Comparative Study of Indian Science

Author(s): Harisatya Bhattacharya
Publisher: C S Mallinath

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Conception is not only psychologically possible but that its matter i.e., the Concept or the Universal is objectively real.
But if Buddhist philosophy was an exponent of extreme Nominalism, there are extreme forms of Realism also. These consist in denying the reality of individuals and looking upon the Universal as the only reality. The Vedanta systemembodied such a form of extremerealism when it asserted, “The Brahman is the only realitythe world, unreal." Similarly, in ancient Greece, the school of Parmenides held the doctrine of abstract realism in its extreme monistic form. In mediaeval Europe, again, William of Champeaux was an extreme realist according to whom only the genera had any reality.
It seems that truth lies in systems of thought which adopt the viamedia, between the extreme nominalism and the extreme realism. The middle course would be to admit the reality of both the Individual and the Universal. This was the course chosen by Abelard of the mediaeval school in Europe and by Plato and Aristotle in ancient Greece. In India, the Nyaya, the Vaiseshika and the Jaina schools maintained that the Individual is real as well as the Universal.
Yet when the question of relationship between the Universal and the Particular, the Samanya and the