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		<b><font face="Times New Roman"><i>The Philosopher as an Artist&nbsp;
and Philosophy as an Art</i> </font></b></p>
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<font face="Times New Roman">I WONDER why Philosophy has never been considered as a
variety of Art. Philosophy is admired for the depth and height
of its substance, for its endeavour to discover the ultimate Truth,
for its one-pointed adherence to the supremely Real; but
precisely because it does so it is set in opposition to Art which
is reputed as the domain of the ideal, the imaginative or the
fictitious. Indeed it is the antagonism between the two that has
always been emphasised and upheld as an axiomatic truth and
an indisputable fact. Of course, old Milton (he was young,
however, when he wrote these lines) says that philosophy is
divine and charming:</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Not harsh, and crabbed as dull fools suppose,
</font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But musical as is Apollo's lute.<sup>1</sup></font><sup>
</sup>

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<font face="Times New Roman">Well, I am not sure if the poet was anything more than being
metaphorically rhapsodical, at the most he had only a poetic
perception, he did not give us the scientific truth of the matter.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">In the face of established opinion and tradition (and in the
wake of the prophetic poet) I propose to demonstrate that
Philosophy has as much claim to be called an art, as any other
orthodox art, painting or sculpture or music or architecture.
I do not refer to the element of philosophy—perhaps the very
large element of philosophy—that is imbedded and ingrained
m every Art; I speak of Philosophy by itself as a distinct type
of authentic art. I mean that Philosophy is composed or created
in the same way as any other art and the philosopher is moved
and driven by the inspiration and impulsion of a genuine artist.
Now, what is Art ? Please do not be perturbed by the question.
I am not trying to enter into the philosophy—the metaphysics—</font>

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<font size="2" face="Times New Roman">1 <i>Camus,<b> </b> I<b>,</b> 477-8.</i> </font>
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Page 251<hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">of it, but only into the science—the physics—of it. Whatever
else it may be, the <i>sine qua non,</i> the minimum requisite of art is
that it must be a thing of beauty, that is to say, it must possess
a beautiful form. Even the Vedic Rishi says that the poet by
his poetic power created a heavenly form—<i>kavih kavitva divi
rupam asajat.</i> As a matter of fact, a supreme beauty of form has
often marked the very apex of artistic creation. Now, what does
the Philosopher do? The sculptor hews beautiful forms out
of marble, the poet fashions beautiful forms out of words, the
musician shapes beautiful forms out of sounds. And the
philosopher ? The philosopher, I submit, builds beautiful forms
out of thoughts and concepts. Thoughts and concepts are the aw materials out of which the artist philosopher creates<br>
mosaics and patterns and designs architectonic edifices. For
what else are philosophic systems ? A system -means, above all,
a form of beauty, symmetrical and harmonious, a unified
whole, rounded and polished and firmly holding together. Even
as in Art, truth, bare sheer truth is not the object of philosophical inquiry either. Has it not been considered sufficient
for a truth to be philosophically true, if it is consistent, if it
does not involve self-contradiction? The equation runs:</font>&nbsp;
<font face="Times New Roman">Truth=Self-consistency; Error =Self-contradiction. To discover the absolute truth is not the philosopher's task—it is
an ambitious enterprise as futile and as much of a <i>maya</i> as the
pursuit of absolute space, absolute time or absolute motion in
Science. Philosophy has nothing more to do—and nothing
less—than to evolve or build up a system, in other words, a
self-consistent whole (of concepts, in this case). Art also does
exactly the same thing. Self-contradiction means at bottom,
want of harmony, balance, symmetry, unity, and self-consistency means the contrary of these things—the two terms used
by philosophy are only the logical formulation of an essentially
aesthetic value.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Take, for example, the philosophical system of Kant or of
Hegel or of our own Shankara. What a beautiful edifice of
thought each one has reared! How cogent and compact,
organised and poised and finely modelled! Shankara's reminds
me of a tower, strong and slender, mounting straight and
tapering into a vanishing point among the clouds; it has the
characteristic linear movement of Indian melody. On the other</font>
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Page 252<hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">hand, the march of the Kantian Critiques or of the Hegelian
Dialectic has a broader base and involves a composite strain, <i>a,</i> balancing of contraries, a blending of diverse notes: there
is something here of the amplitude and comprehensiveness of
harmonic architecture (without perhaps a corresponding
degree of altitude).</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; All these systems, commonly called philosophical, appear<b> 
</b>to me supremely artistic. The logical intellect has worked here
exactly like a chisel or a brush in the hands of the artist. It
did not care for truth <i>per se,</i> its prime preoccupation was
arrangement, disposition; the problem it set before itself was
how best to present a consistent and unified, that is to say, a
beautiful whole.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But the philosopher's stone is not, after all, a myth, as is
being proved by modern science. Even so, the philosopher's
truth—the truth, that is to say, in the noumenal sense, to
which he aspires in his heart of hearts—is also existent. There
is a reality apart from and beyond all relativities and contingencies: truth is not mere self-consistence, it is self-existence.
Art and philosophy as an art may not comprehend it, but
they circuit round it and even have glimpses of it and touch
it, though the vision they have more often aberrates, distorting
a rope into a snake.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It is a grain of this truth that is the substance and the core
of all true art and philosophy. Philosophy works upon this
secret strand by its logic, art by imagination—although logic
and imagination may not be so incommensurable as they
are commonly thought to be; even so, both art and philosophy
arrive at the same result, viz., the building of a beautiful
superstructure.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This golden core of truth comes from elsewhere—it is beyond the <i>mayic</i> circle of art and philosophy. To have access
to it, a lid overhead is to be broken through—rather, as it
is said, it is that that breaks through of its own accord and
reveals its identity.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Plato would not tolerate the poets in his ideal society since
they care too much for beauty and very little for the true and
good. He wanted it all to be a kingdom of philosophers. I
am afraid Plato's philosopher is not true to type, the type
set up by his great disciple. Plato's philosopher is<b> </b> no longer</font>
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Page 253<hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">an artist, he has become a mystic—a Rishi in our language.</font>&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
<font face="Times New Roman">For we must remember that Plato himself was really more
of a poet than a philosopher. Very few among the great
representative souls of humanity surpassed him in the true
poetic afflatus. The poet and the mystic—Kavi and Rishi—are the same in our ancient lore. However these two, Plato
and Aristotle, the mystic and the philosopher, the master and
the disciple, combine to form one of these dual personalities
which Nature seems to like and throws up from time to time
in her evolutionary march—not as a mere study in contrast,
a token of her dialectical process, but rather as a movement
of polarity making for a greater comprehensiveness and richer
values. They may be taken as the symbol of a great synthesis
that humanity needs and is preparing. The role of the mystic
is to envisage and unveil the truth, the supernal reality which
the mind cannot grasp nor all the critical apparatus of human
reason demonstrate and to bring it down and present it to
the understanding and apprehending consciousness. The
philosopher comes at this stage: he receives and gathers all
that is given to him, arranges and systematises, puts the whole
thing in a frame as it were.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The poet-philosopher or the philosopher-poet, whichever
way we may put it, is a new formation of the human consciousness that is coming upon us. A wide and rationalising (not
rationalistic) intelligence deploying and marshalling out a
deep intuitive and direct Knowledge—that is the pattern<b> 
</b>of<b> 
</b>human mind developing in the new age. Bergson's was a
harbinger, a definite landmark on the way. Sri Aurobindo's <i>The Life Divine</i> 
arrives and opens the very portals of the marvellous temple city of a dynamic integral knowledge.</font>

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