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7/28/2019 My Father's Philosophy.
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My Fathers Philosophy.
Bharatwaj Iyer.
Dedicated to my Father on his birthday.
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Every man has an inherent philosophical inclination, so we have
known. Most of our philosophical inclinations tend to come to us
from what we read, whom we meet and mainly what our customs
dictate to us. But my fathers case is very different, Ive not knownhim reading any books on philosophy whatsoever, actually Ive never
seen him read anything at all. But his conclusions on matters
important and unimportant bring to me a shock like no other; some
of them seem to resemble, very closely, some of the most profound
conclusions and understandings of philosophy in our time. So how
did he learn them? From where did he get them? Schopenhauer, one
of the greatest names in western philosophy concluded that matter
and energy are one and the same. He concluded this a century
before Einsteins discovery. Now how did he do that? Through
steady, analytic, rational thought. My father can be placed decisively
among those people who revel and flourish through rational thinking
alone, unburdened by the weight of big books.
Now, Ive known my father for eighteen years and so I know a
great deal about what his thoughts about literally every single matter
are and as it is obvious that I cannot place every single of them in this
small essay, which is a birthday gift, Ill reserve a larger account of his
philosophies in a later work. But for now Ill deal only with a few of
his thoughts. So Ill take up first the most brilliant and elegant of his
ideas, on nature, which have striked me deeply as pure genius.
Hence I begin in this short account an illustration of his views on
nature.
1.On Nature.My father is a pantheist. A pantheist is a person who believes that
nature is God. I dont know if my father thinks that nature itself is
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God in the strict sense, but I do know that to him Mother Nature
is an agent, an agent who is the driving force in bringing order,
perpetuity and life in this world. By believing in an agent who
brings about order may mean the risk of theism, but no let meexplain his points in a better manner.
The main aim of the world (seen as a super-organism) is to
survive. Survival is the pivot around which the world revolves and
there is strictly no other principal which guides the world. Survival is
the means and end in itself. Isnt that the conclusion of modern
evolutionism? Remember my father hasnt read The origin ofspecies, thats what astounds me. So nature, its anthropomorphic in
his view, has a plan, a plan to survive. It has diverse plans but each
and every plan has only one object in view: Survival. He believes
that natures plans are precursor. Which means what should happen
a million years henceforth, of that, nature has the archetype, the
plan, the blueprint now itself. Yes, this is unscientific but not
unphilosophical. Evolution is not a pre-plan but a slow yet steady
gradient, nature has no plans but everything happens of itself
through the help of various conditions. But though sciences
conclusions be different from his, what is more important than
thought? May it be right or wrong.
An example would help to explain what he means. He has it that a
lion cub loves its mother only till the suckling period and after that
period both the parties dont give a whit about each other. According
to him nature has herself intervened and made up this plan because
it has an advantage, an advantage helping you to survive. What is
that survival advantage? The Lioness feeding her young has to spend
a great deal of energy in the process, and she sacrifices her own
health for it. Her sacrifice is not some Gandhian selflessness but
issues out due to the command of Nature, she exhorts the lioness to
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sacrifice because otherwise the survival of the cubs would be at
stake. So love is nothing but utility, utility not to the mother lion but
to Mother Nature, she thrives on the efforts of her creatures, and
her craving is for nothing else but perpetual survival. Now, thereason why the cubs lose affection to her mother after a period is
that they become self-sufficient, they dont need their mother.
And the reason for this mentality being good is very simple. If the
mother keeps to her children even when they can keep themselves
then the mother sacrifices unnecessarily, without utility, and risks
her own longevity. And Mother Nature (that unseen designer lurking
somewhere in obscurity) desires nothing but longevity and
perpetuity and hence shakes away the bonds of maternal love seeing
it to be unnecessary. And hence the advantage here of not loving is
the survival (longer life) of both the cubs and their mother, so love is
traded for existence. This is one instance of the many views my
father holds about nature, this seemed to me very prominent and
hence I added it here in this short account.
Another word that he is fond of using all the time is selfishness.
He believes that every natural constituent is essentially selfish and
looks only after its own welfare, and the welfare has ultimately no
other end but survival. His favourite example of the principal of
selfishness in nature is that of the monkey and her child. Whenever a
mother monkey comes across an object which it suspects would do it
harm if touched, say fire, then it has the tendency of checking the
object and it checks in the goriest way imaginable. What it does is
that it touches the object with its own childs hand and thus makes
out whether the object is safe using or not. This is the most glaring
example according to him illustrating the principle of selfishness in
nature, selfishness so intense that even the mother is not free from
its command. This has proven to him that to make ones way to
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success any means whatsoever may be employed and any means is
justifiable.
My readers would wont to say that such a world is most difficult to
live by and most immoral, black and heartless. Alas! It is so, but can
we change it? No we cannot, so let us look at it without the lenses of
romanticism, obscurantism, poesy and instead with the lenses of
truth and fearless admittance of reality. Let us not tint our glasses
with the colour of rose, let it be as it is. Looking at a thing as it is is
horrible in the first instance and it requires great strength to see the
world with the fearless and unbiased vision of truth.
