negation and the law of contradiction in indian thought.pdf
TRANSCRIPT
-
8/10/2019 Negation and the Law of Contradiction in Indian Thought.pdf
1/20
NEGATION AND THE
LAW
OF
CONTRADICTION
IN
INDIAN
THOUGHT:
A
COMPARATIVE
STUDY
By
J. F.
STAAL
N
the
fourth
chapter
of
book
'
of
the
Metaphysica
Aristotle deals with
the
principle
of
contradiction. This law
is
formulated
as follows:
'it
is
impossible
or
anything
at
the same
time to be
and not to be '.' Let us
imagine,
says
Aristotle,
that
somebody
wished to
oppose
this
view. Our
opponent
cannot
hold
a
view which
contradicts he law
of
contradiction
without
assuming
the
validity
of
this law
itself: for
otherwise he
is not even
denying
what we
are saying. The only alternative for him, then, will be to say nothing. But
this is
absurd:
'for
such a
man,
as
such,
is
from
the start
no better
than
a
vegetable
'.2
We
are
often told
that Indian
philosophers
do
not
accept
the law
of con-
tradiction. This
may
well be
one
of
the
causes of the
neglect
of
Indian
thought
by
Western
philosophers:
for
nobody
desires
to
study
a
body
of
propositions
when
he
is
at
the same time told
that
their contradictories
may
hold
as well.
Is
it
perhaps
a
new-and
according
to
some
superior-kind
of
logic
to
which
we
are
invited to
accustom
ourselves?
Many may
not feel the
need
for
what
would amount to a radicalconversion. Nevertheless such a requirement eems
implied
in
statements like
the
following,
where
a
Western
scholar
speaks
about
principles
such
as the
law
of
contradiction:
'But
the
Eastern
mind
is
con-
vinced
that,
taking
together
all the
circumstances n which we need
our
thinking
to
give
us
adequate guidance,
t
would be fatal
to allow ourselves
o
be
enslaved
by
these
principles
.3
After
stating
this the
author
goes
on to
quote
a Buddhist
principle
which
indeed
contradicts the law
of contradiction.6
The
question
arises
whether 'the
Eastern
mind' has
in its
entirety
thrown
the
law of
contradiction
overboard.
The aim of the presentstudy is to see how Indian thinkerstreat contradic-
tions
and what
explicit
rules are
given
for the treatment
of contradictions. If
1
Met.,
r
4,
1006
a
3-4.
Other statements of this law have been
formalized
by
I. M.
Bocheniski,
Ancient
formal
logic,
Amsterdam,
1951, 38-40;
cf. also
J.
L.
Ackrill, Mind,
LxU,
1953,
110-12.
2
ibid.,
14-15;
cf.
translation of
W. D.
Ross, Oxford,
1908.
3
E. A.
Burtt,
'What can
Western
philosophy
learn from India ?
',
Philosophy
East
and
West, v,
1955-6,
202.
4
The
principle
called
catuscko.ti.
ee
P.
T.
Raju,
'The
principle
of
four-cornered
negation
in
Indian
philosophy',
Review
of
Metaphysics,
vII,
1954, 694-713;
T. R.
V.
Murti,
The
central
philosophyof Buddhism,London, 1955, 129-31, 146-8. The earliest occurrenceperhaps in the
Pali
canon is
Majjhima-nikdya,
autta
63
(transl.
H.
C.
Warren,
Buddhism
in
translations,
Cambridge,
Mass.,
1946,
117-22).
For a
formalization
see:
H.
Nakamura,
'Buddhist
logic
expounded
by
means of
symbolic logic',
Journal
of
Indian
and Buddhist
Studies, vII, 1958,
384-5. The same
formalization
n an
earlier
Japanese
version
(in Indogaku
Bukky3galku
kenkyfi,
III,
1954,
223-31)
was criticized
by
R. H.
Robinson,
'
Some
logical aspects
of
Niglrjuna's
system
',
Philosophy
East
and
West,
vi,
1957,
302.
The
validity
of this criticism
may
be
questioned.
-
8/10/2019 Negation and the Law of Contradiction in Indian Thought.pdf
2/20
NEGATION
AND THE LAW
OF
CONTRADICTION
1N
INDIAN
THOUGHT
53
Indian
philosophers
are either unaware of contradiction
or
deny
the
validity
of
the
principle
of
contradiction,
he
structure
of Indian
logic
would
seem to be
so
fundamentally
different from
the
structure
of Western
logic,
that the
possi-
bility
of mutual
understanding
may
become
questionable.
