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Jaina Theory of Multiple Facets of Reality and Truth
things are neither exclusively particulars, nor are they exclusively universals, but they are a concrete realisation of both. The two elements can be distinguished by reflective thought, but cannot be rent asunder. A real is neither a particular nor universal in an exclusive manner, but a synthesis which is different from, both severally and jointly though embracing them in its fold. A real is sui generis.
Although syādvāda-anekāntavāda is not a complete logic, it does involve a basic principle that seems to be essential to the kind of philosophy needed to account for, and to deal with, the complexities of our emerging world civilization. The two-valued logic developed presupposes the principle of excluded middle as most basic-X is either A or non-A but not both (because A and non-A are contradictions). The dynamic, dialectical, organic unities inherent in the increasingly intricate interdependent organisations constituting our emerging world require a more dynamic, dialectical organic logic than is presently available. Despite the fact that the two-valued logic has immense practical values when used judiciously, it is still not adequate to account for all of the vital developments in human society.
It is so difficult to say objectively anything fundamental about today's civilization or modern man because "all of us are caught in the same prejudices". Only a man who is "wholly of the present" can say something important about the present-day world, and only he who has the "most intensive and extensive consciousness" of himself and his situation can hope to be such a man. What is required is "essential thinking" (Heidegger) or "total seeing" (J. Krishnamurti) by competent persons for apprehending the problems and predicaments of contemporary civilization and for granting an inkling of their possible solutions. Karl Jaspers also talks of "luminous encompassive thinking”, through which contemporary political consciousness must be transformed and a new kind of politics adequate to the threat of atomic doom should be created. Dr. S. Radhakrishnan while speaking on the future of civilization (Kalki, the Future of Civilization, 1929, first published) held that to avert periodic crises of civilization, what is required is religious idealism and "cooperation and not identification, accomodation to fellowmen and not imitation of them, and toleration and not absolutism". Thus if we want to save our civilization from atomic
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