Charvaka: The problem of inference

In his analysis of the Charvakas, Will Durant writes (Our Oriental Heritage ,pg 418):

Out of the aphorisms of Brihaspati came a whole school of Hindu materialists, named, after one of them, Charvakas. They laughed at the notion that the Vedas were divinely revealed truth; truth, they argued, can never be known, except through the senses. Even reason is not to be trusted , for every inference depends for its validity not only upon accurate observation and correct reasoning, but also upon the assumption that the future will behave like the past; and, of this, as Hume was to say, there can be no certainty.

Of course, Durant is a generalist, and hence cannot be taken to be the last word on the subject. But even a section of traditional and modern Indian scholars agree with the fact that the Charvakas, like David Hume of England, were denying the validity of inference.

In the terminology of European logic, the supposed Charvaka argument against the validity of inference goes something like this:

Inference presupposes a universal relation (vyapti) between the middle term (linga) and the major terms (sadhya). But this vyapti is an undue assumption. No source of valid knowledge can guarantee it. (A close parallel of all this in European logic is Hume's denial of the universal and necessary relation.)

Thus, for example, the inference of fire (sadhya) from smoke (linga) can be valid only when it is established that all cases of smoke are cases of fire (vyapti). But there is no source of valid knowledge that can justify this universal relation. Perception cannot do it, because it is limited only to the particulars. Inference, being itself dependent, upon vyapti, cannot generate it. Testimony, and other so called sources of valid knowledge, being after all inferential, are similarly incapable of being the basis of vyapti. Therefore, inference is not possible.

[The above is the Lokayata epistemology, according to the the Advaitin Madhavacharya (circa 14th century AD; note that this is not the founder of Dvaita) in his book Sarva Darsana Samgraha on which many scholars depend on their understanding of Charvaka views since we have in his book an entire chapter devoted to the Charvakas. Note that no Charvaka book written by a Charvaka exists today, even though we have references to Charvaka texts existing at one time, including a reference to a certain Bhaguri commentary on the Lokayata. Whatever we know about the Charvakas is through references to their views by their opponents and also in works like the Mahabharata and Ramayana. It is suggested that some of the purva paksa in the Upanisads are also representing Charvaka views.]

To return to our discussion. Indian philosophers, specifically the opponents of the Charvakas, believe that it is easy to refute Charvaka epistemology if it is reduced to this. All arguments depend on vyapti, and as such the denial of vyapti amounts to a non-confidence in argument as such. But the Charvakas themselves had to argue their own case and were thefore involved in self-contradictions. As Madhava himself, while arguing against the Charvaka denial of inference from the Budhist point of view, says (in the Sarva Darsana Samgraha (pg 14, translator E.B. Cowell ):

"If a man does not allow that inference is a form of evidence, pramana, one may reply: "You merely assert thus much, that inference is not a form of evidence: do you allege no proof of this, or do you allege any? The former alternative is not allowable according to the maxim that bare assertion is no proof of the matter asserted. Nor is the latter alternative any better, for if while you assert that inference is no form of evidence, you produce some truncated argument (to prove i.e. to infer, that it is none), you will be involved in an absurdity, just as if you asserted your own mother to be barren...When you deny the existence of any object on the ground of its not being perceived, you yourself admit an inference of which non-perception is the middle term."

Udayana, of the Nyaya school (circa 10th century AD), argued that the Charvaka denial of inference would make practical life impossible (quoted by S.N. Dasgupta in History of Indian Philosophy vol. 3, pg 539):

"If this doctrine is consistently applied and people begin to disbelieve all that they do not perceive at any particular time, then all our practical life will be seriously disturbed and upset."

The question of course is, can we really rely on this representation of Charvaka epistemology ?

Explaining the views of an actual Charvaka, Purandara, some of whose writings have survived in fragments, S.N. Dasgupta writes(History of Indian Philosophy (HIP), vol. iii, pg 536):

"Purandara admits the usefullness of inference in determining the nature of all worldly things where perceptual experience is available; but inference cannot be employed for establishing any dogma regarding the transcendental world, or life after death or the laws of karma which cannot be available to ordinary perceptual experience."


According to Purandara, the Charvaka position is that inference is valid within the range of the emperically known world; if, however, one proposed to extend its application beyond the range of the this-worldly objects, one's claim would be a forbidden one.

And this is not a dogmatic asserton on the part of Purandara. Dasgupta tries to explain the grounds of Purandara by following the suggestions of Vadideva Suri, the Jaina author, who also quoted a sutra of Purandara (HIP iii.536):

"The main reason for upholding such a distinction between the validity of inference in our practical life of ordinary experience, and in ascertaining transcendtal truths beyond experience, lies in this, that an inductive generalisation is made by observing a large number of cases of agreement in in presence of together with agreement in absence, and no case of agreement in presence can be observed in the transcendtal sphere; for even if such spheres existed they could not be perceived by the senses. Thus, since in the supposed supra-sensuous transcendent world no case of hetu agreeing with the presence of its sadhya can be observed, no inductive generalisation or law of concomitance can be made relating to this sphere."

Thus, according to the impression which Vadideva Suri gives us about the Charvaka epistemology, the inferential process was only secondary in importance. The Charvakas wanted to attribute primacy to sense-perception. Manibhadra in his commentary to the Sat Darsana Samuccaya (on SatDS v.81), gives us some extremely striking reasons for the Charvaka emphasis on the primacy of sense perception.

The reasons are socio-political and appear to be strangely modern and relevant even today. There are cunning deceptors (according to the Charvakas) in religious garbs, trying to generate in the minds of the people illusions concerning the attainment of heaven and the discrimination between good and evil; and they are trying to establish their claims on the basis of futile references to such sources of valid knowledge as inference, scriptures, etc. The Charvaka insistence on the primacy of sense-perception was meant to be a defense against such deception and exploitation; it wanted to warn the people against the dangers of religious exploitation.


If, as Manibhadra went on explaining the Charvaka view, the unperceived too were given the status of existence then the poor could as well delude themselves with the idea of possessing a heap of gold and as such they would trample over their sense of poverty with a kind of indifference; the slave, too, would delude himself with the idea that he had become the master. Such delusions, like the illusions generated by the religious deceptors, would be fatal for the people, and since the religious deceptors, in defence of the existence of the unperceived, were talking too much about inference and testimony, the Charvakas were obliged to argue in favour of the primacy of sense-perception. If the defenders of the orthodoxy found it necessary to deny reason to make room for faith, the Charvakas found it equally necessary to argue against the spurious claims of the deceptors.

It is interesting to note by the way that the one Hindu philosophy which denies the validity not only of inference, but also of perception, is the Advaita Vedanta of Adi Sankara. Indeed Adi Sankara begins his commentary on the Brahma Sutra (also known as Vedanta Sutra) with an attack on the valid sources of knowledge like perception, inference, and verbal testimony.