Book Title: Jain Philosophy
Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Agamoday Samiti

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Page 380
________________ 351 view that behind the world of phenomena there is an impenetrable world of noumena, that behind this apparent existence there is a hidden existence, of which the varried phenomena are but fleeting manifestations, that things in themselves are recessarily different from things in relation to us. In brief, a noumenon in their view is a thing as it is apart from all thought; it is what remains of the object of thought after space, time, and all the categories of the understanding ale abstracted from it. To this view the Jains give an emphatic denial. The Jain position is; First, that right knowledge is the only test or measure on our part of the existence of a reality; secondly, that knowledge is always the knowledge of relations; thirdly, that reality is never out of relations (a particular reality may not be in physical relation with another reality, it may be in the relationship of subject and object, knower and known); and fourthly, that the relations are constantly changing. To be is to be in relation. So when we know a thing, we know the relations-some, if not all-in which it stands to us and to other things. To that extent we know the thing as it is. There are other present relations which we do not know, and there are other possible relations also which we may not know under our present state of developmeut. This residuum of relationships is the noumenon. The task of our research ought to be to fix these unknown relations, and not to go in quest of the phantom "thing in itself." As Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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