Articles · Philosophy

Theories of knowledge and the experience of being

A. Vallely · Published 2013

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ShrutSangam GyanBhandars JainTatvaGyanshala

This paper explores Jain epistemology and hermeneutics as derivative of an ontology of kinship or of ‘being with’. The distinctively Jain ‘way of being’ stems from an experiential reality of inhabiting a world that is concretely and patently inhabited by others. Methodologically, the paper draws on Umā swā ti’s Tattvārtha Sūtra, as well as on ethnographic work on Jainism. The paper demonstrates that embodied perceptions of an animate cosmos are far more fundamental than any of its individual metaphysical claims for understanding the Jain relation to the world. It is argued that these embodied perceptions constitute the generative ground from which Jain philosophical and ethical reflections emerge. Jainism’s insistence on the concrete experience of being sentiently with others informs its ethical frameworks and epistemological insights, and serves as the foundational source for understanding life’s existential purpose. This paper concludes by arguing that the primary impetus for Jainism’s celebrated focus on nonviolence, as well as its extraordinary attention to the non-human, is not epistemological, but experiential. Read more