Book Title: Jaina Psychology
Author(s): Mohanlal Mehta
Publisher: Sohanlal Jain Dharm Pracharak Samiti Amrutsar

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Page 107
________________ 90 JAINA PSYCHOLOGY knowledge which is distinctly felt to arise subsequently to perception in co-operation with recollection. This account is enough to establish the validity of the notion of recognition advocated by the Jaina thinkers. As regards the fourth factor of memory, viz., localisation, it has not been separately treated in the Jaina works on knowledge. It is included within the fold of recognition. Therefore, we do not propose to discuss it separately. REASONING We have so far discussed how materials of sensory perception are picked up in the forms of sensation, speculation, and perception. We have also seen how these materials are preserved and recalled in the various forms of memory. Now, we propose to take up reasoning that helps us in arriving at certain conclusions in our experience. Reasoning elaborates and expands the materials collected and conserved by the above-mentioned processes. It is an immense extension of the bounds of our experience that lies in the form of sensory comprehension. It enables us to rise above the particular and grasp the universal. It helps us in getting a glimpse of the remote past, unseen present, and distant future. It is through reasoning that we discover the mutual relations of different facts and form different concepts. It is the power of reasoning upon which our inferential judgments are based. Inferential judgments cannot emerge in the absence of the proper assistance of reasoning. Now, let us take into account the nature of reasoning held by the Jaina thinkers. We are aware of the fact that their account is chiefly based upon logical enquiry, but it is also in our knowledge that it is not such which cannot be claimed to be psychological. Moreover, to a certain extent, logical enquiry itself is psychological. Reasoning may be defined as the mental process of passing from some given judgments to a new one. For instance, we observe smoke and fire together in our experience. This observation is not confined to one or two cases only. We observe the same on so many occasions and reach the final conclusion that smoke is necessarily related to fire. On the basis of this, we infer the existence of fire from the sight of smoke. Our inferential judgment develops through the process of reasoning somewhat in the following way: 'I saw smoke and fire together so many times, and I never saw smoke

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