October 22, 2018 Monday
Bedtime Story
Sixteen Categories of Knowledge
The first aphorism of the Nyaya Sutras
lists the following sixteen categories of knowledge:
Perfection is attained by the correct
knowledge about true nature of sixteen categories:
(1) Means of right knowledge (or Pramana) –
the word “Pramana” literally translated to “proof” from the Sanskrit root prama
which means “correct notion, true knowledge, basis, foundation, accurate
notion”
(2) Object of right knowledge (or prameya)
(3) Doubt (samsaya)
(4) Purpose (prayojana)
(5) Familiar instance (drstanta)
(6) Established tenet (siddhanta)
(7) Members of an inference (avayava)
(8) Reasoning (tarka)
(9) Ascertainment or results (nirnaya)
(10) Discussion (vada)
(11) Sophistic disputations (jalpa)
(12) Cavil or criticism (vitanda)
(13) Fallacies (hetvabhasha)
(14) Quibbles or Deceptions or Hoax (chala)
(15) Futile rejoinders (jati) and
(16) Methods of losing an argument
(nigrahasthana)
The importance of attaining true knowledge,
according to the Nyaya Sutras, is directly linked to freedom from suffering as
“wrong knowledge” is associated with sorrow.
The treatise in the fourth book even goes
to the extent to make a claim that philosophy or pursuit of true knowledge is
akin to practice of yogic meditation.
Make no mistake dear apes that syllogism is
a powerful tool in itself as evident by George Boole’s unwavering acceptance of
it and relying heavily on it for the creation of his 1854 masterpiece ‘An
Investigation of the Laws of Thought on which are Founded the Mathematical
Theories of Logic and Probabilities’.
This was the foundation of algebraic logic
as Mon Ami would know better.
In 1879 with the publication of Begriffsschrift
by Gottlob Frege (which too was essentially based on Aristotelian logic),
formal logic not only attained complete formality (the messy natural language
was shredded out of it) but was transformed to mathematical logic as well with
the introduction of functions and quantified variables.
Yet at the same time syllogism and even
formal logic have their inherent weakness concerning the understanding of
reality which I shall explain in the nights to come.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the International
Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I recommend
this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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