“Philosophy”, according to Roy, “Begins when man’s spiritual needs are no longer satisfied by primitive natural religion which imagines and worships a variety of gods as personification of the diverse phenomena of nature. The grown-up man discredits the nursery-tales, with which he was impressed in his spiritual childhood … Intellectual growth impels and emboldens him to seek in nature itself the causes of all natural phenomena; to find in nature a unity behind its diversity.”[
In his book Science and Philosophy Roy defines philosophy as “the theory of life”. The function of philosophy, in words of Roy, “is to solve the riddle of the Universe”.
Elaborating on his definition of philosophy, Roy says:
Philosophy is the theory of life, because it was born of the efforts of man to explain nature and to understand his own being in relation to its surroundings; to solve the actual problems of life in the light of past experience, so that the solution will give him an encouraging glimpse into the future.
Roy thought that in the absence of political freedom, economic equality is of no use and searched for truth and studied physical science, chemistry,psychology and philosophy extensively and abolished his own political party, Radical democratic party and his thoughts are known as radical humanism.
Roy’s thoughts are nearer to Gandhi and his school of thought. Both accepted the individual as the central point of all social thought and action.Both stood for decentralization of political and economic power, and both suggested party less democracy for purifying politics.
The fundamental differences between Roy and Gandhi are, Roy a materialist and rationalist while Gandhi was a spiritualist and relied more on his inner voice.
Roy says " so long as the purpose of politics is to capture power, we can not do without parties. But if we do not want to capture power, we can practice politics without parties. in the absence of a party, the practice of delegation of power disappears and also the constitutional sanction for the concentration of power. We can have a harmonious society, which will be a free society without destroying the freedom of the individual, where the freedom welfare and prosperity of society will be the sum total of the freedom, welfare and prosperity actually enjoyed by the individual men and women constituting that society"
His famous quotations are "Man is moral because he is rational." ‘Man is maker of his own world."
ROY thought of communism’s utter disregard of and contempt for man,
He found man had been reduced to the position of a helpless pawn in the hands of blind economic forces and an insignificant unit in the broad collectivity of a class. He was denied independence as well as sovereignty. He felt neither capitalism nor communism showed the way out the crisis.
Freedom is the basic value in radical humanism. It is the supreme value from which all human values are derived.
The function of life is to live. The basic incentive of organic becoming is the struggle for survival. It goes on throughout the long process of biological evolution, until in man ,it becomes the conscious urge from freedom, the supreme human value. Everything that man has done, every one of his acts, cultural progress motivated by that one urge.Man is finite, while the universe is infinite and his environment, in the analysis is the whole universe. consequently his struggle for freedom is eternal he can never conquer the universe. Therefore the urge for freedom is the only eternal thing in the human world. this urge enables man to acquire knowledge, he conquers his environment by knowing. radical humanism as a philosophy of life covers the entire field of human existence from abstract thought to social and political reconstruction. It does not believe in transcendentalism. according to it, man is the creature of nature, he is an integral part of the physical universe.The universe is a law governed system. There fore the urge for freedom lies in the animal struggle for survival. Everything that man has done, every one of his acts, cultural progress, scientific achievements, artistic creation, everything has been motivated by that one urge This urge enables man to acquire knowledge; he conquers his environment by knowing" There fore, man’s being and becoming his emotions will ideas are also predetermined. Therefore man is essentially ration.The reason in man is an echo of the harmony of the universe. morality grows as rationality develops. it is not necessary, therefore to o to any external or transcendental authority to trace the growth of man from a primitive human being to a civilized citizen.
According to Roy, the social struggle for human progress, the entire process of human evolution is nothing but the continuation of the struggle for existence on a higher level, where that struggle is no longer guided by instinct and natural selection but by intelligence, choice and reasoning.
Roy’s views on revolutio
I agree with Roy in relation to his observation that the human being evolves from a primitive, magical for of religion, which creates dependency. With this evolution comes an understanding of man as developing knowledge integrating social and psychological phenomena. I would say not all persons, because religious fanatics like Bush, Palin and Bin Laden for example, remain mired in this quasi religious primitivism forever.Roy thought that Communism was destructive of human freedom. That would only be the case with Stalinism, which was a perversion of Communism, however this would not apply to Socialism as practiced in some of the Scandinavian countriesJiyoti Basu, Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and Fidel Castro., Lenin and Leon Trotsky, In any case Roy is a great philosopher and his thoughts must be taken very seriously
No good author would attempt to demean his philosophical opponent with such treatment as
" The grown-up man discredits the nursery-tales, with which he was impressed in his spiritual childhood … Intellectual growth impels and emboldens him to seek in nature itself the causes of all natural phenomena;"
St. Thomas Aquinas is recognized and highly regarded in both philosophical and theological thought. To assert his Intellectual growth wasn’t those of a "grown up man" is to affirm the ridiculousness of the statement. To ideologically reduce the Christian ethos to "nursery tales" is to deny it’s history in humanity.
Essentially what I read so far, I’d say M.N.Roy’s worldview is scientism, and his philosophy bound to the physical, with no room for the meta-physical.
Too bad.
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I agree with Roy in relation to his observation that the human being evolves from a primitive, magical for of religion, which creates dependency. With this evolution comes an understanding of man as developing knowledge integrating social and psychological phenomena. I would say not all persons, because religious fanatics like Bush, Palin and Bin Laden for example, remain mired in this quasi religious primitivism forever.Roy thought that Communism was destructive of human freedom. That would only be the case with Stalinism, which was a perversion of Communism, however this would not apply to Socialism as practiced in some of the Scandinavian countriesJiyoti Basu, Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and Fidel Castro., Lenin and Leon Trotsky, In any case Roy is a great philosopher and his thoughts must be taken very seriously
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