It is a unique funda - where it is self defensive from criticism. In short, they say, "To each his own".
A favourite example seems to be of the 6 blind chaps and the elephant where multiple views and approaches are considered correct and no rigidity is imposed.
This idea somehow reminds me of the contrasting philosophies of two programming languages I've used - Perl and Python. The design goal of Perl is to make things easy by having more than one approach - "There is more than one way to do it" or TIMTOWTDI. Compare this to Python, which maintains that "There should be one, and preferably only one, obvious way to do it."
Work made me use more Python than Perl and I found the former quite simple to understand and code in. There are strict syntax rules which become a habit with practice. The user guides are readily available and extremely useful.
Some time back at work, we were chasing a tight deadline and I had to dabble in a few Perl scripts. Time was less and there was not much time to refer to user guides. But not surprisingly, we managed fine - the code wasn't "beautiful" but served our purpose.
Coming back to Anekantavada, it is interesting to note that philosophies and faiths which came later are more rigid. Islam and Christianity are known to strictly abide by their holy books. But even the 2 main schools of Vedanta viz. Adwaita of Shankaracharya ("yeh sab maya hai - Everything is an illusion - God, world, and individual") and Dwaita of Madhavacharya ("God and man separate. Man worship God.") are steadfast and known to often attack each other.
Which faith to follow or which programming language to use, which IPL team to support or which car to drive (or not drive at all?) - as they said, to each his own...
11 comments:
as a philosophy the pluralism works fine. But in computer languages I prefer the python way. Its just too confusing, not only when you're writing code but also while reading it.
Another interesting approach in the Ruby one. They say convention over configuration first, which means - you follow certain conventions and you wont have to "Set it up" all the time. I found that a bit restrictive but you get used to it.
I was reading through some really boring blogs and thought i should treat myself by reading yours.
I dont really comment on many blogs but I felt like doing it on this one.
The question that comes to my mind is, "Does Jainism call itself the truth or a philosophy". This becomes crucial, and I guess you understand that, because then our approach to it changes - which it should. When you come across something that says "hey i am the truth" and something that says "hey I dont know the truth, but heres some philosophy" you deal with each differently, (if you are really interested in the truth)
Well the answer to the question of whether Jainism is or is not a philosophy is not really needed for this 'comment', because, here we are talking about Anekantavada - which you say is a Philosophy.
Honestly I dont find this very unique to Jainism, (It may be first defined in it) but is a very genearal human tendancy, ( and then for those of us who call themselfs philosophers, (which actually all of us are) go ahead and define ithave it documented,study it etc) and so i dont look at it as a great find.
In philosophy (and I am not well-read) there is something called as antithesis and synthesis.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thesis%2C_antithesis%2C_synthesis synthesis being anekantavada. I am not going into the advantages and disadvantages of each, ( yes synthesis has its own disadvantages and antithesis its glorious advantages) but I want to come to the point which is - what really matters is your apporach to either. Our tendency sometimes shifts from a realization that synthesis is required to a desire to have syntesis.Because sometimes we look for comfort.
"If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair." C.S.Lewis
so these are the thoughts that run into my mind after I read your blog.
(well i had to rewrite all this cuz these idots lost my comment while i was posting it. the second time i worte it i lost a bit of focus. )
Wow..Enlightening!!
It depends on context I guess..
In programming (or engineering in general), any way to tame complexity is welcome..so python (and the python way) is preferable here (and for good reason)..
but your world-vies is no engineering so same cannot be said of it ..
@gagan:
Jainism is a wholesome religion and "anekantvada" is one of its philosophies. As far as I know it doesnt force any thing on you to believe as truth but proposes several philosophies. At one place I've read that it appeals that "dont waste time and put yourelf in the search of truth"
@Abhishek: I'm surprised why you found Python confusing. It is so much simpler than C or Perl.
@Mohsin: I wasnt giving an analogy or directly comparing religion to programming, instead I said I was reminded of the 2 prog lang philosophies.
doesn't aneka-anth mean the exact opposite of what you're trying to say?
anth of anek, i.e. ek :)
Anyways, I'd like to point out to Gagan that philosophy as we know it, is a relatively new (2.5K year old) concept and in its modern form is quite sophisticated and has its own set of rules. To espouse such a philosophy in times B.C. requires more than plain common sense. It is therefore something we might think of as obvious...just like relativity seemed obvious once it was discovered.
I wouldn't talk much about C.S. Lewis except to say that he was a Christian apologetic, and quite a virulent one at that, so my tendency is to view his writings with that in mind. Besides...just because someone says it, it doesn't become true now, does it..So regardless of what C.S. Lewis says, we don't really know the truth and hence the attempt at understanding the very nature of truth and untruth, which i guess is the foundation of all philosophy.
1) About philosophy in BC times - ok cool. must be. I get you!
2) Lewis - The reason for mentioning lewis is not to bring him into the picture, or talk about him, but rather to talk about what he said, without plagiarizing. I don't know, but it seems like you have discredited what lewis said, just because he said it.
But now that we have switched to Lewis, C. S. Lewis virulent?! :) That’s the beauty of him. Interestingly the criticisizm about being virulent is exactly what he says in the quote - people look for comfort more than the truth. The thing with truth is (and here i am talking about absolute truth, which some people don't even believe would exist), often people find it virulent. Of course, not everything virulent is truthful.
Another quote from him - "Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important." If he called himself a Christian, he'd rather believe in its infinite importance and come across as virulent. It sometimes can be a dangerous thing to deal with people who come across as extremists, but it is quite a pain to have to deal with people who don’t live what the believe in.
Ganesh: end of many indicates one which is essentially their philosophy, i.e. accepting the fact that there are many paths to the one. Many other schools of thought dont accept the fact that there could be many paths.
@Gagan:
All of philosophy is an attempt to understand if truth exists and if it does then what is its nature and how does man fit into this larger scheme of truth. Which is why no philosophy can call itself the truth, going strictly by definition.
As I have myself confessed, I 'tend to view' his quotes from a colored glass. I may be wrong but then you yourself have been generous in providing us with quotations from Lewis that amply demonstrate his leanings, or to put it more strongly, his belief. By that logic, it would not be wrong on my part to view his opinions as being biased.
Another thing, you seem to confuse belief and truth as somehow being one. We do not 'know' if an absolute truth exists, though we might 'believe' it does.
I think if we knew the absolute truth, then C.S. and his bunch of quotations would be quite useless and so would be all of philosophy. Is that perhaps what you are trying to suggest? That C.S and his fellow believers 'know' the truth and others do not?
I think you would admit that you 'believe' that something is true, but do not 'know' in absolute terms as you yourself put it. And here I am being very specific about 'knowledge' in that it is provable, reproducible and consistent.
Either ways, one mans comfort is another man's truth. I can spend time trying to dissect Lewis's arguments further, but this discussion is quite off-topic and can be deleted if Salil so wishes.
You guys carry on debating if page hits to my blog increase :)
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