The Self and Its Knowledge: The Legacy of Rasvihary Das

Abstract

This essay explores Rasvihary Das ’s idea of self-knowledge and tries to situate his thoughts in contemporary perspective. This essay begins with a description of the source and nature of the philosophical problem that one confronts when one talks about self-knowledge . Contrary to Rasvihary, a non-objectual view of self-knowledge has been shown to be worth considering. In the latter half of the essay, an account of different kinds of avowals has been taken up for scrutiny against the background of Rasvihary’s ascription of immediacy to self-knowledge.

Rasvihary Das (1894–1973) was born in district Sylhet , now in Bangladesh . He received his higher education in Kolkata. He was deeply influenced by two of his teachers, viz. B.N. Seal and K.C. Bhattacharyya , both very distinguished philosophers of early 20th century India. After completing his postgraduate studies at University of Calcutta, he joined Indian Institute of Philosophy, Amalner where he stayed for more than two decades, first as a senior fellow and then as Professor of Logic and Metaphysics. Here in Amalner he received training in Indian philosophy from some of the best traditional pandits. Later, he joined as a faculty in philosophy department of University of Calcutta where he was till his retirement. He was also visiting professor at the Universities of Harvard and Gottingen . He was the founder of Indian Academy of Philosophy, Calcutta that still fosters research and various other programmes in philosophy.