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World and Consciousness

How to Argue About Reality Without Drowning in the Fog: Jainism Versus Kitchen-Table Relativism

In a hypothetical office meeting or family discussion, moving a project or relocating an apartment turns into a clash of the titans.

Andrey Zarinsh · Maria Evilkut24 min readW-21-N04
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In a hypothetical office meeting or family discussion, moving a project or relocating an apartment turns into a clash of the titans. The financial controller proclaims, "Moving is a blessing; we trim the budget." The team lead groans, "It's an outright catastrophe; people will scatter." A third colleague is thrilled about the new professional development courses right around the corner. The words "blessing" and "catastrophe" sound like an irreconcilable contradiction. Yet both sides are merely appraising different properties of the very same action. Before staging a public flogging of your opponent, it pays to clarify in what specific respect each person is speaking.

This by no means implies that everyone is somehow right. The cost estimate might well have been cooked up on the back of a napkin, the staff might not go anywhere, and the courses may have shuttered ages ago. But tracking down an actual error proves far more precise once you bring the actual subject matter back onto the table rather than competing over sheer volume.

For centuries, Jain philosophical thought honed an intellectual apparatus for handling the multifaceted nature of existence, partial standpoints, and conditioned assertions—drawing a sharp line between these tools and the lazy slogan "everyone has their own truth." Below is an examination of anekāntavāda, naya, and syādvāda within their own religious framework. We will see how to delineate the boundaries of one's claims without forfeiting the right to make tough calls or call out utter nonsense. All everyday vignettes, office tribulations, and practical queries belong entirely to our modern commentary, rather than serving as an exhaustive retelling of the entire Jain religion.

1. Anekāntavāda: The World Is Genuinely Manifold, Not Merely Tolerant of Our Fantasies

The doctrine of anekāntavāda postulates not one-sidedness, but the objective multifacetedness of that which exists. In her academic analysis, Marie-Hélène Gorisse emphasizes that Jain thinkers are rigorous realists. An object possesses multiple facets entirely in its own right, utterly indifferent to whether this fits neatly into our tidy expectations. The limitation of our viewpoint is rooted in the complexity of the object itself, not in the noble broad-mindedness of the observer.

This stands in radical contrast to the trite platitude "everyone has their own truth," which typically conceals an aversion to verifying facts or sheer intellectual laziness in an argument. The Jain inquiry is far more demanding: how precisely is the object structured if a single assertion grasps a genuine facet of it without exhausting the whole? The root of our differences resides in the properties of things, not exclusively in our subjective whims.

A hypothetical rental apartment may be dirt-cheap in terms of monthly rent yet ruinous when factoring in the daily commute. These are not two isolated parallel universes where the cost depends strictly on the tenant's mood: both expenses can be straightforwardly calculated on paper. The contradiction surrounding the label "cheap" evaporates the moment we itemize the exact ledger of expenditures.

Yet objective complexity does not license an intellectual free-for-all: one cannot arbitrarily assign any convenient property to the apartment. If it physically stands in one city, asserting that it is located in another does not magically become an "alternative facet of the truth," no matter how much oratorical pomp is poured into the claim. Evaluative criteria cannot be replaced with the outright fabrication of facts.

Here lies a strict boundary: a perspective must possess a real subject and verifiable grounds. We can examine costs, logistics, time, and accessibility, but we are under no obligation to accept office gossip as yet another legitimate facet of reality. Plurality demands painstaking analysis, not reverent nodding at every piece of nonsense.

The lion's share of verbal brawls erupts over bloated abstractions: "successful," "convenient," "fair," "safe." Clarifying our parameters does not weaken a stance. It merely demonstrates clearly where a thought grips solid ground and where it runs into its own limit.

2. Substance and Modes: A Fresh Label Does Not Prove an Immortal Soul

In the Tattvārtha-sūtra (V.29), existence is defined through a triad: origination, cessation, and persistence. In the primary passage and the commentaries examined by Gorisse, a distinction is drawn between substance (dravya) and its fluctuating modes (paryāya). Consequently, a single entity can easily persist in one respect while undergoing transformation in another.

Take a wooden office desk: after sustaining a nasty gouge from a stapler, it remains the selfsame piece of furniture, even though its surface finish has been irrevocably altered. The declarations "the desk remains the same" and "the desk has changed" coexist peacefully so long as they target different aspects. Naturally, the example of the desk does not automatically substantiate the entirety of Jain ontology; it is merely an accessible model showing how endurance intertwines with change.

