Something wrong with the WSC?

[Alex Watson]

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.

Yours Alex Watson
(Please do not use this e-mail address to reach me, but rather: 
alex_watson_uk at yahoo.co.uk)

> Hello, I am not interfering for or against anyone. 
> 
> The Gaurava of the PaNCAvayava of the Naiyayikas was pointed out by 
> 
> the Advaitins centuries ago.See VedAntaparibhASA of 
> 
> DharmarajAdhvarIndra.There, it is clearly argued by the author that 
> 
> either of the triads-PratijNA,Hetu,UdAharaNa or UdAharaNa, 
> 
> Upanaya,Nigamana will do.His statement is-Vayam Tryavayave SthitAH=Advaitins rest on three limbs. Regards K.Maheswaran Nair Department of Sanskrit University of Kerala Thiruvananthapuram 

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.