Indian Logic Forum

Plamen · Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2005 7:14 am Post subject: Indian Logic Forum - About

Indian Logic Forum (IFL) is a place for Indologists, philosophers, and logicians - academics, independent scholars, IT/KM professionals, translators and publishers alike - to share information on Indian Logic and all related fields of Indian cultural, religious, and intellectual traditions.

30 specialists in Nyaya, Epistemology, Indian Philosophy and CS have declared their willingness to become founding members of the Indian Logic Forum, among them academics and scholars of first magnitute, like Profs. Jha, Maheshvaran Nair, Philips, Sharma, Neelakantan, Rajendran and many others, see the full list, whose presence at this Forum as participants and moderators will guarantee high academic and scholarly standards.

ILF is created and maintained by Dr. Gradinarov. All Founding Members are part of the governing editorial board of the Forum. The Indian Logic Forum has been set up in commemoration of the standing contributions of Prof. Bimal Krishna Matilal to Indian Logic and Epistemology.

There is no cognition of the object without adequate instruments of knowledge; without cognition of the object there is no successful activity.
- Vātsyāyana

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Pramāб№‡am antareб№‡a na artha-pratipattiбёҐ, na artha-pratipattim antareб№‡a pravб№›tti-sāmarthyam.

Rajendran · Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2005 12:43 pm Post subject: Dharmakirti

Mukund Dhaygude · Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 12:02 pm Post subject: Prama and Pramana

Prama stands for valid knowledge. Pramana stands for valid means of knowledge. Verbal testimony is a valid means of knowledge if the person concerned is an adhikari. Shabda pramana is very common in case of the saints. Nyaya gets into verification of inferential procedures and thus gets into logical complexities. Nyaya has many things in common with Logic and thus we begin with Nyaya as a Shastra. Shastra is science. So Nyaya is a Shastra. Nyaya has parallels in symbolic logic, mathematical logic, principia mathematica and other logical disciplines. Indians studied it in detail over centuries and its present from is Navya or Nav Nyaya. We find Nav Nyaya scholars in India. It is a discipline of study. Nyaya also means justice in a coloquial sense. Nyayshastra is supposed to be studied before Vedantic studies else Vedanta becomes Anyaya Vedanta. Nyaya is a basic discipline which applies universally to other disciplines of knowledge. So we have Nyaya for Ayurveda. Ayurveda is a medical system of knowledge. Nyaya for Ayurveda and Nyaya for Vedanta are two different knowledge systems. Nyaya has its own terminology and jargon (Paribhasha) that one has to study. Most of the Naiyayikas will talk about Paksa (P), Sadhya(S) and Hetu(H). Mathematically P is data ( given , assupmtions), Sadhya is S ( the goal or the syllogism to be proved) and hetu is the means/ intention to prove S from P.

Rajendran · Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 5:50 am Post subject:

It is true that logic has been in service of many other desciplines of India though I am not sure whether the word Nyaya can be used to denote it. Actually the saying goes Kaanaaadam paanineeyam ca sarvasaastropakaarakam, thogh Kaananda is still problematic.
One great difficulty of Indian philosophy is the autonomous development of its epistemological/logical /practical aspects often sidelining the ontological stand point.Thus we speak of 'Nyaya' logic and 'Yogic' practices adopted in Vedanta
So we can say that logic as developed as a part of the Nyaya philosophy became ahandsmaid to many other disciplines.
C.Rajendran

Mukund Dhaygude · Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 6:40 am Post subject: The (P,H,S) model of Navya Nyaya

In proof theoretic procedures once we agree to what is P ( paksa/ proban/datum/assumption) and we find H ( hetu/ reasons/connections/sambhandha/ relations) and S (Sadhya/goal/probundum) , the (P,H,S) is a generalized mapping/relation/function from P to S via H. Then deduction and induction can be taken care of.
Indians are more linguistic than diagrammatic. Very ofetn a terse Navya Nyaya expression will actually mean something very simple when one discards the metalanguage (paribhasha) and represent the verbose descriptions of Navya Naiyayikas in diagramatic/figurative/ perceptual/ graphical form. It is said that a picture is worth thosand words. In this sense, we need to convert most of the Nyayagranthas in visual forms and then to mathematical forms from proof theoretic point of view. The verbose terse descriptions are frightening in the begining but once we convert them into pictorial representations , the simplicity begins. Then conversion to formulae is simple and then Nyaya becomes relevant. I guess Cornelius Goekoop's work on Tattvachintamani of Gangesha was a beginning of such an era in 1967.
More so , later..

Mukund Dhaygude

The procedures of quantification in Indian Logic are covered under Vyapti(pervasion). For example , one talks of whereever there is fire there is smoke ( Yatra Yatra Dhumah Tatra Tatra Vanhi). This seems to be a generalization. What would a Navya Naiyayika say about fire in the sea ? We do have oil wells in the sea. Fire underneath is a common phenomenon. Whereever there is fire there is smoke does not apply here universally since material properties of fire and water are opposite to each other. Thus there will be a fire that has no smoke. So infereence of fire from smoke fails. Thus there is a logical fallacy. Navya Nyaya also talks of validity of premises in syllogisms. Here the premises are also valid. Would some one resolve this contradiction ?

Plamen · Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 10:42 pm Post subject:

Fire in the lake is an example of vipakб№Јa.

"Whereever there is fire there is smoke" is not a valid concomitance.

Richard Payne · Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 4:15 pm Post subject: deductive? inductive? or neither?

Personally, after coming to understand just what Stcherbatsky had done to the argument forms in DharmakД«rti's Nyāyabindu--rewriting them to better fit Aristotelian syllogistic forms--I struggled to understand what was wrong with this procedure. I now believe that it is a mistake to attempt to interpret the Indian argument form in terms of induction and deduction. These kinds of reasoning are not "natural" (although our training in Western logic often leads us to think that they are), but are rather analytic tools that have been constructed and have a historical development of their own. As such they should not be universalized. As per Rajendran above, the Indian logical form is the result of an autonomous history. What makes more sense to me is that the Indian argument form reflects what might be called a logic of natural kinds.
Of course, modern logical tools with all of their power can be applied to the Indian argument form, but that is a different project from attempting to understand how the historical figures who established the field were themselves reasoning.
also--thank you for allowing me to join in this conversation.[/i]

Plamen · Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 10:43 am Post subject:

Welcome to Indian Logic Forum, Prof. Payne!

If a "natural form" is the form of argumentation during a traditional debate, then yes, Indian logic was subservient to this kind of disputational needs. And still there was a need to clear up the phenomenological field for possible universalization of the logical standards/procedures. This is why so much space is dedicated to the analysis of this or that modus of hetvabhāsa - almost half Nyāya-bindu (the entire Tб№›tД«ya-Pariccheda and the 11 forms of negation of the Second Section that provide the methodological basis for such a reduction to the veridical fundament of logic) is occupied with solving this task, thus creating the conditions for the rise of a universal epistemo-logic, or transcendental logic.

As for the Aristotelian outlook of the forms of negation, it is Dharmakirti that is to "blame" for the Aristotelian form of the syllogism as he is discussing the syllogism sub specie svārthānumāna and of necessity using figures that might look very much Aristotelian - because of their universal argumental form (prakāra).

But this is a special topic for discussion. I will open it and update this one with the link to it.