religion
Philosophy, Logic and Language
This book by Kalidas Bhattacharyya is a collection of essays on different topics. However, the first seven essays and the eleventh one do have a thematic unity. They are in one way or another linked to the questions regarding the nature and method of philosophy – a theme that we find often in the writings of Kalidas Bhattacharyya. Essays 1 to 5 and essay 6 are directly concerned with the role of language and logic in philosophical reflections. He touches upon Logical Positivism and Analytical Philosophy in this regard.
The other key issue that Bhattacharyya considers here is the nature of Self. In particular, Bhattacharyya has been keen on exploring the nature of the self we refer to by the pronoun “I” and its relation to the other selves.
The concept of God also finds its place in two of his essays here. Bhattacharyya also discusses the problem of freedom in almost all the essays, in particular the ones on self. One interesting yet rather divergent topic that is discussed by Bhattacharyya is the idea of the Given and its Appearance. Two essays are on specific philosophers – one on Rabindranath Tagore and another on Basanta Kumar Mallik.
The Essays are:
- Is Philosophy Linguistic Analysis
- The Business of Philosophy
- Language, Logic and Fact
- Objective Attitude and Idealism Proper
- Thought and its Validity
- The Given and its Appearance
- The Nature of Reflection in Metaphysics
- Modern Psychology and Hindu Thought
- Self and Others
- The Concept of Self in Buddhism
- Formal and Actual Freedom
- Approaches to Spiritual Life
- Studies in Ethical Theory
- A Modern Defense of Orthodoxy
- Rabindranath on Religion
- An Aspect of Mallik’s Philosophy
- Classical Philosophies of India and the West
- An Outline of Indian Philosophy
The Problems of Philosophy
The present book is an introduction to the main issues dealt with in Western philosophy. This book is divided into eleven chapters: 1. The concept of philosophy, 2. Philosophy, science and religion, 3. The methods of philosophy, 4. The nature of knowledge, 5. The relation of knowledge to object, 6. Objects of knowledge as constructions, 7. Sense-data and the perception of objects, 8. The nature and tests of truth and error, 9. The theory of external relations, 10. The theory of Internal Relations, 11. The nature of universals, and 12. thought and reality.