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CHAPTER III
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abstractions) clamouring for reconciliation or synthesis. They represent the thesis and the antithesis leading to the synthetic whole, or concrete universal, which forms the basis of a new start in the working of the triadic law. Unlike the Vedāntin and the Buddhist, and very much like the Jaina, Hegel does not frame the picture of reality through the 'annulment' or obliteration of one of the opposing elements of identity and difference but by a sturdy constructive synthesis of identityin-difference which alone, according to him, is the truth' of reality. The two elements are not believed to be connected by a tour de force; they hang together by 'inner necessity'.
Up to this point Hegel and the Jaina agree in most important respects. But when Hegel tries to derive synthesis from the Absolute, that ‘far-off divine event towards which everything proceeds, they part company. For Hegel the Absolute (the Idea, the Ideal, the Reason) is the supreme allcomprehending whole which operates as a presupposition of each of its finite aspects. It is the bottom of the inverted pyramid of Hegel's philosophy supporting and sustaining the massive structure of finite and relative moments'. "All else”, he tells us, "is error, confusion, opinion, strife, caprice and impermanence”. It is the Absolute that is the supreme synthesis of all finite syntheses which are but 'transitions' or mile-stones in our 'ceaseless progression'
in the process of the repudiation of the fallacy of contradiction
or virodhābhāsa by the Jaina thinker, in the sequel. 1. “This comprehensive development of the notion of the
Absolute is the entire system of the philosophy of the Absolute.” J. B. Baillie, ERE, 573. See also what follows.
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