Outlines of Jaina Philosophy

Author(s): Mohanlal Mehta
Publisher: Jain Mission Society Bangalore

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OUTLINES OF JAINA PHILOSOPHY
creating the world of subject and object by its own self-differentiation. The first of these types is Platonic, the second that of Berkeley and Kant, and the last that of Hegel and his followers.
PLATONIC IDEALISM
Plato conceived Reality as consisting of an organized realm of ideas, each of which enjoys immutability and eternality. This organized realm of the eternal and immutable ideas is real in the sense that there are independent entities not depending upon mind, either finite or infinite. They are the real metaphysical forces, remaining at the back of and somehow determining our empirical world of thoughts and things as their imperfect imitations. Hence, our world of experience is only phenomenal and unreal. It comes into existence and passes out of it. It is somehow determined by the ideas which are universal and eternal. The idealism of Plato is objective in the sense that the ideas enjoy an existence in a real world independent of any mind. Mind is not antecedent for the existence of ideas. The ideas are there whether a mind reveals them or not. The determination of the phenomenal world depends on them. They somehow determine the empirical existence of the world. Hence, Plato's conception of Reality is nothing but a system of eternal, immutable, and immaterial ideas. IDEALISM OF BERKELEY
Berkeley may be said to be the founder of idealism in the modern period, although his arrow could not touch the point of destination. According to Locke (the predecessor of Berkeley), substance was regarded as a seat of qualities some of which are primary in the sense that they are objective and others are secondary in the sense that they are not in objects but in our minds, i.e., subjective. Berkeley rejected this two-fold division on the basis that if secondary qualities are what they are by means of perception or idea, the primary qualities are no less dependent on the same perception. A quality whether primary or secondary must be cognized by our perception. All the things which are composed of qualities both primary and secondary must be regarded as such only when they are perceived as such. In other words, the existence of things must be determined by perception or idea: Esse est percipi. This type of Berkeleian idealism may be regarded as subjective idealism. According to Berkeley, it is the individual mind that determines the existence of external objects. In his later