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other is settled not by logic but by metaphysic" (II 112).87 Aristotelian logic is based on not: if a judgment is true, its contradictory is not. Dialectical logic is based on and, a judgment and its contradictory both accepted: in anekantavada (although not as interpreted by Bhattacharyya), the contradictories are true in different respects; in Hegelianism, they are assimilated in a synthesis. The logic of alternation is based on or: either alternative may be accepted but not both. The first is the logic of dogmatism (you are wrong); the second is the logic of liberalism (we are both saying the same thing in different ways); the third is the logic of tolerance (this is my way, but I do not deny your right to follow another). The logic of alternation is the logic of choice, commitment, and coexistence. It is the logic of ordinary life, in which we are always making choices, not because only one alternative is correct nor because the alternatives are equivalent but because we must choose and having chosen abide by the choice. It is the logic which justifies alternative forms of the Absolute.
Since88 there are three conscious functions, there are three alternative forms of the Absolute-absolute knowing, absolute willing, absolute feeling-Truth, Freedom, Value. Different religious or philosophical traditions seek different forms of the Absolute. In “The Concept of Philosophy," his last published work, Bhattacharyya states that the Absolute is understood as Truth in non-dualist Vedanta, as Freedom in "what is loosely called nihilist” Buddhism, and as Value in Hegelianism (II 117). It seemed to me that value is not exactly the word for absolute feeling, being rather a generic term for all three (cf. II 137), and that Hegel's intellectual system is not exactly the locus of absolute feeling. In an article "Absolute Feeling"89 I expressed the opinion that absolute feeling as union of subject and object is love in the religious sense of love of God, and that this is the Christian ideal; absolute Truth, Freedom, and Love are the goals of Vedanta, Buddhism, 90 and Christianity respectively. It was only after the
87 The metaphysics, in turn, is determined by the philosophy of religion, and this by religion itself, according to Bhattacharyya (II 115).
88 In the order of knowing. The order of being is the reverse. "This triple absolute is apparently the prototype of the three subjective functions-knowing, willing and feeling" (II 117).
89 Shrimant Pratapsheth Amrita Jubilee Volume (Amalner: Indian Institute of Philosophy, 1954), Vol. III, 14-19.
90 A classical example of alternative absolutes is the schism in Zen Buddhism at the time of the fifth Chinese patriarch, who invited candidates for the succession to submit verses. Shen-hsin wrote, "The soul is like a shining mirror; take care to keep the mirror clean;" Hui-neng retorted, "The soul is not a shin
