Jain Journal 1990 01

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 34

JANUARY, 1990
simultaneously. It is upto the observer which smell he should prefer, but a comprehensive view of an entry would not be inclined to one of the other side. It would take cognizance of the two aspects as constituting a whole.
To understand the situation better potentiality may be drawn. An actuality is an actuality in relation to its potentiality; it is a potentiality in relation to its future actuality. If an event is held to be only actual, it cannot lead to future events. If an event is held to be only potential, it cannot be supposed to exist without being actual. Prof. A. N. Whitehead observes, "This extensive continuum is real, because it expresses a fact derived from the actual world... This continuum is itself merely the potentiality for its division, an actual entity effects this division." So far as an entity is capable of atomization, it is a potentiality and is undermined. Its atomization turns it into an actuality. Capacity for atomization and the atomized state are copresent in an entity, we don't require even two distinct moments for their existence. Hence every event has the power of giving out two smells of actuality and potentiality. Its true identity is actuality-cum-potentiality. Potentiality leads to determinism while actuality is the determined state. So the same entity comes out to be determined and undetermined at the same time. Any absolute view in this sphere will prove unfaithful to reality. For this very reason any parallelist theory about the world must come out to be invalid, as the two series of causes and effects cannot be held to be totally independent of each other. Such a modification of parallelism must not be interpreted in favour of interactionism which requires a transformation of the causal conditions into the effect. The way to unearth the secrets of the world process lies between parallelism and interactionism, neither of which taken absolutely will unlock the treasure house of the world process.
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We have already referred to the difficulty that ethical judgments require freedom of actions while psychology provides only a series of determined actions. It is in anekanta philosophy that a solution of the problem may be found. Anekanta philosophy gives us a deeper type of psychology which has been designated as karma psychology. It admits of the freedom of the energies of the agent and their determination by the karmic energies and other conditions helping the causal process. Inspite of this fact the Jaina ethical view, which is termed as the pure point of view, does not take cognizance of relationism in the form of causation and maintains
S. C. Jain, The Structure and Functions of the Soul in Jainism, p. 259.