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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Theory of Anekāntavāda 65
objective is itself a known object, we come back to the old difficulty about distinction within the objective and distinction from the objective. Distinction from the objective, taken as itself objective, implies that knowing is known as distinct from the known i.e. as as unknown. If this is not a contradiction, knowing can only be understood as the indefinite that is known (i.e. is definite or objective) as the indefinite. The realistic equivalent of the relation of object and subject then is the relation of the definite and indefinite.
The objective indefinite has been admitted by some logicians with a realistic tendency e.g. by L.T. Hobhouse in his Theory of Knowledge. The content of simple apprehension which to him is the standard fact is at once definite and indefinite. What is apprehended is a definite with an indefinite background. The indefinite as apprehended is so far definite but it is definite as indefinite, not as superseding the indefinite. Yet to Hobhouse there is knowledge only so far as the content is defined by abstration. The knowledge of the indefinite as such is not regarded as necessitating any modification of the forms of definite knowledge. The difference of the definite and the indefinite is not understood as other than the difference between two definites. There is the other obscure relation approximating to adjectivity or identity indicated by the phrase 'definite indefinite.' But this relation, if not denied, is not considered by him at all. The Jaina recognises both these relations explicitly and obtains from their contrast certain other forms of truth, simpler and more complex.
The obscure relation in the content 'definite indefinite' requires elucidation. If the indefinite is definite as such, is this definiteness an objective character ? To the realist, thought only discovers but does not constitute the object. Bare position corresponding to the simple positing act of thinking must then be objective. The indefinite is thought as indefinite and by the same logic the indefiniteness is also objective. The 'definite indefinite' is thus a fact but the two elements of it are incompatible in thought. The factual equivalent of this incompatibility would be disconnexion or no-relation: The elements cannot be said to be related objectively even in the way of distinction. Yet as the elements have to be thought together, their togetherness is to be admitted as objective in the same abstract sense. Here then we have togetherness of unrelated or undifferenced elements. We cannot deny a plularity nor can we affirm