If, on the otherhand,
the
principle
of contradiction
s
either
applied
mplicitly
or laid down
explicitly,
this
may
be
variously interpreted
there
may
be historical
connexions
between
India and the
West which account for
certain
influences;
there
may
be
a
connexionbetween the
logical
law and the
structure
of
Indo-European,
manifest
in
both
Greek
and
Sanskrit;
there
may
be
a
general linguistic background
o
the law of
contradiction;
or
finally,
the law
may
be a universal
logical
law-
whatever that
may
mean. A
discussion
of the
question,
whether
Indian
philosophers
are to be considered
vegetables, may
therefore
constitute
a
chapter
of comparativelogic.
The
Sanskrit
term
which seems to
correspond
most
closely
to the
Western
term
contradiction
s
derived from a
root sidh-
meaning
'
to
keep away
'.
The
noun sedha derived from
this root denotes
'keeping away
',
and the nouns
nisedha
and
pratisedha
have a
similar
meaning,
which
can be sometimesfurther
specified
as
'prohibition,
negation'.
The
latter term leads to
the
formation
of
the
noun
vipratisedha
meaning
'
mutual
prohibition
or
'
contradiction .
An
early
technical
or
semi-technical use of the
term
vipratisedha
occurs in
Apastamba's
Srauta-sitra
(between
400
and
200
B.c.),
where
during
the
offering
the Vedas are assigned to the various sacrificers n the following manner1:
'The
hotr
sacrifices with the
1Rgveda;
the
ud~it.r
with
the
Samaveda;
the
adhvaryu
with
the
Yajurveda
;
the
brahman
with
all.
When it is
expressly
said,
or in
case of contradiction
(vipratisedha),
another
(priest)
may
sacrifice
.
Instead
of
vipratisedhdt
he
partly parallel
text
of
Hirainyakesin's
rauta-siitra
has
asa.mbhav9t
'if it is
impossible
. Both
passages
refer to cases where a
priest
is
unable
to
sacrifice
in
accordancewith what is
prescribed
or
him on
account of one
rule
or one
established
practice,
because he
is
already
engaged
on
account of
another
rule
or other
rules.2
The last
sAtra,
herefore,
ormulates
a principle which holds in cases of mutual contradiction between two rules
applicable
to the same
situation.
It is a
rule for
the
manipulation
of other
rules,
a
paribhas
'
meta-rule
',
and it is
accordingly
placed
in
the
last
part
of
the
Apastamba-irauta-sAtra,
hich consists of
the
yaj3Fa-paribhasI-sietrdni
'
meta-rules
regarding
the
sacrifice . The
term
vipratisedha
s a
term
which
applies
to
the contradictions between
formulated
rules,
and not
for
instance
between
entities.
It
is
characteristic
or
Indian
thought
that at an
early
stage
of
development
the
distinction between
language
and
meta-language
was
made.
This
is con-
nected with the fact that the subject-matter or variouskinds of investigations
1
AIasta
mba-a-rausa-t~ra,
24.1.16-20.
s
W.
Caland
n
his
translation
ad
loc.
specifies
this
by
the
following example:
'Z.
B.
muse ein
anderer
als
der
Adhvaryu,
da
dieser
beschiftigt
ist,
das
Opfertier
osbinden'.
VOL.
xxv.
PART
1.
5
-
8/10/2019 Negation and the Law of Contradiction in Indian Thought.pdf
3/20
54
J.
F.
STAAL
was
a
large
body
of
linguistic
material,
the
Vedic
texts
which
were
considered
transcendent
and revealed
(iruti).
The sitra
literature
on the
one
hand
embodies
Vedic passagesand continues to prescribe ormsof activity in a Vedic fashion,
and on
the
other
hand
interprets
Vedic
passages.
This
literature
thereforedoes
not
only
deal with ritual
activity,
but deals
also
with
statements
regarding
ritual
activity.
In the
first
respect
it
constitutes
a
language
dealing
with
the
ritual as
object
material,
in
the second
respect
it
constitutes
a
meta-language
dealing
with the
language
which deals
with the
ritual.
The
paribhds
rules,
more
specifically,
were
explicit
meta-linguistic
rules for
the
manipulation
of
Vedic
passages.
With the
development
of
grammar
here
is
a
shift in
two
respects.
On
the
one
hand the object material s new : it is neitherthe ritual,nor Vedicpassages
dealing
with the
ritual,
but
it
is
the
spoken
language
(bhd.s)
and,
to a limited
extent,
the
Vedic
language
(chandas).1
On
the
other
hand it is not
Vedic
passages,
but
the
rules
of
grammar
hemselves
which are the
subject
of a meta-
linguistic investigation.
The same
term,
paribhtad,
applies
to
rules
of this
meta-
language.
The
importance
of
these meta-rules ncreases when
the rules of
the
grammar
of
Pan~ini
re
accepted
as authoritative.
