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4.7.3 Overlapping Between Jainism And Sartrean Philosophical
View
Any comparative study in the field of philosophy uses the tool-box method of Wittgenstein's 'Family Resemblance' i.e. which looks to the ideas of 'overlappings' among the various systems of philosophy. The efforts are being made to highlight the points of agreement as well as difference between some of the concepts of Jaina philosophy and that of Sartrean philosophy. Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980), is considered to be an 'Existential Phenomenologist' in the world of Western Philosophy. Though Jain philosophy is an ancient philosophy, it is very scientific, analytic and modern which coincides with the views of modern western philosophical thinking. Nature of Soul and Being-for-itself
Jain philosophers assert two levels of souls, viz., mundane and liberated souls. Liberated souls are self-complete; they do not possess any sort of desire and any project for future possibilities. But as far as mundane souls are concerned they are incomplete like Sartrean · Being-for-itself. According to Sartre, for-itself is incomplete, and has indeterminate structure and innumerable possibilities. He says, 'It is only in the human world, that there can be lack. Consciousness is primarily a lack: it contains nothingness within itself, and is forever reaching beyond to something else.... At the same time consciousness at a pre-reflective level, has a desire for wholeness..." Sartre shows also that the existence of desire or unsatisfaction is the living proof of Being for-itself. Jain philosophers also agree that the mundane beings always desire to achieve the higher ladder of spiritual development. So in one sense, mundane souls are incomplete like the Sartrean Being for-itself and always lack something and are always in the process of being built up. As
! Teichman Jenny and Graham White. Ed. An Introduction to Modern European Philosophy. Newyork: St. Martin's Press, 1995, p. 133.
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