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SOME PROBLEMS IN JAINA PSYCHOLOGY
This is the picture of the validity of recognition as a source of knowledge. It is mainly an epistemological problem, although it has great psychological significance. Recollection (smrti), and recognition (pratyabhijñā), have been described as forms of memory. Memory expresses itself, as we have seen, in recollection and recognition. We have also seen that recognition is a synthetic judgment in which the identity of the present datum with that which was experienced in the past is expressed, although it is still a non-verbal form of cognition. As it is a synthesis of recollection and perception, it would be difficult to maintain that it is an independent form of cognition, a concrete psychosis. Recognition is a form expressing memory. It is sometimes described as a factor involved in memory. And memory is ideal revival. It is mainly reproductive in nature and does not involve transformation of what was revived in accordance with the present conditions. In this sense, it is not possible to say that recognition is an independent form of cognition, although it may be called a psychosis which is synthesized by recollection and perception. However, the Jainas maintain that recognition is not a species of perception nor of recollection. This view is also true because recognition is not just perception nor recollection. It is a synthesis. The synthesis gives the additional quality judgment of the identity of the present datum with that which was experienced in the past. It may also express similarity and difference. However, this problem is more epistemological than psychological.
Thus, recollection (smrti), and recognition (pratyabhijna), have been considered by the Jainas as valid forms of cognition and sources of knowledge. Retention is a condition of recollection as much as it is a condition of perception. The tendency to endure is a prominent factor in retention; and the absence of lapse is itself a tendency to endure. Retention is also a condition of recollection, because the mental trace retained in the mind makes recollection possible when it is aroused and revived. Modern psychologists make retention, recollection and recognition factors involved in memory. We have seen, as Hunter points out, that recollection and recognition are forms of expressing memory, because memory is not a thing containing parts but the mental activity itself, although 'faculty' psychologists made compartments of the mind and memory a faculty of the mind. Even Hume says that an impression makes its appearance in two ways: either it retains a considerable degree of vivacity in its new appearance or it loses that vivacity and becomes an idea. The faculty by which we repeat our impressions retaining the original vivacity is called memory.38 But modern psychologists do not treat memory as a faculty or a thing but as an activity. We may better talk of remembering rather than memory.
38 Hume (David): Treatise on Human Nature, Pt. I, Sect. III.
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