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THE FALLACIES OF INFERENCE
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cannot go beyond them and get any case in which the middle coexists with the major, or the absence of the major is concomitant with that of the middle term. This is illustrated in the inference that 'all objects are eternal, because they are knowable. The validity of this inference depends on the validity of the major premise, namely, 'all knowables are eternal.' But the validity of the major premise cannot be proved, since beyond all objects we have no instances of the concomitance between the knowable and the eternal.
3. The fallacy of viruddha or the contradictory middle
There are two different explanations of the fallacy of viruddha According to the Nyāya-Sūtra' and Bhāşya, the fallacy of the viruddha consists in the opposition of one doctrine to a previously accepted doctrine, both belonging to the same system of thought. It is a contradiction betueen the different parts or doctrines of a system of plulosophy. As an example of this Vātsyāyana cites two contradictory statements from the Yoga-Bhāşya, namely, (1) that the world ceases from manifestation because it is not eternal, and (12) that even then it exists because it cannot be destroyed. ?
In the above sense the viruddha as a fallacy means the contradictions and inconsistencies involved in any school of philosophy. As such, however, it is not an inferential fallacy, but the fallacy of self-contradiction in which any theory or philosophy may be involved. Hence the first explanation of the liruddha as given above does not appear to me to be acceptable.
According to the later Naiyāyıkas, from Uddyotakara downwards, the hetu or the reason is called viruddha when
I Siddhantamabbyupotya tadvirodhi viruddhaḥ, NB, 1.2.6
Vide NB., 1.2.6,
