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Means of Valid Cognition Other than Verbal Testimony
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(iii) that the invalidity of a piece of cognition is intrinsic, its validity extrinsic.
The views (i) and (ii) are jointly explained and criticized in v. 34–37, the view (iii) is explained in vv. 38-46. On Kumärila's showing, the view (i) is self-contradictory inasmuch as according to it all piece of cognition is born both as valid and as invalid; he might be correct. As for the view (ii) Kumarila calls it impossible on the ground that according to it a picce of cognition is born neither as valid nor as invalid; as a matter of fact, there is nothing wrong about this view which is committed to maintain not that a piece of cognition at the time of its birth is neither valid nor invalid but only that it at the time of its birth is not known to be either valid or invalid. Lastly, the view (iii) maintains that a piece of cognition is born as invalid but that it is proved to be valid in case it is subsequenty found that the causal aggregate that had produced it possessed a special merit. It can easily be seen that this view is just the reverse of Kumärila's own and is vulnerable in an essentially similar fashion, for in the case of it too one might well ask as to how a piece of cognition can be said to be born as invalid if it is possible for a subsequent discovery to prove it to be valid. (As presented by Kumārila the view (iii) does not run parallel to his own view, but the context requires that it should be presented as running parallel to the latter. As it stands, the view (iii) only maintains that the causal aggregate possessed of a special merit produces cognition possessed of validity while the causal aggregate possessed of 'absence of a special merit' produces cognition possessed of 'absence of validity'; then it is argued that since absence of a special merit', being a mere 'absence', is automatically available all cognition is intrinsically invalid (vv. 39-41). But the argument loses all force when 'absence of a special merit' is described as 'either the absence of some member in a causal aggregate or the presence of a defect in the causal aggregate' (v. 42), for certainly 'presence of a defect' cannot be dismissed as a more 'absence'. Nay, it can even be shown that special merit here spoken of can be nothing but 'absence of a defect. For 'causal aggregate possessed of a special merit' can only mean 'properly constituted causal aggregate, while the latter expression can only mean 'causal aggregate possessed of "absence of a defect” ( = non-defective causal aggregate)'. In later times the controversy was conducted in terms of two aspects of the problem viz.
(i) intrinsic versus extrinsiç validity and invalidity as regards the production of a piece of cognition, and
(ii) intrinsic versus extrinsic validity and invalidity as regards the cognition of & piece of cognition. In the controversy conducted in terms of the former aspect the point of issue was whether the same causal aggregate which produces a piece of cognition also produces its validity (or invalidity), in that conducted in terms of the latter aspect it was whether the same causal aggregate which brings about the cogaition of a piece of cognition also brings about the cognition of its validity (or invali
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