We are living in a topsy-turvy world. An unprecedented turmoil has gripped us economically, politically, socially and morally. Galloping inflation, mounting unemployment, political instability, earth-shaking revolutions and people’s heroic struggles as well as various brands of ‘socialism’ contradicting each other, increasing atrocities committed by the state, widespread bloodshed, degradation of moral values, break up of emotional family ties, recurring natural and man-made disasters, energy crisis, all-pervading corruption, unique scientific explorations and inventions coupled with the danger of nuclear and chemical warfare, rising international tensions, and so on—all these things are perplexing our mind. Why this universal turmoil? We try to jump into the whirlpool, but then seek refuge in fatalism, status-quo-ism. Sometimes it seems as if some mysterious forces are tearing apart our established order in vengeance; but at other times the same forces look generating hope for a better life.
Philosophy is commonly understood as something mysterious, something outside realm of our daily practical life, but simultaneously it is considered universally applicable also. In everyday life people often use philosophic aphorisms. In case some one dies prematurely, his relatives often say in consolation ‘Who can stop the ever-moving chariot of destiny? Life and death, loss and gain, fame and infamy are all in the hand of all powerful destiny.” But time comes when mare fatalism does not work. Complex object conditions of life to have a bird’s eye-view, but to get involved in those intricacies, solve complex problems and take decision. Like all other branches of knowledge, philosophy took shape in the process of solving practical problems of life. Therefore, questions like what is philosophy, how did it take shape, how can it be utilized in changing the society and the nature – are all every important to be dealt with.
Hence let us turn to our past – the last stage of savagery or the beginning of barbarity. Hunting then was the principal means of subsistence of our ancestors. Cultivation or animal husbandry was still not prevalent. What would have been their attitude towards nature at that time? They viewed Nature as it was. To go deep into the mysteries of Nature was beyond their bounds. To view Nature simply as it was, is called primitive materialist outlook. In ancient Greek philosophies and earlier Vedic mantras, we find glimpses of this outlook. Still today in certain parts of our globe, there are some tribes whose mode of living resembles those of our ancestors. At that time, they did not need any ‘abstract thought’, neither was it possible. Certainly they did cognise some of the mysteries of Nature, but that cognition by and large was spontaneous. They were still not confronted with the question of interrelation between matter and mind. Sooner or later, this question was bound to come and it came somewhat strangely. The primitive materialism was unable to solve this riddle.
At that time, human beings were still completely ignorant of the structure of their own bodies. They were not acquainted with the functioning of brain. Dreams often used to haunt their mind. In Upanishads, there is a story which reveals how dreams were a great anxiety for our ancestors. A king approached a great saint of that age with three questions; the first was “who does speak within us and remains active when we are asleep?” A bulk of Yajnvalkya’s teachings consists of his analysis of dreams. So, under the stimulus of dream apparitions men came to believe that their thinking and sensation were not activities of their bodies, but of a distinct soul which inhabits the body and leaves it at death – from this time men have been driven to reflect about the relation between the soul and the outside world. If after death it took leave of the body and stayed on, there was no occasion to invent another distinct death for it. Thus arose the idea of its immortality.
“The common universal ignorance of what to do with this soul, once its existence had been accepted after death of the body, led in a general way to the tedious notion of personal immortality. In an exactly similar manner the first gods arose through the personification of nature forces.” To appease them prayer, magic, rituals, witchcraft, sacrifice etc. became the order of the day Religions gradually came into being and stabilised these rituals. With the intellectual development of men, finally out of all these gods, there arose one and exclusive god. The old materialism was thus negated by idealism.
Though these concepts did not correspond with objective realty, men came to such conclusions only to explain and solve problems of life. So, despite so many unscientific rituals they continued to carry out their efforts of controlling and remoulding Nature. On the one hand, they resorted to ghost worship and witchcraft to eliminate disease and on the other, continued to discover medicinal herbs. On the one hand they conducted yajnas and worships for rain but on the other continued to build canals and reservoirs to fight drought.
Thus, the question of the relation between thinking and being, the relation between spirit and nature, is the paramount question of the whole of philosophy. The answers which the philosophers gave to this question split them into two great camps. Those who asserted the primacy of spirit to nature, and therefore assumed world creation (by God or some ‘Absolute Idea’) in some form or other, comprised the camp of Idealism. The others who regarded nature as primary belong to the various schools of Materialism. The contradiction between Idealism and Materialism is the basic contradiction of philosophy and through this struggle the philosophy has developed.
Different philosophical systems played important roles in the development of human knowledge under different conditions. Any philosophy by (be it materialist or idealist, dialectical or metaphysical) can not be eugolised as ‘progressive’ or dubbed as ‘reactionary’ in an abstract manner. Of course, it is true that in any class society, philosophy being the expression of ideological superstructure, struggle between the two mutually exclusive philosophical ideas, is essentially a reflection of class struggles in society. Bearing these aspects in mind let us advance in our systematic and comprehensive study of philosophy.
