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The Jaina Philosophy of Non-Absolutism
is assumed that the predicates, existence and non-existence, are mutually opposed and so they would cancel each other. But the predicates are neither indeterminate nor have they the same reference, which would make opposition inevitable. Existence has reference to the identity of the substance, which never suffers lapse in spite of the evanescent modes which happen to it, and non-existence has reference to these modes, either defunctor unrealised. It may have reference to a distinct identity also. So there is no opposition, which would be, irresistible, if the predication of opposite determinations were in the self-same reference. Fatherhood and sonship are opposed in the same reference.
The same man cannot be the son and father of 'A.' But he can be the son of 'A' and father of 'B' and there is no contradiction, since the reference is different. A sound probans (hetu), e.g., smoke, is existent in the kitchen and the hill and is non-existent in the lake. There is no opposition here and so also in sevenfold predication, as the opposites are asserted to be true not in the same reference, but in a different reference.
A charge-sheet of eight counts has been drawn up against the theory by another school of philosophers and this demands an examination and an answer. (1) The first charge is contradiction. It is asserted that affirmation and negation of the same attribute in respect of the same subject are not logically possible, since this would make self-contradiction inevitable. Existence is a positive attribute and non-existence is the negation of existence. The two are mutually repellent like heat and cold. (2) The second charge is consequential. The two opposites cannot exist in the same substratum and if existence and nonexistence were predicated of the self-same subject, the identity of the subject would be split up into two - one as the substrate of existence and the other as the substrate of non-existence. (3) The third charge is that it makes infinite regress an unavoidable consequence. The Jaina position is that every real has a double character - one positive and another negative. Thus, jar, pen, table, chair and so on are all possessed of a double character, since they are both existent and non-existent according to the Jaina theory. Now 'existence' and 'non-existence' are real attributes and as such each of them must have a double character.
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