Bhagavana Mahavira and his Relevance in Modern Times

Author(s): Narendra Bhanavat, Prem Suman Jain, V P Bhatt
Publisher: Akhil Bharat Varshiya Sadhumargi Jain Sangh

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Mahāvīra and His Relevance
exclusion is not absolute and is not incompetable with the identity of the two opposites, although reason admits that they exclude each other in as much as they are opposites. It is of paramount importance to observe that the identity of opposites does not exclude the opposition of those opposites. A and not - A are identical. But they are also distinct. It is not only an Identity of opposites; it is also an identity of opposites. The opposition is just as real, as the identity. If we forget this and imagine that the identity means that the opposition is illusory, then this destroys our principle, for what we then have is not an identity of opposites, but merely an identity of identicals, of which the logical formula would be the old A - A1:. But Hegel has not been able to work out the Dialectic regorously in all cases. Had he brought about a synthesis, the synthesis between the understanding and reason, he would have brought the spirit of Anekānta in his system. He would have then made his philosophy more synoptic, comprehensive and not merely rigorously rationalistic, formal and deductive.
In recent western Philosophy, A. N. Whitehead has come nearer to Anekānta in his theory of coherence. He presents his attitude to reality by the complete problem of the metaphysics of substance and of flux as a 'full expression of the union of the two notions. Substance expresses permanance and flux emphasizes impermanance and change. Reality is to be found in the synthesis of the two. Whitehead shows that reality can be best understood by the intergal view point in which the ultimate postulates of permanance and flux are hormoniously blended. Heraclitus emphasized the partial truth of change and flux. Perminedes presented permanance and being as the reality. Reality is to be found in the blending with the two view points into a comprehensive whole.
Whitehead quotes the lines. :
“Abide with me; Fast falls the eventide' and
interpretes them that the 'two lines cannot be torn apart in this way; and we find that a wavering balance between the two is a characteristic of the great number of Philosophers. 14
For Whitehead, coherence would mean that the fundamental ideas presuppose each other. In isolation they are meaningless, It