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SOME PROBLEMS IN JAINA PSYCHOLOGY
The conditions of inference have been discussed by modern Western logicians. Russell seems to think that the psychological element of our knowledge of the propositions and their relations, is not a necessary condition of inference. Validity of inference mostly depends on the logical condition of the implication between propositions. We infer one proposition from another in virtue of a relation between two propositions ' whether we pereceive it or not'. The mind, in fact, is as purely receptive in inference as commonsense supposes it to be in perception of sensible objects.69 But W. E. Johnson and Miss Stebbing have recognized both the psychological and the logical conditions of inference. The logical conditions consist in the relation between the propositions. They are called ' the constitutive conditions'. The psychological conditions have been called the epistemic conditions' of inference. They refer to the relation of the propositions to what the thinker may happen to know.70 Earlier in the chapter, Johnson says that inference is a mental process which, as such, has to be contrasted with implication. The connection between the mental act of inference and the relation of implication is analogous to that between assertion and proposition. Miss Stebbing also shows that inference involves both the constitutive and the epistemic conditions. The epistemic conditions relate to what the thinker who is inferring knows. 71
The question regarding the special cause of inference (karana) that brings about the conclusion in inference, has been discussed by Indian logicians. According to the Buddhists, the Jainas and some Naiyāyikas, it is the knowledge of the linga, the middle term, that leads to the conclusion. The middle term known as such is to be taken as the karana or operative cause of inference. R. S. Woodworth says that reasoning very often depends on the use of the middle term.72 The Mīmāmsakas and the Vedāntins believe that the knowledge of vyāpti is a cause of inference. According to them, the knowledge of the universal relation between the major and the minor term is received in our mind when we see the linga or the middle term as related to the pakṣa or the minor term. This leads to the conclusion. But according to the modern Naiyāyikas, linga or the middle term cannot be the operative cause of inference. It cannot lead to the conclusion except through the knowledge of vyāpti. Hence, they say that the knowledge of vyāpti should be taken as a special ground (karana), of inference. Vyāpti does directly lead to the conclusion. It has for its function the synthetic view of the middle term as related to the major term, on the one hand, and of the minor term, on the other. This is linga parāmarśa. In this, the middle term is
69 Russell (B.): Principles of Mathematics, p. 35. 70 Johnson (W. E.): Logic, Part II, p. 8. 71 Stebbing (S.): Modern Introduction to Logic, p. 215. 72 Woodworth (R. S.): Psychology--A Study of Mental Life, p. 605.
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