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The Dialectic of Sevenfold Predication
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and the Charybdis of nihilism by accepting the deliveries of experience as the final truth. Of course experience must not be contradicted by subsequent experience if it is to be an authentic source of knowledge. But the crux of the problem lies in the very conception of contradiction and the Jaina refuses to capitulate to the Vedāntist or the Nihilist, who are adherents of pure logic.
The logic of Jaina is empirical logic, which stands in irreconcilable opposition to pure logic, and the advocates of the latter have to part company with the advocates of the former. If one were to pose the difficult question, Which of the two, realism and idealism, possesses the final truth' ? We can only advise him usefully by testing his logical convictions. "If you are a believer in absolute being or absolute non-being and in the absolute opposition of the two, you will find satisfaction either in Vedānta or Sūnyavāda. If, however, you have no such preformed faith, study the different systems of thought and understand the logic upon which they are founded, and you will arrive at your own conclusion in accordance with your logical sympathies that you will come to develop. If you come to believe in the truth of pure logic, you will become an idealist by faith. If, on the other hand, you are convinced by the contentions of realistic logic, you will be a realist. The form and nature of your philosophy will be determined by the strength of your convictions either way."
The Jaina position in logic. it can be expected, cannot be rejected by realistic philosophers. But as a matter of historical truth, realists also are not agreed in their views upon the nature of reality, although they are at one in rejecting the idealist's interpretation of logical truth. As regards the quarrel with the idealists, we do not want to act as umpire an ambitious task which we leave to future prophets to adjudge. Tie realist can only show contradiction in the position of the idealist, which the latter does not believe to be a contradiction, and the idealist can show similar contradiction in the realist's position, which is believed by the latter to be the true description of the nature of reals as they are. I may be permitted to quote in this connection what I have said elsewhere about the differences of philosophers. “There is no reason to be optimistic that one day all
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