Definite And Indefinite

Author(s): George Burch
Publisher: George Burch

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G. B. BURCH
is the imperishable definite atoms which compose it, while its form is disparaged as transient and its knownness as subjective secondary qualities. For a subjective idealist like Berkeley, the essential being of a thing is to be perceived at some time as some person's idea, the form being merely the complexity of the idea and the stuff the component simple ideas. Realism, materialism, and idealism result from the artistic, the analytic, and the introspective temperaments respectively. The dispute does not involve any question of fact. In India realism and idealism are called respectively shristi-drishti and drishti-shristi ; the difference is which word you put first. I am not suggesting that this is unimportant. It is of the greatest importance, and it is important just because it is not a mere question of fact, which would be solved by appropriate research. The newspapers will never have a headline, “ Problem of the External World Solved!”
Concerning the definite aspect of being, then, there is one set of facts but there are three alternative philosophies about them. Each is inadequate from the point of view of the other philosophies in that it fails to emphasize what is most significant. But each is adequate from its own point of view in that it gives a coherent account of the things we know. A synthetic view evaluating all equally would reject the concept of essential, and a neutral view of insight without any evaluation would not be philosophy at all, it would be science but not wisdom. There is no transcendent point of view from which form, stuff, and knownness can be impartially judged. They are alternative definites, Or, since the definite is always definite in relation to something, they might be called alternative relatives.
It might be supposed that, while definite being can be considered from various points of view, indefinite being cannot, since it is indefinable and ineffable. One of K. C. Bhattacharya's greatest contributions to philosophy was to show that the absolute also has alternative forms. I take it that the word absolute is a laudatory synonym for indefinite. The absolute is that which is not limited and so not definite but indefinite. But, as he points out, there are different ways in which we can approach the indefinite absolute, starting from the definite relativity of ordinary experience. We can free the