Book Title: Facets of Jain Philosophy Religion and Culture
Author(s): Shreechand Rampuriya, Ashwini Kumar, T M Dak, Anil Dutt Mishra
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati
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306 Anekāntavāda and Syādvāda
terms of latter. Jaina logicians and philosophers, however, do not clearly draw a line of demarcation between possibility proper and contingency, for neither on the level of potentiality nor on the level of epistemic possibility can this distinction be drawn. The distinction comes to the foreground, that is, not on the level of truth-conditions but on the level of explanation of the way truth conditions are presumed to be given to us. This is indeed an important consideration and a detailed account of it would require consideration of three main issues : (a) total-truth values acknoledged, (b) the kinds of truth-conditions envisaged and (c) the way truth-conditions are presumed to be given to us. These considerations, although important in the full context of syadvāda, must be set aside here because our purpose here is to analysis ‘syāt' and the possibilities it brings to the fore.
In conclusion it can be said that Jaina logicians and philosophers acknowledge, in the context of syadvada, possibilities of potency, epistemic and nomological along with existential possibilities. Outside the context of syadvāda etiological possibilities too are acknowledged. They seem also to accept conceptual possibilties in the context of explanation although not for describing. Moreover, in the case of descriptions, occording to them, no distinction can be drawn between possibility proper and contingency understood in any sense.