With human beings, pompous generalizations look even more comical. One party insists, "You are a completely different person!", while the other retorts, "I am the exact same as I was." The former tracks altered habits or broken agreements; the latter leans on the continuity of personal biography. Instead of staging a melodrama, it suffices to pinpoint what specific actions have shifted and what has remained constant.

However, one must not mistake wishful thinking for reality: if an individual repeats the exact same toxic maneuvers month after month, sighing "they have become a different person" is not deep philosophy, but naive fantasy. One needs facts, dates, and documented shifts. Yet the reverse holds just as true: one cannot brand someone with past failures for all eternity; the capacity to change must be tested in the present.

Thus arises a sober question: in what respect do we assert persistence, and by what evidence do we judge change? This guards against both magical thinking and deafening labels. We are not turning Jain thought into a self-help manual, but merely employing the problem it articulates to tidy up our own speech.

The essential point is to avoid bait-and-switching the subject mid-argument. If we are discussing the desk, a scratch alters its condition; if we are discussing its flawless polish, that polish is obliterated. But conceding that the lacquer is ruined and triumphantly deducing that the desk has physically ceased to exist is a gross logical fallacy.

The impasse grows sharper when modifications accumulate. Imagine replacing the legs, the tabletop, and the fasteners of the desk one by one. Everyday intuition falters when tasked with determining which exact object has survived, exposing the need for a rigorous criterion of identity. The Jain doctrine of substance and modes furnishes its own structured answer, yet the modern reader is entirely justified in asking how that answer is justified and where its boundaries lie.

The same discipline tempers overheated debates about personal identity: one cannot prove an immortal, substantial soul solely through the fact that a colleague retains their customary name in their employment record, just as one cannot disprove it simply because they revised their opinion on the quarterly report. A familiar name does not substitute for an ontological proof. Our example poses the problem squarely, but it does not convert metaphysical deductions into trivial self-evidence.

3. Naya: An Incomplete Picture Is Not a Deliberate Lie

The concept of naya denotes a partial angle of investigation directed at an object. Jain philosophers emphasized that a viewpoint can disclose a genuine facet of reality, but instantly turns into a distortion the second the speaker pompously proclaims this single facet to be the sole existing truth. Gorisse characterizes the doctrine of perspectives as an intricate analytical engine designed to dissect our modes of predication and the focal points of our attention.

A textbook example is a financial statement. The net profit figure may be calculated down to the last penny with spotless accuracy. Yet if the board of directors is trying to gauge the overall viability of the enterprise, they will have to look at the debt load, employee turnover, equipment depreciation, and working conditions. An isolated financial metric does not become false simply because it is incomplete. The error begins where the accountant claims that nothing outside this solitary figure exists in nature.

Or take an office dispute: "The new CRM is magnificent; we close tickets faster!" exclaims the manager. "On the other hand, the responses have become less accurate," retorts technical support. Both may well be reporting factual outcomes, which still need to be verified. But if everyone digs in their heels over the abstract word "magnificent," substantive work will be buried. One must weigh speed against quality relative to the system's objectives, rather than simply trying to outshout the person across the room.

It is critically important to distinguish between incompleteness and an outright falsehood:

  • Incomplete information must be supplemented with context and alternative cross-sections.

  • False information must be ruthlessly refuted and purged.

  • Conflating these two is fatal: we will either dismiss a valuable slice of reality simply because it failed to grasp the infinite, or we will smuggle barefaced disinformation into a report disguised as "yet another important perspective."

Aggregating opinions also has a strict limit. If a dozen colleagues around the watercooler regurgitate the exact same unverified rumor floated by someone earlier that morning, you do not possess twelve independent perspectives. A variety of emotional phrasings does not produce a variety of epistemic access to the facts. For verification, it is crucial to establish the primary source rather than count the number of nodding heads.

Analyzing perspectives must not drag the discussion into bad infinity. A practical task naturally prunes away the extraneous: when choosing an apartment, certain parameters alter the decision, while others are mere informational noise. A well-defined objective puts multifacetedness to work without letting it degenerate into a pointless collection of trivia.

4. Syādvāda: Explicit Conditions Before the Outcome, Not an Alibi After the Fall

The doctrine of syādvāda introduces conditional predication: "in a certain respect," "under specified conditions." It is crucial not to confuse the Jain syāt ("in some respect") with the spineless colloquial "maybe," where a speaker merely mumbles to dodge accountability. In verses 14–15 of Samantabhadra's Āptamīmāṃsā (cited by Gorisse), it is demonstrated that every affirmation and negation is rigorously tied to parameters of time, place, form, and the inherent nature of the object.