These four pages are but a fragment of his views on nature, much
is left to be said, and it must be said but I have to, due to restraint of
length and occasion, reserve it to be said in the future.
2.On Conduct.My father, as it would have been guessed on reading the
preceding section, is a utilitarian. He believes that human conduct is
and should be guided by the principle of utility. He is of the opinion
that human society must be modelled on natural society. According
to him good and evil do not exist, if they dont exist for animals they
dont exist for us too. The Greek philosopher Diogenes of Sinope also
believed that animal society must become the model for human
society and human social conduct, but unlike my father he took it to
the practical level and used to live his life like a dog (which means
like a person who does not believe in the accepted conventions of
modern society). His idea that good and evil do not exist in essence is
a very impressive ideology and yes, he hasnt read Nietzsche.
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He believes in absolute freedom of conduct, the idea that man
must be allowed to do everything which his whim demands. If you
rape a woman you have the freedom to it, obviously you dont have
the legal freedom but only the moral freedom. Emotional and moralfreedom is an important point and was first introduced by
Existentialism. Isnt it praiseworthy that my father developed the
same idea without ever touching an existential book in his life? He
holds it important that man must be truthful to his instincts, he
mustnt lie to himself. Honesty to instinct is the highest morality.
What a civilized man does is that he covers up his instinctive
tendencies with outward coatings of mannerisms, morality and lofty
conduct but in the heart of everything the same carnal propensities
reign.
He is also a pragmatist. That is, he believes in activity, duty and
strife rather than inactivity, resignation and abnegation. He believes
in the proper performance of duties to be the easiest way to a better
and worthy life and hence his hate of sannyasa. His revolt against
life-denial resembles, in jest, the revolt of Nietzsche against
Schopenhauer and Wagner with his new thought of life-affirmation.
But unlike Nietzsche my father is an epicurean. An epicurean
believes in the idea of eat, drink and make merry which is
supposedly phrased by the Greek philosopher Epicurus. He is also
fond of Krishnas idea of Karma-yoga, wherein importance is given to
activity as the fulfilment of knowledge. But as it often happens with
even the greatest minds of the world, that what we theorise may not
be feasible when carried out in reality. To take a glaring example look
at what the Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins thinks about social
Darwinism, he believes that although nature is commanded by
Darwinian instincts it would be better that human society be formed
on the very opposite foundations of Darwins law. In similar wise,
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although my father believes in the idea of whimsical conduct he is
normally morally outraged at crime, disobedience of law, wishful
indolence of the people he is normally in contact with. So whatever
is talked in theory as philosophy can happily be limited to the privacyof ones drawing room and need not be applied in actuality.
3. On Knowledge.
Arjuna asks Krishna in the beginning of the third chapter of the
Bhagavad Gita a question in dilemma,Jayasi cet karmanaste mata buddhir Janardana,
Tat kim karmani ghoremam niyojayasi Keshava
O Janardhana it was you yourself you told to me that knowledge has
precedence over work, then why O Keshava do you ask me to
commit such a horrendous act?
What Arjuna asks has weight in what we intend to discussbecause the question is of immeasurable importance: Is knowledge
more important or work? The Gitas achievement is in the synthesis
of both these opposing virtues (not opposing in the highest sense).
The Gita combines both knowledge as well as work by making both
of these complementary to one another. So it concludes that work is
most important, but only that work which is done in knowledge. So I
think my father also has attempted the fusion of both these rivals in
a way unknown to himself. He believes that knowledge can be
gained either by intense learning or through direct experience. It is
needless to say that the method of intense learning throws
experience to the background and makes knowledge completely
bereft of it, but on the other hand the method of knowledge through
experience is rich with the fragrance of both work as well as wisdom
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and hence can act as fulfilment of both. The greatest modern
philosopher Immanuel Kant extolled the value of experience, in the
process of knowing, a great deal in his works, not only that but he
also criticises and proves the flawed nature of knowledge by purereason working in a vacuum. My fathers views on epistemology may
not be as advanced as that of Kants, which is obvious, but it sure
does have some semblance.
So to round up the matter we may conclude that that knowledge
is most valuable which has been won by experience rather than that
gained through years of study of books. My fathers philosophy ofknowledge is limited to what Ive said above and does not exceed
further, he not being an academic philosopher. He believes in the
perpetual accumulation of knowledge but only of that kind which has
real and pragmatic use, rest is all tinsel. Rajagopalachari says only
that knowledge is valuable which can be transformed into Bhakti,
and Bhakti in lay terms only means practical work.
Here I feel proper to end this short exposition of my fathers
ideas although my fathers ideas are not limited only to what has
been said. Philosophy is a common mans property, all have the right
to claim it and claim it they must. Philosophy as Bertrand Russell puts
it involves nothing but speculation, speculation of any sort, the right
or wrong of which must not bother the philosopher in pursuit of
truth. Having said what little I could say I place this short work in the
hands of anybody who wishes to touch it. Appraise it or criticise it,
keep it or throw it, that is all your wish but always remember that
the common minds opinion on matters of profuse gravity is as
important as those of the greatest intellectual giants, for as
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Nietzsche says, My way is my way, your way is your way, and for the
right way and the only way: there is none.