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The Logical Structure of Syādvāda
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presuppose the truth or at least admissibility of the standpoint from which the statement is claimed to be true. The logical difference between a conditional statement and a syāt-statement seems to be like the one between the following two forms: (a) If the standpoint c, is true, then p.
(b) There is the standpoint c, from which p. (ii) A syāt-statement indirectly refers to some standpoint but does
not specify any standpoint. Rendering syāt-statement as a conditional statement, however, demands on our part that we should specify the standpoint in the syāt-statement itself. Prof. Sagarmal Jain thinks it essential to specify the condition or the respect in which a proposition is true, in order to avoid certain confusions and misconceptions.12 Indeed Prof. Jain is right if he means that when it comes to the justification of a syātstatement, one will have to specify the standpoint from which the given statement is true. But if Prof. Jain means that the specification of the standpoint should be incorporated in the formulation of syāt-statement itself, then his suggestion amounts to distortion of the original logical form of syāt in syądvāda. The peculiarity and the beauty of syādvāda lies in indicating the existence of some standpoint, some condition or some respect which makes the given statement true, without specifying the exact standpoint or condition or respect which does so. The model of conditionality does not seem to preserve this peculiar
logical form of syādvăda. Hence it fails to be fully satisfactory. An Alternative Model: The Model of Existential Quantifier It would not, therefore, be pointless to make an effort in search of an alternative formalisation, a more adequate formalisation of syātstatements. The effort could be made on the following lines:
We have seen that Jaina logicians usually translate the prefix syāt as kathancit and that kathancit could be translated in English as 'from a standpoint', 'in a way', 'in some respect' etc. 'Syāť in this sense does
12. "Syādvāda: Eka Cintana", Op. cit., p.181.
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