is not itself an established fact: it is neither a shared doctrine nor an indisputable
observation. For one needs to know whether shadows are seen to move like men,
or whether what takes place is a succession of perceptions of dimly lit things pro-
duced by the obstruction of the light by a moving cover. Extrapolation proceeds
from the seen to the unseen or more generally, from the proven to the unproven.
The underlying maxim on extrapolation is therefore: only extrapolate from what
you have already established. The fault of being “the same as the thesis” is a
violation of this maxim.
The Ma ̄dhyamika sceptic Na ̄ga ̄rjuna uses this fault to devastating effect. He
argues that any reason adduced to refute the skeptical thesis will suffer the fault
of being the same as the thesis. For if the skeptical thesis is that nothing can be
known, then to refute it is to prove that something can be known. But if it is not
yet established that anything can be known, one can adduce no known or estab-
lished fact to prove it. So any putative reason one adduces to prove that some-
thing can be known will be the “same as the thesis” in being as yet unproven.
The two propositions, “A proves B only if A is proven in advance of B” and
“B=something is proven” in combination entail that A has to be something
which is proven in advance of anything being proven, and this entails that there
is no such A. The skeptic’s thesis is indefeasible!
Such is the account of reason as it was conceived in early India. The concept
is a shifting, not to say shifty, one, an interplay of different themes. The collec-
tion of ideas presented here was supposed to describe the way people actually do
reason and explain why they are justified in doing so. It is a common-sense
theory of common sense. In the subsequent chapters [ofPhilosophy in Classical
India, 2001, the source from which this chapter is extracted], I look at attacks
on this account from several directions. The Ma ̄dhyamika skeptic’s claim that
reason is self-defeating has already been mentioned. It is self-defeating because,
if true, it is provable that nothing is provable (chapter 2). The Jainas are dia-
metrically opposed: reason, they say, is over-complete: everything is provable
(chapter 5). And Din.na ̄ga, a founder-member of Yoga ̄ca ̄ra-Vijña ̄nava ̄da
Buddhism, is neither a skeptic nor a syncretist, but a unificationistabout reason.
What he rejects is the idea that there is a plurality in the concept of rationality
(rationality quaintegrator, quaextrapolator, and quarecipient of testimony).
Such a unification of reason, it turns out, necessitates a radical departure from
naiveté (chapter 4). At the end of the book, I return to Nya ̄ya, and see how in
the later period, responding to the many and varied assaults on the concept of
rationality embedded in common sense, it revitalized its defense of the common-
sense account.
Further Reading
Texts
Gautama ca. ad150,Nyayasu ̄tra(NS).
Va ̄ tsya ̄ yana ad450,Nya ̄yabha ̄s.ya(NBh).
442 jonardon ganeri