Within the framework of Anekantavada, duality is regarded as a limited and incomplete lens through which reality is viewed. Conventional oppositions such as good and evil, existence and non-existence, or permanence and impermanence are not dismissed outright, yet they are seen as expressing only partial truths. Each pole of a duality captures one aspect of a more complex reality, and when taken as absolute, it oversimplifies what is in fact many-sided. Thus, dualistic thinking is acknowledged as practically useful at a conventional level, but it is not treated as an ultimate description of how things are.

Anekantavada holds that reality can be validly described from multiple standpoints, and what appears as a sharp either/or distinction from one angle may reveal further nuances from another. This multi-perspectival approach is articulated through Syadvada, the doctrine of conditional predication, which shows how seemingly contradictory statements can both be true when properly qualified. A thing may be described as existent from one context and non-existent from another, without this being a genuine contradiction. In this way, dualities are relativized: each side has a measure of truth, yet neither exhausts the nature of what is being described.

By encouraging attention to the “other side” of any duality, Anekantavada invites a more spacious and nuanced mode of understanding. Rather than being confined to rigid binary oppositions, the mind is trained to hold multiple, context-dependent truths together. This loosening of attachment to any single, one-sided view fosters intellectual humility and reduces dogmatism, since no standpoint, including a dualistic one, is taken as final. Duality, then, is neither absolutized nor simply denied; it is recognized as a partial, conditioned way of speaking about a reality that always exceeds any single formulation.