Kanada and the Beginnings of Indian Logic
You
may notice that Kanada’s text, the Vaisheshika Sutra, is very hard to
read. The introduction says that this is the first translation of this
important text into English, and this was done and published in New
Delhi, Northern India, in 2003. There is no British or American
publication of this text. As you read Aristotle in the next weeks,
consider how well Aristotle speaks in English when there is support and
funding for the publication. If you compare this to the translator’s
edition of Aristotle, you find that Aristotle speaks in fragmented words
and the translators polish it and interpret it to get Aristotle to
sound that good. This is unfortunate, for Kanada may have been the
first atomist and one of the first logicians.
The
Vedas are India’s earliest texts and traditions, consisting of many
stories of gods and cosmic origins. Much philosophy and cosmology are
contained in these texts. It is believed today that they were formed
from earlier oral traditions into the standard written texts around 1200
BCE. Four hundred years later, around 800 BCE, the Upanishad texts
taught the ‘inner meanings’ of the Vedas, drawing philosophical lessons
from the tales of the gods. ‘Philosophy’ is darshana, ‘seeing’. The
Upanishads preach liberation by knowledge. The most famous quote is
“Tat tvam asi”, or “That is you”. Whatever is other to you is in fact
your own self.
200
years later, around 600 BCE (Kanada’s time), India was experiencing a
third wave of philosophy including the logicians, atomists, Jains and
Buddhists. This is the time when Kanada, Gotama (next week), and the
Buddha were supposed to have lived and taught, and schools of their
followers flowered in the next several hundred years (the same time as
philosophy and logic were flourishing in ancient Greece).
At
this time, India was producing superior steel (wootz) that the Chinese,
Romans and Egyptians highly prized. The Chinese tried for centuries to
reproduce it at home but without success (until they invented cast iron
which is the material of the medieval European blacksmith). The Romans
sold German tribes people (like me) as slaves in India in trade for
this steel, dies, spices and other goods. Alexander tried to conquer
India, and failed, because of these goods. This means that Kanada,
Gotama and Buddha were living in the inter-connected and international
ancient world.
Kanada’s Life and Legend
Kanada’s
dates are debated. Chinese scholars sometimes put his texts at 1000
BCE, while our scholars often put them at 200 BCE or even 100 CE. This
is quite political, because the Chinese tradition comes very much from
India and the European tradition comes very much from Greece. The
publisher of this texts says it is safe to say that Kanada lived and
taught by 600 BCE at the latest.
Kanada’s
name means, ‘One who eats grain’, but it could also mean, ‘One who
gathers particulars. We will see how this is central to logic and
Kanada’s teachings. He is also known as ‘The Owl’, or Uluka. Legend
has it that he was so ugly in appearance that he frightened young women,
so he only ventured out at night, sneaking into granaries to eat corn
and rice grains/particles. Another story is Shiva taught him in the
form of an owl. Notice that there are many traditions and versions,
some mixed with the stories of the Vedic gods.
Kanada
began what is known as the Vaisheshika school, and thus his text is the
Vaisheshika sutra. Vaisheshika means particular, but also particle,
atom, particular, special, specific, and distinction. Kanada may have
been the first logician and atomist in recorded history, but as we have
seen this is still a debate that can be quite political. Gotama’s Nyaya
(Logic/Debate) school borrowed much from Kanada in forming rules and
manuals of debate. It is believed that Jainism and Buddhism took both
of these systems and developed them in a skeptical and relativist
direction. Thus, Kanada and Gotama are positivistic logicians who are
seeking atomic truths (universal, necessary and certain), and the Jains
and Buddhists are skeptical logicians who criticize positivistic
thinking with relativity and skepticism.
The
two schools of Kanada (Vaisheshika) and Gotama (Nyaya) focus on
inherence (how the particular individual is a member of the general
group) and inference (conclusions that can be drawn about the particular
individual when one knows the general group). Two types of inherence
which allow us to make valid inferences include speciation (groups that
have typical qualities) and causation (events in time that lead from one
to another).
Kanada
set out his Vaisheshika system and its seven objects of knowledge to
understand the world (cosmology or physics, but in the ancient world
this extended to biology and psychology). Gotama, who we will study
next, was concerned with debate and logical argument.
The Vaisheshika System
First,
we will go over Kanada’s seven objects of knowledge, and then
interesting points in the following chapters Kanada makes that are
important for logic and physics.
1)
Substance (dravya): nine in number (air, water, fire, earth, ether,
time, space, self and mind). These are composed of particles or atoms
that are eternal and uncreated (thus they can’t be created or
destroyed). Newton, like medieval alchemists before him but unlike
modern physics and chemistry, believed in ether, the glue element that
sticks the others together in combinations.
