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Four ways to know: perception, inference, comparison, and testimony. He built Indian logic from the ground up.
The founder of Buddhist logic, who rebuilt the theory of knowledge around two sources alone: bare perception and inference.
Connection
Akshapada Gautama Nyaya logic contested Dignaga — Dignaga's reform of Indian logic was worked out largely against the Nyaya Sutras, narrowing Akshapada's list of valid means of knowledge and rebuilding the theory of inference on stricter foundations.
Ideas
Words
“Perception, inference, comparison, and testimony are the four valid means of knowledge.”
“There are but two means of knowledge, perception and inference, for the object known is twofold: the particular and the universal.”
Key Moments
c. 2nd century BCE
Born in the Gangetic Plain
c. 2nd century BCE
Founds the Nyaya School of Logic
c. 2nd century BCE
Writes the Nyaya Sutras
c. 195 BCE
Four Means of Knowledge
c. 480 CE
Born in South India
c. 500 CE
The Founding of Buddhist Logic
c. 510 CE
Exclusion Theory of Meaning
c. 520 CE
Teaching at Nalanda
Works
Nyaya Sutras
Compendium of Valid Cognition