reason as the rational integrator of mental contents (perceptual and inferential).
Integrative reason strikes a balance between perception and extrapolation, pre-
ferring one or the other according to its own standards. What is true of the rela-
tion between perception and inference is true too of the relation between
testimony and inference, and true also of the relation between perception and
testimony. What is the norm on integration? What principle does it follow in
deciding who to override? Maximizing consistency is the obvious answer, but
there is scope for weighting. The Nya ̄ya, it would seem, wants to weight testi-
mony (and especially scriptural testimony) more heavily than anything else, and
to weight observation more heavily than extrapolation. The pure reasoner of the
epics would maximize the weight given to inference – no doctrine is unrevisable,
no scripture sacred – or else, like the materialist, to observation. Such an anti-
dogmatism may have led him to be banished from the company of the virtuous,
but for us a question still remains. If there is a choice of weightings, which one
is the rational choice? On what principle does one choose? The search for reasons
goes on. Unfortunately there isn’t sufficient space here to discuss how the later
Naiya ̄yikas brought this search for reasons to a close.
Can reason really override itself? As we have seen (section 1.7), five sorts of
bogus reason are mentioned in Nya ̄yasu ̄tra 1.2.4. In two of them, the unproven
and the counter-balanced, reason acts as its own regulator. These are important,
for they are favourite weapons of the sceptic. The situation called “counter-
balanced” is one in which, in order to resolve the point at issue, the debater
adduces a reason which might equally well prove the point either way. The
reason meets all the criteria for warranted extrapolation, and would have been
entirely adequate in settling the matter, were it not for the possibility of an
equally acceptable and adequate extrapolation to the opposite conclusion.
Va ̄tsya ̄yana’s example is: sound is non-eternal because we do not apprehend in
sound the properties of eternal things, just like the pot, etc. The objection to this
otherwise admissible extrapolation is that it is reversible. For we can equally well
argue as follows: sound is eternal because we do not apprehend in sound the
properties of non-eternal things, just like the sky, etc. This too, on its own, would
have been an admissible extrapolation. (A simpler, if not entirely suitable,
example would be: sound is eternal because it is eternal; and: sound is non-
eternal because it is non-eternal.) In the absence of any ground for preferring
one of these over the other, the most reasonable thing to do is to accept neither.
Behind this bogus reason is another maxim of extrapolation: when faced with
equal, but opposite bases for extrapolation between which you cannot choose,
do not extrapolate. When reasons are balanced against each other, one is driven
instead towards the skeptic’s ataraxia.
The other bogus reason of interest to us here is the one called “unproven,” or
more literally, “same as the thesis” (sa ̄dhyasama). The reason is one which has
not itself been established, and in that sense is in the same state as the thesis to
be proved. Va ̄tsya ̄yana’s intriguing example is: a shadow is a substance because
it moves. We have again an otherwise admissible extrapolation, but one that
would be a false move in a debate. The problem is that the movement of shadows
hinduism and the proper work of reason 441