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Dear murugappan,



EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM:
There have been two major schools in philosophy which have been  having opposing views on the fundamental principle in metaphysics.. they have been dominating the medieval Europe for more than three decades . They are empiricism and rationalism.

The empiricists think that the knowledge  is a product of the inputs from the perceptual organs like eye,ear,nose ,tactile and taste. The perceptions lead to the knowledge of the universe. Hence they think the experience lead to the knowledge of the universe.

The rationalists however feel that the ideas or thoughts come first. Because we name the objects as such and such they become to be known so. In their view the mind is not a clean slate and the thoughts are already there to guide it. That is in essence the thoughts are primary and perceptions are secondary.


The empiricists were BERKLEY, LOCKEY AND HUME.
The famous rationalist’s were DECARTES, ESPINOZA AND LEIBNIZ.
Descartes famous statement” cogito ergo sum”  –I am thinking therefore I am….was instrumental in huge development of logic, scientific discoveries and industrial revolution.


In the middle of the 18th century an important turn took place in the empiricism-rationalism dichotomy. This is brought about by IMMANUEL KANT .

He was born in Konigsberg in present day Germany.  He proposed that the brain has the innate capacity to take both thoughts and perceptions and to evaluate them and process them to information and knowledge. It is the brain that is the seat of all our endeavors and everything beyond its comprehension becomes NOUMENA. What is available to our mind is called “PHENOMENA”. The analytic priori and synthetic posteriori were further extrapolated by him.

This has brought in what is known as the COPERNICAN VOLUTION  in philosophy. This is called TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM which gave new dimensions in the growth of epistemology, phenomenology, existentialism and psycho-analysis.
Saiva siddhantham is one of the  schools in India to embrace existentialism and phenomenology. In fact almost most of the hindu-buddhist schools have substantial body of phenomenology and existentialism in their thought. Terms like “aham brahmasmi, thathvamasi….pazham-nee” .etc have existentialistic connotations. (அஹம் ப்ரம்மாஸ்மி, தத்துவமசி, பழம்நீ.)

in saivite symbols we can see nataraja image( or any one of the 64 icons used to portray him) is called uruvam. Uruvam means an object as it appears to our senses-like a dancing anthropomorphic image of siva. This may be an empirical model of siva.
 In chidambaram temple the siva is also shown as aruvam. Aruvam means without image. a dark chamber is shown as the shiva.  the emptiness is felt with no sensory inputs and the god’s presence is felt by the idea only. This may be likened to a idealistic model of god.
But there is the third model for siva –that is the lingam. it is called as the aruvuruvam( aruparoopa). the lingam is a formless-form and can never be properly explained by the empirical experience or the idealistic mode.
This understanding of god is a “ thing in itself”. We cannot know this concept as such it appears to us. This trilogy of roopa,aroopa and aroopa-roopa reminds us the transcendental idealism model in kantian epistemology. The siva is an epistemological phenomenon and a concept to be learnt as a transcendental idea.  God is a thing in itself ( synthetic priori)and what we know about him is an “analytic posteriori”.

The siva gnana bodham verses four and five has dwelled on these basic issues of empiricism and rationalism and their irrelevance.
Affectionately,
 gandhiram

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