Book Title: Applied Philosophy of Anekanta
Author(s): Shashiprajna Samni
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati Institute

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Page 148
________________ and vice-versa.' In the view of Derrida, the other is always already present in the Reality, one doesn't have to invent it. According to the Jain view, jar is defined by its resident qualities (for example, red etc.) as well as by “non-jar”. This metaphysical idea presented in language, is confirmed in the third statement in saptabhangī naya : syād ghata asti ca nāsti ca.? The now existing jar is metaphysically determined and defined by its other, non-jar. In this sense, the jar is also non-jar. In the Derridean language, words are signs, the signified is another word. We move from word to word,word to word, with endless deferal. This is the position of today's philosophy of language. Structuralists Claude Levi Strauss(1829-1902), a French philosopher, had said that, a word is meaningful because of its binary "other" word. A single word by itself has no meaning. In the world around us, if there had been only absolute permanence, then its nomenclature would not have been possible. Since there is permanence, that is why we understand impermanence. If there was only light and no darkness, then light could not have been defined. All the names are given so, on the basis of their opposites. The need for opposites is a fundamental principle. For example, ‘yat sat tatt sa pratipakşam”. Even Claude Levi Strauss says that no word is meaningful all by itself. The word 'day' is not a self-content or self-complete. It is determined by the other. The meaning of the word ‘night is only meaningful with the meaning of the day'. The word 'night' is not meaningful by itself. That's why even Structuralist Claude Levis Strauss asserts that there is a binary relation between day and night, God and non-God. The word 'God' is meaningful in reference to non-God. The qualities given to the God i.e. Creator, Destroyer, Sustainer, Merciful etc. are meaningful in reference to the other i.e. the devil or the Syādvādamañjarī of Mallişeņa, p. 18; Anyayoga Vacchedika, verse-5. ? Saptabhangi Tarangini of Vimaldas, op.cit., p. 11. 125

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