Fwd: Does Science Exist? (On Berkeley and Advaita)

[Guest guest]

advaitin , " Chittaranjan Naik "

<chittaranjan_naik> wrote:

 

Namaste Sri Hersh-ji,

 

advaitin , " hersh_b " <hershbhasin@g...> wrote:

>

> Namaste profvk-JI, Chittaranjan-JI and all Advaitins

>

> After a very invigorating discussion on Spinoza and Advaita

> can I seek your opinion on another (1685 ) philosopher George

> Berkeley. There seems to be quite a lot of similarity between

> Advaita and his thought.

 

 

Srinivas Kotekal-ji has done a good job of presenting the difference

between Vedanta and Berkeley, and here are some words from my

understanding on the topic.....

 

 

Writing about Berkeley in 'The Story of Philosophy', Will Durant

says: " It was a brilliant idea – to refute materialism by the simple

expedient of showing that we know of no such thing as matter. In all

Europe, only a Gaelic imagination could have conceived this

metaphysical magic. "

 

But this magic had already been conceived elsewhere in the world

over

two thousand years ago. It was a passing show that came to India

with

the Buddhists and went along with them. And long, long, before

Bishop

Berkeley arrived on the philosophical scene of the world, the magic

had already been dissolved by the great philosophers of the Nyaya

and

Mimamsa schools.

 

Despite some similarities between Berkeley and Advaita, the two are

vastly different philosophies. Berkeley's philosophy is Idealism.

Advaita is not Idealism. Advaita Vedanta is a darshana that explains

the entire universe as it naturally is without calling objects mind

(as the idealists do) or the mind objects (as scientists are prone

to

do). In Vedanta, any kind of reduction is a form of avidya. The

world

is vritti, and the form of one vritti is not to be con-fused with

the

form of another vritti. The tattva of manas (or mind) is not the

same

as the tattva of the pancha-bhootas. They are brought forth to our

consciousness as different things and to call (reduce) one to the

other is viparya, the mixing up of the nature of one with that of

another.

 

If we are to compare Berkelian Idealism with Advaita Vedanta, then

it

is proper that we should ask the question: What is the fundamental

principle on which Berkeley claims that the world does not exist,

and

that it is only in the mind? The following words, from his work 'A

Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge', gives us an

insight into his reasoning:

 

 

Quote:

-----

 

In order to prepare the mind of the reader for the easier conceiving

what follows, it is proper to premise somewhat, by way of

introduction, concerning the nature and abuse of language. But the

unravelling this matter leads me to have had a chief part in

rendering speculation intricate and perplexed, and to have

occasioned

innumerable errors and difficulties in almost all parts of

knowledge.

And that is the opinion that the mind hath a power of framing

ABSTRACT IDEAS or notions of things. He who is not a perfect

stranger

to the writings and disputes of philosophers must needs acknowledge

that no small part of them are spent about abstract ideas. These are

in a more especial manner thought to be the object of those sciences

which go by the name of logic and metaphysics, and of that which

passes under the notion of the most abstracted and sublime learning,

in all which one shall scarce find any question handled in such a

manner as does not suppose their existence in the mind, and that it

is well acquainted with them.

 

It is agreed on all hands that the qualities or modes of things do

never really exist each of them apart by itself, and separated from

all others, but are mixed, as it were, and blended together, several

in the same objects. But, we are told, the mind being able to

consider each quality singly, or abstracted with those other

qualities from which it is united, does by that means frame to

itself

abstract ideas. For example, there is perceived by sight an object

extended, coloured, and moved: this mixed or compounded idea the

mind

resolving into its simple, constituent parts, and viewing each by

itself, exclusive of the rest, does frame to itself by abstraction

the idea of colour exclusive of extension, and of motion exclusive

of

both colour and extension.

 

The constituent parts of the abstract idea of animal are body, life,

sense, and spontaneous motion. By body is meant body without any

shape or figure, there being no one shape or figure common to all

animals, without covering, either of hair, or feathers, or scales,

etc., nor yet naked: hair, feathers, scales, and nakedness being the

distinguishing properties of particular animals, and for reason left

out of the abstract idea. Upon the same account the spontaneous

motion must be neither walking, nor flying, nor creeping; it is

nevertheless a motion, but what that motion is it is not easy to

conceive.

