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 222

ORDINARY PERCEPTION AND ITS OBJECTS
203
itself. Cognition or knowledge is a conscious fact and it is the very nature of consciousness to be aware of itself. The point bas been elaborated by the Prābhākaras in their theory of triputīsamvit or triune perception. According to it, every knowledge manifests itself at the same time that it mani. fests an object and the knowing subject. It is at once a manifestation of three things, namely, knowledge, the object, and the knower. The Jainas also take a similar view with regard to the nature of knowledge. The Advaita Vedānta takes knowledge or intelligence to be the essence of the self, the very stuff of it. As such, knowledge is selfmanifest and self-shining (svaprakāśa). It does not require anything else to manifest or know it On this view, every cognition is self-cognised, and consciousness is full and complete awareness of something by a self. But that 'every knowledge is self-conscious knowledge,' or 'to be aware of something is also to be aware of that awareness' is a proposition which is not borne out by psychological facts. Subconscious or unconscious experiences of the mind cannot be said to be full and explicit awareness of themselves. Further, as Russell has remarked, it is highly probable that children and the bigher animals are aware of objects, but not of their own awareness.
According to the Bbāțţa Mīmārāsā," knowledge cannot be directly known. We can never know any knowledge immediately by itself or by any introspection called internal perception. That we have an awareness or a knowledge of some object is no doubt a matter of knowledge for us. But this latier knowledge is not at all immediate and perceptual knowledge ; it is only mediate and inferential knowledge. When we are aware of something, it comes to have the
1 Vide Prakaranapancika, p 59.
Vide VP , Ch 1. 3 Analysis of Mind, pp 115-16. 4 Vide SD , pp 56-57