Jaina Theories of Reality and Knowledge

SR No.: 001608
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Y J Padmarajiah
Publisher: Jain Sahitya Vikas Mandal
Publication Year: 1963
Total Pages: 444
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, Epistemology, & Anekantvad
File Size: 23 MB

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JAINA THEORIES OF REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE
“The forms of idealism like objective idealism and absolute idealism are only attenuated forms of subjective idealism and the true subject transcends the subject-object relation.”' In his celebrated essay “The Reputation of Idealism", G. E. Moore also is in full accord with this criticism. He characterises the notion of esse is percipi-conceding generously to the idealist that percipi need not mean “sensation' only but thought' also, both of course being 'forms of consciousness -as the ultimate premise of Idealism' in general. Confirming his attitude to the same notion, he further observes : “I believe that Idealists all hold this important falsehood." $ His choice of this notion as the most vulnerable point for attack in idealism has considerably strengthened the realistic stand for objectivity or independence in the analysis of the nature of reality.'
1. Srinivasachari in Aspects of Advaita, pp. 14-15 (the italics are
mine). L. T. Hobhouse demonstrates this truth in a lucid and critical note wherein he analyses the positions of T. H. Green and B. Bosanquet. See his The Theory of Knowledge (third ed.
London, 1921), p. 537 f., f. n. 2. 2. Philosophical Studies (The International Library of Psychology,
Philosophy, and Scientific Method, 1951 (reprinted), London),
pp. 7-8. 3. Ibid., p. 12.
The following witticisms make an interesting reading: !! would be more appropriate, in this context, to substitute 'percept' wherever the term 'idea' occurs. So Beattie told Hume that the idea (or image) of a roaring lion is not a roaring idea, and that the image of an ass is not a long-eared sluggish idea; and he put some clownish questions' to Berkeley in the same spirit. "Where," he asked, "is the harm of my believing that if I were to fall down yonder precipice and break my neck, I should be no more a man of this world? My neck, Sir, may be an idea to you, but to me it is a reality and