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Studies in Indian Philosophy
in the future. So you are assuming what you are trying to prove to me. I do mean that when you have to use the general rule to prove that (first, the general rule if two things going together in the past, and so on) is a good rule to use, you have to use it in order to prove that, (second), that is, two things such as smoke and fire constantly occurring together is a good reason to forecast their occurring so in the future, just as the general rule states.
A. So what? it is the only game in town. What else can I show you ? God ? B. No, there are too many conflicting claims about too many different
gods. That does not help here.
Well, then, this general rule about two things occurring together, and
so on, is the only "proof” I know. B. Yes. But I want real proof, a guarantee of what will happen.
:
A. So would I, but who can guarantee what has not yet happened ?
Evidence of what happened in the past is all we have from which to
predict the future. B. But don't you feel insecure now ? I do.
A. No, because this kind of "proof” is all we have ever had. The world
has not changed by knowing this, only your naive attitude about certainty has changed. I can feel just as secure with these rules as I can with
anything. B. I guess so (!).
12
a
See PNT, Chapter III, pp. 187ff. The general Indian schema (it is not an Aristotelian "syllogism") may be exemplified below in a drastically simplified (and overworked) example. Pratiñā : (Thesis) “X (locus) has fireness (the property of fire)" Hetu (Justification) “because of smokeness” Drsțânta (Exemplification) "wherever there is fireness there is smokness." Sapaksa “as in a kitchen." Vipaksa (and) “not as in a lake.”
For the reader unfamiliar with Indian logic and the sizable scholarly literature on it, one might peruse the introductory article on "Buddhist
ormal Logic” by D D. Daye in Buadhism : A Modern Perspective. ed. C. Prebish (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1974). In I. M. Bocheński's A History of Formal Logic, (Notre Dame, 1961), pp. 416-447
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