2)
Attribute (guna): quality (color, texture, odor, taste) and quantity
(number, measure, distinction, conjunction, disjunction). Kanada argues
in the text that attributes are not substances, but reside in
substances and can cause substances, other attributes and actions.
3)
Action (karma): note that karma is the physical energy and motion that
makes kicking someone cause pain and also gets the kicker reborn as a
cockroach (most only know of the second as a religious concept, but like
Chinese Chi it is equivalent to physical energy and is often identified
with the element fire in ancient systems). Kanada argues that
substances and attributes can cause actions but actions themselves
cannot produce other actions. He also argues action belongs to one
substance, not many (note that the Buddhist “sound of one hand clapping”
is a counter argument to this point, and that Gotama differs from
Kanada on this also).
4)
General (samanya): the universal or group, such as the general group
(speciation) of all cows or the general event (causation) of a rainstorm
(in which clouds cause rain).
5)
Particular (vishesha): the individual or specific, such as the
individual cow or the individual event of a cloud causing rain.
6)
Inherence (samavaya): the particular being included and conforming to
the general. We can make inferences based on inherences. If we know
that the general group of cows have horns, then we know that this
particular cow must have horns. Likewise, if we know that generally
rainclouds cause rain, then we can infer that this particular rain must
have been caused by clouds.
7) Non-existence or Emptiness (abhava): non-being, nothingness and void. Nuf said.
Kanada
tries to give a systematic account of the many types of each object and
the relationships between each object (ex: substances and qualities can
produce actions, but actions cannot).
In
the second chapter, Kanada gives us an early understanding of what
would later be called Modus Tollens in European Logic following
Aristotle. Kanada writes “in the absence of cause is the absence of
effect but in the absence of effect there is no absence of cause”. This
means that if you know “If P then Q”, then you also know and can infer
“If not Q then not P” but you do not know and cannot infer “If not P
then not Q”. This is very important to understand for basic logic, and
many people make the mistake of thinking that one can infer “not P then
not Q”.
Kanada
discusses fire as energy. It is interesting that fire was the most
common form of energy seen and used in the ancient world, whereas
electricity is the most common form seen and used in the modern world.
Thus, the Egyptians, Greeks, Indians and Chinese thought of energy as
fire whereas we think of energy as electricity.
In
the third Chapter, Kanada describes types of proofs and fallacies.
Gotama and the Nyaya school try to give an entire encyclopedia, and
disagree with Kanada on many points. Kanada like Aristotle argues that
you can disprove arguments by finding contradictions and that you cannot
infer the general from the particular (you cannot infer that all cows
have spots from the individual cow that has spots).
Kanada
argues that sound is caused and therefore it is impermanent. Some have
argued this seems to be a subtle critique of the earlier Vedic
tradition (like arguing “paper is perishable” as a safe and subtle way
of suggesting that the Bible must be temporary, not eternal).
Kanada
argues that things move downward naturally, so things must have
additional causes/forces to move sideways or upward (thus, smoke shows
additional force or energy, namely that it has fire in it and fire moves
upward. He also argues thus that water moves upward by sun/fire in it,
then comes downward in cycles. Then, when the water collects in
clouds, it causes the fire to be released as lightning. He argues that
the arrow flies first from cause and then from inherent tendency to
remain in motion, similar if not identical to the modern concept of
‘inertia’.
Kanada
says there are many organs in the body, but each has its own
particularity as they have different causes/purposes. We believe this
today, but consider the ancient world understanding that Aristotle
shared called the teleological view: every individual thing has a
particular purpose as if the whole is conscious. There is a Roman stoic
writer who speaks of the horrible mystery of underground caverns that
seem to exist in spite of no animals or humans being present. This is a
horrifying mystery because without conscious use, the ancient mind
would be baffled by its existence.
Gautama and the Nyaya School of Debate
Medhatithi
Gautama, who lived sometime about 550 BCE, is considered the founder of
the Nyaya school and the author of the Nyaya Sutra, a textbook and
manual on logical debate. The Nyaya Sutra was not the first Indian text
concerned with logical argument and analysis, but it became one of the
most popular and thus foundational for the Nyaya school. It is believed
that the Jains and Buddhists, who are more skeptical thinkers about
logic but very involved in debate, later took much from the Nyaya Sutra
and school. Nyaya means “right”, “just”, “justified” or “justifiable”,
the same way we use ‘logical’ to mean ‘right debate or speech’. The
school reached its height in 150 CE, but it traces itself back to
Gautama and his teachings.
Gautama
is also called ‘Akshapada’, ‘Eyes in the Feet’, from a legend that he
was so deeply absorbed in thought one day on a walk that he fell into a
well, and God (Brahma) gave him eyes in his feet to prevent this from
happening again. Notice that, like the Vaisheshika ‘particular’ school,
Nyaya is concerned with putting particular things into categories and
relationships. Objects and substances can be called the ‘feet’ of
things, and their families or causes (generalities) the head or mind of
things.
