Kaisersose, we cannot continue this discussion if you continue to use strawmans fallacies. You need to be honest about what Nyaya-Vaiseshika and Samkhya-Yoga taught. They did not investigate afterlife and mermaids and this is clear to anybody who has studied Nyaya and Samkhya and read their works. There is no hope for an intelligent discussion if you do not represent their views correctly.
If we were talking about gravity and I said Newton taught that gravity was invisible fairies, you would object that he did not teach that. Likewise, I object to your misrepresentations of Nyaya and Samkhya.
We have to disagree here. Nyaya/Sankhya were about aferlife and other worlds.
No, they were not. Nyaya was an inquiry into the science of reasoning. The Nyaya itself means from premise to conclusion. Here is what the first few sutras of the Nyaya sutras with commentaries included within it:
Supreme felicity is attained by the knowledge about the true nature of the sixteen categories, viz., means of right knowledge, object of right knowledge, doubt, purpose, familiar instance, established tenet, members [of a syllogism], confutation, ascertainment, discussion, wrangling, cavil, fallacy, quibble, futility, and occasion for rebuke.
Definition of the instruments of right cognition
3. Perception, inference, comparison and word (verbal testimony) these are the means of right knowledge.
Among the four kinds of cognition, perception is the most important;... when [a man] has once perceived the thing directly, his desires are at rest, and he does not seek for any other kind of knowledge; ...
4. Perception is that knowledge which arises from the contact of a sense with its object, and which is determinate [well defined], unnameable [not expressible in words], and non erratic [unerring].
the name is not (necessarily present and) operative at the time that the apprehension of the thing takes place; it becomes operative (and useful) only at the time of its being spoken of, or communicated to other persons.. . .
"¦ if the definition of sense perccption consisted of only two terms - "that which is produced by the sense object contact" and "that which is not representable by words," then the apprehension of water [in the case of a mirage] ... would have to be regarded as "sense perception." ...That cognition is erroneous in which the thing is apprehended as what it is not; while, when a thing is perceived as what it is, the perception is not erroneous.
5. Inference is knowledge which is preceded by perception, and is of three kinds, viz., a priori, a posteriori and "commonly seen."
6. Comparison [analogy] is the knowledge of a thing, through its similarity to another thing previously well known.
7. Word (verbal testimony) is the instructive assertion of a reliable person.
Vaiseshika was an inquiry in the particular things that exist in the world and how they are constituted and assembled: which is also known as the dharma or nature and characteristics of things. Here are the first few sutras of the Vaiseshika sutras:
1. Now, therefore, we shall explain dharma
2. Dharma (is) that from which (results) the accomplishment of exaltation and of the supreme good.
3. The authoritativeness of the Veda (arises from its) being the Word of God [or being an exposition of dharma].
4. The Supreme Good [of the Predicables] (results) from the knowledge, produced by a particular dharma, of the essence of the predicables, substance, attribute, action, genus, species, and combination [inherence], by means of their resemblances and differences.
5. Earth, water, fire, air, ether, time, space, self (or soul), and mind (are) the only substances.
6. Attributes are color, taste, smell, and touch, numbers, measures, separateness, conjunction and disjunction, priority and posteriority, understandings, pleasure and pain, desire and aversion, and volitions.
7. Throwing upwards, throwing downwards, contraction, expansion, and motion are actions.
8. The resemblance of substance, attribute, and action lies in this that they are existent and non eternal, have substance as their combinative cause, are effect as well as cause, and are both genus and species.
9. The resemblance of substance and attribute is the characteristic of being the originators of their congeners.
10. Substances originate another substance, and attributes another attribute.
11. Action, producible by action, is not known.
Note in both sutras how scant attention is given to the Vedas. There can sometimes be a few lines here and there, but their primary aim is what they they declare at the beginning. Nyaya is to study the structure of logic and Vaiseshika is to study the structure of particular things. The entire enterpise of Nyaya and Vaiseshika philosophy is based on this only. They give argument after argument to prove their assertions. There is nothing religious about them. They are widely recognised to be rational systems of philosophy. They arrive at their conclusions using logical argument.
