pramāṇas. And when it comes to assertions about things that lie beyond the range of the senses, the assertions are grounded in scriptural sentences (śabda) and in inferences that depend entirely on these scriptural sentences. If they do stray here too, it is again due to an incorrect understanding of the scriptural sentences, or the inferences drawn from them.

The Liar’s Paradox

These are sentences whose meanings are “true if false and false if true.” These sentences lead to incoherent conclusions on the basis of the accepted principles of logic. This is the most virulent strain of paradox, and dealing with it has been an important task in logic for about as long as there has been logic, as the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy states.

A classic example is the statement “This sentence is false.” If the statement is true, then it must be false, and if it’s false, then it must be true, creating a paradoxical situation where the statement cannot be definitively true or false. Then we have a Deflationary theory of truth to explain the Liar’s paradox, which says that to assert that a statement is true is just to assert the statement itself. It eliminates the truth-predication. But this is a specious argument because the intrinsic truth-assertive force of a statement does not vanish even in the absence of an explicit assertion of truth. We cannot utter statement ‘This statement is false’ without it having an intrinsic truth-assertive force.

In Indian logic, these kinds of cases are intimately related to the nature of language and the invariable connection that exists between a word and its meaning. A case similar to the liar’s paradox arises when it is asserted that a hare has horns because, in Indian logic, if it has horns it can’t be a hare and if it is a hare it can’t have horns. The expression ‘hare with horns’ has no denotation; it is a mere verbal construct. Likewise, the liar’s paradox has no reference to any state of affairs in the world and is a mere verbal construction. In other words, they are not legitimate verbal expressions.

The origin of language

Western tradition regards language as an artefact of human creation. But there are some contemporary ideas that actually point to a contrary nature of language. Post-structuralists say that language is not a neutral tool for communicating fixed meanings. Instead, they see it as a complicated system where meaning is unstable, fluid, and constantly being constructed through power dynamics and the gap between signifier and signified. This means that there is no one “true” interpretation that can be used.

Jerry Fodor’s Mentalese, or Language of Thought, is another theory to explain language. Mentalese proposes that our thinking processes are fundamentally structured like a language, with basic building blocks of thought combining to form complex ideas. This language-like structure allows for complex thought through its compositional nature, similar to how words in a language combine to form sentences. Like a natural language, Mentalese is believed to have a syntax (rules for combining concepts) and semantics (meaning of concepts) that allows for the systematic construction of complex thoughts. The major problem with this theory is that it is not falsifiable. However, these contrary theories of language have some parallels to Nyaya thought regarding language.

The Nyaya Challenge

The first is to establish that meaning is objective (i.e., it is not subject to human determination). It needs to establish that the variation between mental content and objective truth is due to subjective human factors and is not a feature of semantics (or meaning). The next challenge for Nyaya is to establish that the categorisation needs to be yathartha (objective truth) and ayathartha (truth derailed by subjective factors) and not Internalism and Externalism.

Nyaya would seek to establish that the relationship between words and objects is natural, objective, and not determined by human beings. Last, but not least, it needs to sever from the roots the misappropriation of ideas from Indian tradition by the West. In reviving our tradition, these ideas need to be traced to our philosophical texts and revived as part of a continuous living tradition, thereby giving the lie to Western claims of originality.

WESTERN CONCEPTIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND MIND

The Issues

The main issue in Western philosophy is the non-distinction between consciousness and mind, on the one hand, and the paradox of the divide between mind and object, on the other. Similar is the categorisation of consciousness as ‘creature consciousness’ and ‘state consciousness.’ Neuroscience has actively taken up the study of consciousness and is attempting to use the latest technologies like functional MRI to map the neural correlates of consciousness.

There are many explanations for consciousness (functionalism, epiphenomenon, behaviourism, etc.), but all of them are physicalists in some sense or another (i.e., none of them consider consciousness a primary substance). It seems to appear secondary to some other material. David Chalmers considers consciousness to be non-reductive but also non-causal at the same time. WhileChalmers’ position coincides partially with the Indian philosophical position that consciousness is non-reductive, it refrains from treating it as an independent substance. Chalmers treats consciousness as non-causal and all cognitive operations to be dependent on a physical substrate.Also,Western philosophy tends to assume that the human being is a tabula rasa at birth. This has a deep influence on the ethics and social order imposed on the world.

The Nyaya Challenge

Indian and western philosophies distinctly differ on the issue of Consciousness, mind, and matter. Fundamentally, Consciousness (also known as the Self, Puruṣa, Cognizer) is primary in Indian traditions; it is secondary to matter in contemporary western traditions. In Western definitions, the deep sleep state is equivalent to the absence of consciousness. In Indian traditions, Consciousness is transcendental as well as pervasive of the three states of waking, dream and deep sleep. Mind and matter are different from this Consciousness.

