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K. C. BHATTACHARYYA
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the subjective attitude appears as a "conscious spiritual demand” for intuition of the subject (that which is not meant but intended, or rather intends, by the word I) as absolute freedom, absolutely unobjective (II 88-90). This demand is not fulfilled in introspection either actual or possible, where it is only a possibility to be realized (II 89). I am not introspectively aware even of my actual introspection, which is not itself introspected. But in my introspection of feeling I am aware that the self from which the feeling is distinguished may transcend both actual and possible introspection, may be free even from this distinction between my own) actual introspection and (others') possible introspection, may be completely de-individualized (II 92). This does not mean that the Absolute is indefinite—the doctrine of Bhattacharyya's first phase before the adoption of the subjective attitude, and perhaps the most profound conclusion possible in the objective attitude. The absolute self or subject, although deindividualized and free from all distinctness, is still definite and positive. In classical non-dualism, as interpreted by Bhattacharyya, where moksha is not "something to be reached or effected or remanifested” but is the self itself as essence of Brahman, "the self or the absolute is not a thing having freedom but is freedom itself” (1 118). And in transcendental psychology the self or Absolute, progressively known at each step as relative freedom from object, is this freedom. When all distinctness is transcended, the subject is not a distinct thing, even a free thing, but simply freedom.54
K. C. Bhattacharyya is not unique in asserting that the subject is freedom. The most distinguished of his contemporary philosophers in East and West said the same. Nishida said: "The true noetic intelligible Self is essentially individual and free; it is freedom itself.”55 Bergson said: "La conscience est essentiellement libre; elle est la liberté même.”56 But Bhattacharyya asserted this thesis as the significant conclusion of an extraordinarily subtle and original dialectic, and the precision and conciseness of his style made it possible to include a wealth of dialectical detail in a short book.
There are, however, some difficulties, not merely stylistic but substantial.
54 The dialectic may be summarized in eleven steps: environment, perceived body, felt body, absence, image, idea, thought, feeling, introspection, nonindividual self, freedom.
56 Intelligibility and the Philosophy of Nothingness, tr. R. Schinzinger (Tokyo: Maruzen, 1958), p. 129.
56 L'Evolution Créatrice (Paris : Presses Universitaires, 1962), p. 270.
