Philosophical views of the world and of human life relate closely to the practical demands of morality and religion, which dictate how people should act and where they can find peace of mind. People are never satisfied with intellectual convictions and practical demands that contradict each other. Those with high spiritual demands fail to find satisfaction in materialism, and those who believe in materialism come to harbor doubts about spiritual demands. Fundamentally, truth is singular. Intellectual truth and practical truth must be one and the same. Those who think deeply or are genuinely serious inevitably seek congruence between knowledge and the practical realm of feeling and willing. We must now investigate what we ought to do and where we ought to find peace of mind, but this calls first for clarification of the nature of the universe, human life, and true reality.
The Indian religio-philosophical tradition, which provides the most highly developed congruence of philosophy and religion, holds that knowledge is good and delusion is evil. The fundamental reality of the universe is Brahman, which is our soul, our Ātman. Knowledge of this identity of Brahman and Ātman is the culmination of Indian philosophy and religion. Christianity was entirely practical at its inception, but because the human mind insistently demands intellectual satisfaction, Christian philosophy was developed in the Middle Ages. In the Chinese tradition, the system of morality at first lacked philosophical elaboration, but since the Sung period this dimension has predominated. Such historical trends in the Indian, Christian, and Chinese traditions attest to the basic human demand for congruence between our knowledge and our feeling and will.
In classical Western philosophy beginning with Socrates and Plato, didactic goals were central, whereas in modern times knowledge has assumed a prominent position, making the unity of the intellectual and the emotional-volitional aspects more difficult. In fact, the two dimensions now tend to diverge, and this in no way satisfies the fundamental demands of the human mind.
To understand true reality and to know the true nature of the universe and human life, we must discard all artificial assumptions, doubt whatever can be doubted, and proceed on the basis of direct and indubitable knowledge. From the perspective of common sense, we think that things exist in the external world apart from consciousness and that in the back of consciousness there is something called the mind, which performs various functions. Our assumption that mind and matter exist independently constitutes the basis of our conduct and is itself based on the demands posed by our thinking. This assumption leaves much room for doubt. Science, which does not take the most profound explanation of reality as its goal, is constructed on such hypothetical knowledge. But insufficiently critical thinking is also found in philosophy, which does take that explanation as its goal. Many philosophers base their thinking on existing assumptions and hence fail to engage in penetrating doubt.
The independent existence of mind and matter is generally considered an intuitive fact, but on reflection we realize that this clearly is not the case. What is the desk before me right now? Its color and shape are sensations of the eye; the feeling of resistance when I touch it is a sensation of the hand. The form, size, position, and movement of a thing—that which we intuit—are not the objective state of the thing in itself. To intuit things in themselves apart from our consciousness is impossible. This holds true for our minds as well. What we know is not the mind itself but the activity of knowing, feeling, and willing. When viewed psychologically, that which we think of as a self functioning through time is nothing more than the continuation of a sensation or feeling; the mind and matter that we take to be intuitive facts are merely unchanging combinations of similar phenomena of consciousness. We are led to believe in the existence of mind and matter by the requirements of the law of causality. But can we infer existence apart from consciousness by this law? Let us now address this question.
What is direct knowledge that we cannot even begin to doubt? It is knowledge of facts in our intuitive experience, knowledge of phenomena of consciousness. A present phenomenon of consciousness and our being conscious of it are identical; they cannot be divided into subject and object. Since facts are not separated even a hair’s breadth from knowing, we cannot doubt this knowledge. Of course we can err when we judge or recollect a phenomenon of consciousness, but at such a time we are no longer engaged in intuition, for we have shifted to inference. The later consciousness—which is engaged in judgment or recollection—and the original consciousness are different phenomena of consciousness: intuition is not the judging of the original consciousness by the later one, but simply knowledge of facts just as they are. Accordingly, in intuition, erring or not erring is out of the question. All of our knowledge must be constructed upon such intuitive experience.
