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 128

TEST OF TRUTH AND ERROR
109
necessary knowledge. These become the content of selfconscious knowledge and, as such, their validity is selfevident. Similarly, the cognition of a cognition or awareness of awareness, the cognition of the similarity between cognitions and the cognition of anything as a mere subject are all cases of self conscious knowledge. In these we not only know something but also know that we know it. That is, we know that something is known. Hence these cases of knowledge also are necessary knowledge having self-evident valıdıty.
In the case of sense-perception and testimony, bowever, there cannot be any self-evident validity. These are not based on any necessary relation between two terms. There is no necessary relation between sense-perception and its object or between words and their meanings. Hence we cannot say that to know anything by external perception or testimony is also to know that we know it. These cannot be the content of self-conscious knowledge and their validity is not self-evident.?
It should however be noted here that with the Naiyāyikas the self-evident validity of some cases of knowledge does not exclude their liability to error. For the Mimāṁsaka and the Vedāntist, the self-evident character of a truth means its infallibility which excludes the possibility of any falsification, so that error pertains not to truth but to its applications (vyavahāra). For the Naiyāyikas, however, even necessary truths are empirical and so require confirmation by fresh applications (i.e. pravsttısāmarthya), whenever necessary. But they are different in status from ordinary observation and generalisation. They possess the
1 Anupasys
Dirustasa mastavyabhıcārasankasya avata eva prāmāpyamapumeyavyabhicăriliigagamutthatvät, etc., NVT., PP 12-13; anomānopamāpānuvyavasiyadharmaiņādināmapı. 8v8ta eva prāmanyagraha, etc., NVTP., pp. 119-20; vide aluo TC., 1, pp 277-79, 282-84
· Pratyakşa sabda vijñanayorna svato "vyabhicāragraha iti, etc. NVT, sbid.