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said that this urge arises due to the operation of space and time; nor is it an outcome of
the operation of the four limiting categories. It stands as something unique in itself.
Something tells us that it has to be right , and it should not be wrong . This categorical
imperative, as Kant calls it, is an impulsion from within, which defies the arguments of
the conditioned intellect and says that man has certain capacities different from the
faculty which is limited in this manner and the senses which are also restricted in that
way. The feeling, again, is something which plays a very important role in one s life.
Perhaps, man lives due to his feelings rather than his understandings, or any other
psychic function. Man decides upon a thing on account of a certain feeling in him; logic
or no logic is a different matter. It does not appear that he is working in this world on
account of a regular deduction that he is making every day through logical processes.
Man does not seem to be tagged on to logic always. He confirms logically what he feels
basically.
Here is something interesting about man s conduct in the world. The feeling is
apparently the guiding factor in man. What is feeling? One is liable to accept that it is a
deeper and more profound faculty than the logical intellect or the theological reason.
Logic seems to be a poor and inadequate equipment which man is wielding, in the light
of a more forceful urge within him called feeling, and when feeling begins to operate,
logic fails. It is the feeling, a peculiar impulsion within one that takes the concrete form
of desire, and when it becomes vehement, it turns into passion. When one is under the
grip of an intense desire or a passion, no logic will work. Reason has nothing to say
there, and it is thrown out like an unwanted instrument. It appears that one has certain
urges within, which are not always amenable to philosophic argument. Two of them are
mentioned, the urge towards righteousness, and the feeling about certain invisible
factors operating in life which are not discoverable through logical means, beauty and
teleological meaning in the world being two of its phases.
The Philosophy of Religion by Swami Krishnananda
The Philosophy of Religion by Swami Krishnananda 52
51
SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM AND OBJECTIVE REALISM
The word idealism has originally arisen out of the word idea. It may appear that the
word idea-ism is more appropriate here than idealism, if this meaning is to be the real
interpretation of the term; for, idealism may also mean the holding of an ideal before
oneself. What is idealism? The originators of this system of thinking in the West mostly
laid emphasis on the idea of the knower or the percipient of the object, and by a sort of
analysis concluded that the idea of the knower is the conditioning factor in the
knowledge of any object. Unless one s idea adjusted itself to the object that is known,
one would not be able to be aware that there is an object. Virtually, the object is just the
idea that there is the object.
The trouble actually arose when a thinker in England, John Locke, started an empiric
analysis of the process of knowledge. Though Locke never intended to be an idealist - he
was its strong opposite - he, unwittingly, dragged people into a mire of thought which
ended in a drastic form of idealism. Locke was a realist, an empiricist, and his analysis
led to the result that objects exist prior to the idea of objects in the process of
knowledge. The objects have to exist first of all. If they do not exist, an idea of objects
cannot arise in the mind. The thought process is subsequent to the existence of the
object. This is the essential doctrine of realism. The objects are real; they are not in any
way projected by the mind or the idea of the percipient. The theory which holds objects
to be real in themselves, having their own status, and not getting influenced by the
thinking process of the knower, is realism. But Locke s empiricism posited the
characteristics of objects by defining them in two ways, viz., by the association of objects
with what he called primary qualities, as well as secondary qualities. The contention of
the realist is that the primary qualities truly belong to objects and they are independent
of the knowing process. The idea of the knower of the object does not in any way affect
the primary qualities which are inherent in the object. The primary qualities are, for
instance, the length and breadth, or height, or the weight, or the geometrical dimension
of the object, which cannot be changed by the idea of the perceiver. But there are also
what are known as secondary qualities which are the projections of the mind of the
thinking individual. The way in which objects, in which the primary qualities inhere,
react upon the knower, the entire pattern of this reaction, is the origin of a new set of
qualities known as secondary qualities. The green colour of a leaf, the red colour of a
rose, etc., and similar qualities that are recognised to be present in objects by one s
sense organs, are all secondary qualities. But, apart from these associated attributes
known as secondary qualities, the objects have their own independent characteristics.
This independence of the object is the essential feature of any argument of the realist.
The objects are not created by the thinking process, though the secondary qualities may
vary from one percipient to another. The colour of the object, for instance, may depend
on the way in which the eyes function. A jaundiced eye will not see the colour of the
objects properly. And if our eyes are constituted in a different manner, we would
perhaps see objects in a different way. The structure of the sense organs has something
to do with the perception of the secondary qualities in the objects. Actually they do not
inhere in the objects; they are foisted upon them due to the peculiar way in which the
sense organs operate. The objects are, thus, variegatedly perceived in terms of the
secondary qualities. But objects have an independent existence of their own, with their
primary qualities. This is the forte of the realist doctrine.
The Philosophy of Religion by Swami Krishnananda
The Philosophy of Religion by Swami Krishnananda 52
53
However, this very system of realistic thinking landed one in idealism, finally. There was
an acute thinker called Berkeley who followed Locke, and went deeper into his
implications, and argued out a totally unexpected conclusion. If the secondary qualities
are not actually in the objects, how do we conclude that the primary qualities are present
in them? Who has seen the primary qualities? They cannot be seen. They are merely
assumed, theoretically. Whatever is seen, whatever is heard, whatever is sensed in any
manner, is nothing but a conglomeration of secondary qualities. That the objects have
primary qualities independent of the secondary qualities is merely an unfounded
dogma, which is unwarranted. If the secondary qualities are the only things experienced
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