Page:A History of Indian Philosophy Vol 1.djvu/389

 IX] Object£ons aga£nst the Seif-val£d£ty of K1lowledge 373 it has conditioned. Moreover, knowledge is a mental affair and how can it certify the objective truth of its representation? In other words, how can my perception "a blue thing" guarantee that what is subjectively perceived as blue is really so objectively as well? After my perception of anything as blue we do not have any such perception that what I have perceived as blue is really so. So this so-called self-validity of knowledge cannot be testified or justified by any perception. We can only be cer- tain that knowledge has been produced by the perceptual act, but there is nothing in this knowledge or its revelation of its object from which we can infer that the perception is also objectively valid or true. If the production of any knowledge should certify its validity then there would be no invalidity, no illusory know- ledge, and following our perception of even a mirage we should never come to grief. But we are disappointed often in our per- ceptions, and this proves that when we practically follow the directions of our perception we are undecided as to its validity, which can only be ascertained by the correspondence of the per- ception with what we find later on in practical experience. Again, every piece" of knowledge is the result of certain causal colloca- tions, and as such depends upon them for its production, and hence cannot be said to rise without depending on anything else. It is meaningless to speak of the validity of knowledge, for validity always refers to objective realization of our desires and attempts proceeding in accordance with our knowledge. People only declare their knowledge invalid when proceeding practically in accordance with it they are disappointed. The perception of a mirage is called invalid when proceeding in accordance with our perception we do not find anything that can serve the pur- poses of water (e.g. drinking, bathing). The validity or truth of knowledge is thus the attainment by practical experience of the object and the fulfilment of all our purposes from it (arthakriya- jFzana or phalajiiiina) just as perception or knowledge repre- sented them to the perceiver. There is thus no self-validity of knowledge (svata!z-pramii?lya), but validity is ascertained by sa1!lvada or agreement with the objective facts of experience l. It is easy to see that this N yay a objection is based on the supposition that knowledge is generated by certain objective collocations of conditions, and that knowledge so produced can 1 See NYllyamaiijari, pp. 160- 1 73.