The
Buddha, who also lived sometime around 550 BCE is also called Gautama
or Gotama. Some scholars used to argue that Gautama may have been the
Buddha himself, but in fact they were two different founders of two
different schools who were both from the Gautama region in Northern
India which is how they share the name. Gautama, Buddha and Mahavira
(the founder of Jainism), were also of the warrior caste, the second
class in the Indian caste system beneath the first class Brahmins, the
Vedic priests and scholars. This shows that the period produced new
thinkers with new ideas that were questioning the established Vedic
tradition, and the schools of this period are known to have become very
popular because they were open to people of all castes including the
lowest. A story from the period says that a scholar who gave up on the
Vedas and turned entirely to logic turned into a Jackal. This story was
obviously told by Vedic scholars and priests who found the new systems a
threat to the old established traditions. Like science in Europe,
however, the new ways were gradually added to the old ways, until the
new system was an old standard alongside the Vedic traditions.
The
Nyaya Sutra is one of many debate manuals that was written for Indian
philosophical or cosmological debates. Questions asked included: “Is
the self/soul/mind eternal or temporary?”, “Is the world and its laws
eternal or temporary?”, “Is it better to renounce or indulge in
luxuries?”, “Are there particular things which are sacred or is
everything equally sacred?”, and, a question seen last week in Kanada’s
text, “Is sound (and thus the oral tradition of the Vedas) eternal or
temporary?”. This last question is central to the Nyaya text and
Gautama’s form of proof that we will study.
It
is noticeable that many of these debates are concerned with
distinguishing the eternal from the temporary. In ancient world
cosmology, the eternal was the sacred and the object of true knowledge.
If one could determine which things and laws are eternal, one would
grasp the ways of the cosmos.
Notice
that these debates (vadas) are also all of the form: Is object X in
group Y or group not Y? We will call this the Form of Nyaya Debate or
Nyaya Vada. If one could justifiably claim that all Xs are Ys, one
could then argue for further truths based on the established truths.
Jains and Buddhists also took this form as fundamental. For instance,
the Vedic priests argued that the self/soul/mind was eternal, while the
Jains and Buddhists argued that it is temporary. In Greek thought,
particularly with Plato and Aristotle, this arguing back and forth
between opposite positions is called “Dialectic”.
Later,
in Buddhist debates about 200 BCE, just after Nyaya hits its height,
three areas of debate for a proposition were conducted in order: “Is X
always Y?”, “Is X everywhere Y?” and “Is X Y in everything?”.
In
ancient India, a king, authority or rich patron would organize a debate
and banquet, invite participants from various schools of thought to
debate (often the teachers of competing rival schools, like a
competition in a Kung Fu movie). Women were not unheard of as debate
participants, but not nearly as common as male debaters (one can
unfortunately say this of American and British philosophical departments
today).
Debate
manuals like the Nyaya Sutra were designed to introduce students and
scholars to typical forms of argument as well as methods of attack and
defense. They also listed fallacies, types of false arguments that
sound solid but have flaws. The Nyaya Sutra tells us that the best
debater will not take cheap moves, ‘quibbles’ or ‘clinchers’, but one is
free to make them at one’s own risk. The text is surprisingly honest
and insightful on this point. By using deceptive reasoning, you could
win the debate but you could also could lose if your opponent points out
your errors or shortcuts. This is still true of argument today even in
the most casual setting, and a good reason that looking into old Logic
texts like the Nyaya Sutra is still useful today. Aristotle’s Organon,
his ‘Tool’, are six books that cover different areas of debate and
knowledge, similarly dealing with construction of argument and
fallacies. Aristotle also must straddle the sometimes contrary goals of
arguing truth and winning the debate.
The Nyaya Sutra and System
The
Four Sources of Knowledge are Perception, Inference, Comparison, and
Testimony. All of these can potentially give valid knowledge, but there
are problems with each. Perception is seeing or experiencing something
for oneself.
Perception
can only be valid if it tells you something determinate that doesn’t
vary or change. Two examples of false perception given in the text are
confusing smoke and dust, and thinking that the hot earth is wet when in
fact this is a mirage.
Inference
is knowledge of an object produced by perception. This shows Induction
of perception passing into Deduction of inference which is still held
in Philosophy and Psychology today. There are two kinds of inference
that one can have based on perception of associations (like rain always
falling from clouds).
First,
there is inference from perception of cause the knowledge of possible
and potential effect. For example, if one sees dark rain clouds, one
can infer that it may possibly rain. According to Kanada, Gautama and
Modus Tollens (a basic form of Logic we saw first last week with
Kanada), this is knowledge of a possibility, a potential, but not a
certainty. If one sees clouds, it is wise to get ready for rain but it
is not certain that it will rain.
