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Hartshornc has also left the point at the same level in his observation that "Our author (Radhakrishnan) scems to leave the incaning of "Idealism" somewhat obscure. He does not altogether approve of whitehead's complete translation of physical concepts into terms of "feeling", "satisfaction," "prehension," and the like. He also seems to reject anything like the Berkeleyan type of subjectivism. Yet I, at least, am not able to discern any third possibility for idealism......Also I wonder whether any way of conceiving idealism other than as panpsychism is not more "confusing' rather than less."'3
It will be clear in the sequel that Radhakrishnan's idealism which has been rightly described by Hartshorne as 'confusing', is itself realism in ethics and metaphysics. It is one of the chief contentions of this paper that on account of its strong realistic bias, Radhakrishnan's position is more akin to that of Aristotle and st. Thomas Aquinas than that of Plato and Hegel.
Radhakrishnan has recognized three ways of acquring knowledge. "while all varieties of cognitive experience result in a knowledge of the real, it is produced in three ways which are sense-experience, discursive reasoning and intuitive apprehension."
Explaining the nature and importance of the first two sources of knowledge in thoroughly realistic terms, Radhakrishnan has written : “Sense experience helps us to know the outer characters of the external world. By means of it we obtain an acquaintance with the sensible qualities of the objects. Its data are the subject matter of natural science which builds up conceptual structure to describe them.
Logical knowledge is obtained by the processes of analysis aad synthesis. The data supplied to us by perception are analysed and the result of the analysis yield a more systematic knowledge of the object perceived. This logical or conceptual knowledge is indirect and symbolic in its character. It helps us to handle and control the object and its working."5
It will be seen that Radhakrishnan's description of sense-experience and logical knowledge presuppose the realistic distinction between subject (jnata) and object (jneya). The object is there existing independently of the subject. It is capable of being known by the subject directly through sense experience and indirectly through discursive reasoning.
Radbakrishnan's description of intuitive apprehension is equally realistic : “There is knowledge which is different from the conceptual, a knowledge by
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