Book Title: Kailashchandra Shastri Abhinandan Granth
Author(s): Babulal Jain
Publisher: Kailashchandra Shastri Abhinandan Granth Prakashan Samiti Rewa MP

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Page 546
________________ involving, as un realized possibilities can only be imagnined, supposed, but not handled, seen or located. Hypothetical possibilities are mind involving not by way of their internal and constitutive properties but by way of external and regulative facts about them. The very distinction between actual and hypothetically possible ceases to be operative in a mindless world. This is, perhaps how the distinction seems to bear on that between Jiva and Ajiva unless of course the distinction is very common-sensical and naive or linguistic. The domain of the possible is a realm that is accessible to intellgeing organisms alone. The robust realism of physical objects just will not extend into the area of the hypothetical. The existential objectivity and autonomy of the real world does not underwrite that of the hypothetical possibility. The distinction between hypothetical real and actual real may in a sense remind us of the distinction between attribution of a property to and possessing a property by a thing. The conditions of possibility seem to exceed the bounds and limits of factuality, the former being anchored in conceivability. Do, thus, Jainas mean to hold that reality of certain possible states of affairs resides in the reality of possibility-involving process ? Construction of verbal expressions and assumption of either their reference or existense of reference are quite different and the former does not entail the latter. When possibility of a thing is its only reality, this reality inheres in a possibilistic intellectual process and here actuality (of intellectual process) is prior to possibility as its conceivability, Dependence of unrealized possibilities of language seems to give them objective ontological foothold. This is how 'possibility existed but nobody thought of it at the time (Syat asti avaktavyah) or 'there are possibilities no one will ever conceive of' (Syat apaktapyah) would make sense. Actuality is prior to potentiality or even to possibility in an important sense. But possibility of a thing is posterior to possibility of a process or of a thought conceptual possibility. But substantive possibility is conceptually consequent upon functional possibility, and functional possibility of this kind is a contingent possibility. Even if existential possibility is a hard care, it should lie grounded in the former. Perhaps, unrealized possibility is identified by defining description while existential possibility by ostensive process. By way of individuation, however, the former is descriptively incomplete. Unrealized possibilities exist merely as actual potential objects of thought. They cannot be picked nor can they be identified in this world. The question is: is something of this kind that jainas want to uphold ? It needs to be investigated. But so understood, Jainism turns out to be a conceptualist view where to be is to be conceived. Hence, to say that 'Something is possible but not conceived' is viable, but 'something is possible but not conveivable' is not. (4) Consider another issue. It is too well-known that Jainism accepts rebirth. The question is : does this raise a problem of transmundane identity ? At least of transmundane sameness? Intramundane and transmundane identifications are not the same, though there are obvious similarities between the two. For, in both identifications are made within some context and for some purpose. There is, however, a diffe. rence. Intramundane identifications apply to commensurable objects, but transmundane - 501 - Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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