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NYAYA THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
The above view of the syllogism as consisting of ten parts or members (daśāvayava) has been criticised and rejected by the later Naiyayikas, from Vatsyāyana downwards. According to them, the first five factors, mentioned above, are unnecessary for proving anything by means of an inference. They represent not so much the logical steps in drawing a conclusion as the psychological or epistemological conditions involved in inference. Thus the desire to know (jñāsā) may be taken as a condition of all knowledge, by which we want to realise some end. But such desire does not prove anything to any person and cannot, therefore, be regarded as a factor of inferential reasoning, Similarly, doubt is the impetus to a desire to know the truth and is, in this sense, a condition of knowledge. But to doubt is not to prove anything The validity of all knowledge depends on the validity of the methods of knowledge (sakyaprāpti). But the validity of the methods cannot be put forward as a part of the argument to prove a conclusion. So also the purpose or the end, which an inference serves, is no part of the inference itself. The removal of doubt (samsaya-ı yudāsa) consists in repudiating all views which contradict the conclusion of an inference. This serves to lend indirect support to the conclusion, but does not really prove it. Hence it has been held by the Naiyayikas that the syllogism consists of the last five members mentioned above, since they are all necessary for proving or demonstrating a truth. The Samkhya 2 and Vaiseşika 3 systems also accept this view of the syllogism as consisting of five members or propositions. The five members of the syllogism have been explained by the Naiyāyikas as follows.
1
1 NS. & NB., 1. 1 32.
2 Vide Samkhya-Sutra, 5 27
3 In Prasastapada's Padarthadharmasamgraha (p 114) the five members of the syllogism are called pratyña, apadesa, nidarsana, anusamdhana and pratyamnayo
