Aristotle and Gautama on Logic and Physics

Abstract

The question of the origins of logic as a formal discipline is of special interest to the historian of physics since it represents a turning inward to examine the very nature of reasoning and the relationship between thought and reality. In the West, Aristotle (384-322 BCE) is generally credited with the formalization of the tradition of logic and also with the development of early physics. In India, the Rigveda itself in the hymn 10.129 suggests the beginnings of the representation of reality in terms of various logical divisions that were later represented formally as the four circles of: "A", "not A", ":A and not A", and "not A and not not A''. According to Puranic accounts, Medhatithi Gautama and Aksapada Gautama (or Gotama), which are perhaps two variant names for the author of the early formal text on Indian logic, belonged to about 550 BCE. The Greek and the Indian traditions seem to provide the earliest formal representations of logic, and in this article we ask if they influenced each other. We are also interested in the scope of early logic, since this gives an idea to us of the way early thinkers thought about nature and change. We will show that Greek and Indian logical traditions have much that is distinctive and unique and that they must have emerged independently.