Anekantavada is the metaphysical claim that reality has innumerable aspects; syadvada is the linguistic discipline that follows from it. Every assertion is prefixed with syat — usually rendered as in some respect, and specifically not as maybe, which the tradition is emphatic about. The seven predications are: in some respect it is; in some respect it is not; in some respect it is and is not; in some respect it is indescribable; and three combinations of the fourth with the first three. The apparatus was developed partly as a philosophical peace treaty — Jain logicians used it to show that Buddhist momentariness and Vedantic permanence are each true from a particular standpoint, or naya — and it made Jain philosophy notably good at summarising opponents fairly, since the opponent's position is by construction partly correct. Critics from Shankara onward argued that a doctrine which will not assert anything flatly cannot assert itself either. Jain logicians answered, at length, that syadvada is asserted from the standpoint of complete knowledge and is not itself one of the partial views, which the critics did not find satisfying.