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Jaina view of Life
and religious spheres with nothing else to fill the gap except, analysis of propositions. It has produced a 'waste land' of mind of which T. S. Eliot's poem is at once a description and, by implication, a denunciation.19
3. A survey of the course of philosophy in the past shows that philosophy continually faced this impasse. The a priori deductive method took us to the lion's den. At the height of its speculation, it built super-structures of philosophy and was cut off from common sense. The empiricists were led to solipsism and to the feverish denial of metaphysics.
To save philosophy from this impasse, we have to adopt a synoptic view towards the problems of philosophy. We should realise that reality is complex and life is a many. coloured dome. Idealism was unable to see the trees in the wood. while empiricism could not see the wood in the trees. These were two ways of approaching the problem; but they are not the only ways, nor were the approaches absolute. This is the synoptic outlook. In this sense, philosophy is to see life steadily and see it whole. Broad says, “If we do not look at the world synoptically we shall have a very narrow view of it". He thinks that a purely critical philosophy is arid and rigid."
The Jaina view of anekānta comes nearer to this approach. Anekānta consists in a many-sided approach to the study of problems. Intellectual tolerance is the foundation of this doctrine. It is the symbolisation of the fundamental nonviolent attitude. It emphasizes the many-sidedness of truth. Reality can be looked at from various angles.
Whitehead's fundamental attitude in philosophy is essentially the same as the anekānta view of life. Whitehead defined speculative philosophy as the endeavour to frame a coherent,
19. Joad (C. E. M.): A Critique of Logical Positivism, p. 149. 20. Broad (C. D.): Contemporary British Philosophy, ed. Muirhead
(J. H.) Vol. I (1924), Critical and Speculative Philosophy. 21. Passmoroe (Joan): A Hundred Years of Philosophy, (1957) p. 350,
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