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Jaina's Epistemic Contribution to Non-Jaina Philosophy
Dyuti Jayendrakumar Yajnik
For Plato, Samkara and Bradley, philosophy, broadly, is the 'knowledge of reality' for the logical positivist it is only 'linguistic analysis'. However philosophy, to be true, must be philosophy of life, where we do not have a part-view but the whole-view or world-view. "Idealism was unable to see the trees in the wood, while empiticism could not see the wood in the trees" said C.D. Broad (Contemporary British Philosophy, Ed. J. H. Muirhead, Vol.1, 1924). These are the two different ways of approaching the problem but they are not the only ways. Hence, we should see the world steadily and as a whole. If we do not look at the world synoptically, we shall have a very narrow view of it. (Ramjee Singh)
The Jaina view of life known as anekānta (Non-absolutism) is nearer to such a synoptic view. To quote Whitehead, such a non-absolutistic approach is "an endeavour to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted" (A. N. Whitehead: Process and Reality, 1929, p. 4). The function of philosophy is not merely academic pursuit of knowledge and reality, it also serves as a way of life. Hence, C. E. M. Joad options that "We must achieve a synoptic view of the universe" (C. E. M. Joad: A Critique of Logical Positivism, 1950, p. 29). (Ramjee Singh)
Approach of Reason
But dogmas if lift to the private field should not be questioned, but if made public, they are bound to face postmortem examinations and hence the formal reasoning is bound to step in. Among the Jainas, there is long and continued tradition of logicians who have tried to prove their philosophy with the help of arguments. The names of Umaswati (2nd Century),
