Dependency of Inference on Perception and Verbal Testimony

Abstract

Indian philosophical schools heavily depend upon the means of valid cognition (Pramāṇas) to establish the findings of metaphysics and the stand of one’s school. Although there is divergence of opinion with the regard to the number of Pramāṇas, roughly three distinct means of valid cognition are acknowledged widely: perception, inference, and verbal testimony. Perception refers to sensory means of knowing, while inference is argument to arrive at some conclusion. Verbal testimony is a word of authority which propounds truth of one’s experience. In the present chapter, it is examined as to how inference depends upon perception and verbal testimony for its functioning and soundness. Various arguments forwarded by Dvaita thinkers (the school of Indian realism propounded by Śrī Madhvācārya, twelfth-century C.E.) are culled from the classical texts and presented. It is shown as to how any inference is subject to the Pramanya of perception and verbal testimony for its intrinsic soundness. The potency of perception, on natural stature as well as being supportive, is being presented here. When the argument at hand is about the sensory objects, the role of perception as supportive to inference is indispensible. In case of an apparent contradiction, the inference which is dependent loses soundness on empirical grounds. Similarly, if the argument is about the supra-sensuals like the virtue and vice, it cannot hope to contradict verbal testimony, since the latter is the actual means to know the supra-sensuals, and not mere inference. The factor of dependency and the grounds thereof with suitable examples have been presented in the present chapter. The working patterns of the Pramāṇas pertaining to dependency have been portrayed in the chapter. The views of different schools such as that of Vācāspati Miśra and others are presented on the subject and reviewed on the backdrop of great thinkers like Śrī vyāsatīrtha and others of Dvaita school.