An explanation is necessary for writing this work.  Though logic is explained as the science (and art) of thinking, yet it is also known that logic is the science of truth, where thought is said to coincide with the thing, thought about or described or experienced.  Truth is the goal of all logical thought, though it may not be the goal of all processes known as thought.  As it has been also shown anubhava is of four kinds such as pratyaksa, anumana, upamana and Sabda (Sruti) of aptavacana.  Each one of them has its criterion of that is yathartha (thing as it is) and ayathartha (thing as not in itself).  For perception it is the correspondence with the thing, but this too can only be decided when it is practically verified.  (Vyavaharanuguna jnanam prama).  A thought is true when that which the thought is considered to be true to, is actually seen to do or function as it is expected to do (arthakriya karvita).  Every thing has a function and when we say or think that a thing is, it must do what it is said to do.  Pragmatism and Wittgeinstein have asserted this to be the criterion to be important as a test of truth or thought – reality relation.

            Some also extend this criterion to include the notion that a thought is true when it can be made to realize the expectant result.  A hypothesis is verified and made true only when it works.  Neither barren hypothesis nor false hypothesis fall into this category or workability or of being instrumental for realizing goals. Thus Utopian dreams are unrealizable and impossible and utopian hypothesis abound in the realm of practical verification, either of the past data or present data or the future data.

            The truth in respect of the usual anumana or deductive logic or reasoning is limited to the field of propositions which may have reference to the things as in reality logic or material logic or in respect of formal logic.  Non-self-contradiction or non-contradiction are about the most important criteria of this kind of logic.  Material truth is not much cared for in mathematical logic.  However, this kind of formal logic may be useful to reveal the fallacies of a purely formal kind but cannot lead to truth as material for reality comprehension.  When thought as reasoning is limited to verbalism, then linguistic fallacies would have to be avoided.  Thus in respect of truth as in the learning of the Veda, one must have perfect knowledge of grammar and philology, metre and discipline of the body and mind, jyotisa (astronomy – which includes conditions or environment) and practial work (kalpa).

            When we go beyond the perceptual and inferential to the level analogy or imaginative inference on the basis of similarity or modified identity, our criterion of truth would be quite different – it is that of coherence into a pattern which is realizable or expressible and not incongruous.  Thought as imagination, imaginative invention or intuition rising to the levels of vision of poetry demands a certain amount of plastic verification through expression or artistic recreation or reproduction.  By such a process one discovers the truth by an inward apprehension or intuitive sympathy – a living into the object or dream or ideal object transcendent to the senses and even the mind as it is tied down to the worldly way of living – lokavyavahara.  A deeper logic seems to operate at this level.  It is true some try to subsume this under inference but they do not perceive the inwardness of this analogy experience that takes one beyond the plane of one type of life to another – from the inanimate to the animate, from the animal to the human, from the animal to the human, from the human to the Divine and reversly. This kind of logical thinking is found in the explanations of the Upamana of Nyaya and Purvamimamsa darsanas.

            Mythological logic is profoundly influenced by this in a variety of ways.  Poetry revels in rupaka, metaphors etd.  The logic of artistic imagination is clearly a new dimension.  However the criterion of Truth in this field is functional and dynamic possibility of invention and not merely limited to the arrested expressions as in paiting, sculpture, drama etc. which are means of communication of the inter-relatedness of the diverse and opposite in the play of emotions and perceptions and linguistic sounds and other modes of expression.  Scientific invention goes farther still, till it fabricates the new model of reality that works and shapes the future.  Upamana is not for enjoyment alone and is not to be construed as creative expression for as Plato remarked, perhaps even a bit cynically, all these are but plate reflections of a reality that is truly beyond or perhaps even reproductions or reflections!

            When intuition goes beyond to embrace the past, the present and the future then it really rises to the level of transcendent intuition, where thought is seminal in its powder and transcendent in its operation.

            Before that happens one has to become aware of the problem of oneness and manyness in the comprehensive totality and possible laws of thought which operate at that level.  How can propositions equally true but opposite be true at the same time or in respect of the same thing?

            In a world or relations and levels of existence what is requisite is the acceptance that all propositions are particular and as such they can be equally true or that a thing can have more dimensions and as such even absolute propositions could co-exist in a trans-logical sense of equally accepting the violation of the principles of non-contradiction and the law of excluded middle.  A logic of the infinite would accept this position, even as a transcendental logic might.  The negational logic can hardly lead to anything but sheer nihilism in the transcendent or the nihilism of the transcendent itself.

