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The Logical Background of Jaina Philosophy
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of this opposition, our knowledge at best could be contingent in character and not universal in reference. We can actually experience only a limited number of squares and circles and our knowledge of opposition would necessarily be confined to the actual data, if experience were the only determinant of it. The opposition of blue and red is equally a necessary opposition. The necessity and universality of the opposition between these empirical facts are derived from the basic opposition of being and non-being. To be a square implies that it is not not-square and it is thought to be not-circle, because the concept of square implies the concept of not-circle. So the opposition of square and circle is one of being and non-being, square and not-square at bottom. We depend upon experience only to acquaint us with a square and a circle, and with what is red and what is blue. But once this is known, the opposition between them is certified a priori without appeal to experience. If I know a pen I can assert with apodeictic certainty that it is not not-pen. Of course experience alone can supply me with the knowledge of the infinite plurality of things that are not-pen. But the relation of opposition is known a priori and the experience of opposition does not add an iota to the strength of my conviction. That the knowledge in question is a priori is proved further by the fact that the multiplication of instances does not improve the conviction and tbe diminution of the number does not detract from its strength. The conviction is at its maximum and this should demonstrate its aprioristic character.
The Jaina admits the truth of all the premises, but does not admit that the conclusion that the knowledge in question is trans-empirical follows from them. The main grounds for inferring the metempirical character of the knowledge are two riz., universality and necessity. Kant also thought these two characters to be incompatible with empirical knowledge. The Jaina would assert that the proposition “All empirical knowledge is contingent and particular" is only an assumption, based upon the wider assumption that all reals are particulars, and that universals are only hypostatized concepts. It has been shown in the very beginning of this chapter that the Jaina does not believe that reals are particulars or that empirical knowledge is contingent, being confined to these data. He concludes that
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