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The Jaina Philosophy of Non-Absolutism
Predication, which demands a separate chapter by reason of its extraordinary importance. Suffice it to say here that this insertion is a safeguard against the consequences which the absolutist reading of the import of proposition involves. It emphasises the fact that a real is only a part of a system knitted together by a network of relations, from which it cannot be divorced. Abstract ways of thinking, indulged in by professional adherents of a priori logic, have been responsible for the hopelessly discordant conclusions of philosophers and their lack of unanimity. The Jaina has succeeded in evolving a philosophy in which the results are synthesised and the differences have been adjusted by allotting each a distinctive place in a synthetic view. It has made agnosticism impossible and reconciled the claims of idealism and realism. But a detailed working out of these results has to be postponed to a subsequent chapter, and we beg to proceed with our examination of the nature of reality.
It is incontestable that the synthesis of existence and nonexistence is not capable of being expressed by a whole word. The limitations of human language make it impossible for us to express the synthesis of the two characteristics by means of one word. We have to assert that a real is existent and non-existent. The two predicates, because they are two, can be asserted in succession and not simultaneously. This necessitates the recognition of the fact that a real is inexpressible by a unitary predicate in so far as it is a synthesis of the two characteristics. fact the two predicates together give us a completer picture of a real than each of them does. It gives us a better insight into the nature of the individual. While the assertion of existence takes cognisance of a fundamental characteristic, it fails to represent the distinctive individuality of a real, which is made up by the negative element. But this failure of human language should not be regarded as warrant for agnosticism. As a matter of fact there is a class of thinkers who made philosophical capital out of this limitation of language. These philosophers maintained that we should not assert that a thing exists, nor even that it does not exist, nor even should we assert that we assert anything. In fact no assertion is possible or meaningful. But this unqualified agnosticism leads nowhere. If a thing cannot be asserted to exist or not to exist, the result will be an unrelieved dumbness. But
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