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K. C. BHATTACHARYYA
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an idealist or realist through arguments, but "at the very start, according as he begins with the subjective or the objective attitude; he only interprets phenomena from the standpoint he has already assumed."119 If we assume the subjective attitude, we have knowing, in which the subject determines or creates its object. If we assume the objective attitude, we have feeling, in which the object is felt with immediate certainty. If we assume the dialectical attitude, we have willing, in which a dialectical synthesis of subject and object is attained. In the first case knowing subordinates feeling; in the second feeling rejects knowing; in the third willing while subjective incorporates the objective. The alternative philosophies are equally correct but incompatible. Knowing, feeling, and willing tolerate each other in practical life, but in reflection each demands to be absolute pure subjectivity as absolute knowing or Truth, pure object as absolute feeling or Beauty, dialectical synthesis as absolute willing or Goodness. The ultimate problem of philosophy is the status of alternation itself. For Buddhism there is no reality but only alternative philosophies; for Jainism reality itself is alternative; for Vedanta there is one reality but alternative standpoints from which it can be viewed. The alternation of these alternative theories of alternation is the last word of the philosophy of alternative standpoints.
While Kalidas Bhattacharyya's administrative duties as chairman, dean and vice-chancellor at Visvabharati University have interfered with his philosophical publication, his recent philosophical speculation has involved further development of the concept of alternation. Besides the alternation of knowing, feeling, and willing, he says, 120 there is a cross alternation in which each may be alternatively considered in terms of either of the others. Besides pure knowing, which is purely subjective, there is knowing of objects, which is knowing in terms of feeling. Besides pure feeling, which is purely objective, there is feeling of self, which is feeling in terms of knowing. The concept of coincidence must be joined to that of alternation: the line dividing adjacent squares belongs alternatively and entirely to either because the squares coincide on one side. Alternatives diverge, but there is a sense in which they converge also.
The neo-Vedanta of K. C. Bhattacharyya and his son, based on the tradition of non-dualist Vedanta, strongly influenced by German idealism, having its literary expression in English, is a philosophy of universal appeal independent of any cultural context. Like classical
119 Object Content and Relation, 141. 120 In a conversation March 26, 1961.
