Milinda here is significantly described as a master of sophistry or vetandi, a practitioner of the dialogue form known as vitanda, a refutation-only type of dialogue in which the opponent defends no thesis of his own but is set only on refuting that of the proponent (see §1-4). The implication here is that such dialogues are essentially eristic. And it is, in particular, the eristic use of questioning that Milinda is a master of. Questions need not be innocent requests for information; they can also be disguised arguments. To reply to the question When did you stop cheating on your tax returns? at all, affirmatively or negatively, is already to commit oneself to the premise of the question, that one has indeed been cheating on ones tax returns. In the intellectual climate of ancient India, when interrogative dialogue was common-place, it was very well known that questions can be used to entrap the unwitting, and counter-strategies were invented to avoid entrapment. The Buddha himself was well aware that replying to a yes-no question can commit one to a proposition, whatever answer one gives, and his solution, famously, was to refuse to answer. Thus when asked a series of ten leading questions — is the soul is eternal? is it non-eternal? etc. — the Buddha declined to offer a reply. For any reply would commit him, against his wish, to the existence of souls. In the Questions of King Milinda, we see Nagasena experimenting with a different technique to avoid entrapment. To some of Milindas more devious yes-no questions, instead of refusing to reply at all, Nagasena replies Both yes and no! To others he replies Neither yes nor no! -Page 309, Indian Logic by Jonardon Ganeri, Greek, Indian and Arabic Logic Edited by Dov M. Gabbay at Kings College London and John Woods at University of British Columbia and Kings College London
Posted on: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 05:28:31 +0000