A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c8.s4.4

c8.s4.4

16. Epistemologically, we are told in various passages of the Upanishads, it would not be possible for us to know the Self in the technical meaning of the word “knowledge.” Our readers might bring to mind the fact that Kant equally well regarded Reality, as consisting of God and the Self, as technically unknowable. These were, he said, merely matters of faith. The Upanishadic answer is that it is true that God and the Self are unknowable, but they are not merely objects of faith, they are objects of mystical realisation. Then, again, the Upanishads do not regard the Self as unknowable in the agnostic sense of the word, for example, in the sense in which Spencer understands it. Rather, it is "unknowable" from the standpoint of philosophic humility.