Logic in tolkāppiyam (chapter of the book)

Abstract

Tolkāppiyam shows us that logic had an important place in the primal society (known as tiṇai). Such primal cultural practices as “tarukkam,” “vākai,” analogical reasoning, the use of the criteria of knowledge (“aḷavai”) in premarital life situations and in oral texts (such as mutumoḻi and kāṇṭikai), and also the primal social institution, namely, the assembly (avai) where public debates were held, were all part of the philosophical tradition of this society. Such philosophy embraced logic, which had rhetorical as well as epistemic functions. If rhetorical logic was persuasive (as in tarukkam) and contestatory (as in vākai in combat and in the assembly), epistemic logic (aḷavai) was validative. In fact, early Tamil logic was a complex discipline not easily distinguishable from philosophy (especially, epistemology and ethics) and rhetoric.