Indian Philosophy v2.c24.s2.7

v2.c24.s2.7

In the long chain of antecedents out of which the Nyāya evolved, an important place will have to be assigned to dialectical discussions.³ The Nyāya is called sometimes Tarkavidyā or the science of debate, Vādavidyā, or the science of discussion. Discussion or vāda is the breath of intellectual life. We are obliged to use it in the search for truth, which is complex in character and yields only to the co-operation of many minds.⁴ The Upaniṣads speak of learned assemblies or pariṣads where philosophical disputations were carried on.¹ Greek logic owed much to the Sophistic movement, which adopted the mode of disputation called Dialectic, the game of question and answer. In the practice of the art of discussion, the Sophists not only discovered the true principles of reasoning but also invented tricks of argument and sophisms. From the Dialogues of Plato we learn that Socrates used the art of debate for the purpose of eliciting the truth. Aristotle devoted two of his logical treatises, the Topics and the Sophistical Refutations to the guidance of disputants, questioners as well as respondents, though he distinguished logic from rhetoric, the principles of reasoning from the rules of debate. There is no doubt that Gautama’s logic sprang from the dialectical tournaments, the sound of which filled the durbars of kings and the schools of philosophers. The attempt to regulate the use of debates led to the development of logical theory. Gautama, like Aristotle, systematised the principles of reasoning, distinguished the true from the false, and gave an elaborate account of the various forms of sophisms and argumentative tricks. The sixteen topics mentioned in the first sūtra may be regarded as representing stages in dialectical controversy intended to lead up to knowledge.² Many of the later works on logic discuss the rules of debate,³ while all of them refer to dialectical problems.⁴