Book Title: Jaina Philosophy of Non Absolutism
Author(s): Satkari Mookerjee, S N Dasgupta
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

View full book text
Previous | Next

Page 80
________________ 58 The Jaina Philosophy of Non-Absolutism , organs and material objects inevitable. There would be no causation either, if the relation of temporal sequence between cause and effect were denied. Inference again would be impossible if the invariable relation between the probans and the probandum were not real. This is not again the only consequence. No knowledge would be possible if relations were unreal. Knowledge presupposes that something is known. There must be an object to be known and a consciousness to be aware of it - in the common philosophical terminology, there must be a content and an awareness of it. The existence of two things, namely awareness and content, perforce involves the reality of a relation between them, without which there would be no knowledge. The very possibility of knowledge thus involves that there must be a relation and a real relation at that between consciousness and a content. The existence of relation, once admitted, entails the mutual dependence of the relata. If a content were not dependent upon consciousness, it would exist independently of consciousness, and if consciousness in its turn were not dependent upon a content, it would become contentless. But the Buddhist cannot endorse this proposition. Even the philosophers, who believe in a contentless cognition, must believe that there is a relation between consciousness and its object and this belief would necessitate the further belief that consciousness in its relation to the object is dependent upon its difference from the object. Whatever be the character of the relation between awareness and its object, it is obvious that awareness is not pure awareness, but that of an object. And this shows that awareness is dependent upon its object and the object quâ object is dependent upon awareness. What is true of relation is also true of absence of relation. If absence of relation is not dependent upon an entity, that is to say, if it were absolutely independent in being, it would be indistinguishable from being, the characteristic of which is, according to the opponent's hypothesis, complete independence. The issue can be made clear by a dilemma. Is absence of relation predicable of a term or not? If predicable, it is not absolutely independent. On the second alternative, it is not intelligible. It may be the case that everything is not predicable of everything. Between any two things one may Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

Loading...

Page Navigation
1 ... 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314