Jaina Philosophy

Author(s): Mohanlal Mehta
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

Page 56

REALITY
43
or rational whole which he calls 'Individual'. He laid emphasis on the faculty of intellect or reason but did not reject the objective order of things. While explaining the nature and functions of thought, Bosanquet says : 'The essence of thought is not in a mental faculty but in the objective order of things. We bring the two sides together if we say, it is the control exercised by reality over mental process."
Thought, as Bosanquet conceives it, has for its goal the 'Whole'. It is.by its very nature, compelled to construct. As he puts in his own words : 'Implicit in all the modes of experience which attracted us throughout, it is now considered in its own typical manifestations, in which the idea of system, the spirit of the concrete universal, in other words, of individuality, is the central essence. On this very fundamental basis hc defines error as simply an inadequate determination without a system, which leaves alternative possibilities open, i.e., dependent on unknown conditions. Bosanquet, therefore, thinks that it is intellect, when pursued in its fullest capacity, that comprehends or constructs the whole of reality. He not only maintains this but lays emphasis on the unity of values also. 'Totality expresses itself in value, which is... the concentration and focus of reality in its essence as real, as a positive centre which is a solution of contradictions...'+ The Idealisin of Bosanquet, thus, establishes the monism of the spirit which is at once the unity of experience and the unity of values. The ultimate spirit is the 'Real Thing.' This spirit is nothing but the totality of existence and the unity of values. Thus, the external world is
othing more than the spirit as a unity of experience and the unity of values. The Spiritual Idealism propounded by Bosanquet is monistic in character.
I. Life and Philosophy in Contemporary British Philosophy,
First Series, p. 61. 2. Ibid., p. 63. 3. Ibid., p. 67. 4. Ibid., p.73.