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RECENT VEDANTA LITERATURE
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limited in space, time, and content—all which attributes point toward the conclusion that it is false (pp. 119-120). First we apprehend the world, then we understand Brahman to be its source, finally we negate the world in Brahman (p. 210).
These doctrines are developed in considerable detail. The English style of this book is better than that of the earlier one; the difficulty is with the content. Readers sympathetic to tenuous argumentation will find the arguments subtle; others may consider thein quibbles. They appeal to the same sort of mind which delights in the fine spun logic of the medieval scholastics and their modern disciples. Chaudhuri is a sort of Indian neo-scholastic.
All the books so far reviewed have set forth, in various ways, the orthodox doctrine of Advaita Vedanta. A book by Professor Kalidas Bhattacharya of Visvabharati University” is very different. While still within the general Vedanta tradition, it is a strikingly original treatment of fundamental philosophical problems and as such is a significant contribution to the philosophical thought of this generation.
The preface states the author's conviction that such originality is necessary. The subjectivism of Kant, the absolutism of Hegel, and the objectivism of modern realists have revealed "deeper and deeper fundamentals” in philosophy, he says, yet philosophy still "stands suspect.” We must go beyond these three "standpoints" to something still more fundamental. This does not mean the discovery of some fourth standpoint. It means, first, a thorough understanding of the three standpoints, and second, an understanding of their alternative validity.
The basic problem of epistemology, according to Bhattacharya, is how knowledge is possible not only synthetic knowledge a priori but any knowledge. Knowledge is always of some object, but knowledge and object are so opposed that their union is a contradiction. Nevertheless they are united, not merely conjoined but united in the "close unity” indicated by the phrase "knowledge of object." Knowledge, object, and their unity seem equally certain. In the first chapter this point is developed by elaborate arguments and illustrated by various historical systems
12 Kalidas Bhattacharya, Alternative Standpoints in Philosophy (Calcutta, 1953).
