Advaita Vedanta

Author(s): Kalidas Bhattacharya, Dalsukh Malvania
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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Some Clarifications
minds us of the Kantian attempt to see that reason works as empirically real', however transcendentally ideal' it may be. But the difficulty is that despite our best efforts it goes on exercising its transcendent freedom, and that in a way not always prejudicial to the real interest of matter, unless of course the interest of matter be just to deny the freedom of the transcendent. Inconscient or even half-conscient matter cannot judge what is of real interest to it. A judge must not be a party to the ongoings of what he is a judge of. All judgement has to be dispassionate, which means that the judge qua judge stands outside these and is free so far. True, such judges, with their active freedom, may do infinite harm, but that is because in that regard they have only the power of freedom, not its dispassionateness. Kant who is otherwise so much for keeping reason within empirical limits has yet con tended that when it is a question of practical reason it defies that control and is yet our best friend and guide in practical life. He recommends its control only in the theoretical field of science. The only drawback of his account of theoretical reason is hat he has quite dogmatically insisted on similar
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restriction even for other uses of theoretical reason. If the account that we have given till now of Advaita philosophy is all right-and we have tried to show that it is--the charge of dogmatism which Kant brings to bear upon philosophers known as rationalists would thus recoil on him, provided the metaphysical is understood as dealing not with pure objects (relative or absolute) but with pure consciousness (relative or absolute). Indeed, his first Critique is itself an account of the behaviours of pure theoretical reason. If he has not called that account metaphysics, this is only because these behaviours he understands as mere (transcendental) presuppositions (postulates), not as existent. But we have seen how the Advaitin would react to this position.
Pure consciousness, theoretical or practical-and in Advaita Vedanta we are concerned with theoretical pure consciouness -is thus free of all material (objective) limitation. Dialectical