Jaina Theory of Multiple Facets of Reality and Truth

SR No.: 001746
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Nagin J Shah
Publisher: B L Institute of Indology
Publication Year: 2000
Total Pages: 168
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, & Nyay
File Size: 12 MB

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The Jaina Theory of Anekānta
eighth mode, it would be non-distinction of the definite and indefinite, which however is but the indefinite, nothing more specific than the fourth mode.
29. The value of these modes of truth for logic cannot be fully discussed within the limits of this paper. We may conclude by pointing out that these modes of truth are not merely many truths but alternative truths. The last mode may be regarded as implying the other modes but is not therefore in any sense a comprising unity. What is implied by a mode is a different mode. The implying relation in objective terms is but indetermination. The implying mode and the implied mode are at once distinct and indefinitely non-distinct. Truth as an indetermination or alternation of truths is but manifold possibility. Each mode of truth as alternative with the others is a possible though it has to be taken as objective.
30. There is the conception of indeterministic will to which there are many possibles, any of which can be really chosen by it. Here we have already the notion of manifold possibility as objective to the will. But the logic of this notion has not been sufficiently investigated, though the relations of objective possibles cannot be adequately expressed by the categories of ordinary logic. The Jaina theory elaborates a logic of indetermination not in reference to the will-but in reference to the knowing, though it is a pragmatist theory in some sense. As a realist, the Jaina holds that truth is not constituted by willing, though he admits that the knowledge of truth has a necessary reference to willing. His theory of indeterministic truth is not a form of scepticism. It represents, not doubt, but toleration of many modes of truth. The faith in one truth or even in a plurality of truths, each simply given as determinate, would be rejected by it as a species of intolerance. What is presented and cannot be got rid of has to be accepted as truth even though it is not definitely thinkable or is thinkable in alternative definite modes.
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