Facets of Jain Philosophy Religion and Culture

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

Page 234

Non-Absolutism (Anekāntavāda) 217
difference. The presence of the two in one substratum is a fact which does not admit of a difference in the nature of their existence, though there may be a difference in the time-order of their cognition. The difference is at most subjective. Some exponents of the Jaina dialectic have tried to meet the objection on logical grounds. They assert that though there may be no ontological difference between the third and the fourth predicates, the logical difference between them cannot be denied. The difference is a matter of formal logic, and this is not incompatible with the lack of objective material difference. After all, the sevenfold predication is only a series of formal predications, the validity of which is to be deterimined by canons of formal consistency. The demands of formal consistency can be satisfied by the application of the test of redundance. The fourth proposition would be redundant, if its import were self-identical with that of the third in form. But the identity of formal import is not present in these two proposions. This will be apparent from the consideration of the import of two propositions we have given in the beginning of the present chapter. “The pen exists and does not exist is the third proposition and the pen is inexpressible' is the fourth proposition. The predicate "inexpressible' is but the abbreviated formula for the simultaneous presence of existence and non-existence in the subject, 'pen'. Even admitting that there is no material difference between the successive presentation and the siinultaneous presentation of the two attributes in the selfsame substratum, the difference in the formal import of the two propositions in not liable to doubt. In the third proposition, the principal predicate is non-existence, and existence is only its adjectival adjunct. In the fourth proposition the predicate consists of both existence and non-existence having co-equal status and prominarice. In the latter proposition 'existence' is not a mere appendix to non-existence, which is the case in the third proposition. Thus there is no logical redundancy and this is the logical warrant for their separate assertion.
But this defence of the fourth proposition on grounds of formal logic has not commented itself to all. The difference must be ontological and objective, otherwise the sevenfold predication would be only a matter of subjective necessity, which should not have validity apart from its foundation in objective truth. Moreover, this formal defence would not preclude the admission of two other propositions in addition to the seven. The order of predication may be reversed in the third and seventh propositions, and this should