Page 46 - NAMAH-Oct-2022

Namah Vol. 30, Issue 3, 15th October 2022

our psychological nature is like putting the this double movement. Sri Aurobindo writes
cart in front of the horse. about three types of research methods:

Love is a powerful force that moves within 1. Metaphysical
our subjective space but to reduce it into 2. Scientific and
chemical molecules and biophysics is to 3. Vedic
confuse the flag for the source of wind.
We need a different orientation, a different Metaphysical method
starting-point, and a different research
method for investigating the psychological Philosophical research, pure mathematical
forces that emerge in our inner space, a research and research in theoretical physics
method that can reveal a different worldview fall into this category of research. How does
and its forces at work. the double movement unfold in metaphysical
research? Sri Aurobindo states that, “The
Research methods direct process of metaphysics is speculation, its
confirmatory process is reasoning under strict
Research into psychological forces demands rules of verbal logic …. (3).”
research methods that are appropriate for
the domain of research and this raises the
question of what are the methods of research
available to us. Sri Aurobindo writes:

“All processes of intellectual discovery feel
the necessity of reposing upon some means
of confirmation and verification which will
safeguard their results, deliver us from the
persistent questioning of intellectual doubt
and satisfy, however incompletely, its demand
for a perfectly safe standing-ground, for the
greatest amount of surety. Each therefore has
a double movement, one swift, direct, fruitful,
but unsafe, the other more deliberate and certain
(2).”

There are many processes of intellectual
discovery and each method has developed its
own way of confirmation and verification. But
what is common between them is the double
movement, first a direct and swift process Srinivasa Ramanujan, the famous mathe-
of knowing followed by a slower, systematic matician, was known for this direct and
process of confirmation of that knowledge. Let us swift process of knowing which, for the
find out how different research processes apply lack of better words, we may say is by

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