Explain the ground on which Cārvāka rejects inference (anumāna) as a valid source of knowledge.
The Cārvāka school of thought, staunchly empiricist, rejects inference (anumāna) as a valid source of knowledge because it believes only direct perception (pratyaksha) provides certainty.
Cārvāka's central argument against inference rests on the impossibility of establishing vyapti – the universal and necessary concomitance between the probans (hetu) and the probandum (sādhya), for example, between smoke and fire. While we might repeatedly perceive instances where smoke is accompanied by fire, we can never perceive all possible instances (past, present, and future, seen and unseen). There's always the possibility of a counter-example that could falsify the universal rule.
Since our senses are limited to particular, present experiences, and cannot guarantee a universal, unfailing connection, any conclusion drawn through inference remains uncertain and merely probable, not truly valid knowledge. For Cārvāka, to accept inference is to make an uncritical leap of faith, which is epistemologically unsound.
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