In everyday decision-making, this sounds anything but timid; it is exacting: "From the standpoint of rental savings, this option is superb; from the standpoint of time spent in traffic jams, the outcome is so far questionable." The claim is concrete, and its parameters are staked out without coquetry.

The ubiquitous pseudo-wisdom "well, there's good and bad here" actually leaves the issue submerged in thick fog. Until one specifies in what precise respect it is good, for whom exactly it is bad, and over what period the effect is projected to last, the phrase is empty chatter that resolves nothing.

Consider another scenario: a team lead says they trust a subordinate. They might firmly trust their integrity while harboring well-founded doubts about their ability to meet a deadline on a complex project. This is neither passive aggression nor hypocrisy: such a distinction allows the manager to institute intermediate milestone checks without putting the individual's moral character on trial.

Yet here lies the prime snare for demagogues: a conditional qualification must never serve as a retroactive lifesaver. If an analyst thumped their chest promising a release strictly on the first of the month, only to announce after a catastrophic failure, "Well, from a certain perspective, I was right," we are witnessing a mundane bid to evade responsibility for their words.

Conditions must be openly fixed prior to obtaining the result, not wheeled out as an excuse after a fiasco. The potency of a bounded claim lies precisely in the fact that, within its delineated boundaries, it can be tested and refuted.

5. The Seven Modes of Predication: Why Logic Does Not Permit Talking Nonsense

Jain logic deploys the theory of saptabhaṅgī—seven modes of conditional predication combining assertion, negation, and inexpressibility. Mark Owen Webb's overview analyzes both the logical critiques leveled at this scheme and the feasibility of interpreting it rigorously through the distribution of parameters.

The key here is grasping the underlying philosophical task rather than memorizing a seven-part list simply to flaunt one's erudition. Human language is forced to describe the facets of an intricate object sequentially. Hence the problem: how do we coordinate these facets without elevating an isolated characteristic into an absolute? The cardinal rule is that this framework categorically forbids asserting a direct logical contradiction in one and the same respect and dressing it up as esoteric wisdom.

If an employee states, "The reconciliation report has been signed and sent to the client," then regarding the exact same file, time, and recipient, the statement "the report has not been sent" is wholly incompatible with the first. One must determine which of the two is true. What is needed here is checking the mail server logs, not rolling one's eyes toward the heavens to wax poetic about the paradoxes of existence. If the file was dispatched to legal counsel but has not gone out to the director, the parameters are indeed different and must be stated explicitly.

The concept of "inexpressibility" (avaktavya) does not bar the path to clarifying verifiable facts, but neither does it license turning an exchange into a third-degree interrogation. The fact that a person struggles to put an intricate emotional experience into words does not turn the factual details of an event into an impenetrable mystery. Yet acknowledging that difficulty does not oblige a witness to bare their soul, nor does it compel a job applicant to instantly disclose the compensation figure in their contract. Everyone retains the right not to answer, and the absence of an answer leaves the matter open, not settled.

The seven modes do not function as an automated calculator for disputes. Mechanically appending the tag "in a certain sense" to every absurdity does not make it any smarter. Precision emerges only when that sense can be intelligibly articulated. It is far wiser to avoid shoehorning all seven forms into a debate over purchasing office supplies and instead learn to clearly state at least one parameter of one's claim.

As Webb explains, the seven predications encompass conditional assertion, negation, their sequential combination, inexpressibility, and combinations of inexpressibility with the first three. The crux lies in the sequential nature of speech: a brief statement cannot hold everything at once. The formulation "the document exists as a draft, but does not exist as an approved policy" is intelligible. But strip away the conditions, and all that remains is the pretentious "it exists and does not exist at the same time," turning a routine procedural snag into murky mysticism. And if the draft does not exist to begin with, the assertion is simply false, and no appeal to "fresh perspectives" will salvage it.

Inexpressibility does not mandate an eternal vow of silence, but neither does it grant the right to use linguistic difficulty as a universal shield against any follow-up question. If an exhaustive account eludes us, one can carefully explain the specific accessible relations. The accessible factual portion of a narrative remains subject to clarification—though logic likewise does not demand that a person speak what they have no intention of sharing.