Indian philosophy makes a clear distinction between the Self and mind-matter as two distinct identities. Mind and matter belong to the same category. In Indian traditions, the category of the cognizer is the Self (or Puruṣa), whose characteristic feature is consciousness. Hence, Self, consciousness, cognizer, and Purusha belong to the same category of sentience. Mind-matter, also known as prakṛti and always insentient (inert or having jaḍatva), belongs to the distinct category of the cognized.Mind and matter are the two modes in which objects of cognition appear, revealing legitimate objective reality.

Unlike the western notions of an unknowable noumenon (original), where the perceived world loses its intrinsic character; in Indian philosophy, the term ‘unknowable object’ is devoid of reference (vikalpa), and is an illegitimate verbal construction (like the son of a barren woman). In Indian traditions, a conceived object cannot be unknowable, and if it is unknowable, there is no conceiving. In this overarching principle, where the perceived world is independent of the mind, we return to the one world that we all experience and live in.

Nyaya postulates Consciousness /Self as a primary non-reducible and causal substance. Cognition is inherent to consciousness. Since knowledge is consciousness itself, the definition of the former is impossible. The only thing possible to define is right and wrong knowledge, not knowledge itself. Nyaya challenges the Western definition of knowledge as ‘justified true belief’ as untenable since it reduces knowledge to a kind of belief and involves circularity of definition.

The second challenge is from the Nyaya position that Consciousness is not non-causal. It has the capacity to act on the world (kriya-shakti). Free will and destiny have a clearer understanding in Nyaya than in the Western traditions. The most important aspect of Nyaya in consciousness is that it takes the mind as simply an object. The relation between mind and ‘matter’ is not a difference between intension and extension but a difference in the conditions of object-hood and word-meaning (Bhartrahari).

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Today, people equate truth with what science says—so much so that even contemporary philosophers have capitulated to the inducements of science. But science is not infallible, and its foundations are questionable. There have been many understandings and revisions in the philosophy of science, which itself belies the claim that science could be the perfect proposition to understand the world around us. Starting with David Hume’s scepticism and Kant’s response, scientific philosophy—the method of science—has undergone many transformations. This includes the ideas of theory-ladenness, positivism, the paradigms of Thomas Kuhn, the falsifiability criterion of Popper, and so on.

Many people use mathematics to interpret the descriptive universe. However, the transformation from the mathematics to the contours of descriptive reality is speculative and subjective; it has neither linguistic nor logical basis. In the absence of the categories, the interpretations are often absurd (reasoning a posteriori). The paradoxes of modern science are the outcomes of interpretations that violate the nature of the categories.

Scientific theories have misused probability. Probability is neither a pramaana in the Indian sense nor is it a proof in the Western sense, but it has been justified by some Western philosophers as a form of reasoning under such names as abductive reasoning. There is rampant misuse of the notion of probability in some scientific theories. Scientists freely assign probability values to conceive possibilities, without determining whether dispersions of matter can converge to such conceived outcomes.

The inertial property of matter necessarily leads to atrophy. We must consider the rate of atrophy before assigning probability values to outcomes. This is because random initial dispersions of matter will never converge to certain outcomes when the rate of atrophy is considered. The atrophic aspect of material objects is never considered in many scientific theories, leading to fallacious propositions. It can be demonstrated that there are certain things in nature whose occurrence cannot come about through matter acting purely under physical laws, for example, goal-orientated actions of living beings. In turn, this means that the coordinated activities of the organism, which are based on the free will of the living thing, cannot just be a mechanical device following physical laws.

This is the route for the proof offered for the existence of the Self by Chittaranjan Naik in the book, On the Existence of the Self. Any hypothesis in Indian traditions needs verifiability for acceptance. The author chooses to employ uses difference in probabilities between the following two cases:

1. Case 1: The probability of the creation of an ordered spatial configuration (like clocks from random dispersions of matter) when they are subject purely to physical laws.
2. Case 2: The probability of the creation of an ordered spatial configuration when there is the intervention of living beings.

He demonstrates that when matter is subject purely to physical laws, the probability of the material parts coming together in some ordered configuration tends to zero. But in the presence of human intent, suddenly the probability of the material parts coalescing into some ordered configuration begins to approach the value 1. Thus, one will have to presuppose the presence of some extra-corporeal entity acting in a goal-directed manner to explain the kind of outcome; and it is the presence of human beings that brings about such an outcome.

