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108
NYAYA THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
in relation to water, such as drinking, bathing, washing, etc.
But the Nyaya never admits the pragmatist contention that the
truth of any knowledge is constituted by its utility or service-
ableness. Knowledge is made true by its correspondence to
some reality or objective fact. It is true not because it is useful,
but it is useful because it is already true. Hence truth consists
in correspondence and is tested by coherence and practical
efficiency.
But from the standpoint of the modern Ny膩ya, all truths.
do not require to be tested. Some truths are known as such
without any test or confirmation. These are manifestly neces-
sary and so self-evident truths. Here the Ny膩ya view has some
affinity with Russell's theory of truth.' In both, truth is defined
by correspondence to fact, but in different ways. Although
truth is thus externally conditioned, some truths are admitted
by both to be self-evident. For the Ny膩ya, however, such
truths are only necessary truths or what Russell calls a priori
principles. Of the different kinds of knowledge by acquaint-
ance-sensation, memory, introspection, etc.--which
admitted by Russell to have self-evident truth, it is only intros-
pection or self-consciousness (anuvyavasaya) that is admitted by
the Ny膩ya as having self-evident validity. The validity of self-
consciousness is self-evident because there is a necessary relation
between consciousness and its contents. When I become cons-
cious of a desire for food, I find that my consciousness is
necessarily related to the desire, it is the desire itself as it
becomes explicit. Here I not only know something, but know
that I am knowing it, i.e. the truth of my knowledge is self-
evident.
are
The different theories of truth discussed above may be
shown to supplement one another and be reconciled as com-
1 The Problems of Philosophy, Chaps. XI, XII, XIII.
2 Cf. C. Hartshorne's article in The Monist (Vol. XLIV, No. 2, p. 171):
"Must this (feeling) not be admitted to present an obvious dual aspect of
being at once subjective and yet a content or object of consciousness, at once
a mode and a datum of awareness?鈥