Philosophy returns to such direct knowledge whenever it rids itself of all existing assumptions and seeks anew a firm base. Bacon, at the dawn of modern philosophy, considered experience the basis of all knowledge; Descartes took as his philosophical starting point the proposition “I think, therefore I am” (cogito ergo sum) and considered anything equally clear to be truth. Nevertheless, experience in Bacon’s framework was not pure experience but experience accompanied by the arbitrary assumption that we are able, by means of it, to intuit facts outside of consciousness. And when Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am,” his statement was no longer a fact of immediate experience, for he was already inferring “I am.” Moreover, to hold that clear thinking can know noumena is an arbitrary assumption; Kant and philosophers after him did not accept this assumption as an indubitable truth. Accordingly, what I term direct knowledge consists of the intuitive facts that are discerned when we abandon all such arbitrary assumptions. If I were to follow the lead of Hegel and succeeding historians of philosophy and to assume that Descartes’s “I think, therefore I am” is not an inference but an expression of the intuitive certainty that links reality and thinking, then of course Descartes’s starting point would be the same as mine.
Thinking and intuition are usually considered to be totally different activities, but when we view them as facts of consciousness we realize that they are the same kind of activity. Many people hold that intuition and experience are purely passive activities in which we realize individual things just as they are irrespective of other things; in contrast, they regard thinking as an active function that compares and judges things and determines their relations. When we survey the range of actual activities of consciousness, however, we find no totally passive activity. Intuition is a direct judgment, and for this reason I stated before that intuition is the starting point of knowledge that is free from arbitrary assumptions.
“Intuition” thus does not refer simply to the activity of sensation. At the base of thinking there is always a certain unifying reality that we can know only through intuition. Judgment arises from the analysis of this intuition.
What is immediate reality before we have added the fabrications of thinking? In other words, what is a fact of truly pure experience? At the time of pure experience, there is still no opposition between subject and object and no separation of knowledge, feeling, and volition; there is only an independent, self-sufficient, pure activity.
Intellectualist psychologists regard sensations and ideas as the requisite elements of mental phenomena and hold that all mental phenomena are constituted by their union. From this perspective, they construe a fact of pure experience to be the most passive state of consciousness, namely, sensation. But this approach confuses the results of academic analysis with the facts of direct experience. In facts of direct experience, there is no pure sensation. What we term pure sensation is already a simple perception, but no matter how simple, perception is not at all passive: it necessarily includes active—constructive—elements. (This is obvious when we consider examples of spatial perception.)
The characterization of pure experience as active becomes clearer when we examine such complex cognitive activities as association and thinking. Though association is usually deemed passive, the direction of the linkage of ideas in association is determined not only by circumstances in the external world, but also by the internal qualities of consciousness. Association and thinking thus differ only in degree. Moreover, people divide the phenomena of consciousness into knowledge, but in actuality we do not find these three types of phenomena. In fact, each and every phenomenon of consciousness possesses all three aspects. (For instance, although academic research is considered a purely intellectual activity, it can never exist apart from feeling and the will.) Of these three aspects the will is the most fundamental form of consciousness. As voluntarist psychologists assert, our consciousness is always active: it begins with an impulse and ends with the will. However simple, the most direct phenomena of consciousness take the form of the will—that is, the will is a fact of pure experience. . . .
In pure experience, our thinking, feeling, and willing are still undivided; there is a single activity, with no opposition between subject and object. Such opposition arises from the demands of thinking, so it is not a fact of direct experience. In direct experience there is only an independent, self-sufficient event, with neither a subject that sees nor an object that is seen. Just like when we become enraptured by exquisite music, forget ourselves and everything around us, and experience the universe as one melodious sound, true reality presents itself in the moment of direct experience. Should the thought arise that the music is the vibration of air or that one is listening to music, at that point one has already separated oneself from true reality because that thought derives from reflection and thinking divorced from the true state of the reality of the music.
