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16
FAITH KNOWLEDGE AND CONDUCT
5—THE SYADVADA
Human speech will become a source of interminable confusion unless care be taken from the very outset to avoid a slip.
The statement-S is P, and S is not P, and at the same time S is both P and not P, is likely to cause a lot of trouble to uninitiated or improperly initiated readers. It looks like a bundle of contradictions on the face of it; yet it may not be so, in fact. Let us see whether it is possible to make any sense out of it or not. Suppose S represents strychnine and P poison, and suppose the statement only means :
Strychnine is poison (when administered in large
doses); it is not poison (in medicinal doses); and it is both poison and non-poison at the same time (when looked at without reference to dosage).
In the above reading the contradiction is completely gone, and a very useful bit of information is acquired about the nature of strychnine !
Jaina Metaphysicians warn us against being turned a way, by the appearance of contradiction, in the Word of the Tirthamkara which is really never wrong or contradictory. Sometimes the contradictions are real, as
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