Imperative Logic: Indian and Western

Abstract

Statements having imperative intents are found in plenty in the context of formal argumentative discourses. Commands of any form are commonly accepted as expressing a “prescription” as distinct from “proposition,” though the possibility of their crossing over is not ruled out. The lingering question remains about the logical status of prescriptions as constituents of imperative arguments. Discussion of Vidhivākya (imperative) is extensively found in the Mīmāṁsā system and it has its pragmatic application in recent days in a very robust form.

Since twentieth century, imperative arguments are considered as more than a possibility in the West. Its early history starts with Aristotle’s practical syllogism, passes through the thoughts of the Stoics, Leibnitz, Hume, and finally has a primary line of development, i.e., becomes a formal logic for normatives in Ernst Mally’s Principle of Inheritance of Obligation. Logicians take different stands in explaining the inferential property of an argument involving commands at par with that property of an inference of classical propositional logic. The present chapter undertakes a survey of the logic of imperatives both from the Indian and the Western points of view.