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The Jaina Philosophy of Non-Absolutism
nonetheless. If the predicate did not mean anything different from the subject and vice versa, it is patent on the face of it that there would be no proposition. The problem is, 'Is a proposition possible'? We see that it is not possible if the subject and the predicate are of self-identical import. The self-same difficulty is confronted even in what are called synthetic propositions. Let the proposition be “The pen is red.' It is a synthetic proposition inasmuch as the predicate, 'red,' stands for a quality which does not follow from the connotation of the subject. But the question may be raised, does red mean the same thing as the subject ? Are they identical in meaning ? If the answer be in the affirmative, the objection of tautology stands unrefuted. Apart from this difficulty which is common to all propositions, the propositions 'the pen exists' or 'the self exists' are instances, in which the problem is further aggravated by grave difficulties. The predicate 'existence' is to be asserted of all entities and if the relation of the predicate to the subject were identity' all entities would become identical, being identical with a self-sa me predicate, 'existence.' This will be manifest from analysis of the proposition we have taken for consideration, viz., 'The selfexists.' The self is identical with existence, which is identical with all that exists. The result is, the self would be everything. This is the conclusion of the Vedāntist, but a realist would not take it to be true.
Identity cannot then be the relation between the subject and the predicate in a proposition, because of its untoward consequences, one logical and another ontological. The logical consequence of this view is the fallacy of tautology and the ontological consequence is the abolition of diversity and pluralism. Vedānta deduces these very consequences as evidence of the unreality of diversity, but a realist cannot be a party to it. Let us then consider the other alternative. Let the relation between the subject and the predicate be one of difference. The pen is red' is a proposition. If the pen were different from 'red,' it would not be red, and if 'red' were different from the pen it would not be affirmed of it. But the difficulty is accentuated in a pronounced form in the proposition, “The self exists.' If the self were different from existence, it would have no existence and it would be a fiction. And as has been observed before,
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