Chapter 2 – Role of Experience in Philosophy
Sri Madhwacharya defines Philosophy as the determination of things as they are in themselves (tatva nirnaya - svartham paratham va tatwanimayasadhini A V.P. 19). In such a determination experience (Anubhava) plays a very important role. Experience is to Sri Madhwacharya, the most secure foundation for philosophical speculation. Philosophy not based on experience is barren and experience not informed by philosophic enquiry is blind and has no significance. In so far as philosophy deviates from the dictates of experience it falls short of being philosophy at all. At the very outset of his philosophy, therefore, he lays great stress on the role of experience in philosophy. To Sri Madhwacharya experience is the sole criterion of truth and no knowledge opposed to experience has a place in his philosophy. The whole world he says is afraid of going against the dictates of experience (sarvaloko bibhetyanjo yasmadanubhava vatsada A.V.P. 29). In the building up of the mansion of philosophy the critical examination of experience in all its diverse forms would be the concrete brick and mortar.
Value of Experience in Philosophy
Why is experience so pre-eminently placed in philosophy? It is because, experience possesses the hallmark of personal conviction. To experience is to get convinced. Lessons in the school of experience are never learnt ill. To experience is to get convinced and nothing satisfies the human mind so completely and forcibly as experience. Experience is a hard taskmaster pitiless, unrelenting, and uncompromising. Sri Madhwacharya therefore stakes all his philosophy on experience. Again, and again in his works he appeals to the dictates of experience. Experience has certain unique features which give it its value in philosophy. Besides having the characteristic of carrying conviction, experience In Its native simplicity has the characteristic of being unsublated or of being uncontradicted. Experience is never sublated. When I experience misery at some time, at no future time can I believe or realise that what I experienced was not misery. What I experience, I experience. A later experience, again, cannot contradict an earlier experience. When it is said that experience is non-self-contradictory in character it is very Important to realise what experience means. Almost all experiences are coloured by the interpretation of the perceiving mind and conflicting experiences, if any. arise owing to the association of such interpretation. Almost all observations of the senses are unconsciously associated with interpretation and inference. Pure experience, shorn of the interpretation due to the active perceiving mind and the ever-present tendency to infer cannot be self-contradictory. In a mirage, for instance, the actual deliverance of perception is merely the presentation of a reflecting surface or what appears to be so. But the mind generally associates such a reflecting surface with a sheet of water and the observation of a sheet of water in a mirage is thus coloured by the association by the mind with a sheet of water experienced at an earlier time. We have here an illustration of the role of inference In experience. The contradiction of what was thought to have been experienced as a sheet of water and the later realization of the absence of the sheet of water are due to the pure experience of a reflecting medium being interpreted by the mind as a sheet of water. Pure experience as such, is non- contradictory in character. The non-contradictory character (abadhyatva) of experience is to Sri Madhwacharya an infallible guide in all cases of doubt. In all cases of doubt the appeal is to experience and again and again in his works Sri Madhwacharya appeals to the dictates and deliverance of experience. It is this unique feature of experience that gives it its preeminent place in the Philosophy of Sri Madhwacharya.
Abadhyatva of Experience
The characteristic of unsublatedness (abadhyatva) is borne out in the daily experience of one and all. When I experience misery at some time, at no future time can I be made to believe that the misery experienced was no misery. What 1 experienced. I experienced; nothing can alter that. The characteristic of unsublatedness forms the cornerstone of the metaphysical foundations of Sri Madhwacharya's philosophy. Experience is thus given a very important role in philosophy and the enthronement of experience in the realm of philosophy forms a very significant contribution of Sri Madhwacharya to the metaphysical speculation of Indian thinkers.
Definition of Truth as unsublated
The concept of unsublatedness (abadhyatva) is also an equally significant contribution to the metaphysical contribution of Indian metaphysics. What is truth? is a great question in philosophy. Sri Madhwacharya’s answer to that question is truth Is that which is unsublated (Abadhyam Satyam). The whole philosophy of Sri Madhwacharya is built upon this postulate and all the metaphysical concepts in his system are derived on the basis of experience, which is always unsublated. What is given in pure experience must of necessity be real. Because reality consists in being unsublated and true experience Is inherently unsublated. Sri Madhwacharya accordingly solves the fundamental and persistent problems in philosophy such as the problem of knowledge, the notion of substance and quality, the concepts of space and time, the mind body problem, the concept of individual self and Supreme self, and the relation between them, in a most convincing manner in his various works by a thorough-going analysis of the different aspects of experience to all humanity. No aspect of experience is left out of account but has its proper place in the evaluation of experience.
Fundamental tenets of the system
The fundamental tenets of his philosophy follow from a brief analysis of experience. From a careful analysis of the process of acquiring knowledge during the three states of consciousness of daily life, viz., wakefulness, dream, and deep sleep, the existence of the self (individuals) as the agent of cognition is established. Space and time are derived as entities perceived directly by the self (or sakshi) without the Intermediary of the external organs of cognition. An examination of the knowledge of external objects leads to the concept of matter as different from the perceiving mind and self and matter existing as ontological reals (sathya). The uniqueness of individual experiences leads to the concept of essential difference between individual selves (jiva-jiva bheda).
The individual self-experience shows, is limited In capacities and powers and it Is also dependent (asvatantra). This argues in favour of invoking a controlling Independent (svatantra). All knowing (sarvajna) being as the controller of the world of animate and inanimate beings. Such an Independent principle of Being, Sri Madhwacharya identifies with Vishnu in the Vedic literature. By the very nature of being Independent and dependent, the Independent and dependent are different essentially from another. The independent Vishnu, because He is independent is Perfect (purna) and All knowing (sarvajna). While the Individual self and the inanimate world are given in experience. God is not so given or derived as the deliverance of experience. He can be known only through scriptures that inform us about Him are the Vedas. The Vedas form the supreme and only source of our knowledge of Him in as much as they form the only authority regarding the moral values of life. The Vedas are apauruseya (not composed by any author, human or divine) and are therefore Infallible. God can be known only through such an infallible scripture (shastraikavedya). The knowledge of things composing the world can be derived from three sources. Viz., sense perception (pratyakhsa), inference (anumana), and scripture (agama).
The elucidation of these tenets on the basis of experience as inculcated by Sri Madhwacharya is attempted in the following chapters.