Given below are two statements : one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the…
2025
Given below are two statements : one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other is labelled as Reason (R).
Assertion (A) : As per classical Indian School of Logic the argument "All knowable objects are nameable; the pot is a knowable object. Therefore the pot is nameable." is an invalid argument.
Reason (R) : In the above argument middle term and major term agree only in presence, there being no negative instance of their agreement in absence.
In the light of the above statements, choose the most appropriate answer from the options given below :
Answer: D. (A) is not correct but (R) is correct — Concept — In Nyāya, the classical Indian school of logic, an inference (anumāna) is licensed by vyāpti — the invariable concomitance between the middle term…
- A.
Both (A) and (R) are correct and (R) is the correct explanation of (A)
- B.
Both (A) and (R) are correct but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A)
- C.
(A) is correct but (R) is not correct
- D.
(A) is not correct but (R) is correct
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D
Concept — In Nyāya, the classical Indian school of logic, an inference (anumāna) is licensed by vyāpti — the invariable concomitance between the middle term (hetu) and the major term (sādhya). What the school requires is that this concomitance be established, not that it be established in both directions. Nyāya therefore classifies inferences by the kind of concomitance that is actually available:
Anvaya-vyatireki — the concomitance can be shown both positively (wherever the middle term is present, the major term is present) and negatively (wherever the major term is absent, the middle term is absent).
Kevalānvayi — the major term is a universally present property, so nothing anywhere lacks it; no negative instance exists even in principle, and only agreement in presence can be exhibited.
Kevala-vyatireki — the major term belongs only to the subject of the inference, so no positive example outside the subject is available, and only agreement in absence can be exhibited.
Nyāya accepts all three as genuine forms of anumāna. On this view the unavailability of a negative instance follows from what the major term is, and is not a defect in the concomitance.
Application — Now read the argument quoted in the assertion against that framework.
The argument runs: all knowable objects are nameable; the pot is a knowable object; therefore the pot is nameable. The middle term is knowability (prameyatva) and the major term is nameability (abhidheyatva).
Both properties are universal in scope: on the Nyāya view every object whatsoever is an object of knowledge, and every object whatsoever can be denoted by a word. Nothing falls outside either property.
Because nothing lacks nameability, there is no vipakṣa — no locus in which the major term is absent — so the concomitance can be exhibited only in presence. That is precisely the situation described in the reason.
An inference of this shape is the standard textbook example of kevalānvayi anumāna: ghaṭaḥ abhidheyaḥ prameyatvāt — “the pot is nameable, because it is knowable”.
Nyāya counts kevalānvayi inference as valid. So the assertion’s claim — that classical Indian logic treats this argument as invalid — does not hold, while the reason’s description of presence-only agreement does hold.
Cross-check — The same conclusion is reached independently by asking how Nyāya treats the other one-sided form of concomitance.
Form of concomitance | What is available | Standard example | Nyāya’s verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
Kevalānvayi | Agreement in presence only; no negative instance exists | The pot is nameable, because it is knowable | Valid inference |
Kevala-vyatireki | Agreement in absence only; no positive example outside the subject | Earth differs from the other elements, because it has smell | Valid inference |
Anvaya-vyatireki | Agreement in both presence and absence | The hill has fire, because it has smoke | Valid inference |
Nyāya validates the one-sided cases in both directions. A missing negative instance is therefore not, by itself, a ground for calling an inference invalid — that demand belongs to other traditions, not to Nyāya.
Result — The reason correctly describes the argument as one in which the middle and major terms agree in presence alone, but the assertion misstates classical Indian logic’s evaluation of it. Hence (A) is not correct but (R) is correct.