Philosophy is a reflection on experience
in order to comprehend the ultimate reality. We may say it is a synoptic
view of life. It is, in the lines of Mathew Arnold, to see life steadily
and to see it whole. In a narrower sense it is an academic pursuit of the
solutions of the ultimate problems of life.
Philosophy is not merely an unusually
obstinate effort to think consistently, not a construction of a
super-structure of thought, nor is it a mere collection of noble
sentiments. For Plato and Bradley philosophy was the knowledge of
reality, of that which is. For the Logic Positivists, however would not
be complete except as a synoptic view of life, as a world view. In this
sense alone can philosophy be a guide to life.
In India, philosophy was and has been
well grounded in life. It has permeated the lives of the people. It has
never been a mere academic pursuit nor a luxury of the mind. It was
intimately connected with life. It is to be lived. Mundaka
Upanisad speaks of �Brahma Vidya� as the basis of all knowledge. Knutilya
makes philosophy the lamp of all sciences. Philosophy has been called
darsana in the sense of the spiritual perception and vision of the seers,
and the highest triumphs of philosophy are possible only to those who have
achieved in themselves a purity of the soul.
Realization of the Atman is the
highest end in Philosophy there is no other way. In this sense,
philosophy is darsana and intimately connected with life.
Philosophy enquiry has proceeded in two directions : i) The first
uses a priori and deductive methods. It is analytic in approach and is
the way of the rationalists. ii) The second adopts inductive methods
and is the empiricist way. In ancient Indian thought, philosophic
speculation relied on Sruti and Smrti.
The course of philosophy has been long
and arduous. From Plato and the Upanisads to the present day,
philosophers have sought to find solutions to the perennial problems of
philosophy, and by pursuing the one way or the other have reached either
the summits of speculation from human experience, or have ultimately faced
the impossibility of metaphysical speculation.
i) We may first consider the a priori approach to the study of
philosophy. In western thought, deductive and a priori methods were first
used by Parmenides and his desciple Zeno, who made, for the first time, a
distinction between sense and reason. The Philosophic speculations of
Plato were largely based on a priori methods. He abstracted sense from
reason and built a world of ideas independent of the physical world. In
the Middle Ages of Europe, philosophy was sustaining itself under the
shadow of theology and Aristole�s deductive methods. In the modern Age,
Descartes and Spinoza built systems of rationalism. From cogito ergo sum
he went on to heaven and looked at the physical world with confidence,
which is, indeed, a way far removed from that of common sense. Descartes
split the world into two substance distinct from each other and postulated
a God separate from each of them. Spinoza�s task was to establish a
connection between God and the world on the basis of mathematical
deduction. The result is, Spinoza�s Substance became a lion�s den to
which all tracks lead and from which none returns. In Hegel and Bradley
we go much further away from common sense. We see the superstructures of
philosophic speculation, and we are left in the world of appearance only
to gaze at the ivory towers in which these philosophers lived. Thus the a
priori speculative method led us far from the madding crowd to the dizzy
heights of the �Absolute�.
In India, we were saved from the
separation of the speculative and the practical, because philosophy, with
us, is essentially spiritual : it takes its origin in life and enters back
into life.� In Samkara we come to a great speculative system. Still, we
do not feel ourselves strangers here, as we are not cut off from the
ideals of life. �Samkara presents to us the true ideal of philosophy,
which is not so much knowledge as wisdom, not so much logical learning as
Empiricism uses a posteriori and inductive methods. In the
Theaetetus, Socrates explains the Protagorean doctrine that knowledge is
through perception, and shows the impossibility of arriving at any
objective truth. For the Sophists, sense experience was the only source
of knowledge; while Gorgias asserted the impossibility of any knowledge or
In ancient Indian thought the Carvkas led
us to a similar conclusion.
For them, Lokayata is the only Sastra and
perceptual evidence the only authority. This would logically lead to
scepticism and nihilism; but they did not go to the whole length, because
their immediate aim was to break down the ecclesiastical monopoly and
still assert the spiritual independence of the individual. The Buddhist
empiricism was to have gone the way of Gorgias in the Madhyamika School,
but for the predominance of the ethical ideal and the goal of nirvana.
Nagarjuna�s philosophy is �now nearer to scepticism and the mysticism.�
The rigour of logic would have led him to nihilism, but for his spiritual
fervor and thirst for nirvana.