Indian Logic Part 01

Author(s): Nagin J Shah
Publisher: Sanskrit Sanskriti Granthmala

Page 71

62
INDIAN LOGIC
the like even if according to him a causal aggregate includes an additional factor in the form of 'capacity', the point being that the positing of 'capacity' is superfluous. 26 Then Jayanta argues that the alleged 'capacity' cannot be something eternal because that would mean that the cause concerned always goes on producing the eftect concerned; but that it can also not be something transient because then it will itself require a cause and that will lead to an infinite regress. 27
The Mimāṁsaka pleads : "A capacity' has to be posited because that is unavoidable, and then it has to be conceived in such a manner that an infinite regress is avoided." 23 Jayanta retorts: "To posit a 'capacity' is not unavoidable, it rather is an unnecessary duplication.”';29 Lastly, Jayanta recalls the Mimāmsaka's position that a cause produces the effect concerned by way of undertaking an operation that is something essentially unobservable, and so he asks : “Why posit an unobservable 'capacity' and an, unobservable 'operation' when either should do ?!30; when the Mimāmsaka pleads that even when possessed of a "capacity' a cause is never found to produce the effect concerned unless it undertakes an 'operation' Jayanta retorts : "But that means that an operation' is not something essentially unobservable":31. After this much refutation of the concept of 'capacity' based on an ontological consideration there comes a summary criticism based on a logical consideration; thus it is suggested that even if it becomes necessary to posit a 'capacity' in the form of an additional member of the normal causal aggregate this positing can well be treated as an ordinary case of inference.37 The difficulty with this suggestion was that our logicians allowed for a case of inference 'where the concerned relation of invariable concomitance was established on -the basis of a direct observation as also for a case of inference when it was established on the basis of an analogous observation, but the case of inferring a 'capacity' was a rather third type of case-something like the modern scientific method of formulating a hypothesis by way of accounting for an observed phenomenon. it was this consideration that constituted the strong point of the Mimāmsaka who would plausibly make out that the case of