Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

Author(s): Narendra Nath Bhattacharya
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

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102 Jain Philosophy in Historical Outline does not prove the eternality of sound, but just the reverse. But this fallacy cannot occur when it is said that in the case of jar, etc., it is seen that something which is of the nature of being effect is indicative of having an intelligent cause. Here the effect is indicative of having an intelligent cause. Here the middle term is not disproving the very proposition which it goes to prove. (iii) Likewise, the probans for the inference of an intelligent cause of earth, etc., is free from the savyabhicāra or anaikāntika or the fallacy of irregular middle. This fallacy occurs when the ostensible middle term becomes an inconstant concomitant of the major term. If one argues, 'all knowable objects are fiery; the hill is knowable; therefore the hill his fiery'; in this case the middle term knowable is indifferently related to both fiery objects like kitchen and fireless objects like the lake. All knowable objects being thus not fiery, we cannot argue that a hill is fiery because it is knowable. The middle term should be uniformly concomitant and universally related to the major term. It should be related both to the existence and the non-existence of the major term, that is to say, the relation between the probans and the probandum should be established both by positive and negative concomitance. Thus in the case of the Nyāya-Vaiseșika example of the jar, etc., the presence of the nature of being an effect is definitely connected with the presence of having an intelligent cause while in the case of vacuum (ākāśa), etc., the absence of the nature of being an effect is definitely connected with the absence of presupposing intelligent cause. (iv) Finally, the probans under consideration is also free from the Kālātīta or Vädhita or the fallacy of non-inferentially contradicted middle. A typical instance of this fallacy is such a proposition as 'fire is cold because it is a substance' or 'sugar is sour, because it produces acidity,' In the first example, coldness is the sādhya or major term, and substance is the middle term. Here the non-existence of the major term, i.e. coldness is flatly negated by a stronger instrument of valid knowledge, namely perception, which already proves fire to be hot instead of being cold. This fallacy cannot be detected in the inference of an intelligent cause of the world.
The Nyāya-Vaišeşikas were also aware of other objections which could be raised against their inference of God. One such objection is that their inference can at best establish only a finite intelligent cause of the world, which is contradictory (viruddha) to the infinite intelligent cause, i.e., God. In the instance of the potter making the jar, who is a finite agent, the intelligent cause that is actually inferred