ABSTRACT
In studying a civilization different from out own we are prone to impose the conceptual framework and prejudices of our own tradition. The study of Indian logic by Western scholars, including Indian scholars who accepted certain tenets of Western logic, forms no exception. S. C. Vidyabhusana, the first historian of Indian logic, looked at his subject through eyes so coloured by what he regarded as Aristotelian logic, that he talked of the 'Indian syllogism' and saw in it traces of the influence of Aristotle -a historical claim no serious student of Indian logic would nowadays wish to make his own. Moreover, like many other scholars of his generation, Vidyabhusana was not really familiar with Aristotle, but rather with what is generally called 'traditional logic', a mixture extracted from Aristotle, but enriched with the left-overs of numerous other dishes. A decade later, the great Russian pioneer of the study of Buddhist logic, Th. Stcherbatsky, adopted a Kantian framework and introduced thereby even greater confusion. For unlike Aristotle, who doubtless continues to be the greatest logician in the Western tradition, Kant was no logician, and the weaknesses of his philosophy are due precisely to his ignorance of logic.
