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Reality of Soul & Matter [ In Jain Philosophy and Eddington's sclantific Philosophy 1
Munisti Mahendrakumar, 'Dwltiya"
Introduction :
“What is reality ?" or, “What is that which we ses, perceive, experience or know ?"-Such questions involving the relationship between observer and reality, subject an object, have haunted man from the dawn of reason. Different scientists have given different answers to these questions and these answers have striking similarities with those given by different philosophers. The present paper is based on the comparative study of the philosophical views of the famous physicist Sir Arthur S. Eddington with those of Jain philosophy.
Broadly speaking, we can divide the views of the scientists into two groups :-(i) Idealism and (ii) Realism. The former is accepted, amongst others, by the scicotists such as Dr. Albert Einstein, Sir A. S. Eddington, Sir James Jeans, Hermann Weyl, Ernst Mach, Poincare. By idealism, is meant here the view which considers 'the self' or 'consciousness', or mind' as the only ultimate reality. The scientists' idealism propounds that the world of scientific investigation is essentially a subjective reality. 1. The well-known exponent of the modern scientific
philosophy Prof. Henry Margenan clearly expresses this view : "It is well-known that the scientists, at least ia those fields which we call the exact sciences, agree on matters falling in their specific domain but hold widely
difforing views with regard to reality." See the Nature w of Physical Reality, P. 12.
