INFERENCE
Have you ever thought of what made man so different from other forms of life? What made him advance through the ages, right from the stone age to the present modern age? What made him the master of this world? If you think about it, you'll conclude that SCIENCE is the one which made all the difference.
What is science? Why should it be the sole property of mankind?
The very essence of any science is the accurate comprehension of truth. For instance, medicine is a science that tries to understand the truth about the human body, geography is a science that tries to comprehend the true nature of earth, and so on. The truth that every science pursues is not always obvious. For example, apples were falling from trees from time immemorial but it took a Newton to dig the truth of Gravity out of it. This ability of extracting the hidden essence from the observable facts is very precious. 'Inference' is exactly that. It is the application of thought to the observable facts resulting in deduction. It tries to identify the cause and brings out its relationship with the effect (In the case of Newton and apples, Gravity was the cause and 'falling' was the effect).
Inference is not very uncommon too. In fact, the most common things that we do everyday involve inference (though we are not aware of it). One can sight many examples for that. For instance, when a mother hears the cry of a child, she infers that the child is hungry and feeds it. When you hear the sound of anklets, you infer that a woman is passing by. When you feel the smell of the soil, you infer that it has started drizzling. When the sun is at the top, vertically over your head, you infer that the time is around 12.00 noon. One more example for the process of inference is from school. You'll be familiar with 'salt analysis'. In salt testing, you infer the presence of a salt after making observations of the salt's color, form, chemical properties, etc... Detective stories too are good examples of inference. The detective uses his or her skills of deduction to unfold a complex plot and finally discovers the truth.
When 'Inference' is so common, why make a special study of it?
Firstly, an analytical study of inference would strengthen a person's logical thought. Since a study of inference deals with 'How' inference is made and what the 'Correct' and 'Wrong' ways of inference are, one gets an insight into the process of inference. This helps in sharpening one's logical thinking.
Secondly, since every branch of science involves inference, the knowledge gained by a systematic study of inference can be applied to other fields too. This could result in gaining a different perspective of those fields.
So, the study of inference is worth the effort!!
Ancient Indian thinkers have done a great deal of work in the study of inference (anumaanam) as a part of Tarka Shaastram. We'll take a look at the basics of the Indian approach towards the study of inference in the forthcoming sections.