Vipaksha

In Indian philosophy, one of the parts
in the accepted form of an inference
(anumana). The accepted form of an
inference has three parts: an assertion
(pratijna), a reason (hetu), and examples (drshtanta); each of these three
have their own constituent parts. The
vipaksha is part of the third term, the
examples, and is a negative example
given to show that the claim made in
the initial assertion is one that reflects
the action of particular causes. For
example, in the inference, “there is
fire on the mountain because there is
smoke on the mountain,” the vipaksha could be “unlike a lake” since
lakes are places with neither fire nor
smoke, and thus shows that these
conditions are not universally present
(fire is found in mountains, but not in
lakes). By convention, an inference
also had to have a positive example,
the sapaksha, to show that similar
things happened in similar cases (i.e.,
that there were other cases in which
there was both fire and smoke).