Nyaya Theory of Knowledge

Author(s): S C Chateerjee
Publisher: University of Calcutta

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NYÀYA THEORY OF KNOWLEDUE
be called philosophical logic, while the modern Nyāya is formal logic and dialectic.
The Syncretist school develops the Nyāya further by incorporatiog the Vaišeşıka theory within it. The categories of the Vaiseșika become a part of the objects of knowledge (prameya) in the Nyāya. But this synthesis of the Nyāya and the Vaiseșika does not ignore their differences with regard to the theory of knowledge. One is as severe as the other in its criticism of the opposed logical theories.
The Nyāya theory of knowledge is the cumulative body of the logical studies and their results in the different schools of the Nyāya. It may be said to bave three aspects · the psychological, the logical and the philosophical. The first is concernd with the descriptive analysis of the facts of knowledge. The second is interested especially in the criticisni of the forms and methods of knowledge. The third is an altempt to determine the final validity of knowledge as an understanding of reality. These aspects of the Nyāya epistemology, however, are not to be found in abstract separation from each other. In the next chapter we shall have to discuss the mainly psychological questions as to the nature and forms of knowledge.