Buddhist syllogistic theory

Abstract

This paper aims at giving elements of an exposition, with critical observations, of an integral part of Buddhist logic - that which corresponds to what in Western philosophy is referred to as 'syllogism' - as presented by Stcherbatsky in Part III of his book Buddhist Logic (1930) which is entitled 'The Constructed World'. In his book, Stcherbatsky deals with elements of Buddhist literature which show some sort of parallelism with the main stream of European logic of his time. Such elements include "a doctrine of the forms of syllogism, ... a theory on the essence of judgement, on the import of names and on inference." Also, he deals with other aspects which are included by the Buddhists in their system of 'logic' but are not included under logic in the West. These include "a theory on the part of pure sensation in the whole context of our knowledge, a theory on the reliability of our knowledge and on the reality of the external world as cognised by us in sensations and images." Buddhists did not achieve a clear separation of logic from ontology and epistemology. This is further emphasized by the ultimate aim of Buddhist logic, namely, explaining "the relation between a moving reality and the static constructions of thought.'"