Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 1

Author(s): Nathmal Tatia
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 82

SYLLOGISTIC INFERENCE
71
If even the statement of all these members do not remove the doubt about the cogency of the members, the removal of such lingering doubt is acomplished by corroborating statements. Thus all the ten propositions are necessarily members of a syllogistic argument employed for establishing the conclusion without hitch, since they serve the purpose of enlightenment of the other party as necessary expedients. The long and the short of this defence is to rebut the charge of inconsistency on the part of the author.
Now another difficulty has been raised by some professors of logic. The author has stated (in the verse x) that the syllogistic argument is an instrument of the emergence of conviction of another person in conformity with the proponent's own conviction But so far as one's own conviction reached by one's own inference is concerned, there is no such sequence of the judgements as set forth in the syllogistic argument noted above. A person who knows the necessary concomitance at once derives the conclusion from the mere observation of the probans. Certainly such a person does not apprehend the thesis first and then observes the probans and thereafter remembers the concomitance confirmed in a concrete example. Such a procedure is not endorsed by experience. Moreover the conclusion is seen to be entailed by the probans alone as the sole and sufficient condition and this is confirmed by agreement and difference. When this probans is present the conclusion of the probandum follows as a matter of necessity and in its absence no such conclusion follows. The subject, illustration, and the like do not possess this competency because their omission does not affect the establishment of the conclusion. If despite the inefficiency and superfluity of these elements they are asserted to be necessary factors of the syllogism, that will only lead to an infinite regress, because any and every fact can be adduced as part of the argument owing to its remote relation with the probans. If the mere statement of the thesis were competent to drive home the conclusion, the assertion of the probans would be redundant. And so would also be the subsequent members. The competency of the thesis can be established only on this hypothesis. As this is not found to be the case, that alone which necessarily produces the knowledge of the conclusion without waiting for reinforcement by other factors should be regarded as the instrument of proof. As this instrument is the probans and not the subject and others, the statement of the probans alone should constitute the syllogism. The charge of inconsistency therefore stands unchallenged.
The above argument is perfectly plausible and seems formidable. But one may address the objector as follows: Your quotation of the