________________
54
cause the operation of the cause might be hindered by unforeseeable circumstances It is, however, not true that the Buddhists entirely rule out the inference of the effect from the cause but they do not make it a general case since they distinguish between the abstract necessity of a scientific law and the contingent nature of actual prediction Since the actual state of the world is never fully known, we cannot infallibly predict consequences simply from an abstract knowledge of causal laws The Jainas, however, argue that since there is a one-to-one correspondence between the cause and the effect, the inference of the effect from the cause and the inference of the cause from the effect are exactly at par
Apart from identity and causality, inference may be based on the co-inherence or collocation of the the hetu and the sādhya as for example in the inference that the fruit has colour because it has taste These four conditions exhaust the grounds of inference of a positive character Where the inference results in a negative judgement, the ground has to be the opposition of the hetu to the sādhya
So far the Jaina conception of knowledge is only a variation within the general philosophic culture of India which developed during several centuries of acute debate especially between the Buddhists, the Naiyāyikas and the Jainas The Jaina position might be briefly summarized as that of holding reason and experience to be distinct but cooperating sources of knowledge where experience gives a direct knowledge by acquaintance of the material world as isolated facts while reason gives an indirect knowledge of reality at the level of general laws, universal connections or invariances Experience already presupposes an apperceptive activity and implicit judgment while reasoning synthesizes and analyzes the data of experience and discovers its underlying conceptual forms Both reason and experience exbibit the essential characteristics of knowledge in so far as it reveals and determines the nature of reality and constitutes ultimately a spontaneous intuitive activity of the soul That knowledge in
