Facets of Jain Philosophy Religion and Culture

Author(s): Shreechand Rampuriya, Ashwini Kumar, T M Dak, Anil Dutt Mishra
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

Page 178

Anekānta, Syadvāda and Saptabhangi 161
being is being tolerant of non-being. Absolute being and absolute non-being are only figments of abstract logic.
The field of application of the Law of Contradiction, therefore, should be ascertained by the observation of concrete cases in the real world. Characteristics which cannot exist together simultaneously are contradictorily opposed, and the law can be usefully applied to the cases of such characteristics. Thus a patch of colour cannot be red and green at the same time and hence red and green can be accepted as contradictorily opposed. But a variegated linen showing patches of different colours can be red and green at the same time (though of course in different parts), and the Jaina philosopher, unlike the Vedantist and the Buddhist absolutists, does not find any contradiction in this. Our experience is thus the sole determinant of contradiction and no abstract logical formulas can give an insight into the nature of the concrete things of the word.
The Law of Excluded Middle is symbolically respresented as 'A is either B or not-B'. Interpreted in the plain sense, this law means that the negation of any predicate is an absolute alternative to it, that is, it one is false the other must be true. This means that falsehood can establish truth. But this discovery of truth is vague and practically useless, because one of the terms, viz. not-B, is indeterminate and absolutely incapable of giving a determinate fact which alone makes the predicate significant. This is a defect which makes the law trivial and insignificant.
The Laws of Thought are thus found to be vitiated by serious defects—all of which are primarily due to their a prioristic foundations. By the idealist philosophers the laws were used for the refutation of the positions of the realists who could never be convinced of the validity of these laws as instruments of the discovery of truth. “The difference between the realist and the idealist,'' in the words of Professor Mookerjee, “hinges upon this fundamental difference of view of the validity of the Laws of Thought--whether they are known empirically or a priori. It seems that the difference between them is irreconcilable, being more or less bound up with the innate difference of our predispositions and tendencies from self to self. The result is an uncompromising antagonism between our respective outlook and attitude.''25
25. JPN. pp. 15-6.