Something wrong with the WSC?

[Birgit Kellner]

I don't want to enter a debate as to whether Ferenc Rusza's paper should 
have been accepted by the WSC, and would also suggest that this aspect 
of the discussion might better be shifted to private communcation 
between Ferenc and the organisers. From what we have been presented with 
so far, there appear to be some divergent perceptions regarding the 
amount of information for the rejection that was or was not communicated 
to Ferenc Rusza, but this is really a matter on which discussion in a 
public forum like this cannot help any further.

With regards to the content of the Nyaya abstract, however, I have a few 
reading recommendations that might also be of interest to other 
list-subscribers, and I am therefore posting this to the list. A 
relatively recent volume on "The role of the example in (dRSTAnta) in 
classical Indian logic", which has come out in Vienna (editors 
Katsura/Steinkellner, Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde 
58, Vienna 2004), contains several papers on the topic especially of the 
example in Buddhist and other forms of Indian logic, and also (though 
less directly) on the role of the fourth and fifth of the pañcāvayavāḥ.

The idea that examples are associated with metatheoretical reflections, 
which Ferenc Rusza also seems to drive at in his abstract, is in this 
volume quite poignantly put forward in Claus Oetke's paper "The Role of 
the Example in Ancient Indian Logic" (pp.175-195). Oetke outlines 
several ways in which examples can be considered as relevant for 
establishing/controlling the regularity of general hypotheses, some of 
which are similar to what Ferenc seems to have in mind. Oetke's paper is 
framed in an approach to Indian logic as sharing significant character 
traits with what is nowadays called "nonmonotonic reasoning" or "default 
reasoning", i.e. reasoning which operates on the assumption of normality 
conditions; this assessment has recently been called into question by 
John Taber [cf. his lengthy article "Is Indian Logic Nonmonotonic?", 
Philosophy East and West 4/2 (2004), 143-170; based on Oetke's "Ancient 
Indian Logic as a theory of non-monotonic reasoning." Journal of Indian 
Philosophy 24 (1996), 447-539. Cf. then again Oetke, "In which sense are 
Indian theories of inference non-monotonic?", Horin 11 (2005), 23-38]. 
The entire discussion contains many valuable ideas for a more 
sophisticated methodological approach to the issue of examples (in my 
opinion, a much more sophisticated approach than the distinction between 
deductive/inductive or extensional/intensional), and it sets the 
standard of reasoning quite high for future work in this area.

There is much more on examples in the abovementioned volume (including, 
among others, an article by Ernst Prets on example and exemplification 
in early Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika that summarily presents the relevant 
textual materials). As far as I know, it represents the current stage of 
scholarship in this area. If Ferenc Rusza has difficulties gaining 
access to any of the materials I have referred to, I'd gladly supply 
some photocopies.

Best regards,

Birgit Kellner





Alex Watson wrote:

>Professor Nair points out that certain Advaitins held only three of the five elements of the PaNCAvayava to be required for the validity of an argument.  Many other examples of non-Naiyaayikas who make such a point could be given.  These do not weigh in favour of the unoriginality of Professor Ruzca's surprisingly rejected paper.  His abstract already mentions that even later Naiyaayikas practically dropped the last two members.  That all five are not necessary is of course not a new idea, but he goes on to offer a specific thesis for why they were included (given at the bottom of this message).  This differs from the traditional explanation in terms of kevalaanvayin and kevalavyatirekin hetus.  As to whether it differs from explanations already put forward in secondary literature, no one has yet pointed to other occurrences.
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>Yours Alex Watson
>(Please do not use this e-mail address to reach me, but rather: 
>alex_watson_uk at yahoo.co.uk)
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>FR wrote:
> The two kinds of example are generally justified with reference to those rather unusual cases where either of the two is not possible (kevalaanvayin, kevalavyatirekin). This explanation, although ingenious, is not fully convincing as it is extremely difficult to find a plausible example of a kevala-vyatireki li"ngam. We get closer to a possible answer once we get rid of the notion that the anumaana is but a contorted version of the very simple Barbara-type syllogism. Then we may recognise that the Nyaaya inference is essentially inductive and intensional, in contrast to the basically extensional and strictly deductive nature of traditional European logic. Here the question is not, ‘Given these premisses, what follows?’ but rather ‘How can we get the right premisses?’ And it is the function of the udaahara.na to establish them. The premiss being sought is always a necessary relation; purely extensional or accidental universality, like ‘all chairs here are brown’ is not considered. This is already suggested by Pra"sastapaada and explicitly stated by Dharmakiirti. So this premiss, the general rule, must be a natural or metaphysical law. The two kinds of example represent two complementary research strategies to find, confirm or reject such laws, e.g. there is no smoke without fire. Focusing our attention on smoky objects, we try to remember a case when there was no fire nearby; and then focusing on essentially non-fiery objects, we try to find a case when there was still some smoke there. The stock example is very suggestive. ‘As in the kitchen’ is clearly not a single case of co-occurrence of fire and smoke, but refers to innumerable observations, and furthermore the causal relation could also be easily observed there. ?Not as on the lake’ again suggests many observations, and also helps to clarify the concept of smoke – for there may be dhuuma on the lake, in the sense of ‘mist’. Presenting this double strategy is a convincing way to prove a general law; and in a debate it is a fair offer to the opponent: try in
> both ways to find a counter-example! And if you can’t, then accept my rule. In a real debate this could be a long and complicated process; that is why at the end it was very useful to recall the other premiss (there is smoke on the mountain) and the proposition (there is fire on the mountain) – since they were announced hours, perhaps days ago; and in the meantime the meaning of smoke has also become more definite, so we should now check if it was really smoke or only mist we saw. 
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