Nyaya Theory of Knowledge

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

Page 31

NYAIA THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
will commit us to the absurd hypothesis of two selves or subjects for any case of knowledge. In truth, however, there is but one conscious subject for all cognitions in one person.'
It is generally believed that knowledge is neither a mode nor a substance but a kind of activity or function (kriyā). The Bauddha and the Mimāṁsā systems agree in describing knowledge as an activity, a transitive process. The Nyāya however emphatically repudiates the conception of knowledge as an activity. Jayanta in his Nyāyamasījari (p 20) traces the act theory of knowledge to a grammatical prejudice, a confusion between knowledge as manifestation and the verb),
to know' as denoting an action. When we hear the cipressions ' I know, 'I cognise,' etc., we are apt to be misled nto the belief that knowledge or cognition is an activity or process. But this only shows how in philosophy we may be deceived by the vague expressions of ordinary language
Knowledge, although it is not an activity of any kid, is still a transient phenomenon as appears from the three tenses of the verb 'to know' It is a dated event which is to be regarded as a quality and so can be perceived like physical qualities Just as physical qualities are perceived by their special sense organs, so knowledge is perceived by the internal sense called manas." But knowledge can not be the quality of any material substance, since, unlike that, it does not admit of external perception Physical properties are perceived by the external senses, but knowledge is not so perceived. Being thus fundamentally different from all physical qualities, knowledge is to be regarded as the property of an immaterial substance called soul Still, knowledge is not an essential attribute of the soul. The soul has acquired this property in its bodily setting, i.e. in relation to a body.
1 NB, NTT, NSV and NM AS, 11 15 See also NS 32 1 ff 2 Jūānaknya hi gakirinikā, Sastradimkā, p 56 ('f also Nyāyabindutiha, Chi
NM, p 4.96 , TB, P 18