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Review
123
Indian Dialectics. Vol. I & II, by Dr. Ester Solomon, Published by B. J. Institute of Learning and Research, Gujarat Vidyasabha, Ahmedabad. 1976-78, pp 950. Rs. 60/- each vol.
It is said that 'man is a rational animal,' and reason, being the very content of rationality manifests itself through the vicissitudes of language. Doubt, debate, discussion and controversial arguments are all its ingredients, and thus we meet the word 'Dialectics', that has played and is playing still, very significant role in the intellectual as well as social life of mankind. In Greece the Sophists used dialectics as an art of eloqence and debate, while Socrates utilised it for the investigation of truth, and with Aristotle it became the art of discussion, debate, controversy, a method of argument or disputation, the process of discursive or controversial thinking'-that ultimately took the form of a scientific method depending on certain specific logical principles. Though Kant called this method 'the false pretense of knowledge that is based on illegitimate concepts that have no real basis in experience,' Hegel laid emphasis on the inevitability of contradiction in the process of thinking that always advances in the three steps of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. He gave a new dimension to the concept of dialectics. It was, for him, a metaphysical principle exhibiting both the development of the thought process and also the nature of reality.
Dr. Ester Solomon in this monumental work on Indian Dialectics, after thus examining the concept of dialectics in Greece, observes-"We find that in the early stages of philosophical thinking both in Greece and India the dialectical mode of presenting ideas has thus evolved.” She shows that in Post Upandşadic period in India there were Sramaņas - contemporaries of Buddha and Mahāvira, like Makkhali Gosal and other who could stand as the counterpart of Greek Sophists, Sceptics like Belasthaputta, contemporaneous of Buddha and Mahavira, challanged the validity of empirical cognition and the efficacy of the organs of knowledge to yield truth. Dr. Solomon meticulously examines the various shades of the term "dialectic' used in the different systems of Indian philosophy.
The whole book is spread out in two volumes, three parts and eighteen chapters with a resume and two appendices.
The writer gives the systematic survey of Indian Dialectics, elucidating the significance of the terms like Vāda, Jalpa, Vitaņdā, Sambhāṣā, Katha, Sambhodhi 7.1-4 16
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