It is usually thought that subject and object are realities that can exist independently of each other and that phenomena of consciousness arise through their activity, which leads to the idea that there are two realities: mind and matter. This is a total mistake. The notions of subject and object derive from two different ways of looking at a single fact, as does the distinction between mind and matter. But these dichotomies are not inherent in the fact itself. As a concrete fact, a flower is not at all like the purely material flower of scientists; it is pleasing, with a beauty of color, shape, and scent. Heine1 gazed at the stars in a quiet night sky and called them golden tacks in the azure. Though astronomers would laugh at his words as the folly of a poet, the true nature of stars may very well be expressed in his phrase.
In the independent, self-sufficient true reality prior to the separation of subject and object, our knowledge, feeling, and volition are one. Contrary to popular belief, true reality is not the subject matter of dispassionate knowledge; it is established through our feeling and willing. It is not simply an existence but something with meaning. If we were to remove our feelings and the will from this world of actuality, it would no longer be a concrete fact—it would become an abstract concept. The world described by physicists, like a line without width and a plane without thickness, is not something that actually exists. In this respect, it is the artist, not the scholar, who arrives at the true nature of reality. Each and everything we see or hear contains our individuality. Though we might speak of identical consciousness, our consciousnesses are not truly the same. When viewing a cow, for example, farmers, zoologists, and artists have different mental images. Depending on one’s feeling at the moment, the same scenery can appear resplendently beautiful or depressingly gloomy. Buddhist thought holds that according to one’s mood the world becomes either heaven or hell. Thus our world is constructed upon our feeling and volition. However much we talk about the objective world as the subject matter of pure knowledge, it cannot escape its relation to our feelings.
People think that the world seen scientifically is most objective in that it exists independently of our feeling and volition. But it is in no way divorced from the demands of feeling and the will because scientific inquiry derives from actual demands in our struggle for survival. As especially Jerusalem has said, the idea that a power in the external world performs various activities—this idea being the fundamental principle of the scientific world view—is generated by analogical inference from one’s will.2 Ancient explanations of things in the universe were anthropomorphic, and they are the springboard from which contemporary scientific explanations developed.
Taking the distinction between subject and object as fundamental, some think that objective elements are included only in knowledge and that idiosyncratic, subjective events constitute feeling and volition. This view is mistaken in its basic assumptions. If we argue that phenomena arise by means of the mutual activity of subject and object, then even such content of knowledge as color or form can be seen as subjective or individual. If we argue further that there is a quality in the external world that gives rise to feeling and volition, then they come to possess an objective base, and it is therefore an error to say they are totally individual. Our feeling and volition allow for communication and sympathy between individuals; they have a trans-individual element.
Because we think that such emotional and volitional entities as joy, anger, love, and desire arise in individual people, we also think that feeling and the will are purely individual. Yet it is not that the individual possesses feeling and the will, but rather that feeling and the will create the individual. Feeling and the will are facts of direct experience.
The anthropomorphic explanation of the myriad things in the universe is the way of explanation used by ancient people and naive children in all eras. Although scientists might laugh it away—indeed, it is infantile—from a certain perspective this is the true way of explaining reality. A scientist’s way of explanation is slanted toward just one aspect of knowledge, whereas in a complete explanation of reality we must satisfy intellectual demands as well as the demands of feeling and the will.
To the Greeks, all of nature was alive. Thunder and lightning were the wrath of Zeus on Mount Olympus, the voice of the cuckoo was Philamela’s lament of the past.3 To the natural eye of a Greek, the true meaning of the present appeared just as it was. Contemporary art, religion, and philosophy all strive to express this true meaning.
1. Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) was a German poet and critic who was heavily influenced by German romanticism.
2. K. W. Jerusalem, Einleitung in die Philosophie, 6, Auf. section 27.
3. Nishida’s note is from Friedrich Schiller, Die Götter Griechenlands Schiller’s poem, “The Gods of Greece,” includes the verse: “yonder Laurel once imploring wound, / Tantal’s daughter slumbers in this stone; / From yon rose Syrinx’ mournful sound, / From this thicket, Philomela’s moan.” Schiller’s Works, vol. 1, ed., J. G. Fischer (Philadelphia: George Barrie, 1883), p. 36.
