Lloyd, Keith. “Rethinking Rhetoric from an Indian Perspective:
Implications in the Nyaya Sutra. Rhetoric Review 26.4(2007): 365-384.
Summary: “As Aristotle began to codify rhetorical practices in Greece, a theoretical and
pragmatic text on argument, the Nyaya Sutra, emerged in Ancient India, founding
one of six key philosophies of India. Though it describes in detail a procedure
of reasoning based on a five-part method of dialogic presentation, the rhetorical
emphases of the Nyaya approach have been mostly overlooked. This essay proposes
Nyaya’s inclusion in the field of rhetorical studies, exploring its methods
within their historical context, comparing its approach to the traditional logical
syllogism, and relating it to the contemporary perspectives of Stephen Toulmin,
Kenneth Burke, and Chaïm Perelman” (365).
Area Cluster:
Methodology: Compare and Contrast
Citation: Burke, Foss and Foss, Ganeri, Jansen and Toulmin, Perelman, Kennedy, Vidyabhushana
Provocative Quotes:
“The West’s relative ignorance of Nyaya, according to Jonardon Ganeri,
stems from a misperception that the East is more mystical, less interested in
systematic thinking” (366-7).
“These contrasts may seem esoteric, but we miss the importance and significance
of the Indian approach if we simply assume, as many logicians have,
that Nyaya offers little but a primitive logic better addressed by the Greeks or
that we can simply restate the method in a three-part syllogism” (373).
“Nyaya posits a transcendent view of reality, but describes it in immediate,
situated ways. Toulmin focuses on this situational aspect of argument as key to
practical reasoning” (376).
“Nyaya is far from a “new way,” but it certainly provides some
perspective on how we make practical arguments, how we make and describe
immediate decisions. The model is about this fire, this mountain, our present situation,
not all fires, all mountains” (380).
“Nyaya also explains how practical reasoning may work in context. Avoiding
the West’s abstracted logic, Nyaya never separates theory from practice and
reveals how we may not need major premises or warrants to make decisions.
Because it exposes the inferential structure of argument, it applies well to both
ethical and scientific reasoning” (381).
“Because it begins with testing the hypothesis, as Joseph M. Rogers and Mahendra Kumar Jain note, it also relates fruitfully to scientific inquiry, furthering connections between science and rhetoric. What took thousands of years and a paradigm shift in Western thinking was anticipated in India twenty-three hundred years ago” (381).
“This essay begins the process of inclusion and reconceptualization needed to
recognize Nyaya as a significant rhetorical perspective while offering a glimpse
at an alternative to Western rhetoric and history. While Jonsen and Toulmin
demark two views of reasoning used in the West, Nyaya offers an alternate third
approach, providing insight into the rhetoric of how we make decisions and arguments,
who we make them for, and for what ends. It also offers a glimpse into the
thinking of a culture and tradition largely unfamiliar in the West, as well as a
broader view of the goals of rhetoric and the human relations that it implies” (381).
