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Philosophy As Criticism - I
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discussion of Substance as representing the ideas of Being and Becoming. The critical reaction of the Jaina philosophers was not against the two ideas as such but rather against the two ideas being maintained exclusively, i.e. by excluding the 'other' idca. The indication clcarly is that if a point of view (whether it is that of Being or that of Bccoming) is proposed as the only valid one as against the claim of validity put forward by an opposed theory, it was not acceptable to thc Jaina thinkers. Explaining the rationale of the Jaina theory of standpoints discernible here, S.N. Dasgupta writes:
In framing judgments about things, there are two ways open to us. Firstly we may notice the manifold qualities and characteristics of anything but vicw them as unificd in the thing; thus when we say "this is a book” we do not look at ils characteristic qualities as being different from it, but rather the qualitics or characteristics are perceived as having no separate existence from the thing. Secondly we may notice the qualitics separatcly and regard the thing as a mere non-cxistcnt fiction (cf. the Buddhist view); thus I may speak of thc different qualities of the book separatcly and hold that the qualities of the things are alonc perceptible and the book apart from these cannot be found. These LwO points of vicw are respectively called dravyanaya and
paryāyanaya."
For our purposes it is important lo note that this broad division of nayas, not lo speak of the scven nayus subsumed under them, is of very ancient origin in the Jaina tradition; as such, the 'Standpoint Doctine' may well be considered to suggest the considered Jaina view that critical analyses (of excremc positions) are vitally required in philosophy.
This is clear when the purpori of the various nayas is analysed. What is significant here is that the need for criticism in philosophy suggested by the Jaina philosophers through Nayavāda is cqually indicative of the prime importance that should be accorded to major problems of mctaphysics; sor, the critical assessments of different systems of philosophy identifiable in the different nayas and indicated below, arc aimed at pointing to the major flaws in their basic mctaphysical positions.
Naigamanaya (Universal-Particular Standpoint)`The metaphysical problem raised here is the issue of Universals
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