Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 1

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

Page 83

72
VAISHALI INSTITUTE RESEARCH BULLETIN NO. I
statement of the author "An organ of valid cognition is said by wise men to be one meant for others when it is apt to produce (the same) conviction in other persons in com formity with one's own conviction" is correct, but you fail to understand the meaning intended by it. The suffix vati in svaniscayavat (in conformity with one's own conviction) only stresses the sameness or similarity between one's own conviction and that of others. The analogy does not extend to all other factors involved in the psychological process resulting in one's own conviction. If such allround analogy were intended, even the utterance of the sentences in syllogistic arguments had to be ruled out of court since in subjective
nce the utterance of the expressive words is not observed. you defend this on the ground that the other person cannot be convinced without resort to utterance of words, and therefore it has only to be admitted as a necessary condition. If so the upshot comes to be the production of conviction in the person addressed and so all factors which are necessary for another's conviction and without which such a conviction does not materialize should be deemed legitimate parts of the syllogistic argument. In the absence of the thesis (pakşa), the incidence of the probans in a concrete instance and so also of the probandum may not be understood by the other party concerned. It is for the enlightenment and conviction of such a person, the thesis etc. are to be demonstrated and as necessary expedients of the enlightenment and conviction of the other party, they should be regarded as legitimate factors of the argument.
Let us consider the objection that it is probans alone which is the necessary condition of the enlightenment of the other party as shown by the joint method of agreement and difference demonstrating the presence and absence of the probans followed by the presence and absence of the probandum. This objection is neither fair nor sound. It is not the probans alone which produces the enlightenment of another person, but also the statement of a person of unquestionable veracity and personality, viz., "There is fire here' also produces the same certitude. And so probans also will not be the necessary and sufficient condition of syllogistic inference. Let us now consider the contention that if the thesis alone could produce the knowledge of the probandum in another person, the assertion of a probans will be reduadant. This objection is more captious than the others. The same difficulty is to be confronted by your insistence on the statement of the probans alone as the self-sufficing condition. The probans is not without a local habitation. Such a homeless attribute proves nothing definitely as the probandum also is not a floating predicate. This incidence of the probans in the subject is made known by the