Truthfullness and Truth in Jaina Philosophy

Author(s): Peter Flugel
Publisher: ZZ_Anusandhan

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show that they are conceived as meta-rules, on a level of abstraction comparable to the discourse ethics of universal pragmatics, while the sub-categories and examples correspond to the level of empirical semantics and pragmatics. The levels of abstraction of the lists of examples in the commentaries vary, since the Jain lists are relatively unsystematic, although some may have been intended as scholastic devices for cumulative indexication qua fixed analytical perspectives. From the point of view of comparative analytical philosophy, some examples could serve as illustrations for one or other of the conversational postulates à la Grice (be relevant etc.), Searle, or Habermas, while others can be related to the modern logical investigations of vagueness, category mistakes, quantifiers, or modalities of time in particular. In contrast to modern intentionalist semantics, Jain philosophers of language analyse examples of their four fundamental types of speech rarely with reference to the intention of the speaker, but prefer an objective or listener's standpoint. That is, they investigate the structure of the utterance as a whole, from the de-contextualised point of view of the four combinations of the basic true / false distinction, seen from the perspective of discourse ethics. The same perspective is preferred by universal pragmatics.
We can conclude from this brief discussion of the explanations of the four modes of speech in the Svetâmbara canon and the commentaries that the rules of Jain discourse are less concerned with referential truth than with the pragmatics of speech;89 in particular with the expression of the higher truth' of religious insight gained through direct self experience, and speaking in accordance with the ethics of non-violence. Yet, it would be a mistake to assume that truth in Jain discourse is always defined as an aspect of objective illocutionary force, depending on the form of the utterance and the intentional state of a speaker alone, without the need to be backed up by argument in processes of critical inquiry. The primacy of