Brahman and Objective Reality.

Following an interesting debate that took place in Anand's post recently, I thought I'll post a view on Brahman and objective reality. Rene Descartes, the father of modern philosophy talks about three types of realities-eminent reality, formal reality and objective reality. The definitions are as follows:

(1) Objective reality: x is objectively real if x is the object of an idea (this comes close to what in modern terminology would be subjective reality - existing 'in' the mind).
(2) Formal reality: x is formally real if x has actual existence in the world represented by an idea (i.e. exists 'outside' the mind).
(3) Eminent reality: x is eminently real if x exists without limitation or imperfection, as contained within a higher level of being (from the standpoint of the world in which we exist, that which is eminently real exists potentially, not actually).

For example, when we think of the sun, we think of it as a two dimensional disc. This idea of the sun which exists in the mind is the objective reality. The actual existence of the sun as a three dimensional sphere with hot gases is the formal reality. The eminent reality is something like God which exists potentially but cannot be comprehended actually (by all).

Also, Descartes gives a nice hierarchy of these realities. He says, eminent reality contains formal reality and objective reality, formal reality contains objective reality (three dimesional sun exists which appears as two dimensional disc) and the objective reality can stand alone. I think this is analogous to three types of realities mentioned in Visishtadvaita. The philosophy of Visishtadvaita is based on Tatvatriya as mentioned in this post. Tatvatriya is the classification of realities into insentient (Achit), sentient (Chit) and Brahman which corresponds to objective reality, formal reality and eminent reality respectively. The objective reality (idea of insentient things) exists in the mind, the formal reality (like consciousness or sentient things) is outside the mind and it can comprehend objective reality and thus resulting in a kind of inclusion. Similarly, Brahman or eminent reality includes formal reality and objective reality. Descartes attributes God to eminent reality. A note should be made here that Visistadvaita doesn't suppose any kind of inclusion between achit and chit, where as Descartes assumes such inclusion.

Anyway, coming back to the question of Brahman and objective reality, we can conclude something from the above observation. This view reconciles the debaters views that Brahman is not the objective reality and Brahman is the basis for the objective reality.