Jaina Psychology

Author(s): Mohanlal Mehta
Publisher: Sohanlal Jain Dharm Pracharak Samiti Amrutsar

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JAINA PSYCHOLOGY
associative or reproductive processes in the cortex; but when sensation occurs alone, the accompanying reproductive processes are at the minimum.1 William James records the same fact more lucidly by admitting that there are two kinds of knowledge broadly and practically distinguishable. We may call them respectively knowledge of acquaintance and knowledge-about. I am acquainted with many people and things, which I know very little about, except their presence in the places where I have met them. I know the colour blue when I see it, and the flavour of a pear when I taste it; I know an inch when I move my finger through it; a second of time when I feel it pass; an effort of attention when I make it; a difference between two things when I notice it; but about the inner nature of these or what makes them what they are, I can say nothing at all. I cannot impart acquaintance with them to any one who has not already made it himself. I cannot describe them, make a blind man guess what blue is like, define to a child a syllogism, or tell a philosopher in just what respect distance is, just what it is, and differs from other forms of relation. At most, I can say to my friend, 'Go to certain places and act in certain ways, and these objects will probably come.' All the elementary natures of the world, its highest genera, the simple qualities of matter and mind, together with the kinds of relation that subsist between them, must either not be known at all, or known in this dumb way of acquaintance without knowledge-about. In minds able to speak at all there is, it is true, some knowledge about everything. Things can at least be classed, and the times of their appearance told. But in general, the less we analyse a thing, and the fewer of its relations we perceive, the less we know about it and the more our familiarity with it is of the acquaintance-type. The two kinds of knowledge are, therefore, as the human mind practically exerts them, relative terms. That is, the same thought of a thing may be called knowledge-about it in comparison with a simpler thought, or acquaintance with it in comparison with a thought of it that is more articulate and explicit
still.2
1 Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 2-3. 2 Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 221-2.