Essay on Postulation (arthapatti) of Non-perceptual Sources of Knowledge

Pestulation” (arthapatti) is the necessary supposition of an unperceived fact which alone can explain a phenomenon that demands explanation.

When a given phenomenon is such that we cannot understand it in any way without supposing some other fact, we have to postulate this other fact byway of explaining the phenomenon.

This process of explaining an otherwise inexplicable phenomenon by the affirmation of the explaining fact is called arthapatti.

Thus when a man, who is growing fat, is observed to fast during the day, we find an apparent contradiction between his growing fatness and his fasting.

We cannot in any way reconcile these two facts, namely, fatness and fasting, unless we admit that the man eats at night. That the man must east at night explains the complex whole of apparently conflicting facts, namely, fasting attended with increasing fatness.

Knowledge obtained in this way is distinctive because it is not reducible to perception or inference: and it is not, of course a case of testimony or comparison.

Such knowledge cannot be explained as perception since we do not see the man eat at night Nor is it a case of inference, because there is no invariable concomitance (vyapti) between fatness and eating at night, so that we cannot say that whenever there is fatness there is eating at night, as we can say that wherever there is smoke there is fire.

Though we are not ordinarily aware of it, we employ this method of arthapatti very often in daily life.

Some examples will make this clear. When we call on a friend and do not find him at home, though we are sure that he is alive, we say: ‘He must be somewhere outside home.

‘This last supposition is made by us because this alone can explain how a man who is alive cannot be at home. This method is also largely used by us in the interpretation of language.

When some words are omitted in a sentence, we suppose those words without which the meaning implied by the context cannot be explained. On reading or hearing a sentence like ‘shut up,’ we supply (by arthapatti) the words ‘your lips,’ because without them the meaning is incomplete.

Similarly, when the primary meaning of a word does not suit the context, we suppose a secondary or figurative meaning which alone can explain the sentence for example.

When we are told, ‘Industry is the key to success’ we suppose that the meaning of ‘key’ here must be ‘means’ and not a real key.

Mimamsakas distinguish between two kinds of postulation, that which is employed to explain something which is perceived (drstarthapatti), such as fatness in a man who is fasting by day, and that which is used to explain the meanings of words heard (srutarthapatti), such as those cited above.

It will be found that arthapatti resembles a hypotheisis as understood in Western logic. It appears to be like an explanatory hypothesis. But the difference is that it lacks the tentative or provisional character of a hypothesis.

What is known by simply hypothetically supposed or entertained, but is believed in as the only possible explanation.

As arthapatti arises out of a demand for explanation, it is different from a syllogistic inference the object of which is to conclude from given facts, and not to explain given facts. Atthapatti is a search for grounds whereas an inference is a search for consequents.