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

Page 317

298
JAINA THEORIES OF REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE
II. Thus the Advaitic attempt at building up a structure of reality from which the independence of the objective world is explained away has been revealed, in our analysis so far, to tend towards some form of mentalism. Even if any other school of idealism attempts to bring anything in ab extra into the being of its ultimate realm the attempt would be foredoomed to failure in the same measure as its denial of self-existence to the objective universe. Nothing short of a forthright recognition of the independent and intrinsic nature of reality will ever succeed in avoiding the mentalization or spiritualization of the non-spiritual realm of reality.
Once the claim of independence as an integral part of reality is initially conceded, then, it becomes the thin edge of the wedge; that is, the operative force of the principle of distinction thus introduced in the real will work itself out, through various stages of increasing approximation like duality, plurality and reciprocity towards the anekānta view of reality. The dialectical evolution of these approximations
another fierce critic who joins issue with Dingle: "If I am asked to mention," he observed, "some particular metaphysics which clearly does not fit in with the theory of relativity, I should name solipsism." Albert Einstein, p. 613.
Yet another writer of today to whose views on the present problem Einstein himself has paid a serious attention is Henry Margenau. Margenau's argument for the reality or objectivity of the universe, under Einstein's theory, cannot be cited here, but merits our attention. Vide his article on "Einstein's Conception of Relativity" in Albert Einstein (see 4, pp. 252-57), and his recent work, The Nature of Physical Realitu, The GrawHill Book Co. Inc., New York, the sections on The Reality of Data, Other Selves, pp. 297-9, and the Real World, pp. 299-305; and the entire chap. (21) on The Contours of Reality, pp. 44867.