Essay name: The Nyaya theory of Knowledge
Author:
Satischandra Chatterjee
Affiliation: University of Calcutta / Department of Philosophy
This essay studies the Nyaya theory of Knowledge and examines the contributions of the this system to Indian and Western philosophy, specifically focusing on its epistemology. Nyaya represents a realist approach, providing a critical evaluation of knowledge.
Page 142 of: The Nyaya theory of Knowledge
142 (of 404)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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THE DEFINITION OF PERCEPTION 123 through the sense organ which is in contact with a present per-
ceptible object and becomes so modified as to assume the form of
the object itself. The mind being a material principle, it is quite
possible for it to move and attain the dimension of the object
of perception. Perception is the immediate knowledge in which
the mental modification is non-different (abhinna) from the
object and is lit up by the self's light. The immediacy of
perception, however, is not due to its being produced by sense-
stimulation. If that were so, then inference would have been
as immediate as perception, since, according to the Naiy膩yikas,
the mind as an internal sense is operative in inference. On the
other hand, there cannot be any immediate knowledge by intui-
tion, because it is not due to the senses. The connection of
perception with sense-stimulation is more accidental than
essential.'
3 That there may be immediate knowledge without any
stimulation of sense is admitted by many leading philosophers
of the West. Any knowledge by acquaintance, Russell thinks,
gives us a direct knowledge of things. 鈥淒irect cognition,"
says Ewing, "would be quite possible without direct percep-
tion." With regard to perception, however, it is generally held
in European philosophy that it is the cognition of an object
through sensations. Here the process of perception begins with
the action of an external object. The object produces certain
modifications in the sense organ and the nervous system and,
through these, gives rise to a mental image corresponding to
itself. In the Advaita Ved膩nta the order of the process is
reversed. The mind goes out through sense and reaches the
object, and there becomes literally changed into the form of the
object. On this view, the perplexing question of the corres-
pondence of a mental image to the object, of which it is the
image, does not at all arise. The direct apprehension of
objects in perception is thus better explained by the Ved膩nta.
1 VP., Chapter I.
2 The Problems of Philosophy, Chapter V.
3 Mind, April, 1930, p. 140.
