Facets of Jain Philosophy Religion and Culture

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

Page 313

296 Anekāntavāda and Syādvāda
modes of being, Epistemic mode of modes of knowing and Deontic modes of obligation. The entire discussion is very important. But we need hardly concentrate on it here. For Syadvāda in particular and Jaina Logic and Philosophy in general do not talk about every modal predicate but rather about one modal predicate viz. possibility. Even if we decide to focus our attention only to one mode viz. possibility, we might not have to. as will appear latter, take into account all kinds of possibilites. We shall, therefore maily concentrate only on the mode of possibility.
Various kinds of possibilities considered during the development of modal notions in Western thought may be grouped under these heads : (i) the Absolute possibility (ii) the Relative possibility (iii) the Epistemic possibility (iv) Possibility understood as ability capacity, disposition or what Aristotle called potentiality, (v) Technical or etiological possibility and (vi) Possibility as minimal probability. The first again is of two kinds : (a) Conceptual or apriori and (b) nomological, physical or real. Similarly, the relative possibility can be considered under (a) and (b) above.
We shall presume the general sense in which these modal notions are understood in modern philosophical thought. However, some discussion about them may be useful to us for the consideration of the concept of 'syar'. First, the notion of possibility as minimal probability is not usually employed in technical language, although in our ordinary language we are familiar with such a notion. Secondly, not only the absolute nomological possibility can be subsumed under absolute conceptual possibility or the relative nomological possibility can be subsumed under relative conceptual possibility but also the relative conceptual and nomological possibilities are definable in terms of the absolute conceptual and nomological possibilities respectively. Thirdly, the major controversies that have arisen recently are about the possibilities of the first and fourth kind. Again, the way sometimes its explanation is given, the fourth kind of possibility is tied to an important presupposition about both the world and things in it. Lastly, possibility of the third kind presupposes the possibility of the fourth and sixth kinds but not vice versa.
In connection with the discussion of possibility in Aristotle Hintikka' has argued that the Aristotelian broad notion of possibiltiy really embraces two important kinds of it within its fold: (a) possibility proper' or what we would term today to be conceptual
1. Hintikka, J. : Time and Necessity, 1973, Oxford.