Jainism developed a theory of knowledge called anekāntavāda — the doctrine that any complex thing can be truthfully described from multiple contradictory standpoints simultaneously, and that insisting on only one is a kind of epistemic violence. The 12th-century Jain logician Hemachandra's predecessor Kundakunda used this not as a call for wishy-washy relativism, but as a precision tool: before committing to a solution, you were expected to articulate the naya — the specific viewpoint from which your claim was true — and then articulate at least one rival naya with equal rigor. The discipline this creates is unusual. Most critical thinking frameworks ask you to steelman your own position. Anekāntavāda asks you to steelman the position that makes yours look parochial. What this produces in practice is not paralysis but a sharpened sense of which standpoint you're actually choosing to operate from — and why. Before you finalize your approach to whatever you're working on today, state it as a naya: 'From the standpoint of X, the solution is Y.' Then write the rival standpoint that would produce a completely different solution. The gap between them is where the actual thinking happens.

What rival standpoint would make your current approach look like the wrong tool for the job — and who in your life operates from that standpoint without knowing it?

Drawing from Jain Epistemology (Anekāntavāda) — Kundakunda (1st–2nd century CE Jain philosopher, Samayasāra)