Samayasara OR Nature of Self

SR No.: 011119
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: A Chakravarti
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith
Publication Year: 1950
Total Pages: 406
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 38 MB

Page 32

INTRODUCTION
XXXi
sary and inevitable form the foundation of mathematics. Hence mathematical propositions since they are based upon the properties of space must also share the nature of space and thus must be necessary and inevitable. Thus having secured a safe foundation for mathematical propositions, Kant next goes to further examine the implications of human understanding. Just as in the process of perceptual activity mind contributes the forms of space and time so also in the higher intellectual activity of understanding mind contributes certain other elements which he calls categories, the most important of which is Causation Since the construction of experience is to be in conformity with the categories of human understanding they must be according to the pattern of causation which happens to be the frame work of the whole edifice, according to Kant. Hence causation is the inevitable and necessary frame-work of human experience and events therein must necessarily happen according to this causal sequence on which the whole structure rests. Thus after securing a foundation for the principle of causation in the very structure of human experience, Kant surveys the whole of experience which is the result of mainly the activity of the mind in contributing the forms and categories according to which the sense-materials are shaped and arranged. The sense material which is thus fashioned into the human experience by the mind comes from beyond. What is the source from which this sense stimulus comes to the mind? Have we any access to this? Kant frankly admits that this ‘Beyond' from which sense stimulı proceed is inaccessible to the mind and therefore not known. For according to him anything that is to be known by the mind must become a part of human experience and hence must be already subject to operational activity of mind and must bear its impression. Hence what is not so subjected to the intellectual operation must necessarily be outside our experience and hence must necessarily be unknown. This thing which is outside our experience and which is unknown and which is the source of sense stimuli, Kant calls the “Thing in itself.” Similarly the mind we are aware of is the one engaged in its operational activity in the experience. What the mind is when it is not so engaged in the