Writing

Logic is for many synonymous with Aristotle’s, yet other fully developed traditions deserve the name—among them Jain logic, grown from the philosophy of Jainism. This essay gives an account of Jain logic rooted in the doctrine of anekāntavāda (non-one-sidedness), set beside the more familiar Aristotelian logic, and reads each through the image schema that structures it: Aristotelian logic as a logic of containment, Jain logic as a logic of many-sidedness. It argues that Jain logic is not a variation on the Aristotelian but a true alternative.