Outlines of Jaina Philosophy

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

Page 29

CONCEPTION OF REALITY
writings, he faced a horrible difficulty of dualism regarding his doctrine of csse est percipi'. For the emergence of perception the existence of external objects independent of mind is necessary. Without an external and independent object no perception is possible. To overcome this difficulty Berkeley established a new doctrine in his later works which is known as “esse est concipi'. In this new doctrine he placed the word 'conception in place of perception' meaning thereby to exist is to be conceived'. IDEALISM OF KANT
Kant's idealism is a direct result of his epistemological position adopted in his Critique of Pure Reason. He points out that knowledge or intelligible experience is a complex product of the elements of sensibility and understanding. Pure knowledge, i.e., a priori is that with which no empirical element is mixed up. But our judgments are always a posteriori because they are derive: from experience. Sensations originate from an unknown world of things-in-themselves but must be organized into a systematic whole by the forms of intuition, i.e., space and time and by the categories or the fundamental concepts of understanding such as substance, causality, and the like. The forms and categories are a priori because our judgments presuppose the existence of these forms and categories. Experience is never possible without the existence of these transcendental laws of judgment. Thus, it is our understanding that makes nature, according to Kant. The idealism of Kant, thereforc, consists in this that the world of our knowledge is an ideal construction out of sense-manifold to which alone the forms and categories of understanding are confined and, therefore, is commonly known as objective idealism. It is subjective in the sense that knowledge does not reach out to the world of things-in-themselves: ding an sich. He argues that Reality cannot be grasped by our knowledge because our judgment is conditional, relative, and partial. We cannot know a thing as it is but we know it as our experience reveals. Hence, the Kantian ding an sich is unknowable by our experience. His view of the Transcendental Unity of Apperception is more important as regards the unity of knowledge. All knowledge presupposes the Synthetic Unity of Pure Apperception because unless there is a Synthetic Unity, no knowledge is possible. This idea of the Synthetic Unity of Pure Apperception leads Kant quite near the conception of soul which is not accepted by him outwardly.