 

Whether others have this wonderful faculty of abstracting their

ideas, they best can tell; for myself, I find indeed I have a

faculty

of imagining, or representing to myself, the ideas of those

particular things I have perceived, and of variously compounding and

dividing them. I can imagine a man with two heads, or the upper part

of a man joined to the body of a horse. I can consider the hand, the

eye, the nose, each by itself abstracted or separated from the rest

of the body. But then whatever hand or eye I imagine, it must have

some particular shape and colour. Likewise the idea of man that I

frame to myself must be either white, or a black, or a tawny, a

straight, or a crooked, a tall, or a low, or a middle-sized man. I

cannot by any effort of thought conceive the abstract idea above

described. And it is equally impossible for me to form the abstract

idea of motion distinct from the body moving, and which is neither

swift nor slow, curvilinear nor rectangular; and the like may be

said

of all other abstract general ideas whatsoever…… The generality of

men which are simple and illiterate never pretend to abstract

notions. It is said they are difficult and not to be attained

without

pains and study; we may therefore reasonable conclude that, if such

there be, they are confined only to the learned.

 

That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the

imagination, exist without the mind, is what everybody will allow.

And it seems no less evident that the various sensations or ideas

imprinted on the sense, however blended or combined together (that

is, whatever objects they compose), cannot exist otherwise than in a

mind perceiving them. I think an intuitive knowledge may be obtained

of this by anyone that shall attend to what is meant by the

term `exist' when applied to sensible things. The table I write on I

say exists – that is, I see and feel it, and if I were out of my

study I should say it existed – meaning thereby that if I was in my

study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does

perceive it. There was an odour, that is, it was smelt; there was a

sound, that is, it was heard; a colour or figure, and it was

perceived by sight or touch. This is all that I can understand by

these and the like expressions. For as to what is said of the

absolute existence of unthinking things without any relation to

their

being perceived, that seems perfectly unintelligible. Their esse is

percepi, nor is it possible they should have any existence out of

the

minds or thinking things which perceive them.

 

It is indeed an opinion strangely prevalent amongst men, that

houses,

mountains, rivers, and in a word all sensible objects, have an

existence, natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by

the understanding. But with how great an assurance and acquiescence

soever this principle may be entertained in the world, yet whoever

shall find in his heart to call it in question may, if I mistake

not,

perceive to involve a manifest contradiction. For what are the fore-

mentioned objects but the things we perceive by sense? And what do

we

perceive besides our own ideas and sensations? And is it not plainly

repugnant that any one of these, or any combination of them, should

exist unperceived?

 

If we thoroughly examine this tenet it will perhaps be found at

bottom to depend on the doctrine of abstract ideas. For can there be

a nicer strain of abstraction than to distinguish the existence of

sensible objects from their being perceived, so as to conceive them

existing unperceived? Light and colours, heat and cold, extension

and

figures – in a word the things we see and feel – what are they but

so

many sensations, notions, ideas, or impressions on the sense? And is

it possible to separate, even in thought, any of these from

perception?

 

Unquote

-------

 

 

Let us take the following three fundamental tenets of Berkeley to

demonstrates how Advaita Vedanta is vastly different from Berkelian

Idealism.

 

1. The validity of abstract ideas

2. The ontological status of the external world

3. Esse percepi - the predication of existence of objects

 

 

ON THE VALIDITY OF ABSTRACT IDEAS

 

Berkeley's entire argument for idealism is based on the premise that

abstract ideas are unjustified. It is clear that the notion of

abstract idea he attacks is the idea of the 'universal' which had

been upheld by ancient and medieval philosophers – the notion of

colour abstracted from the particular colours that we see around us,

or the notion of motion abstracted from the particular motions that

we see in bodies. But Berkeley, in my opinion, was a poor

philosopher

because he failed to raise a philosophical question that is

fundamental to recognition – for how indeed do we recognise things,

and more especially, how do we recognise that two things are of the

same colour or kind, if not by a principle that is same in them?

This

important question does not find a place in Berkeley's philosophy,

and being led by his blindness as it were, he blithely proceeds to

negate a vitally important metaphysical principle. In Advaita,

pratyabhijna – recognition - is based on universals. It is true that

universals are not found by themselves in the world, for they are

always manifest as the generic qualifying attributes of things which

present themselves to us the thing as being of some kind or another.

