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The Dialectic of Sevenfold Predication
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incomplete as we are at present constituted. Any attribute that we comprehend in a real will be a real part of its nature. What is necessary in a philosophical discourse is that we must stick to it throughout. Thus, one is at liberty to think of the jar as a name, as a substance, or as a mode. And in affirming its existence we must remember that the predicate belongs to the subject in respect of the nature in which we understand it. The predication of non-existence likewise will have reference to a nature other than this. It is quite legitimate again to take the jar in a very restricted sense, for example, as possessed of a distinctive magnitude. The affirmation of existence of the jar would then be determined by this magnitude and the negation of existence would then be determined by other magnitude, which it does not possess. The logical consequences will be the same in spite of the variation of our conception, as the affirmation and negation of existence will have reference to the particular conception. Thus, if the jar as possessed of the name, or the mode or magnitude were not to exist quâ these determinations like the pen, it would be a non-entity, and if it were again to exist in respect of opposite determinations, it would not be distinguishable from things which possess the latter determinations. We do not think it necessary to multiply instances. What is necessary is to recognize the metaphysical truth that things are possessed of an infinite plurality of attributes and the predication of one among these attributes is not false, though it is admittedly incomplete as a description of the nature of the subject. Every one of these attributes is true, but it would be a mistake, which is however traditional, to suppose that these alone constitute the nature of things. • We are now to consider the nature of other determinants, viz., substance, time and location, which we have referred to. The word 'substance' (dravya) here stands for the material or stuff of which it is made. The substance of the jar is thus clay. It exists as made of this material and is non-existent in respect of another material, e.g., gold. The proposition 'the jar exists' is thus to be completed by the insertion of the qualifying phrase ‘of clay.' The jar of clay exists and not the jar of gold. That the material stuff is a necessary determinant of the predicate is obvious from the consideration that it has the same logical
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