Anekāntavāda in the Classroom: Jain Non-Absolutism, Epistemic Humility, and the Pedagogy of Multi-Perspectival Thinking

Abstract

This paper examines whether the Jain doctrine of anekāntavāda — the principle that reality is multifaceted and that no single standpoint exhausts the complete truth of any object — can meaningfully inform contemporary pedagogies of critical thinking and perspective-taking. Rather than treating the doctrine as a ready-made educational technology, the paper undertakes a comparative conceptual analysis, situating anekāntavāda and its associated logical apparatus (syādvāda and nayavāda) alongside empirically grounded constructs in educational psychology, including epistemic cognition, intellectual humility, and dialogic inquiry pedagogies such as Philosophy for Children. It argues that anekāntavāda offers a structurally disciplined, non-relativist model of standpoint articulation that differs in important respects from the loosely defined "multiple perspectives" rhetoric common in classroom pluralism, while also inheriting long-standing philosophical objections concerning self-reference and the risk of collapsing into relativism. The paper further cautions against a naive translation of anekāntavāda into "teaching the controversy," which recent scholarship on false balance identifies as pedagogically and epistemically hazardous. It concludes with implications for curriculum design under India's National Education Policy 2020, emphasizing structured standpoint pedagogy over slogan-level inclusion of Indian Knowledge Systems.