6. Ahiṃsā and the Limits of Language: A Label in Place of a Complete Human Being

Jainism is a religious tradition encompassing doctrines of multiple spiritual subjects (jīvas), karmic matter, and liberation (mokṣa), rather than an etiquette manual for office coffee breaks. Its bedrock is ahiṃsā—non-harm. Concurrently, Jainpedia demonstrates that the rigorous monastic "great vows" (mahāvratas) differ radically in scope and severity from the manageable "minor vows" (aṇuvratas) prescribed for householders.

We can cautiously draw an analogy between the Jain scrutiny of judgment frames and assessing the real-world impact of our speech. A colleague blows the deadline for a design layout, and the manager publicly stamps them as "irresponsible." The fact of the blunder is indisputable, but a totalizing label risks narrowing everyone's view to a single misstep, blotting out the rest of their work. This is our modern application of the question regarding the consequences of language.

A sober formulation runs differently: "The deadline was missed in this sprint; we need a different workflow for task handoffs." It does not sweep the fault under the rug, but it anchors responsibility to a specific subject matter. The worker is afforded an opening to fix a process flaw instead of spending energy fending off a badge of professional incompetence.

One must not, however, swing to the opposite extreme: branding every unpleasant fact as violence and demanding blanket censorship. Concealing critical blunders or systematic incompetence inflicts immense damage. Care and truthfulness do not reduce to saccharine flattery. The challenge is calling a screw-up by its real name without devolving the discussion into pointless humiliation.

Throughout this, the boundaries of the analogy must be respected: we are not deriving a universal psychological protocol from Jain religious ethics, nor are we prodding the reader into a monastic order. Jain ahiṃsā rests upon its own metaphysical foundations. We are merely learning to evaluate the consequences of our utterances without pretending that doing so replaces the path of an ascetic.

7. Disagreements Within the Tradition: Multifacetedness Promises No Fluffy Ponies

Should anyone imagine that acknowledging multifacetedness automatically transforms a community into a conflict-free circle of the enlightened, Jain history will swiftly dispel the illusion. The two primary branches of the tradition—the Digambaras and the Śvetāmbaras—have spent centuries locked in fierce disputes regarding the authenticity of the ancient canon, monastic regulations, and whether ultimate liberation is attainable for a woman in a female body. Nalini Balbir’s articles on Jainpedia document equally fierce internal controversies over the legitimacy of temple imagery and rituals.

This brings out an essential point: Jain thinkers mastered the logic of multifacetedness thoroughly, yet this never prevented them from resolutely defending their convictions and debating their rivals without pulling punches. Anekāntavāda is an analytical working tool, not a warranty card guaranteeing the construction of a perpetual argument-free utopia.

Within any workplace team, one can respect differing viewpoints and still clash vigorously over operational policy. Respect for one's peers will not, in and of itself, tell you where to allocate capital. It may require discussion of grounds, a decision, and the possibility of revision. Sustaining disagreement after a discussion in no way signifies the collapse of mutual respect.

One should not interrogate the tradition with naive expectations—presuming that because its thinkers preach multifacetedness, they must agree with everyone on everything. Acknowledging the conditionality of one's viewpoint and melting down an argument into unprincipled mush are entirely distinct things. One can flatly reject a proposal that is untenable under the given conditions while fully understanding precisely which localized pain point its author was attempting to remedy.

And one certainly must not sanitize historical disputes for modern comfort. Debates over the spiritual status of women in Jainism demand honest historical acknowledgment, not the retrospective grafting of fashionable standards of gender parity onto an ancient tradition.

8. The Self-Application Problem: Does Relativism Collapse Under Its Own Weight?

Mark Owen Webb raises a classic philosophical stumbling block: if every single assertion is conditional and partial, what is the status of the overarching thesis of universal multifacetedness itself? Does it not turn out to be just as conditional and non-binding? Marie-Hélène Gorisse, by contrast, defends the traditional authors, demonstrating that their framework is fundamentally realist, designed for the rigorous analysis of properties rather than a surrender to absurdity.

For our purposes, the practical takeaway is straightforward: if all claims are constrained by conditions, does that mean we can never assert anything with confidence? Far from it. The fact that the phrase "the server is down" is true specifically today at 3:00 PM does not negate its capacity to report an established fact at that stated hour. It conveys a fact under the specified conditions; tomorrow the state of affairs may change.

The real difficulty lies elsewhere: by what right do we declare a specific set of conditions to be exhaustive? One cannot excuse every failure by declaring, "I'm an artist, that's just how I see it." Factual claims demand appropriate evidence, philosophical theses require arguments, and religious tenets demand an understanding of their sacred context.

