Class 9 - Nyāya philosophy, and the sources of knowledge
Welcome back
Welcome back. In this session, we are taking a break from looking at the structure of arguments, to broaden things out, and ask about the sources of our knowledge.
Arguments, we know, are made up of premises and conclusions. For an argument (a deductive argument, at least) to be sound, it needs to have a valid form, and the premises need to be true or reliable.
So this raises a question: what are the reliable sources of knowledge? In the Nyāya system, as you saw in the homework, there are four sources of knowledge. We’ll share the reading of the short passage, which is the passage beginning:
1.1.3: The knowledge sources are perception, inference, analogy, and testimony.
After this, we’ll pause to see if there are any questions on the text?
Defining our terms
So let’s see if we can define each of these together.
- What is perception?
- What is inference?
- What is analogy?
- What is testimony?
We’ll work in the chat to see if we can get definitions that we all agree on.
On reliability
Now we’ve done this, I’ll put you into groups to ask: under what conditions can this knowledge-source be said to be reliable?
In other words, what makes a perception reliable? What makes an inference reliable? What makes an analogy reliable? What makes testimony reliable?
Homework
For your homework, read this section on how argument goes wrong.
https://press.rebus.community/intro-to-phil-logic/chapter/chapter-4-informal-fallacies/
Summarise just one of these fallacies on Canvas discussion board.