In this article, Keith Lloyd claims that it is a common tendency in rhetorical studies to overlook the Nyaya text as having any relevance in Western views on the matter. He calls for the inclusion of this text in the aforementioned studies because of the text’s merit and methods. He calls the Nyaya a work that seeks commonalities (375), and it is interesting that his article seeks that same end while simultaneously highlighting some important differences between traditional and contemporary veiws and the Nyaya itself.

Lloyd stresses the similarities between Western rhetoric and Nyaya regarding the qualities that should be aimed for in rhetoric. He claims the Nyaya, too, concerns itself with debate, “katha,” and honest discussion, “vada” (365). While many critics and philosophers inaccurately describe many Indian rhetorical texts as mystical or religious, Lloyd claims that Nyaya refers to the “science of right and wrong reasoning” (367).

Instead of negating the methods, practices, and ideals behind Western rhetoric, Lloyd chooses, instead, to show how the Nyaya not only incorporates these same characteristics, but in many cases, it improves upon them logically and systematically. One area, in particular, that the Nyaya one-ups Western rhetoric is that of the Aristotelian method of reasoning which relies on deductive logic (all men…), wheras the Nyayan method (that man…) does not rely on “because” and “since,” instead seeking out relational evidence on which to form an educated claim. Moreover, Lloyd asserts that unlike the Western world, Nyaya has long been “positing the world as predictable only to a point” (379). This slight room for unpredictability within the text allows for a closer relationship between “theoretical” and “practical” reasoning while offerering methods for “making” decisions, not merely “justifying” them (379). While this text and its devices for effective discourse are anything but “new,” Lloyd assures skeptical critics that it will offer refreshing perspectives and will only serve to improve the present field.