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Studies in Indian Philosophy
suppose the general reliability of tarha (as a general theory) in order to authorize one to justify a specific disputed logical concomitance (vyāpti) in a specific inference schema; (2) note also that this latter specific tarka-justification is a philosophi. cal, argumentative process, something one does to evaluate alleged vyāpti(s) in certain context-restricted epistemological (pramāņa) discussions. Thus we see 'tarka' as (1) a multileveled, rule-governed theory, and (2) "tarka” as the name of the process of traditional argumentation about the empirical evi. dence and/or relevent retaphysical presuppositions between the darśana(s) (philosophical schools ) which constitute the sources for the evaluation of disputed arguments. Fifth, these problems are also philosophically interesting from the point of view of comparative philosophy, obviously because the problems of the justificatton of inductive arguments have been the object of great concern of both Indian and Western philosophers, too. Hence I shall very briefly note a form of the problem of the rational justification of induction noted so perceptively by Hume; we shall also find here in the twelfth -century Jainas, an implicit form of the pragmatic justification of induction,
"Concomitance” or “pervasion” will perhaps do for "vyāpti” - but "tarka" defies translation. Vyāpti designates that two properties (dharma(s)) consistently occur together in our public repeatable experience and thus provide the basis for a general universally quantified warrant-statement (drsțānta), for example, “where there is smoke, there is fire.” The metalanguage term designating this concomitance of these two properties (here, smoke and fire) is “vyāpti”. Tarka is the metalanguage discussion (tarka as process) about the reliability and thus the justification of this purported concomitance. 3 I shall consider in this article only its use by the twelfth-century Jaina logician Vādi Devasūri.* However, we cannot ignore the Indolo. gical significance that the jainas were the only Indian logicians to hold that tarka (as a theory of justification) was a unique separate pramāņa (legitimate means and source of
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