Facets of Jain Philosophy Religion and Culture

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

Page 97

80 Anekantavāda and Syadvada
possesses innumerable other qualities which are all subject to incessant series of modes.
With these views, it is obvious that Jains will refute all types of philosophical idealism--subjectivism and solipsism. Being non-absolutists, however, Jains will almost always find points of agreement in the views of most schools of thought. We shall, therefore, compare Jain views with those of a few Western philosophers and scientists with particular reference to the existence of physical reality.
According to Sir Arthur Eddington, an eminent physicist, who calls his philosophy ‘selective subjectivism”, though the material world does exist objectively, it does not appear in our experience or observational knowledge. Thus, although he accepts the objective existence of matter in the realm of metaphysics, he denies such status to it in the realm of epistemology because he does not accept that sensory qualities exist objectively in matter.
This is in opposition to the Jain view. Jains' argument in rebuttal of Eddington's view is : if it is the consciousness that creates sensory qualities and if the matter itself is devoid of these qualities, how can a single object be perceived identically by different percipients with normal sensory equipments ?
Sir James Jeans, another eminent physicist, is also a supporter of philosophical idealism. According to him, “The objective and material universe consist of little more than 'construct' of our own minds. The universe is created by a pure mathematician who does not concern himself with material substance but with pure thought. His creations are not only created by thought but consist of thought. In his views both subjective and objective fall within what is inside our minds."
Jeans has accepted the reality of mind (psyche) which, according to him, is a non-physical reality. The Jain philosophy also, asserts that soul is a non-physical reality. Thus 'mind' of Jeans and ‘soul' of the Jains being non-physical in nature, describe the same realit
Jeans talks of ‘Universal Mind' and 'Individual Minds'. The Universal Mind, according to him, is the creator and governor of the realm of matter as well as the individual minds. He believes that atoms out of which our individual minds have grown exist as thought in the Universal Mind.
The Jain view does not accept the existence of any such Universal Mind of which the individual minds are units of excrescences. According to the Jain view, all the souls are independent individual entities having real objective existence. Jeans has not given any reason