Reading group: Nyāya Sūtra Book Five, the futile rejoinders and the ways to lose a debate, over three weeks
Its coordinates: 4.1 Formal Logic · 4.1.1 Propositional Logic · 4.1.2 Predicate Logic +4 more
For anyone who liked today's question, here is the oldest systematic catalogue of bad moves in argument that I know of in India.
The text: the fifth and last book of the Nyāya Sūtra, with Vātsyāyana's commentary if you can find it. The sūtras are terse; the commentary makes them readable. Several English translations exist, including older public-domain ones.
Week one: the futile rejoinders (jāti), first half. Book Five opens with a list of twenty-four kinds of rejoinder that look like refutations but only trade on a superficial likeness or difference. For example, objecting that if sound is non-eternal because it is produced, like a pot, then sound should also be visible, like a pot.
Week two: the rest of the jātis. Watch for how many depend on pretending that an example must be like the conclusion in every respect.
Week three: the points of defeat (nigrahasthāna). Twenty-two ways a debater can lose, from contradicting your own thesis to simply failing to answer, to "the unintelligible" and "the incoherent".
Why read it: the West's fallacy lists sort arguments by shape. This list sorts moves in a debate by what they do to the conversation. Hamblin, Walton and the pragma-dialecticians would recognise the approach.
One question to bring: is a list of ways to lose a debate the same thing as a list of ways to reason badly?
I'll post a short summary each Sunday. All welcome; no Sanskrit needed.