            The logic of the Revealational is based on the absoluteness of Vision of Reality, its self evident nature as eternal for all time. It is the assurance of the attainment of that state of ‘syamabhuvah’ or birth of consciousness (sambhava or sambui) as the ‘Isavasyopanishad’ states it, when one has the vision of the ‘Yathartha’, as it is in itself or all things (Yatha tathyato arthan vyadadhat sasvatibhyah samabhyah).

            This revealational perception is obviously ‘aparoksanubjti’ or diyva pratyaksa, non-sensory, non-mental, non-buddhic too and non-material.  It is the vision by the purest spirit which is inward to the seer and outward too – omnipervasive.  “Tad antarasya sarvasya sarvasyasya bahyatah” as the Isa Upanishad states it.  It is the experience of the apparently incompatible co-existence or co-presence that enforces the need for assuming a mind that can perceive them together and as unified.  Such a mind would be different from the dialectical, divisive and differentiating mind, that is good for acting in terms of parts rather than wholes, good enough for understanding the homogeneous parts in terms of the whole or contra.  Such a mental function is called super mind or vijnana.

            The idealistic mind of the Westerns like Bosanquest harps on the need to know all in order to know a part of the whole.  Knowledge of all sciences would be needed to understand fully a flower on the crannied wall.  Mystical cognition or mind postulates that the structure of an atom is repeated in the structure of the vast or greatest mass or reality.  “Yatha pinde tatha brahmande”.  Thus in order to understand the whole it would be enough if one can fully understand the smallest particle.  The microcosmic structure and functions are found in enlarged state in the cosmic pattern and functions.  To know that ‘atman’ or individual soul is also to know the ‘Brahman’ for they have identical structure however indivisible or unanalyzable though each may be as spiritual entities.

            Whilst Plato hoped to understand man and his inner nature through the understanding of the State – the magnified man according to his mystic postulate, Indian spirituality sought to understand the macrocosm through the individual self and also vice-versa.  This logic of correspondence and indeed interconnected functioning of the macrocosm and the microcosm has led to many complicated developments such as the spiritual view (adhidaiva), individual view (adhyatma), and the external view (adhibhoutika) which are independent and interconnected though apparently autonomous and even separate zones of interpretation.  This maze of inter-relationships in the understanding of the Reality as a whole of experience has posed a tremendous problem for logic.  The nature of through at that level is such that it cannot be said to be the same as the rational unilinear, atomistic mind.  When Bosanquet characterized Russell’s mind as unilinear or simply one-tracked the was but explaining the difference between the logic of the finite and that of his own idealistic comprehensive mind that sought internal coherence between the manifold fields of experience.  When Russell wrote his ‘Mysticism and Logic’ he was despairing about discovering any logic in the mystical mind that sought correspondence, which was not analogy between diverse planes of being, and structural identity between the microcosm and the macrocosm, as well as functional identity.  This may well be the logic of the infinite and be the meeting place of the logic of the finite and the Infinite also

            The logic of the Infinite or infinity conceived both in the spatial and temporal senses (anantatva) which is also the variant for Anandatva, goes beyond the scope of the rational mind dependent on the senses.  It depends on the super-sensory and super-motor possibilities of the Infinite magnitudes of Brahman.  It is possible only to those in whom the infinite sensory and motor functions which are entirely the originals of the finite sensory and motor functions, and veritably subtler are awakened.  This is said to be the daivi (divine) correlate of the manushi (mortal) or the adhyatma correlate of the bhautika.

            Thus though Ultimate Thought is one yet it manifests itself in a diversity of ways at different levels of the infinite and the finites and at the atomic and sub-atomic.  This is similar to the assumption of one ultimate matter whose laws are different at different forms of it – such as the solids, liquids and gases and so on.  Similarly in respect of force or energy which though one has different laws according to the kinds of force, such heat, light, magnetism, electricity, radio-activity etc.  Thus the vedic seers had different words for the different levels and functions even as it proclaimed that ‘Ekam sat, viprah bahudha vadanti’ according to God’s function in the terrestrial (bhooh), atmospheric (bhuvah), heavenly (suvah), and beyond in the worlds of Mahat, Janah, Tapah and Satya, which are known as seven vyahrtis.

            Thus each has a logic of its own, and the general mix up has led to logical anamolies.  Immaneul Kant had a great service to Western logic when he distinguished between the thought as Pure Reason, with its subordinate understanding.  Practical Reasoning and Judgement.  Such a basic distinction was available to Indian Logic in the terms Pratyaksa, anumana, upamana and Sabda and Saksatkara.

            In the following chapters the specific value of each pramana is given showing how the corrections in each area would lead to a more adequate logic of thought or rather THOUGHT could be arrived at. 

K.C. VARADACHARI.