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The Jaina Philosophy of Non-Absolutism
the unreliability of abstract logic as an instrument for the determination of reality. It also involves self-contradiction as it is admitted even by the Buddhist that non-perception of a perceivable entity in spite of the presence of all the conditions of perception thereof (yogyānupalabdhi) is the ground of inferring the non-existence of the unperceived thing. But the Buddhist has contended that this admission is not inconsistent with his denial of non-existence as an objective fact. The 'nonperception of a perceivable' does not mean absence of perception, but perception of a positive datum, with which the negatum would be perceived if it were present upon it. For example, the non-perception of the pen upon the table is nothing but perception of the table. An assertion of non-existence of the pen is thus only another way of asserting the existence of the table and nothing more. But the Jaina maintains that this is an argument of the escapist, who would not boldly face a difficulty. It is ignored that the table could be responsible for the negative judgment, only if non-existence of the pen were a part and parcel of the being of the table. Unless the table were recognized to be existent and non-existent both, existent in so far as it is itself and non-existent in so far as it is not anything other than a table, the emergence of the negative judgment, *There is no pen upon the table', would be unaccountable. If, however, the denial of non-existence were interpreted to be the denial of an independent non-existence, which was in perpetual opposition to existence, the Jaina would have no reason to take exception to it. But the Buddhist does not assert that nonexistence is an aspect of a real complementary to the aspect of existence, which is the Jaina position. So his denial of nonexistence is only tantamount to the assertion that it is a fiction. We have shown in the preceding chapter the absurd consequences which inevitably arise on the denial of the reality of non-existence and this constitutes the reductio ad absurdum of the Fluxist position.
The result which we have attained so far is that non-existence as an element in the constitution of a real has to be accepted as a verity. But it is real only as an element in a real and is not again the exclusive character of it. If non-existence were to be the sole and sufficient character of things, nothing would be
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