Name the Means

Nyaya asks how a claim earns the right to be believed. Akshapada Gautama sorts the reliable means into a short list: perception, inference, comparison, and testimony. A hunch, a loud voice, and a story you like are not on the list.

What a Source Owes You asks what a source owes you, and Deduction and Induction asks whether a conclusion follows. This lesson asks the prior question: which means are you using? If a belief cannot be traced to one of the four, it has not yet been earned.

Naming none is part of the method. A well-formed doubt is progress. A decorated certainty with no means under it is the thing to cut.

The safe well

A neighbor says the well is safe because it feels safe, and because the sentence was said with confidence.

Feeling and volume are not on Gautama’s list. Perception would be a look, a taste, a measurement. Testimony would be someone in a position to have checked. Inference would be a pattern you can show. Comparison is the narrowest: in Nyaya it is how you learn what a new word names, from a likeness you were told about, so it cannot settle a well. Name one, or say there is none.

Try this today Pick one belief and say which of the four means it rests on.