But then, qualities are those 'things' that are never found by

themselves, they are always found in the world as inhering in

objects, and it is no justification to say that qualities do not

exist merely because they do not exist by themselves but exist in

substantial things. If Berkeley could not conceive universals, it is

simply because he employs a method that is incommensurate with the

object in question. The method of mental labour employed by Berkeley

to conceive universals is misguided, for mental labour can only

present a particular anmd not a universal. Berkeley is trying to

find

darkness with the help of a lamp, as it were, for any effort to

conceptualise a universal particularises it. A universal cannot be

conceived. It is the stamp of truth in the Self. The term 'stamp' is

of course used metaphorically, for the universal is nothing but

sakshi pramana, the very knowledge of things that is in the Self.

 

Just how far removed Berkeley's philosophy is from Advaita Vedanta

can be gauged if it is realised that in Advaita, words are eternal,

and that they are eternally conjoined with their objects. In

Advaita,

the denotation of a word is the universal. The doctrine that words

only point to universals is unique to Advaita, and it is perfectly

coherent with its vision of Reality as nirvisesha Brahman.

 

 

ON THE ONTOLOGICAL STATUS OF THE EXTERNAL WORLD

 

In Berkeley, the external world does not exist. In Advaita, both the

internal world and the external have the same ontological status. In

Advaita, there are twenty-four tattvas, and these include both the

mind as well as the pancha-bhootas. Mind is an antah-karana because

it manifests as residing within the body. The pancha-bhootas are

external tattvas. In Advaita, both the mind and the pancha-bhootas

have the same ontological status and it is illogical to say that one

exists and the other does not. Except when employed metaphorically,

the terms 'internal' and 'external' are marks of space and to say

that there is no external world is to assign reality to space and

deny reality to the manifold features in space. If objects are

false,

then why is space also not false? If space is also false, then it

makes no sense to say that the external world alone is false for

then

both the internal and external world, including ideas, would be

false. Therefore, it is illogical to say that the external world

does

not exist while asserting that the mind exists (which is what is

implied by saying that objects are only in the mind). It is for this

reason that Sri Shankaracharya attacks the Buddhists, and his

arguments are equally valid against Berkeley.

 

Berkeley presents (to the Western world) a momentous philosophical

discovery – that objects are not independent from the perceiver –

by

calling objects 'idea' or 'mind' merely because the mind is known to

be that kind of a 'thing' that is not independent of the perceiver.

That is, he assigns a place to objects in the mind because the mind

is naturally held to be dependent on the perceiver. I think Berkeley

conveyed what he wanted to say, but in the process he turned

language

on its head and launched Europe on its long voyage of Idealism.

Vedanta can never fall into the delusion of Idealism

(notwithstanding

the fact that many think Advaita is idealism) because it is based on

three pillars of Vedanta – the sruti as the foremost of the

pramanas, the employment of Nyaya (which is an upanga of the Vedas)

as the tool for logical discourse, and Vyakarana (which is a

Vedanga)

as the guiding factor to see that logic does not fly away into the

labyrinths of delusion. The insights provided by Nyaya and Vyakarana

do not allow language to be turned on its head as had been done by

the Irish Bishop, George Berkeley.

 

Now, Berkeley says that an object is an 'idea' or a mental thing. In

Advaita Vedanta, an object is an object - it is just what it is seen

to be. A rose can never be anything but a rose; it can under no

circumstance become a mere 'idea'. It remains always a rose because

that true form of the rose is the yathartha in Brahman. That

yathartha is the formless universal that Berkeley was unable to

conceptualise. That formlessness of the yathartha is what preserves

the All in Brahman even though Brahman is Nirguna. It is the

resolution of the Vishwa into Taijasa, and the Taijasa into Prajna,

and the Prajna into Turiya.