The conclusion of the soul is given by Nyaya-Vaiseshika by showing that the self qualities are distinct from the qualities of other substances. The qualities of the soul are desire, pleasure, pain, knowledge and these qualities are not be observed in other substances like earth, fire, air, water and ether which are inert. The quality of cognition is likewise not to be observed in these, but only in mind, providing the mind is a distinct particular.
The Nyaya-Vaiseshika are what we today call analytical philosophy to analyse and classify things into categories by their properties. The Nyaya-Vaiseshika argument is qualities produce other qualities and substances produce other substances. It is not possible for a substance which does not have certain qualities to produce a substance with different qualities. Earth, fire, air, water and ether(the translation is wrong, but lets stick with it) do not have qualities of cognition and thus their aggregates cannot lead to something that has qualities of cognition(memory, thought, imagination etc) Observation shows us matter does not have intention, knowledge, ignorance. If the sun could forget to shine, it would be the end of all life on earth
. Therefore consciousness is a distinct substance.
The philosophy of Nyaya-Vaieshika is the irreducibility of particulars proves them to be real entities.
If you do not like a certain a conclusion it does not mean the argument is invalid. The Christians did not like gravity or heliocentric models of earth. In order to show an argument is invalid you must refute the argument. In any case making arguments to prove assertions is philosophy not religion. Making arguments based on empirical things is science not religion.
In any case you are absolutely wrong that Nyaya and Vaiseshika are studies into mermaids and afterlife. Please stop using this silly strawman.
In addition to this, they relied on Sabda as a Pramana. Yyou have been consistenly leaving the latter out, thereby painting an incorrect picture. If they really had no use for Sabda as you claim, then why was it considered a valid Pramana? Sabda is unscientific and yet they found it necessary to include it as a valid means of knowledge.
I am not leaving it out, I have acknowledged it, but I already told you testimony is considered the least most important form of knowledge. The most important is perception because this is where knowledge first begins. I can only work with things that are known as empirical and not things which are not known. Then to know things that are entailed by the known but cannot themselves be seen, I must use inference(e.g., smoke to fire) Moreover, you are completely wrong that testimony is not scientific. Science is all about testimony. Experimental results have to be published to peers. But the peers who are not present when the experiment was being done cannot verify whether the results are real. So they have to repeat the experiment and get the same results. When it has been repeated n number of times and the same results achieived then it is accepted on testimony alone by the other peers who have not done the experiment themselves. This is because it is reliable authority. This is why testimony is also considered valid provided the authority is reliable.
What does it say about them? Nyaya/Vaisheshika and Sankhya/Yoga started with the premise that there existed a soul, man was in bondage and was therefore incapable of being happy. That is neither Pratyaksha nor Anumana. Nothing scientific about it.
Sigh, another strawman. You like these don't you
Nyaya and Vaiseshika begin from perception. Samkhya-Yoga also begin from perception. Then they use inference to develop their philosophies. Nyaya uses it to infer a correct way of reasoning. Vaiseshika uses it to infer how matter works. Samkhya uses it to infer what exists prior to visible matter. Finally, Yoga is the only darsana that does not use inference, but just pure phenomenology to watch the mind. They are all scientific systems.
About your second statement on Puranic Hinduism, I would be hard pressed to find someone to agree with it - both in academia and among traditionals. Without "Puranic Hinduism" there would be no Rama or Krishna or Shiva and that would mean no Hinduism, as we know it.
I emboldened "as we know it" because it illustrates my point exactly. Hinduism as we know it is history after 10,000 years of history. There was the Vedic period. Then the post-Vedic period. Then the puranic and Bhakti period. Then the modern period. The Hinduism we know today is a combination of all periods. No academic would disagree with this.
