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Indian Philosophy v2.c24.s16: XXVI Conclusion

Indian Philosophy v2.c24.s16

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XXVI Conclusion

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The greatest contribution of the Nyāya to Hindu thought is in its organon of critical and scientific investigation. Its methodology is accepted by the other systems, though with slight modifications due to their metaphysical conceptions. It mapped out the world of knowledge in its essential features and gave to its main divisions the names which they still retain in Hindu thought, a clear proof of the immense advance which it won for the human intellect. The Nyāya list of fallacies has supplied the Indian thinkers through a long series of centuries with the means of discriminating, quickly and surely, between true and false inferences and affixing promptly to erroneous conclusions labels indicative of their unsoundness. In the Sanskrit philosophical works we frequently meet with silencing criticism, such as "this is a cakraka, or an argument in a circle"; "that is sādhyasama, or *petitio principii*"; "this is anyonyāśraya, or mutual dependence"; "that leads to anavasthā, or infinite regress." The Nyāya theory of fallacies has served Indian thinkers as a ready-reckoner, "saving us," to use Börne's expressive words, "from the need of going to the ocean every time we want to wash our hands."

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The strength, as well as the weakness of the Nyāya philosophy, is in its faith that the method of ordinary common sense and experience can be applied to the problems of religion and philosophy. A pluralistic universe based on the fundamental dualism between soul and matter is legitimate enough as a procedure and a method, but it cannot be transformed into a general philosophy. The average man has no hesitation in asserting the intrinsic reality of the outward visible world. He is also an animist, though his animism is more instinctive than reasoned, and so he admits the reality of his own and other spirits. He would not admit any degrees of reality, since such a conception would conflict with his rooted faith in dualistic realism; but in the interests of logic he is hospitable to the idea of planes of objective being beyond the reach of the senses. In theology he raises the question of the cause of the universe. How does the universe come into being? Such as it is now, he says, it has always been, since it began to be. Though, as a dualist, he fights shy of any transition between being and non-being, his empirical sense will not allow him to accept the static view of the universe. In this difficulty he turns to his own experience, where he finds that he makes several things, like tables and chairs, distinct from himself. As we are distinct from the things which we make, so is the divine spirit, the cause of all things distinct from his handiwork, the world. As we re-fashion existing material, so does God re-fashion the available elements of souls and atoms, which are co-eternal with him. Thus does the Nyāya attempt to do justice to the impressions of common sense and build a metaphysics of pluralistic realism.

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In the course of this exposition we have pointed out that the Nyāya view is undoubtedly a natural and necessary stage in the evolution of thought, but is by no means final. The mechanical explanation of reality, which traces it back to its elements, eliminates the fact of development. The plausibility of the system is due to the insistence with which mere subjectivism is repudiated and the primal instincts of humanity satisfied. No system of Hindu thought, not even that of Śaṃkara, accepts the view of mere mentalism. But there is no inconsistency between metaphysical idealism and psychological realism.¹ The practical reality of things independent of finite minds is conceded by all systems of objective idealism. A metaphysical investigation of the nature and conditions of thought compels us to give up the view of self as a thing among other things. It will yield an idealism which does not so much upset the common-sense view as transcend it. Even metaphysical idealism allows us to admit, from the point of view of common sense and psychology, the distinction between thought and reality. The continuity and coherence of our experience means the reality of non-experienced entities. A deeper analysis of experience on the logical side was undertaken by the Sāṃkhya and the Vedānta. A more systematic co-ordination of the Nyāya ideas on the theological side is found in Rāmānuja.

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¹ Cp. Green : “It is quite a tenable position to deny that an object is a state of consciousness and yet to hold that only for a thinking consciousness has it any reality” (Works, vol. i, p. 423).

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ATHALYE : Tarkasaṃgraha of Annaṃ Bhaṭṭa, E.T. COWELL : Udayana’s Kusumāñjali, E.T. COWELL and GOUGH : Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha, xi. GANGĀNĀTH JHĀ : Nyāya Sūtras with Vātsyāyana’s Bhāṣya and Uddyotakara’s Vārttika, E.T. KEITH : Indian Logic and Atomism. SEAL : The Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus. VIDYĀBHŪṢAṆ : History of Indian Logic.

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THE ATOMISTIC PLURALISM OF THE VAIŚEṢIKA

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The Vaiśeṣika—Date and literature—Theory of knowledge—Categories—Substance—Soul—Manas—Space—Time—Ākāśa—Earth, water, light and air—The atomic theory—Quality—Activity—Generality—Particularity—Inherence—Non-existence—Ethics—Theology—General estimate.

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