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170 :: Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism
mutually distinct. This very fact, according to the Sāṁkhya, leads to the plurality of selves.
The Views of Descartes, Berkeley, Kant and Leibniz about the Plurality of Souls
The Cartesian dictum 'cogito ergo sum' does not only establish the truth of the soul as distinct from the body but is also a sufficient proof for its singularity. The phenomenon of doubt, more generally that of thinking and perception, is different from individual to individual. So on this distinctly perceived empirical ground Descartes proves the plurality of souls. The existence of other minds is not proved simply by an analogy. Correct responses from others like those which I make to some stimuli are a clear proof of the existence of other minds. I receive some facts from others and verify them for myself as correct. This proves the possibility of thinking outside me. In my case I feel that what I call the conscious activities are not possible without a soul within my organism. This becomes the major premise of the syllogism which leads to the existence of other souls. Berkeley reduces all existence to perceptions, and, by arguing that perceptions cannot inhere in nothing, he safeguards the position of the soul. The perceptions being individual, plurality of the souls becomes a necessary conclusion from his dictum esse est percipi'. He holds: "Spirits, then, are active indivisible substances, ideas are innert, fleeting, dependent things which subsist not by themselves, but are supported by or exist in minds or spiritual substances. We comprehend our own existence by inward feeling or reflection, and that of other spirits by reason.”2 In the philosophy of Leibniz the soul is born of a plurality of monads. Along with the distinction among the individual souls, he upholds the plurality of the elements, the monads, which constitute the soul. He gets his individual soul from
1. Isvarkrşņa: Sārkhya-kārikā, verse 18 2. Thilly: A History of Philosophy, p. 309
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