The Doctrine of the Upanishads:2. Swami Krishnananda

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Friday 01, November 2024, 06:50.
Article
Scriptures
The Doctrine of the Upanishads:2. 
Swami Krishnananda

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Naive Realism (Continued)

If mind and consciousness are products of matter, they must be inherent in matter. What is not in the cause in some form or the other cannot be produced as the effect. If the cause is matter, the effect also would be matter. If mind and consciousness are facts of experience, and if they are said to be effects, they must have a conscious cause, too. How can something arise from nothing? The attempt to merge the entire individual experiencer in a material universe is bound to end in failure. Epistemologically and metaphysically the theory of naive realism is found to be unsatisfactory on account of its inability to explain facts of consciousness and experience of matter by consciousness.


What is the relation between the experienced object and the experiencing consciousness? Taking for granted that the object is material and is different from consciousness, we would be obliged to fall into a chasm of the unceasing difference between the given in experience and the experiencer. What is it that exists between the experiencer and the experienced? According to crude realism, it can be neither matter nor consciousness. For, if the relation is material, it would be indistinguishable from the object; if it is conscious, it cannot be separated from the subjective experiencer. If it is neither, the relation remains unexplained, unless a purely arbitrary and unwarranted neutral stuff is brought forward as the explanation thereof. If the subject and the object are totally different from one another, there cannot be knowledge. Nor can it be said that the subject and the object are of identical nature, and this nature is material, for materiality being not the same as consciousness, there cannot be apprehension of anything on the supposition that the experiencer is material in nature. Matter is unconscious and it cannot know anything.

Naive Idealism:

There is another of reality which goes by the name of naive idealism. It is the view that what is experienced is the same as the real, and that this real is identical with the idea of the individual subject. This is equal to merging the whole cosmos in the idea or the consciousness of the individual. All the substance of the earth and the heavens is my idea; you all are contained in my conception or notion. There is no cosmos independent of the subjective idea. The world is the projection of the experiencing subject.


This view is quite good as far as it is confined to the private reactions which the subject manifests towards the objects of the universe in consonance with the interests which the subject cherishes on account of the presence of various kinds of desires and impressions imbedded in itself. But when this theory is taken to be metaphysical one, i.e., a theory of reality, it falls to the ground. It cannot be said that an individual can perceive external objects even if there is nothing at all outside in the form of some degree of reality. There cannot even be an appearance of externality if there is no support for this appearance. Appearance presupposes reality. Further, it is not true that the individual experiencer has full control over what is experienced outside as the universe. Experience shows that the individual is bereft of knowledge of and power over the vast universe and that the other individuals of the universe are not in any way inferior to their experiencer as far as their status as existence is concerned. All exist in the same degree of reality in a particular plane of existence; otherwise, there cannot be subject-object-relationship. If the subject is more real than the object, there cannot be interaction between the two, and there cannot be knowledge. This proves that the external universe is not subservient to the ideas of the subject. It has an independent reality which no individual can deny. The knower and the known are in the same status, on a parallel basis. There is no difference in degree of truth between the experiencer and the experienced. The theory of naive idealism, or subjective idealism, is not tenable.

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Next

Critical Realism

Continued

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know the self, know the self in Nature, know the self in Jiva, Further Oneness.

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