Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c7.s9.t8.9

v1.c7.s9.t8.9

Regarding epistemological issue, Vivekananda believed there were two ways of gaining knowledge: one was through experience, another was through introspection or intuition. Human knowledge arises from experience, which we call rational understanding, ie the understanding is gained from the partial to the general or from the general to the partial, also based on experience. Without experience nothing can be understood. Scientific research is an understanding based on man’s experiences. In this regard, there were materialistic components in Vivekananda’s epistemology, he affirmed that man’s correct understanding came from social practice and experience; there would be no correct understanding without practice and experience. But on the other hand, as a religious scholar, he also often discussed about this issue from the viewpoint of religious understanding. He believed that human beings also had a gifted cognitive ability, which was called “self-explanatory quality”; man could take advantage of this natural “self-explanatory quality”, through introspection or intuition to gain religious truth, which could not be understood through scientific methods, like the understanding of the truth of “Bráhman”, the highest noumenon of the universe or “Brahman is Atman”, and so on. He believed that Hindus were the people with this kind of 'self-explanatory quality', they could be finally enlightened and recognise their inner “I' were identical to Bráhman, the noumenon of universe, thus came to realise the supreme truth of “Brahman is Atman” through intuition and meditation in a variety of yoga practices.