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Epistemology of Jainas within itself. “This leaf is green” is a piece of knowledge. The mere green impression of the sense represents no knowledge, till it is organized by the ideas of substance (leaf) and quality (green) supplied by the understanding. Our faculty of knowledge however, cannot work unless it gets its material from sense impressions.
The Jaina agrees with Kant as far as be holds that experience and mind both cooperate in production of knowledge. But, the Jaina does not admit any element supplied from withio. No doubt, our mind organizes the material supplied by the experience, but it does not add anything new. The whole material comes from experience. The Jaina admits that the factors of universality and necessity, on which Kant propose certain categories of thought conceived as a priori, are not mental phenomena. They also are given. The Jaina does not find any reason why a portion of knowledge should be accepted as external and the other as internal. The ideas of substance and quality also are not purely subjective. They are also as external as the leaf. Experience Cognises Universal as well as particular
There is another point on which the Jaina differs from the rationalists. Kant holds that sense experience can give insight into particulars only and the universal forms are contributed by thought or the mind. The Jaina does not see any reason why things should be particulars alone. Things are, according to the Jaina, both universals and particulars together. In the term of Hegel they are concrete universals. Reflective thought certainly enables us to analyse the two aspects in a concrete real, but that does not argue the inability of experience to take stock of reality in its universal character. A real is a particular which possesses a generic attribute. There is no reason why experience should fail to take cognizance of the generic aspect though it is present in it. Emergence of concept
The Jaina does not find any difficulty in accounting for the
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