The Logics of Counterinference and the “Additional Condition” (upādhi) in Gaṅgeśa’s Defense of the Nyāya Theistic Inference from Effects

This paper is taken from a long section of the Tattva-cintā-maṇi by Gaṅgeśa that is devoted to proving the existence of—to use an inadequate word—“God” in a somewhat minimalist sense. The īśvara, the “Lord,” is for Gaṅgeśa, following Nyāya predecessors, a divine agent, a self, responsible for much, not all, of the order in the world. Unseen Force, adṛṣṭa, which is in effect karman made by human action, is also a powerful agent as well as things’ intrinsic natures. Moreover, ordinary selves, atoms, ether, and universals are uncreated. But the īśvara brings about just desert in reincarnation in actualizing Unseen Force, and is responsible for a broad swathe of what some see as accidental arrangements as well as the forming of the macro elements from eternal, naturally disjoined atoms. Thus the cosmos in its general existence and structure is viewed in Nyāya as the work of the Lord. Gaṅgeśa’s argument runs: Earth and the like [a (pakṣa) = earth and the like (kṣity-ādi)] have a conscious agent as a cause [S (sādhya) = having an agential cause (sakartṛkatva) (Sa)], since they are effects [H (sādhana) = being an effect [(kāryatva) (Ha)], like a pot [b (dṛṣṭānta) = a pot (Hb,Sb)]. And so the vyāpti rule is: [H → S (vyāpti)] Whatever is an effect has an agential cause. For earth and the like, it is reasoned that only an omniscient īśvara could be that cause. The argument was a target of Buddhists who pointed to counterexamples such as growing grass. Growing grass exhibits the prover property, being-an-effect, but not the property to be proved, having-an-agential-cause. The long section is dominated by Gaṅgeśa’s rebutting this and other potential defeaters, in particular, the upādhi, having-a-living-body (God does not have a living body but all the agential causes with which we are familiar do), along with a counterinference (sat-pratipakṣa), Ia & (x)(Ix → ¬Sx), where I = not-produced-by-an-agent-with-a-body.