When a defaulting vendor tries to wriggle out of a penalty clause by claiming, "You're just looking at the contract narrowly, from your own parochial vantage point," they are not exhibiting Jain wisdom; they are merely blowing smoke. Appealing to the abstract "complexity of the world" is not an argument. It acquires meaning only when the material circumstances, their evidentiary basis, and their relevance to future actions are stated.

The demand for multifacetedness is hollow without the demand for evidence. If chanting about "different viewpoints" is used to silence auditors, it degenerates into demagoguery. Murky phrases do not signify depth, and precision of speech is hardly the sin of one-sidedness.

The philosophical conundrum does not vanish: the claim that "the world is complex and multifaceted" purports to be a universal description of being. If a thinker demands that everyone else qualify their context, they will eventually have to account for the ground upon which their own ontological platform rests.

Consequently, the everyday utility of conceptual clarification does not settle the metaphysical debate. The fact that we successfully untangled a moving dispute does not prove the universality of the entire Jain worldview. Yet the presence of thorny philosophical challenges to the system does not render its practical logical tools useless. Between unconditional faith in all dogmas and their wholesale dismissal lies vast terrain for substantive analysis.

9. A Survival Guide: How to Apply This in Practice and Stop in Time

Employing this approach is entirely voluntary. One can take any controversial claim setting an office chat on fire—"The marketing strategy is a disaster," "This partner is reliable," "The restructuring is going according to plan"—and run it through four parameters:

  • What specific event or object is being discussed?

  • What precise property are we undertaking to evaluate?

  • Over what timeframe does the conclusion extend?

  • What verifiable evidence and figures do we have at our disposal?

In an everyday argument about changing apartments, this looks thoroughly down-to-earth: "From the standpoint of expenses, rent will decrease over the year, but commuting time will increase. For us, the second factor is critical." The competing priorities are now visible; this still does not guarantee agreement.

Next, identify the missing facts: is transit accessible, will vital personal connections be maintained, what is the realistic budget? Once the data is in hand, some initial judgments may well shift. And if an assessment refuses to budge even under the weight of new facts, that does not automatically prove stubbornness or irrational fear. It may reflect a core value, a personal preference, or a hard boundary, which is far better clarified through direct questions than by attempting telepathy or reading someone's mind.

Next comes making a decision without trying to force square pegs into round holes. One can decline the move, candidly accepting the financial loss. One can agree to the move, candidly accepting the inevitable traffic slog. A mature decision does not require the fantasy that the chosen course is flawless from every conceivable angle. We choose according to essential criteria without harboring illusions about an absence of downsides.

Finally: if an exchange degenerates into open hostility, violations of basic safety, or direct harm, no one is obligated to endlessly play at Jain forbearance for someone else's amusement. A person has every right to erect a firm boundary, state, "I have enough facts to decline," and walk away from a dangerous conversation, even if the total picture of the cosmos remains incomplete.

10. Linguistic Precision Instead of Pompous Absolution

Jain philosophical thought never urged tossing truth into the dustbin for the sake of hypocritical politeness. It offers an intellectual discipline: how to speak of a complex reality without mistaking one's personal line of sight for the horizon of the universe. Its foundation is the reality of the object, the rigor of the perspective, and the explicit statement of conditions. It in no way follows that every piece of foolishness deserves applause.

One can entirely set aside the specific metaphysics of Jainism while adopting its sober guiding question: what exactly does my statement affirm, and what does it currently leave out of the frame? That filter is equally useful for dissecting someone else's criticism and for checking one's own infallibility.

The family in our opening example may ultimately fail to reach an accord, and the conflict itself will not magically become pleasant or heartwarming. But now the arguments rest on visible grounds, and the debate is at least conducted over real trade-offs rather than nebulous abstractions. This is a strictly limited result: it guarantees neither a final consensus between the parties nor exemplary emotional wellness for the participants, but it can make the crux of the disagreement considerably more precise.

Acknowledging the limits of one's words does not render a position weak. On the contrary, that is the exact moment multifacetedness stops being a decorative syrup of harmony and turns into honest intellectual labor: reality retains its right to be immeasurably more intricate than our labels, while our speech gains a rare chance to become just a little more precise.

Sources of the Original Article

The links and reading scopes of the original analysis are preserved. Primary passages are accessed via academic exposition; independent full reading of all original works is not claimed in this adaptation.