1. Discuss the distinction that Parmenides makes between the Way of Truth and the Way of Being. He argues that the two are necessarily mutually exclusive. Evaluate this claim and give reasons for your position.
2. Discuss the account of being given in the Ṛg Veda. Is Vedic account of the brahman as the origin of all things defensible? Argue for your position.
3. Discuss the Ṛg Vedic concept of time as that which encompasses past, present, and the future.
4. Discuss the Upaniṣadic concept of being. Do you agree with the Upaniṣadic claim that the original being, the creator of the universe, was the self in the form of a person? Do you find the Upaniṣadic account satisfactory? Give reasons.
5. Discuss the Upaniṣadic notion of the identity of ātman and the brahman.
6. Discuss the concept of being after Aristotle. What is the most primary sense of being according to Aristotle?
7. Discuss superimposition. What is the significance of this notion for Śaṃkara’s philosophy?
8. Explain clearly the Advaita conception of Brahman. Be sure to include in your answer a discussion of the distinction between nirguṇa and saguṇa Brahman.
9. What is māyā? Discuss its characteristics. Critically discuss the Advaitic conceptions of appearance, causation, self, and mokṣa.
10. Can the Advaitin analysis of the relation between Brahman and māyā be vindicated? If yes, discuss some of the strongest objections to the doctrine and why they do not constitute good reasons for rejecting the doctrine. If no, discuss some of the strongest reasons for accepting the doctrine and why they do not constitute good reasons for the acceptance of the doctrine.
11. What is Tao? What are its main characteristics?
12. Taoism uses various analogies to explain the nature of tao. Select three analogies and discuss their significance.
13. Explain the significance of wu wei.
14. Lao Tzu argues that tao is nameless, invisible, formless, etc. How does one know tao?
15. Taoists repeatedly emphasize harmony between one’s life with the movement of the tao. Why is this harmony essential?
16. Explain the nature of the Great Ultimate as the material force. Is it one or many?
17. Is Chang Tsai a reductionist materialist? How does he ground the moral virtues on his materialism?
18. Discuss Nāgārjuna’s position regarding metaphysical entities. Do you agree with his thesis? Argue pro or con.
19. Discuss Nāgārjuna’s notion of emptiness. Does it make sense to you? If yes, why yes? If not, why not?
20. Discuss Nishida’s notion of immediate reality. How does one gain an access to immediate reality?
21. Nishida maintains that knowledge must not be divorced from feeling and will. Do you agree? Explain your position clearly.
22. Nishida uses the example of the person engrossed in music to demonstrate the existence of immediate reality. Do you think that he substantiates his position.
23. Formulate and discuss the important metaphysical issues that the reading assignments raise. Listed below are possible areas of discussion, although you may formulate your discussion in any manner you wish.
(i) Is reality one or many?
(ii) Is it material or spiritual?
(iii) What is the relationship between reality and its manifestations?
(iv) Is reality permanent or change?
24. Compare and contrast the brahman, tao, and immediate reality. Which account of these concepts seems plausible and why?
A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy translated and compiled by Wing-tsit Chan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), contains an excellent translation of the most important Chinese philosophical texts. Students might wish to consult this work for both Lao Tzu and Chu Hsi.
Chu Hsi: New Studies by Wing-tsit Chan (Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 1973) is an in-depth study of Chu as a person and philosopher.
Plato and Parmenides by F.M. Cornford (London: Kegan & Paul, 1939) contains a chapter entitled “Parmenides’ Way of Truth.” It is a clear and precise account of the main tenets of Parmenides’ philosophy.
Advaita Vedānta: A Philosophical Introduction by Eliot Deutsch (Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 1973) is one of the best introductions available on the philosophy of Śaṃkara, the founder of Advaita Vedānta. This book is a must for any beginner of Vedānta.
A Source Book of Advaita Vedānta compiled by Eliot Deutsch and J.A.B. Van Buitenen (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1971) will help students of Advaita Vedānta to study this school through an examination of its primary sources.
