Jaina Philosophy of Non Absolutism

SR No.: 001213
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Satkari Mookerjee, S N Dasgupta
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas
Publication Year: 1978
Total Pages: 314
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, B000, & B025
File Size: 18 MB

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The Jaina Philosophy of Non-Absolutism
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content of conception be regarded as a case of superimposition. Because superimposition consists in the false perception of a characteristic, which belongs to a real. Take, for instance, the case of the erroneous perception of the shell as silver. Here the character of silver is falsely transferred to the shell. But the silver character is a real attribute which belongs to real silver. If the intuititon of the positive character in the universal were a case of superimposition upon a fiction, this positive character must needs be shown to be a real characteristic of a real entity. The only real entity admitted by the Buddhist is only a selfcharacterised particular, which is discrete and distinct from all other particulars. But this particular is believd by him to be left untouched by conceptual thought, which alone can envisage a universal, which is ex hypothesi a non-entity. So the denial of positive character to a universal reduces it to a fiction. To say that it is a fiction and at the same time felt as a positive fact is to speak unintelligible nonsense.
It has been contended that the felt positivity of the universal is not a case of superimposition. The universal is felt as positive, because it is not felt as distinct from positive real. But this is a desperate argument. A thing cannot be felt in the character of another thing simply because its distinction from the latter is not perceived. A pen as a fact is distinct from the whole world. of reals which are comprised under the category of not-pen. It is not necessary that the pen should be felt as distinct from all these things. But this failure of realization of its distinction from the horse and the like does not make it appear as a horse or the like. So the non-apprehension of distinction of a fiction from a positive real cannot account for the felt positivity of a concept. Moreover, a real is always a self-characterised particular and is felt as such. A fiction is always a non-entity which can never be felt as a positive entity. A fiction could be felt as positive if the positive character could be detached from the particular and tagged on to it. But a real particular is an indivisible whole and has no character which can be set loose from it and attached to another. Nor can it be a case of erro neous perception which is possible only on the perception of a common character between two things. So the felt positivity cannot be explained away either as a case of superimposition