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Jaina Theory of Multiple Facets of Reality and Truth
factor support relativism. From socio-cultural standpoint, the doctrine of relativism is justified for no smooth functioning of society is possible without mutual accomodation and adjustment which presupposes catholicism in thought, and sense of tolerance. In ethics and morality, we know so far relativism is dominating. In the field of logic, the doctrine of the Universe of Discourse is sometimes limited to a small portion of actual universe of things and is sometimes co-extensive with that Universe. The Universe of Discourse controls the interpretation of every word. Logic of Relatives too recognises the truth of syādvādaanekāntavāda when it discusses all relations embodied in propositions.
Much of the confusion either of Buddhism or Advaita Vedānta is due to false exaggeration of the relative principles of becoming and being into absolute truths. Same is the fault with Parmenidian Being and Heraclitan Flux. These may be called the variety of philosophical doctrines.
Hence anekānta doctrine is the exposition of the principle of 'comprehensive perspectivism'. No perspective is final or absolute unless it is understood in terms of relativity. Therefore, even anekānta (nonabsolutism) is subject to anekānta (non-absolutism). If non-absolutism is absolute, it is not universal since there is one real which is absolute. And if it is not a non-absolute, it is not an absolute and universal fact. Tossed between the two horns of the dilemma, non-absolutism thus simply evaporates. But we can meet this difficulty by making a distinction between the theory and practice of anekänta. Every proposition of the dialectical sevenfold judgement is either complete or incomplete. In the former, we use only one word that describes one characteristic of that object and hold the remaining characters to be identical with it. On the other hand, in the incomplete judgement, we speak of truth as relative to our standpoint. In short, the complete judgement is the object of valid knowledge (pramāna) and the incomplete judgement is the object of aspectal knowledge (naya). Hence the non-absolute is constituted of the absolutes as its elements and as such would not be possible if there were no absolutes.
Here we can solve this difficulty by analysing the nature of unconditionality of the statement “All statements are conditional", which is quite different from the normal meaning of unconditiona
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