The proof is the establishment of a correlation between the presence of intention and the outcomes of ordered dispersions of matter happening repeatedly, millions of times every year, in the form of the production of cars, beehives, microchips, aeroplanes, buildings and a million more things. In each case, there is the presence of intention and actions directed towards the material components which acquire 100% biases to be in exactly the required spaces and the required orientations to fall in place. There is a case to establish a definite causal connection between the intention and the results of ordered configurations of matter.

This correlation, or vyapti in Indian logic, enables one to infer the presence of the soul from the presence of goal-oriented actions. For, where there is an intentional action, there is always a soul present as the source. Yet, in contemporary discourse, intention does not have the pride of place as an ontological principle. It simply is a manifestation of some underlying physical state in the brain or body. The ‘explaining away’ is not through a logical elucidation but by asserting a dogma which lulls the mind into thinking that the phenomenon cited for the inference of the self is a mere appearance.

Nyaya Challenges

Our tradition needs to undertake a thorough critique of science. The Nyaya critique of science does not attempt to explain how science works like Western traditions, but rather to show its boundaries and place it in its proper domain so it does not make inaccurate truth claims.

Knowledge comes from pramaana, not science, so applying the right one determines:

• Those claims of science that are true
• Those claims of science whose predictive aspects are true but descriptive aspects are false
• Those claims of science that are patently false

Pramaanas should demonstrate each case of the above to help us define science and place it in the vidyas. Nyaya and the pramaanas should take center stage in the evaluation of scientific theories and not the other way around.

Concluding Remarks

Sri Aurobindo said, “Philosophy is the intellectual search for the fundamental truth of things; religion is the attempt to make the truth dynamic in the soul of man. They are essential to each other; a religion that is not the expression of philosophic truth, degenerates into superstition and obscurantism, and a philosophy which does not dynamise itself with the religious spirit is a barren light, for it cannot get itself practised.”

The Self (Brahman, Purusha, Consciousness) is the basis of both our ontology and epistemology. Perception and knowledge acquisition is an inside to outside process. The various schools of Indian philosophy have different perspectives on the nature of relationship between the individual Atman and the Brahman, but the gross principles of ontology and epistemology remain the same. For example, Advaita says Atman and Brahman are the same; Vishishtadvaita says that the individual Atmans are many and constitute the infinite body of Brahman in asesha-seshi relationship; Dvaita speaks of them as separate identities dependent on Brahman and falling into hierarchies (taratamya); Nyaya talks of multiple infinite Atmans; and so on.

The four aims of life in Indian culture are Dharma, Artha, Kama, and Moksha. They are uniquely blended into one whole where other aspects like the Self (Atman), Varnashrama dharma, Karma, and rebirths are integral parts. The Dharmasastras are crucial in guiding the life of the majority of people in the practical reality of the world. The Vedantic ideas are the highest explanations and using the “illusory” world ideas to explain the reality of the world around us is a fallacy and a distortion.

Nyaya and Vaisheshika form the crux around which the logic of Dharma and Dharmashastras revolve, and it also gives the most solid foundation for the acquisition of knowledge about the world. The padarthas-jnana of Nyaya is also indispensable for attaining knowledge of vakhyartha, the meanings of the Vedic statements. The basis of Indian Knowledge Systems in both the para and apara realms is Nyaya and there is a strong need presently to bring it back into our curriculums from the earliest possible level. It is time to internalise the ideas of Indian systems of logic, debate and, and reasoning to confront the West and to show there can be alternative world-views with better explanations to the perennial problems of philosophy.

The West and its worldview have dominated the world for the last 300 years. There is no reason why this should continue. We need a Renaissance that will critique the foundations of Western ethics, the Western concept of the nation-state, the West’s notion of the division between religious and knowledge pursuit, Western historiography and its depictions of other civilisations, Western education systems and pedagogical methods, and many more. We can then offer an alternative worldview that is more inclusive and more rational.

Such a Renaissance can come only from India. Our heritage includes all the elements that make a civilisation great, while other civilisations have had only one. The world is now at a crossroad of history. To secure our rightful position on the global stage, we must initiate the seeds of a Renaissance now. The field of Western tradition is rife with confusion. It provides a fertile field for Nyaya to reap a rich harvest. We need to plough the field well; the harvest will follow. If the West could build a new world through three hundred years of sustained effort, we can do it too. But to achieve it, our vision must span one or two centuries, not just five or twenty years. We have to work in the spirit of Niskaamya-karma, and that is the only way.

Tradition of Tarka-Anvikshiki

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article belong to the author. Indic Today is neither responsible nor liable for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information in the article.