In
dealing
with
linguistic problems
the
grammatical description
is
mainly
confinedto the
analysis
of words
(pada)
and
grammar
has
thereforebeen called
pada-mimd.msa
'investigation into words'. While it is sometimes rightly
stressed
that the Sanskrit
grammarians
neglected
or
paid
little
attention
to
syntax,
it is not
always
realized
hat
grammar
was
in
this
respect supplemented
by
the
vakya-mimu.msd
'investigation
into
sentences',
another name
for the
most orthodox
among
the
systems
of
philosophy,
more
generally
known as
Pfirva-mlmimss
Karma-mimi~ims,
or
merely
Mim~ins.2
Some
syntactical
principles
of
Mimims
will
occupy
us
here.
This
philosophical
system
is the
direct
successor to the
sitra
literature,
for
it
systematizes
the
interpretation
of Vedic sentences and evolves
general
canons of
interpretation.3
Also
here
general
rules
of
a
meta-linguistic nature, dealing
with
the
interpretation
of
Vedic
statements,
are
given.
Such meta-rules are often called
nydya.
These
rules are
further
used
and
developed
in
dharmaidstra.
The
term
nydya
is later
commonly
used to denote
logic
and the
system
of
logic.
We have
emphasized
elsewhere
that
the
early
use of the term
nydya
as
synonymous
with
paribhdsi
may
be
an
indication that elements
and laws of Indian
logic
can
be
traced
back
to
the
discussion
on
problems
of
language
and
meta-language
n
earlier
systems
and
especially
in
grammar.4
1 See especially P. Thieme, Pdttini and the Veda,Allahabad, 1935, 67 sq.; L. Renou, La
Durghatavrtti
de
Saranadeva,
I,
1
(introduction),
Paris, 1940,
7-8.
2
cf.
L.
Renou,
ttudes
vediques
et
pan.indennes,
vi
(Le
destin
du
V6da
dans
1'Inde),
Paris,
1960,
66.
3
Mim.msd
is
closest to the
paribh4ds
sections
of
the
si8tras.
See
D.
V.
Garge,
Citations
in
Sabara-bhdsya,
Poona, 1952,
50
sq.
4
J.
F.
Staal,
'The
theory
of
definition in Indian
logic
',
JAOS,
LXXXI, , 1961,
124.
-
8/10/2019 Negation and the Law of Contradiction in Indian Thought.pdf
4/20
NEGATION
AND THE
LAW
OF CONTRADICTION
IN INDIAN THOUGHT
55
Problems of contradiction
are
dealt
with
in
this
meta-linguistic
context
in
grammar
as well
as
in
Mimdi.sa.1
P.nini
(c.
350
B.C.)
gives
the
following
meta-rule: 'in case of contradiction
(between
two
rules)
the later
(rule)
is to be applied
'.2
Here 'later rule' denotes a rule which occurs later in the
sequence
of rules in
Pinini's
grammar.3
Patanijali
(?
second
century
B.C.)
discusses this
s&tra
n the
Mahcbhdsya
and
pays
special
attention
to the term
vipratisedha.
After
giving
the
etymology
he
explains
it
by
itaretara-pratisedha
and
anyo'nya-pratisedha
mutual
prohibition'.
He
proceeds
to
quote
the
following
vdrttika dvau
prasatgadv
nydrthdv
kasmin
sa
vipratisedhah
if
two
rules
with
different
meaning apply
to one
(word)
this is
vipratisedha
.6
He adds
that this
application
should
be
possible
'
at the same time
'
(yugapad)
and
gives
the
following
example. According
to
Panini, 7.3.102,
long
d
is
substituted
for
final a of a nominal stem before terminationsbeginningwith y or bh.6 This
enables
us to
form
v.rksya
'to the
tree
',
v.rtykbhydm
'to both trees
',
and
apparently
*vrkfdbhyah
to
trees
',
from the nominal
stem
vrksa- 'tree'.
The
following
saUra,
7.3.103,
prescribes
the substitution
of
e
for this
a before
a
plural
termination
beginning
with
bh
or s. This accounts
for the
formation
of
v.rksesu
among
trees
'. But
as
-bhyah
is a
plural
termination,
the
second
siura
applies
also
to this
case
and
enables
us
to
form
vrksebhya4
to trees'.
The
two rules
form
in this
respect
a
vipratisedha
'contradiction'.
Then,
according
to
the
paribh4id,
as the
second
rule comes after
the
first,
the
second
prevailsand vrksebhya4s explainedwhile
*vrksd.bhyah
is not. We are perhaps
inclined
to
regard
he second
rule
as
an
exception (apavdda)
o the
first,
but
this
does also
produce
he
same
result
: for there
is
a
paribhs.d
which states
that the
exception
is
stronger
than
the
general
rule.7
The
above
discussion
can be formalized
along
the
following
lines.
Let the
siUras,
which
are
propositions,
be
ordered
as
they
are in
P.nini)
and be
denoted
by
~,
#2,
.
.
.
,
and
let
01