Nyaya Theory of Knowledge

SR No.: 011115
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: S C Chateerjee
Publisher: University of Calcutta
Publication Year: 1939
Total Pages: 440
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 38 MB

Page 312

CLASSIFICATION OF INFERENCE
295
negative instances of agreement in absence between the major and middle terms. The minor premise is a universal affirmative proposition. But although one of the premises is negative, the conclusion is affirmative, which is against the general syllogistic rules of Formal Logic. Hence we see that kevala-vyatireki inference is not any of the valid moods of syllogism recognised by Formal Logic. The validity of such inferences, however, has been admitted by Bradley as a special case of negative reasoning?
An inference is called anvaya-vyatıreki when its middle term is both positively and negatively related to the major term. 3 In it there is vyāptı or a universal relation between the presence of the middle and the presence of the major term as well as between the absence of the major and the absence of the middle term. The knowledge of the vyāptı or the universal proposition, or which the inference depends, is arrived at through the joint method of agreement in presence and in absence (anvaya and vyatıreka). The vyāptı or the universal proposition is affirmative (anvayi) when it is the result of an enumeration of positive instances of agreement in presence between the middle and major terms. It is negative (vyatireki) when it is based on the simple enumeration of negative instances of agreement in absence between the middle and major terms. The difference between the universal affirmative and universal negative propositions (anvaya-vyāpti and vyatıreka-vyāptı) is that the subject of the affirmative proposition becomes the predicate, and the contradictory of the predicate of the affirmative proposition becomes the subject in the corresponding negative proposition Hence an anvaya-vyatireki
1 Vide TB, P 10 2 Vide Bradley, Principles of Logic, VO I, pp 274-82
3 Yatra sădhyem sãdhyābhāvasca anyatra prasiddhaḥ so 'nvayavyatireki, etc., TM., Ch. II
4 Sa cănvayavyatırekī, anvayena vyatırekena ca vyåptimattvät, etc , TB., P 9, 5 Ibid.