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BURCH
Vedanta it is not a theory or system but a way of thinking capable of indefinite development and application. Its most significant features are the logical method of alternation and the metaphysical doctrine of alternative absolutes.
Logically alternation is exclusive disjunction (p or q but not both). Contemporary symbolic logic is usually developed in terms of negation (not p), conjunction (p and q), and inclusive disjunction (por q or both); exclusive disjunction plays a minor role in the abstract systematization. In life, however, it plays a major role. Such questions as "Tea or coffee?" "Shall I marry Tom or Dick ?" are not ordinarily answered by "both." Life consists largely of situations in which exclusive alternatives are presented for choice. All are possible; one is to be actual. The problems may be trivial, as which stairs shall I go up. They may be important, involving an irrevocable choice of spouse, vocation, or religion. They may not be simple;' when one potentiality is actualized, the others may be rejected or ignored or subordinated or included, depending on the whole situation. It is by choice among exclusive alternatives that we conduct our lives and make ourselves what we become. But alternation, so obviously important in practice, is also important in theory. Even in so abstract a realm as that of mathematics an equation may have alternative roots. In concrete reality alternation is commonplace, not only because the contingent truth is dependent on determining factors but also because, besides truth, other values, moral and aesthetic, are also possible. The neo-Vedanta logic of alternation is an attempt to systematize abstractly the structure of valid thought which is applicable to concrete reality.
Metaphysically the doctrine of alternative absolutes or alternative forms of the Absolute or the Absolute as Alternation is an original approach to the perennial central problem of philosophy. On the one hand, it avoids the pluralism or relativism which results from abandoning this problem as insoluble. On the other hand, it avoids the monism or abstractionism which results from a too facile solution. Based on the psychological distinction of the knowing, willing, and feeling functions of the Self and the epistemological distinction of objective, subjective, and dialectical attitudes correlated with them (although how correlated remains controversial), this doctrine dares to contemplate even the Absolute in terms of exclusive disjunction. Practically, its applications are beneficent. In religion and in politics121 it supports, as against either dogmatism or liberalism, a policy
121 "There are then three alternative ideals of life-duty, right and love,"