History of Greek Philosophy by W.K.C. Guthrie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962–81) provides a good general introduction to important Greek philosophers. Students might wish to consult this work for both Parmenides as well as Aristotle.
The Essentials of Indian Philosophy by Mysore Hiriyanna (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1932) provides a good overview of the nine schools of Indian philosophy.
Nāgārjuna: A Translation of His Mūlamādhyamikakārikā with an Introductory Essay by Kenneth Inada (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1970) is a lucid translation of this basic Mādhyamika text. The introductory essay explains the main issues of Nāgārjuna’s philosophy in the context of the basic teachings of the historical Buddha. Each chapter contains explanatory notes.
Buddhist Philosophy: An Historical Analysis by David J. Kalupahana (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1976) is a clearly written account of early Buddhism and its development in the Therāvāda and Mahāyāna traditions. The appendices on metaphysics and Zen provide useful introductions.
Three Pillars of Zen by Philip Kapleau (New York: Harper & Row, 1969) is one of the best introductions to the thought and the practice of Zen.
Nishida Kitaro by Nishitani Keiji, translated by Yamaoto Seisaku and James W. Heisig (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), is the best available account of Nishida’s thoughts.
Fundamentals of Indian Philosophy by R. Puligandla (New York: Abingdon Press, 1975) is a good introduction to the main schools of Indian philosophical systems. It contains a very useful essay on Advaita Vedānta.
A Sourcebook of Indian Philosophy by S. Radhakrishnan and C.A. Moore (Princeton: University of Princeton, 1957) introduces Indian philosophy through primary sources. The general introduction as well as introductions to selections make this volume very helpful.
The Way of Lao Tzu (Tao-te Ching) translated by Wing-tsit Chan (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, Library of Liberal Arts, 1963), provides a clear translation. It also contains very helpful introductory essays, comments, and notes.
Tao: A New Way of Thinking by Chang Chung-yuan (New York: Harper & Row, 1975) is a reliable translation of the Tao Te Ching with an introduction and Commentary. It will be of special interest to the students of comparative philosophy.
The Ṛg Veda: An Anthology translated and annotated by Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty (New York: Penguin Books, 1981), contains a modern translation of 108 Ṛg Vedic hymns.
Upaniṣads by Patrick Ollivelle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) contains a lucid translation of the major Upaniṣads. An excellent introduction precedes the translations.
Superimposition in Advaita Vedānta by T. M. P. Mahadevan (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Private Ltd., 1985) is a very clear account of Śaṃkara’s idea that the world, as an appearance of the real, is a superimposition on the Self.
The Vedic Experience: Mantramañjarī by Raimundo Panikkar (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1977), is a collection of teachings from the Vedas, Brāhmaṇas, and Upaniṣads. No other anthology comes close in choice of material and clarity of translation. Each section contains a very helpful introduction.
The Principal Upaniṣads edited and translated by Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1953), includes the Sanskrit texts and translations of all the early Upaniṣads. It also contains a good introductory essay from the perspective of Advaita Vedānta.
What the Buddha Taught, 2nd ed., by Walpola Rahula (New York: Grove Press, 1978) provides an excellent introduction to Buddhism by a practising Buddhist monk.
Aristotle by W.D. Ross (New York: University Paperbacks, 1923) has a chapter on Aristotle’s metaphysics. It provides a very good account of the key ideas of Aristotle’s metaphysics.
For a readable translation of Śaṃkara’s Brahma-Sūtra-Śhānkara-Bhāṣya, students might wish to consult V. M. Apte’s translation (Bombay: Popular Book Depot, 1960).
Metaphysics, 2nd ed., by Richard Taylor (Engelwood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1974) is a very useful introduction to Aristotle’s metaphysics. It is one of the best single-volume treatments by one of the editors of Aristotle’s writings in English.
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From An Inquiry into the Good, translated by Masao Abe and Christopher Ives (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), chapters 5 & 7, pp. 37–50, Copyright © by Yale University Press.