PHILOSOPHY

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27203, 21 November 1953, Page 3

PHILOSOPHY

[Reviewed by L.G.W.I

Idealistic Thought in India. By R. F. George Allen and Unwin. 454 pp. Philosophic Problems of Nuclear Science. By Werner Heisenberg. Faber and Faber. 126 pp.

Idealism, Professor Haju points out, is not a fashionable philosophy nowadays in the West, but/ he claims, it ha s been the most comprehensive, and reached the greatest heights and depths, as well as being the best possibie foundation for the philosophy of life. No definition of idealism will satisfy all philosophers, but in Europe, the metaphysics that goes under that name holds that reality is of the na tHL e mind.” Dr. Haju defines it theory which asserts the reality of the ideal,” and thus implying a doctrine of value. From this standpoint, n e gives, an account of Vedantic and Buddhistic Idealism, with an appendix on the ideas of the famous Indian work called Bhagavadgita. There follows a yery . useful chapter on contemporary idealists in India, a summary which includes the doctrine sof Gandhi, Aurobindo Ghosh, Krishnamurti, Tagore, Mohammed Iqbal and others. The concluding chapter bears witness to the influence of Western activism on Indian thought. To the European, the typical Hindu minister is the contemplative who despises the visible world as illusion and believes mystical union with the Divine the only good. Professor Haju maintains that presentday Indian thought agrees that the negative attitude to the world, which has become associated with Indian philosophy is the result of a false doctrine. He observes that the original doctrines of the Brahmins were full of the zest for life and enthusiasm for action. The philosophical poem, the Gita, is meant to teach action. And it is ‘this aspect of ancient Indian teaching that many contemporary Indian philosophers want to bring to the front.” For Hadhakrishnan, the world is not illusion, but a mixture of reality and unreality; in spite of. his asceticism, Gandhi’s philosophy was one of action and true self-affirmation; Tagore sought to humanise the absolute; and Krishnamurti advocates anti-tradi-tionalism. These writers do not stand alone in their positive affirmations. The author himself conceives the task of idealism as that of transforming the world into spirit. He has written a book which is a veritable storehouse of information-about the thought not only of past times but of the present as well. *

Professor Heisenberg is a world famous physicist, whose “principle of indeterminacy” is one of the most revolutionary conceptions of modern science. In this book he draws out some of the philosophical implications of present-day physics. The subjects, dealt with are as follows:—recent

changes in the Foundation of Exact Science, the History of the Physical Interpretation of Nature, Questions of Principle in Modern Physics, Ideas of the Natural Philosophy of Ancient Times in Modern Physics, the Teachings of Goethe and Newton in Colour in the light of Modern Physics, the Unity of the Scientific Outlook in Nature,' Fundamental Problems of Present-day Atomic Physics, and Science as a means of International Understanding. Only a general acquaintance with physical science is needed to grasp the chief theme of the book, and this is that every great discovery “moderates, the pretensions of scientists to an understanding of the universe.” The fact that the conceptions which form the basis of classical physics fail when applied to the processes of nuclear physics shows that new laws must be used in new fields, and that “all cogrition is, so to speak, suspended over an unfathomable abyss.” The last chapter is concerned with science as an international enterprise. The author points out that every State wants to enlist science for the strengthening of its own political power. This condition of affairs produces a serious problem for the conscientious scientist, who realises that he has the power to release great forces which, unless sensibly used, will lead to chaos. But, because there is an absolute “right or wrong” in science itself, there is a ground for hope, an evidence that “a higher power, not influenced by our wishes, finally decides and judges.” This power is the “centre” of our existence and science is only one of the ways to it.