Abstract
Krishnachandra's re-articulation of Kant's transcendental system challenges Kant's conceptualization of 'apperceptive self' conceived as a logical function which is as well the precondition of all our knowledge claims. In Kant's framework, though this "unity of consciousness" is projected as a principle, which undertakes a foundational role as 'apperceptive I', it is capacitated with merely a logical function. Krishnachandra disagrees with Kant's reduction of function of the "self" to a logical process. This reduction would render knowledge of the "self" to be an inferential knowledge, thus making this derivation analogous to the proofs of the transcendental conditions of understanding and sensibility through the logical process of deductions. Krishnachandra's question is: whether this equation established between logical function of 'apperception' and the "self" will suffice to establish the "certitude" of knowledge claims. This is the first task Krishnachandra addresses in his work, Studies in Kant which is elucidated in the following section of this paper. Further, we will see how Krishnachandra’s exploration into the dynamics of this problem leads him to alternatively foreground the "unity", which is much sought by Kantian scholars, between the theoretical and the practical domains of Reason.
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Notes
K.C. Bhattacharyya’s (1875–1949) most prolific period of philosophical writings is recorded between the years 1928–1936 (Gopinath Bhattacharyya xi). See Gopinath Bhattacharyya. “Editor’s Introduction.” Studies in Philosophy Vol. I. Calcutta: Progressive Publishers. 1956. The Concept of Philosophy, regarded as one of his most important works came out in 1936. Burch regards Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya’s Studies in Vedantism (1901) to be his earliest works, about which he remarks that it is the “first competent attempt to interpret Vedanta philosophy in modern language”. See George Burch. “Contemporary Vedanta Philosophy, I.” The Review of Metaphysics Vol. 9 No. 3 (Mar., 1953) 485–504. The work, The Subject as Freedom, is regarded as the “first systematic formulation” of Krishnachandra’s own philosophy, which was delivered as lectures at Amalner in 1929 (George Burch, 487). Krishnachandra’s systematic work on Immanuel Kant titled, Studies in Kant, remained unpublished in his lifetime. It got posthumously published in the compilation of works edited by Gopinath Bhattacharyya that was published as Studies in Philosophy. Krishnachandra’s Studies in Kant is based on lectures he delivered at the Calcutta Philosophical Society during1935–36, which shows that these studies can be counted among those works that belong to the last period of his career. Apart from Krishnachandra’s Studies on Kant, the other western scholar on whom he has presented a close study is Hegel (Kalyan Kumar Bagchi, 194). See Kalyankumar Bagchi. “Bibliography on the Philosophy of Professor Krishna Chandra Bhattacharyya.” Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research. Vol. X No. 1 (Sept.-Dec. 1992). Krishnachandra joined as the Director of the Indian Institute of Philosophy, Amalner in July 1933 and held that position till September, 1935. This was the only period he lived away from Bengal during his lifetime.
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason. Eds. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge University Press. 2009. References to the Critique of Pure Reason are given parenthetically in the text, following the standard practice of “A” and “B” referring to the first and second editions of the text.
Ibid., 71–73.
Ibid., 73.
Though from the account given by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason, he gives out the impression that his transcendental system is a three-part project, Kemp Smith observes that Kant later denies this to be the case, and thus denies “critique” to be of merely “propaedeutic” value. Kemp Smith quotes from a statement that Kant made in 1799,
“I must here observe that I cannot understand the attempt to ascribe to me the view that I have sought to supply only a Propaedeutic to transcendental philosophy, not the System of this philosophy. Such a view could never have entered my thoughts, for I have myself praised the systematic completeness of the pure philosophy in the Critique of Pure Reason as the best mark of its truth.” See Norman Kemp Smith, A Commentary to Kant’s ‘Critique of Pure Reason’, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p.72.
For an explication of this point see R. Babu & P.G. Jung, “The ‘Incongruous Move’: From Actuality to Possibility of Metaphysics in Kant”, in Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research, [JICPR] Vol. 35, No. 3, 2018, 463–481.
Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya, “Studies in Kant”, Studies in Philosophy Vol. II, Ed. Gopinath Bhattacharyya. Calcutta: Progressive Publishers. 1958, p. 301.
Though, of course, it must be noted that “epistemology” was not a taxonomical appellation operational in the works of Kant, as this term got coined much later after Kant.
Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya, “Knowledge and Truth”, Studies in Philosophy, Vols. I & II, Ed. Gopinath Bhattacharyya. Motilal Banarsidass. Delhi: 2008, p. 514.
From a broader perspective, one can perceive this particular position adopted by Krishnachandra to be resonating with the general philosophical temperament favoring Vedantic vision of introspective knowledge of our self’s oneness with Brahman or the absolute self. This neo-Vedantic vision, which was in vogue during the colonial period in India, was the regnant perspective adopted by the nationalistic philosophic vision as a counter-perspective to the colonial paradigm of knowledge, which privileged scientific view of the absolute as represented by Kant, thus undermining Indian philosophical thinking as spiritualistic and redundant. Therefore, an alternative rendition of the argument presented here could have highlighted the comparative aspects between Krishnachandra’s re-interpretations of Vedantic thought, and that of Kant, or, as Garfield does, to etch this argument in terms of Krishnachandra’s assimilation of Kant’s transcendental system into Vedantic schema via grades of subjectivity, as presented in Krishnachandra’s work, Subject as Freedom. See Jay l. Garfield, “Solving Kant’s Problem: K. C. Bhattacharyya on Self-Knowledge”, in Indian Epistemology and Metaphysics, Ed. Joerg Tuske. Bloomsbury. London: 2017, pp. 355–77.
In contrast to these approaches, the focus of this paper is to extrapolate how Krishnachandra draws out the putative logical contradictions in Kant from Kant’s own structural apparatus.
Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya, “Knowledge and Truth”, p. 515.
Ibid.
In Kantian scholarship, the methodological process that distinguishes between the metaphysical and transcendental deduction is still debated, and so is the question about the telos of “transcendental reflection”. Krishnachandra’s significant contribution amounts to his rendition of transcendental method as “introspection”. See, Roshni Babu and P. G. Jung, “Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya on Transcendental Method as Introspection”, (forthcoming).
Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya, “The Subject as Freedom”, Studies in Philosophy, Vol. II, ed., Gopinath Krishnachandra, Calcutta: Progressive Publishers, 1958. p. 30.
Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya, “Studies in Kant”, Studies in Philosophy Vol. II. Ed. Gopinath Krishnachandra. Calcutta: Progressive Publishers. 1958, p. 302.
Ibid., p. 304.
Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya, “Appendix: Transcendental Method”, Studies in Philosophy Vols. I & II, Ed. Gopinath Bhattacharyya. Motilal Banarsidass. Delhi: 2008, pp. 721–22.
Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya, “Studies in Kant”, Studies in Philosophy Vols. I & II, Ed. Gopinath Bhattacharyya. Motilal Banarsidass. Delhi: 2008, pp. 667–678.
Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya, “Studies in Kant”, Studies in Philosophy Vol. II. Ed. Gopinath Krishnachandra. Calcutta: Progressive Publishers. 1958, p.305.
Ibid., p. 305.
Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya, “Studies in Kant”, Studies in Philosophy Vols. I & II, Ed. Gopinath Bhattacharyya. Motilal Banarsidass. Delhi: 2008, p. 666.
Ibid., 667.
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, Trans. Lewis White Beck. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. 1993, p.11.
Ibid., p.16.
Ibid., p.15.
Ibid., pp. 15–16.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 15.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., pp. 68–69.
Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya, “Studies in Kant”, Studies in Philosophy Vols. I & II, Ed. Gopinath Bhattacharyya. Motilal Banarsidass. Delhi: 2008, p. 667.
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, Trans. Lewis White Beck. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. 1993, pp. 69–70.
Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya, “Studies in Kant”, Studies in Philosophy Vols. I & II, Ed. Gopinath Bhattacharyya. Motilal Banarsidass. Delhi: 2008, p. 667.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., pp. 666–667.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., 667.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 666.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 668.
Ibid., p. 665.
Ibid., p.666.
Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya, “Studies in Kant”, Studies in Philosophy Vol. II. Ed. Gopinath Krishnachandra. Calcutta: Progressive Publishers. 1958, p. 304.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Funding
It is gratefully acknowledged that this paper benefited from the financial support I received as Research Assistant Sastri Indo-Canadian Project, PI: Prof. Siby K George.
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Babu, R., Jung, P. Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya’s Interpolation of Kant’s Idea of the “Self”. SOPHIA 60, 331–347 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-020-00760-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-020-00760-1