Indian Philosophy v2.c24.s1.2

v2.c24.s1.2

WHILE the other systems of Indian thought are mainly speculative, in the sense that they deal with the universe as a whole, the Nyāya and the Vaiśeṣika represent the analytic type of philosophy, and uphold common sense and science, instead of dismissing them as "moonbeams from the larger lunacy." What is distinctive of these schools, is the application of a method, which their adherents regard as that of science, to material which has hitherto been treated in quite a different way. Applying the methods of logical inquiry and criticism, they endeavour to show that these do not warrant the conclusions which the Buddhist thinkers derived from them, and that logic does not compel us to disperse the unity and pattern of life into its fleeting moments. They are interested mainly in averting the sceptical consequences of the Buddhist phenomenalism, which merged external reality in the ideas of mind. They seek to restore the traditional substances, the soul within and nature without, but not on the basis of mere authority. The general scepticism which set in like a flood, could not be checked by a mere resort to faith, when its citadel was attacked by the heretical thinkers who presumably took their stand on the evidence of the senses and the conclusions of reason. Only by a thorough examination of the modes and sources of correct knowledge can the ends of life and religion be truly met. What is supplied to us by scripture or the evidence of the senses must be submitted to a critical inquiry, as the etymological meaning of the word ānvīkṣikī suggests.¹ The Naiyāyika is willing to admit as true whatever is established by reason.² Vātsyāyana and Uddyotakara urge that if the Nyāya philosophy dealt only with the nature of the soul and its released condition, there would not be much to distinguish the Nyāya from the Upaniṣads which also treat of these problems. That which gives distinction to the Nyāya is its critical treatment of metaphysical problems. Vācaspati defines the purpose of the Nyāya as a critical examination of the objects of knowledge by means of the canons of logical proof.³