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

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NYAYA THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
Lastly, it has been pointed out by the Naiyāyikas that a distinction between the different kinds of knowledge is made by reference to the methods of acquiring knowledge. Perception, inserence, testimony, etc., are regarded as different kinds of knowledge because they are due to different pramāņas or methods of knowledge. This cannot be due to the subject or the object of knowledge, because these may be the same in what are generally admitted to be different kinds of knowledge. The same subject may know the same object first by inference and then by perception, as when a in in confirm the inference of fire in a distant place by approaching it. IIence the subject and object cannot explain why one kind of knowledge is called perception and another inference Similarly, we find that the mind's contact with the soul is the common mediate cause of all forms of knowledge. But the mode of this contact is different in different kinds of knowledge. We cannot account for such different modes by the subject and object of knowledge, for they may be the same in two kinds of knowledge. It is the pramina that determines the mind's contact with the soul in different ways in the different kinds of knowledge.
There are two ways of classifying knowledge, i.e. by reference to the nature of the objects known, and by reference to the grounds of knowledge. According to the first, we have as many kinds of knowledge as there are kinds of knowables or possible objects of knowledge. This way of distinguishing between the different kinds of knowledge has heen followed by the Jainas in their theory of knowledge which divides knowledge broadly into the two kinds of pratyakṣa or immediate and parokşa or mediate. Hobhouse als ) follows the saine principle in classifying the methods of knowledge in his Theory of Knowledge. The
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