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TEST OF TRUTH AND ERROR
knowledge. Hence if we have ascertained the validity of the previous knowledge, we may very well know the validity of the present familiar knowledge by an inference based on its similarity to the former (lajjātīyatva). What happens here is that the previous verification of knowledge by conative satisfaction becomes a determinant of similar subsequent knowledge. This shows that the validity or invalidity of such knowledge as is not new is known by inference based on essential similarity or generic identity This inference is, in most cases, implicit and unconscious. But it is never absent. We may put it explicitly in the form of a syllogism like this ‘All knowledge of a known character is valıd; this knowledge is of that character; therefore this is valid.' So too, mutatis mutandis, for the inference by which we know the invalidity of the knowledge of familiar objects. Hence the Naiyāyikas conclude that knowledge is both made true or false, and known to be true or false by certain external conditions other than those conditioning the knowledge itself.
3. Objections to the theory answered by the Nyāya
According to the Nyāya, knowledge is not ascertained as true or false at its very inception. To have knowledge is not, at the same time, to know it as true or false. The validity or invalidity of knowledge is first known by us when we act upon that knowledge and see if the action is successful or not. But with regard to the test of conative satisfaction (pravșttisāmarthya) as a condition of the knowledge of the validity of knowledge, it may be asked : how do we know that the feeling of satisfaction is true and not false? The perception of water, for example, is to be known as valid when it leads to the volitional experience of the
INM, p. 174.
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