Considerations about the Origin of Logic in India

Abstract

This article analyses the relationship between logic and irony in ancient India, following a current of thought that may be called “the followers of vitanda or the vitandins”. These thinkers, belonging to different schools suchas Cārvāka or Materialists, the Buddhist Madhyamaka and Hinduism Vedānta Advaita practiced a form of debate defined by the Nyāyasūtra as Vitandā. This type of debate was a critique, which aimed to demonstrate one’s opponents logical inconsistencies without establishing any thesis of one’s own. In order for this type of debate to take place, one side would establish a thesis whilst the other, the vitandin, refuted it without proposing any thesis at all, so that contesting a thesis did not commit the contester to accepting the contrary thesis. The paper explores the philosophical and religious consequences of this attitude in the context of ancient debates and the rise of a developed logic in India.