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The Nyāya Conception of Universals
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the characteristic of a real or as identical with a real ? Both these alternatives are to be rejected. Determinate knowledge, being conceptual in character, cannot be supposed by the Buddhist to be cognisant of a real attribute or a real fact, which are, according to his theory, competent to be cognised by perceptual intuition alone. If the determinate conception were cognisant of a common character, it could not be accepted by the Buddhist as veridical, since reals are believed as a matter of universal truth to be uncommon particulars. But if the common character were not cognised, then conceptual thought would fail to embody the synthetic reference, and consequently the problem of universals would not arise simply for the lack of an organ for their knowledge.
We have already shown that the Buddhist's attempt to explain the pragmatic consequences of conceptual thought on the ground that it is not felt as different from veridical intuition is only a sophistry. Even if it is allowed for the sake of argument that a concept possesses difference as an attribute, which may or may not be felt, the mere failure to recognize its difference from what it is not cannot inspire activity towards the latter. If concepts were supposed to be different by virtue of possessing a distinctive individuality of their own, there would be no possibility for their being felt otherwise. If difference be the very stuff and essence of such concepts, it would be felt whenever the concepts will be known. It may be argued that concepts are mere fictions, which, however, are felt as distinctive reals, and so activity is possible. But it is extremely hard to be reconciled to such a theory. To say, that the concept of cow is a fiction with no ontological nexus with a real cow, and at the same time, that it is felt as different from a horse or a buffalo, is only to betray confusion of thought. Even if the possibility of a fiction being felt as a real be allowed, the activity towards a real cannot be justified, unless the former be felt as identical with the latter. And even an ideal identification of a fiction with a real is possible only if the two terms are felt together. But conceptual thought is asserted to be absolutely incompetent to envisage a real, and so ideal identification also becomes impossible. If concepts were admitted to be cognisant of reality, there wouli
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