 

 

ON THE PREDICATION OF EXISTENCE OF OBJECTS

 

Berkeley is credited with being an Empiricist, of having been the

originator of the British Empiricist tradition. In my opinion,

Berkeley is a bad empiricist. In fact, he is not an empiricist at

all, for he denies and negates the most basic and fundamental fact

of

the observed world. He says that we see only sensations. Does anyone

see only sensations rather than chairs and tables, and trees and

flowers? There never is a perception of free qualities floating

about in the world; all qualities are always found inhering in

things. (It is this fact of perception that finds expression in

Spinoza as the unity of substance and attributes, and in this

respect, Spinoza's philosophy is a reflection of the Vedanta

doctrine). Berkeley does the worst kind of abstraction here by

abstracting some features from the things seen in perception as if

these abstracted features (sensations) are all that is seen in

perception. (What was separated by Berkeley was sealed again by

Kant.)

 

Now, what does Berkeley understand by the predicate `exists' as it

is

applied to objects? We have his own words to illuminate us on this

point - esse is percepi, to exist is to be perceived. So according

to

Berkeley, the water in a mirage should be real because it is

perceived. I'm afraid that there is no philosophical depth here. In

Advaita Vedanta, existence is predicated of objects not merely

because an object is perceived, but because it has been brought

forth

in the world as a substantial thing. For substance is the

existentiality of a thing. I saw a mountain in my dream yesterday,

but that mountain has no substance. It therefore does not exist; it

was merely the illusion of a mountain presented by my dream. It is

important to realise here that in Advaita the predication of

existence of objects is self-referencing to the contextual reflex in

our consciousness with which we cognise it. This contextual reflex

is

not given by my volition, but is presented to me by an inexorable

Will and I am simply the hapless victim of this awesome

presentation.

That is, if an object is presented to my perception as an existing

thing, then it exists. As I key in these words on my computer, I

know

that the mountain I saw in my dream yesterday is false, and I know

that this computer in front of me is real. That reality with which

the computer is presented to my senses, a reality that I had no

volition to choose, is its substantiality. It is therefore real. In

Advaita, no man (or woman, of course) may say that a thing does not

exist merely on some inferential ground when the fact of perception

presents it to him or her otherwise. The outwardly directed mind

saying that the world is unreal is not Advaita. It is a loss of

authenticity and an unauthentic mind can never see the truth of

Advaita.

 

In Advaita, Brahman as Consciousness is not circumscribed by the

body, not by the senses, not by the mind, not by time, not by

anything whatsoever – It is unlimited and extends beyond all

horizons. It is outside and inside, and no external object fails to

be existent even if it should be outside of the mind, for

Consciousness extends beyond the mind to the objects. The mind must

go out to reach the object as long as consciousness remains

circumscribed by the body. In the tripudi of the knower, known and

knowledge, the knower is consciousness circumscribed by the body,

and

that knower is not the Prajnanam of the Vedas. Even in deep sleep,

the consciousness of the jiva is circumscribed by the causal body.

When the jiva uses the word 'consciousness', it has no knowledge of

the Consciousness of Brahman because it is still a jiva. Brahma

jnana

is the dissolution of jiva-hood. The jiva is unauthentic when it

speaks about Consciousness. When the consciousness of the jiva is

circumscribed by the body – that is, for all jives – the external

world exists, and the senses of the jiva accompanied by the mind

goes

out to make contact with the object. When an idealist says that

external objects do not exist, he is trying to fit external things

into a notion of existential possibility that he can conceive of in

his mind, but Brahman is not limited by what the deluded mind thinks

is possible or not. Brahman is large enough for objects to be in It

without objects having to be reified as things limited to the mind.

It is the knot of the heart – the hrdaya grantha – that is

responsible for the mind of man becoming incapable of seeing the

true

nature of things, and unless the knot is unravelled by jnana, the

jiva has no vision of the absolute greatness and grandeur of

Brahman.

(It is to the credit of Berkeley that he posited objects in the Mind

of God rather than in the mind of man.) In Advaita, the mind is

jada,

inert. It cannot know; it is the known. The mind is the flutter of

the Heart: how then can it know the Heart? The mind cannot access

the

Heart just as the shadow cannot come into the presence of the Light.

In the brightness of the Light there is no shadow. Only the Heart

can

know the Heart! I must become nothing so that Brahman may speak

through me: " Brahmasmi " . Only then are these words true -- they are

true when I am still and do not speak them.

 

Warm regards,

Chittaranjan

 

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