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of the law of contradiction and hence unavoidable sickness of language' or as itself contr adictory. The point of the application of a purely negative jaina logic is philosophical viz., that the dialectic but to discover the empirical really genuine way in which a thinker and logical conditions which lend them should seek knowledge is not by crea- plausibility and value. ting a private or purely hypothetical world which achieves formal consis
Different actual philosophies are tency by depending entirely on a
thus seen to be true within different
abstract worlds. Thus we can have process of arbitrary definition and the
a Vedantic philosophy of Being or a exclusion of empirical significance, but
Buddhist philosophy of Flux. Jaina logic by remembering the complex and
conceds to both a partial truth and is variable nature of reality and thus
basically opposed to the separation holding that every judgment about it
of 'semantic' and 'syntactical questions. where abstraction necessarily enters, is
Alternatively, Jaina logic is like the meaningful and true only under certain
concrete Hegelian dialectic which rests conditions. Thought cannot afford to
on the principle that 'tout comprendre become a Procrustean bed, especially
C est tout pardonner'. Thus Beingwhen Reality is Protean. This is the co
Non-being Becoming as the succession mmon assumption of scientific as wellas
of Being and Non-being Becoming as historical thinking. In illustrating the
the unintelligible Union of Being and 'self-contradiction' of Jaina logic as
Non-being, illustrate the first four steps 'Sctosnavat' 'Sankaracharya' Comy ad B. S. 2. 2. 33) has unwittingly shown its
of the Sapta-bhangi naya. Svabhavavada
which accepts the unintelligible unistrength. In experience, 'heat' and
verse, Sunyavada which denies it and 'cold' are relative terms and by adop
Mayavada which assigns to it a limited ting two different standards the same
reality but a deeper unintelligibility, thing can be described as 'hot' or 'cold'.
can be given as illustrations of the last The great Vachaspati Misra realizing
three steps of the seven-fold logic. this weakness of the Master's illustration has to step outside empirical know
With an equal interest in the real ledge and adduce Brahman and Prapa“ process of change, while modern scie. richa.as examples of absolute Being and nce turns to the measurement, correnon-being.
lation and control of physical phenoBasically, rational thought seeks mena, the Jainas turned to the analysis practically significant knowledge. In of the stages and means of the soul's understanding major philosophies the bondage and liberation from physical important thing is not to bring out their phenomena. Science leads to the maniobvious mutual inconsistencies and pulation of Nature through a physical serious inner inconsistencies are either mechanism; Jaina askesis (Tapas) leads rare or only apparent due to an to freedom from mechanism,
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