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NYAYA THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
bot, for the Naiyāyika, mean that the contents of the object bodily enter into consciousness and become its contents. When, for example, I know a table, the table as a physical existent does not figure in my consciousness. This means only that I judge something as having the attribute of ' tableness' which really belongs to it. There is a subjective cognition of a physical object. The one corresponds to the other, because it determines the object as it is, and does not itself become what it is. If it so became the object itself, there would be nothing left on the subjective side that might correspond to the physical object. Nor again does the Nyåya follow the critical realist's idea of correspondence between character-complexes, referred to the object by the knowing mind, and those actually belonging to the object. When we know anything we do not first apprehend a certain logical essence or a character-complex and then refer it to the thing known Our knowledge is in direct contact with the object. In knowing the object we judge it as baving a relation to certain characters or attributes. Our knowledge will be true if there is correspondence between the relation asserted in knowledge, and that existing among facts. Thus my knowledge of a conch-shell as white is true because there 18 & real relation between the two corresponding to the relation affirmed by me On the other hand, the perception of silver in a sbell is false because it asserts a relation between the two, which does not correspond to a real relation between them."
Wuile truth consists in correspondence, the criterion of truth is, for the Nyāya, coberence in a broad sense (sannvāda). But coherence does not here mean anything
1 Cf " Smuth's jodgment that it is the light of a sbip 18 true just because it,' the light, is 10 fact so related to a real sbjp Jones' judgment (that * is the light of a star), on the other hand, 8 false, because this thought is not an approbopsion of the existing present complex fact, light-belonging-to-ship."-Reid, Knowledge and Truth, pp 209-10
