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Relevance of Syādvāda for Modern
Psychology Achinta Yajnika
As modern psychology has not widely accepted general theory of behaviour and no single methodological approach it is, blamed as being in the 'pre-paradigmatic stage' of scientific growth in the Kühnian terminology. In modern psychology behaviourism, psychoanalysis, humanistic psychology, gestalt psychology, cognitive psychology, experimental and the clinical methods of studying man's behaviour, atomistic Vs field approach- all these diverse approaches are co-existent and are developing parallelly in modern psychology Due to this diversity of approaches in the study of man only, psychology is said to be having no single 'paradigm' and hence as it is argued it cannot be said to be perfectly grown ‘Normal science'.
But if this so-called pre-paradigmatic stage of psychology is viewed from the Jaina concepts of Naya, Syādvāda and Anekāntavāda it would be appreciated as an epistemological virtue rather than being condemned as an academic scandal.
According to Syâdvāda when a thing or reality has infinite aspects, any attempt to know or describe it would represent only one of the innumerable aspects possessed by a thing. So in such a case all our judgements would be relative and conditional. When any such partial view-point is mistaken for the whole truth, it culminates into Nayābhāsa or fallacy of judgement. Just as Syädvāda represents the epistemological position that we can know only some aspects of reality,
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