Second,
there is inference from perception of effect to knowledge of cause.
For example, if one sees rain one knows there are clouds or if one sees
a swollen river one knows that it must have rained. According to
Kanada, Gautama and Modus Tollens this sort of knowledge is certain
provided that one is not deceived. For example, if one sees smoke and
it is not in fact dust then one knows that there is fire.
Comparison
is knowledge of a thing by comparing it to something else that is
similar or different. For example, if one knows that cows are mortal
and temporary, one is quite justified in believing that horses, quite
similar to cows in many ways, are mortal and temporary. Comparisons can
often lead to valid beliefs, but there is the possibility of error. An
example is believing wrongly that a horse has four stomachs because one
knows this is true of a cow.
Testimony
is instructive words from a reliable person or authority. There are
two types, testimony of the perceived and testimony of the unperceived.
The text gives the example of a physician saying butter makes you
stronger as perceived and a priest saying you win over heaven with horse
sacrifices as unperceived. Notice that, like Kanada’s text, this is a
subtle attack on the older Vedic ways and suggests that they are
uncertain compared to inferences drawn from perception. The Nyaya
school is founded on the idea that valid deductive inferences must be
based on regular and invariable perception, quite comparable to the
modern scientific method.
The Form of Nyaya Proof
Some
authors have claimed that Aristotle’s syllogisms are deductively valid
but the Nyaya proof is not and based on induction. Actually, Aristotle
has many syllogisms he admits are not deductively valid on their own and
he also believes that one can only argue based on what one perceives
and one can be mistaken exactly like the Nyaya School and Gautama. We
can see induction and deduction working together in both Aristotle’s
syllogisms and Gautama’s form of proof. As can see in the text, there
are five steps but as the Buddhists correctly perceived the first and
second are identical to the fifth and the fourth. To make it easier, I
have boiled it down to two steps. The first is a general rule backed by
an example. The second step is a reason which leads to a conclusion.
The text gives us an example:
Wherever there is smoke there is fire (rule), as in a kitchen (example).
Because there is smoke on the hill (reason), there is fire on the hill (conclusion).
For
each of these parts, there are particular sorts of questions or doubts
one can raise. If one is in a debate against an opponent, it is
critical to know the sorts of doubts that one can raise against the
opponent’s argument as well as the doubts one’s opponent can raise
against one’s own argument.
The
text gives us examples that can be used against its own example of
proof. One can argue that an iron ball is on fire, but there is no
smoke as a counter example to the rule “Wherever there is smoke, there
is fire”, or one can argue that dust can be confused with smoke, so
“There is smoke on the hill” may be misperception.
There is also two types of proof, positive homogeneous (proof by sameness) and negative heterogeneous (proof by difference).
Example of Proof By Sameness:
Whatever is produced is not eternal, as a pot.
Because it is produced, sound is not eternal.
Notice
we saw this in Kanada’s text, and scholars have suggested it attacks
the older Vedic tradition. The example above concerning fire on the
hill is also a proof by sameness. This is quite similar to the
structure of Aristotle’s most famous and basic syllogism:
If B, then C (plus example D), (If smoke then fire)
If A then B, then (if hill has smoke)
A then C (hill has fire)
Example of Proof By Difference:
Whatever is eternal is not produced, as in the soul.
Because it is produced, sound is not eternal.
Doubts, Fallacies and Quibbling
Doubt
comes from five sources. There is doubt by sameness (ex: seeing in
twilight, can’t tell bush or man), by difference (ex: seeing two men in
twilight, and thinking still one is a tree), by conflicting testimony
(ex: Hinduism says there is an eternal soul or self, while Buddhism says
there is no eternal self or soul), by irregular perception (ex: one
sees a horse with horns attached to its head and questions whether
horses can have horns), and by irregular non-perception (ex: one sees a
cow with its horns removed and questions whether cows can have no
horns).
Fallacies
are false arguments. Examples include changing the thesis,
contradicting the thesis, meaningless utterance, incoherent speech
(‘colorless sleep furiously green’ is a famous example by Noam Chomsky),
repetition, silence, ignorance (failing to understand typically),
evasion (‘I am called by nature’, ‘I have another appointment’), sharing
the fault (problem with both sides), overlooking fallacies, pointing
out false fallacies.
Quibbling
is objecting to an argument as a fallacy when it is not actually a
fallacy. Quibbling can lose a debate just as surely as giving a
fallacious argument. The text gives three types: Term (ex: Someone
claims to have a new (“nava”) blanket, but this is confused with the
claim of nine (also “nava”) blankets), Genus (ex: Someone claims
Brahmins are educated but the opponent objects that some Brahmins are
two years old), Metaphor (ex: Someone claims poetically, “The scaffolds
cry out”, and the opponent objects, “Impossible, they are inanimate
objects”).
