Jaina Theory of Knowledge

Author(s): Mohanlal Mehta
Publisher: Gujarat Vidyapith Ahmedabad

Page 21

JAINA THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
PSYCHOLOGY ON INDETERMINATE COGNITION :
As we have already discussed, the cognition of an object can be of two kinds : either it is restricted to grasping of the object in its existential generality which is called indeterminate cognition, undifferentiated knowledge or apprehension (anakara upayoga), or it grasps a thing with its individual attributes which is called determinate cognition, differentiated knowledge or comprehension (sakara upayoga). In the language of psychology, we are, perhaps, justified in calling the first kind of cognition as pure sensation and the second one as perception (including memory etc.). The function of sensation is mere acquaintance with a fact. Perception's function, on the other hand, is knowledge about a fact; and this knowledge admits of numberless degrees of complication.
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 knowledgeabout. 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 which when I make it; a difference between two things when I notice it. All the elementary natures of the world, its highest genera, the