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Classically a truth value is asserted of a proposition: thus by its very nature it must be describable.

Jain Logic has a 'truth value' which is asserted to be true and indescribable; by the above it cannot be asserted of classical propositions.

So, what is it asserted of? I suppose, I'm asking what is the form of a Jain proposition.

Interestingly, assuming Kants metaphysics, one can say that the noumenon is (ontologically) true, in that it exists; but by Kants description, it is indescribable ie undifferentiated.

Mozibur Ullah
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  • Does 'describable' have an accepted, er, description? – dwn Jan 21 '15 at 17:51
  • Oops, I see you compare it to the thing-in-itself later, so I get what you mean. – dwn Jan 21 '15 at 17:59
  • @dwn: sure; unfortunately in this kind of query things become paradoxical; to modify your query - isn't 'indescribable' a description; therefore paradoxical; therefore nonsensical; but this assumes a certain form of rationality; one can look at the Western tradition, where certain paradoxical statements are cast in a different language to give them a meaning with which one can work - Cantorian Set Theory as a (certain) description of the infinite; intuitionism as a repudiation of the LEM and so on. – Mozibur Ullah Jan 22 '15 at 10:27
  • What this means in terms of Jain Logic, is that one will have to excavate and discover their forms of reasoning; and what their reasoning was about - its aim. – Mozibur Ullah Jan 22 '15 at 10:27
  • I sort of wonder notionally if this kind of thinking, combined with prior summation methods, might have inspired Ramanujan's summation of divergent series. I'm probably trying to read too much into it, though. – dwn Jan 22 '15 at 14:47
  • @dwn: Interesting, but I think as you point out, hard to establish; I touched upon the *noumena* in this question; because there is an affinity of some kind with the notion of Brahman, which could also have the same truth value asserted of it; except, that the Jains were an *nastika* school, so don't accept the vedas as authoritative. – Mozibur Ullah Jan 22 '15 at 18:18
  • Your comment in light of [this](http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/21304/mathematical-versus-philosophical-reasoning-and-the-mathematics-of-philosophica) answer by Urs Schreiber shows that philosophy/theology/mathematics can react/act & translate/reinterpret in interesting ways. – Mozibur Ullah Jan 22 '15 at 19:07
  • I was only introduced to Jain logic the other day by this website, but it appears it might be isomorphic to other more-recent generalized logic systems, so there may be two kinds of answers to your question: a direct answer, and a form-based indirect answer. For a direct answer, I would think any ideas based on belief, limited information (anekantevada), impressions (vasana), creative will-power (shakti). For an indirect answer, perhaps a proposition in any modal system that shares the form of Jain logic. – dwn Jan 22 '15 at 19:58
  • Thank you greatly for the link, btw, the information does look to be illuminating – dwn Jan 22 '15 at 20:36
  • @dwn: Its interesting that you consider there may be a modern logic 'isomorphic' to Jain logic; personally, I'd be cautious of asserting such definiteness - isomorphism meaning what it does - a precisely established correspondence; simply because of the question of subtleties that may be left out; for example, there are certain paraconsistent logics that take 'unknown' as a value; and one might posit an isomorphism between 'unknown' and 'indescribable'; but when one ponders the two notions, indescribable is not quite the same as unknown, though of course there are affinities – Mozibur Ullah Jan 23 '15 at 12:16
  • This reminds me of the higher order 'equivalences' in [Higher Category Theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_category_theory) where two objects are posited 'equal' or 'isomorphic' but there still remains differences, which have further structure – Mozibur Ullah Jan 23 '15 at 12:19
  • I too like the notion of *anekantevada*, it reminds me somewhat of the Post-Modernism of today, but in a positive rather than a negative sense; Grand Naarratives are not false, but true in some perspective; interestingly, I've heard by hearsay (ie the net), that Shakti is female will-power and associated to the Goddess Kali - an indigenous feminism, if you will; this might be a localised understanding in Hindu Bengal, though. – Mozibur Ullah Jan 23 '15 at 12:22
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    Sorry, at the moment I don't have time to consider and respond to your comments in kind. Just want to note something that came to mind this morning: it seems there are a class of synthetic concepts determined by a single-value description: in calculus "becoming" is defined by a rate; in physics, a qubit can be described by a single weight. – dwn Jan 23 '15 at 14:53
  • I agree with you, it is only a comparison of skeletons, whereas the flesh would be its actual connection to real understanding and experience, and its meaning would also determine how it connects with other logical structures. Also, after looking at such concepts as the 'negative tetralemma', I am not sure there is any feasible simple analog, since it seems it could produce 'not not not ... X' ad infinitum. This does get me wondering, though, how exactly the 'rules' of a fourfold notational logic based around Aristotle's 'causes' might work. – dwn Jan 23 '15 at 23:19
  • @dwn: Interesting ideas - I think Schopenhauer wrote something on the four-fold; there is a theory of 'translation' in poetics and comparative literature which might be apposite here; except of course, there one is translating between forms of human discourse which have a great deal in common with each other, but also quite different - for example the word Buddha in English has different connotations in Bengali, which also means intelligence & knowledge, and is a common word; 'translation' between philosophy and mathematics, might be a formal possibility, it isn't one now of course. – Mozibur Ullah Jan 24 '15 at 12:55
  • I really hadn't thought how to attempt to extend it that far, was just notionally thinking about drawing analogies between eight fundamental concepts (one at each end of Kant's four antinomies), which would make it pretty emaciated contentwise, unless, as you say, there would be some way to translate real content into this form. I'll need to look into that; do you have any favored references? – dwn Jan 26 '15 at 02:39
  • @dwn: I'm afraid not - I have come across a few books which on the face of it takes this up, but I haven't been able to chase it up; I'm just thinking 'aloud', as it were; still I think its an interesting perspective, but a difficult one. – Mozibur Ullah Jan 26 '15 at 12:21

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