Tarka as Cognitive Validator

Abstract

The meaning of the term 'tarka' is not clear in the modern literature on Classical Indian Philosophy. This paper will review different modern readings of this term and try to show that what the Nyāyasūtra and its classical commentaries called a 'tarka' should be understood as the following: a tarka is a cognitive act that validates a content (of a doubt or a cognition or a speech-act) by demonstrating its logical fitness or invalidates a content by demonstrating its logical unfitness. A tarka can act as a metatheory too. Generating certainty is, according to the Classical Nyāya, a job assigned to an epistemic instrument (pramān : a). It fails to do so when there arises a doubt regarding it. The moment a tarka dispels the doubt, the epistemic instrument generates certainty. Tarkas of different types will be exemplified by critically analyzing Ga _ ngeśa's applications of tarka in his magnum opus Tattvacintāman : i. These examples will clarify the definition of tarka formulated in this paper.

Logical Argument in Vidyānandin’s Satya-śāsana-parīkṣā

“…The latter is decided upon by a separate means of knowledge, i.e., "suppositional reasoning" (tarka). Rational processes addressed by the term tarka figure prominently in both the early Nyāya tradition (Kang 2010) and Navya-Nyāya (Guha 2012). For Ganeri (2012: 13) these kinds of processes represent one of two dominant patterns of rationality within Hinduism, namely, "hetu, 'evidence-based-rationality', and tarka, 'hypothesis-based-rationality'" (ibid.).…”

On Arthāpatti

“…See Suali (1905, p. 301). 34 See Matilal (1986Matilal ( , 1998, Kang (2010) and Guha (2012a). 35 Compare: Lipton (2004, p. 56):…”