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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366 Anekantavāda and Syádvāda
Wanton indulgence in meaningless self-contradiction,' 'Wanton paradox or a purposeless pun'.
It is sometimes branded as scepticism. Is it then expression of doubt or a mode of scepticism ? We must say at the outset that the charge is altogether unfounded due to the fact that there is no uncertainty whatsover and that the various judgements are the result of the innumerable characters that the thing possesses. Each assertion is quite distinct and certain. Let us consider what Hegel and Bradley have to say in a similar context. Hegel says, "Reality is now this, now that; in this sense it is full of negations, contradictories and oppositions: the plant germinates, blooms, withers and dies: man is young, mature and old. To do a thing justice, we must tell the whole truth about it, predicate each of its contradictories and show how they are reconciled and preserved in the articulated whole which we call life of the thing."16 F.H. Bradley writes, “Everything is essential, and yet one thing is worthless in comparison with other...." "Nowhere," he continues, “is there even a single fact so fragmentary and so poor that to the universe it does not matter. There is truth in every idea however false, there is reality in every existence however slight,......"17
According to Joachim, there is no judgement true in itself and by itself. “Every judgement," says he, “as a piece of concrete thinking, is informed, conditioned and to some extent constituted by the apprecipient character of the mind....''18 He illustrates this point thus, "To the boy, who is learning the multiplication table, 32= 9 possesses probably a minimum of meaning. But to the arithmetician 32= 9 is perhaps a shorthand symbol for the whole science of Arithmetic as known at the time."19 Edmund Holms (In the Quest of Ideal) says : "Let us take the antithesis of the swift and the slow. It would be non-sense to say that every movement is either swift or slow. It would be nearer the truth to say that every movement is both swift and slow, swift by comparison with what is slower than itself, slow by comparison with what is swifter than itself.” (p. 21).
Sir Arthur Eddington Speaking about the relativity of distance says, “A distance as reckoned by an observer on one star is as good as
16. Thilly : 'History of Philosophy, p. 480. 17. Bradley : 'Appearance and Reality', p. 487. 18. Joachim : 'The Nature of Truth', p. 93. 19. Ibid.
