Dharmakīrti’s Theory of Anumāna: Deductive or Inductive?

• Main Authors: Tsun Nyen Yong, 釋有暋
• Other Authors: Siu-Miao Liu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/dzj2uc

碩士 === 法鼓佛教學院 === 佛教學系 === 103 === As a famous Indian Buddhist logician during the 7th Century, Dharmakīrti (600-660) inherited and reformed the logical system developed by his predecessor Dignāga (480-540). His contribution has great influence on the development of Indian Logic, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist. Due to its importance in Indian Logic, modern scholars have tried using the traditional classification method found in Western Logic, namely the deductive and inductive methods, in analyzing Dharmakīrti’s inference theory (anumāna), which exhibits many distinctive figures among Indian logical systems. Based on different angle of observations, however, sholars have come out with dissimilar conclusions regarding the charactetistic of his theory. As a result, those who think that it is inductive dispute the conclusions made by those who think that it is deductive, while others believe that it is a mixual of both methods. Therefore, it is the intension of this thesis to re-examine Dharmakīrti’s anumāna theory using the two terms invented by the Western logicians. First of all, it is recognized that the conundrum faced by Indian logicians are simply the process of generating general belief and its correct application in common process. Under this circumstance, the Buddhist logicians developed a logical system that involves two distinct steps. Firstly, through the scrutiny of the method of association (anvaya) and disassociation (vyatireka) between major term (sādhya) and middle term (hetu), the observer concludes with a general belief regarding the relation between the two terms (vyāpti) from his own experiences. Secondly, the observer then applies this general belief onto the minor term (pakṣa) to generate a conclusion. Research shows that while Western Formal Logic only concerns with the second step, it is the first step that becomes primary focus in Dharmakīrti’s inference system, hence indicates its inherence inductive nature. This thesis develops four core issues of discussion concerning some important characteristics found in Indian Logic, namely the process of generating major premise, the method of association and disassociation between two terms, the role of examples (dṛṣṭānta) in inference, and finally the theory of natural relations (svabhāvapratibandha) developed by Dharmakīrti. Besides, the chapter of “Svārthānumāna” in Dharmakīrti’s Nyāyabindu is translated and studied in order to better understand the characteristics of his theory of anumāna. As a result, this thesis concludes that Dharmakīrti’s theory of anumāna reveals strong inductive nature.