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CHAPTER 2
THE JAINA THEORY OF ANEKĀNTA
K.C. Bhattacharya
Analysis (1) Jaina Realism not only asserts a plurality of determinate truths but takes each truth to be an indetermination of alternative truths. (2) Sometimes an ultimate plurality of truths has been taken as one truth in the sense that there is one cognition of the plurality. The objectivistic equivalent of this unity of cognition is the bare togetherness of the facts known. (3) This category of 'togetherness' is the fundamental category of realism but it is only a name for quite different aspects of truth which do not make a unity in any sense. (4-5) Taking the distinction between 'subjective' knowing and 'objective' knowing what precisely is the counterpart of the knowledge of this distinction? Now, since togetherness or bare distinction is the form of objectivity, the counterpart in question must be 'distinction from distinction'. (6) This distinction from distinction has been taken as a kind of identity and the problem arises as to the relation between this identity and distinction in the objective. The Hegelian subordinates distinction to identity; Nyāya assigns priority to distinction. But the Jaina theory admits identity as indeterminate non-distinction and takes the two relations to be co-ordinate.
(7-8) The Hegelian subordinates distinction to identity in the sense that the dialectical movement ends in an absolute identity and not in an absolute distinction. But then this identity comprises all differences and is thus in the relation ofidentity with the differences. Identity
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