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 110

TEST OF TRUTH AND ERROR
97
dream cannot be the object of a later dream cognition as something that was cognised. In dream all things may be seen but none remembered as what has been previously seen. Hence the waking volitional experiences cannot be reduced to dream.'
The second objection against the Nyāya theory of extrinsic validity is that it involves the fallacy of reasoning in a circle (parasparāśraya) The knowledge of the validity of knowledge is said to be conditioned by successful activity, which, in its turn, depends on the knowledge of valıdıty. Successful activity depends on two conditions. First, it depends on a true knowledge of objects. Any knowledge of objects cannot make our actions successful. If it were so, even a wrong cognition of silver should lead to the actual attainment of it. Hence successful activity must always be due to a true knowledge of objects. Secondly, successful activity requires a right understanding of those objects as means to some end or good. We strive for certain objects only when we know them as the necessary conditions of realising some good Such knowledge may, of course, be derived from inference If the present objects are similar to other things which proved to be effective means in the past, we infer that these too will serve as means to the present end. This then implies that successful activity requires a valid knowledge of objects as means to some good. But we cannot know that we have a valid knowledge of objects unless we already know what the validity of knowledge means Hence it seems that successful activity depends on the knowledge of validity, while the knowledge of validity depends on successful activity. The two being thus necessarily interdependent, neither can be made the ground of the other, and so the validity of knowledge can never be known.?
1 NM , Ibid
NM, pp 163 f.