Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Philosophy needs to critically engage the traditions outside of Europe

Eagle's Eye: Mind your mind Central Chronicle Tuesday, October 26, 2010 H Infant Vinoth
According to Sri Aurobindo: spiritual mind is that, which in its fullness aware of the self, reflecting the divine in oneself and awakening to high knowledge. And super-mind according to him is, to achieve the state of Sachidananda, the power of self-awareness and world awareness. 

Christianity and its others from The Immanent Frame by Peter van der Veer
Philosophy has never been able to completely shed its roots in Christian theology, despite the deeply anti-metaphysical project of analytical philosophy. What is called continental philosophy continues to be heavily invested in theological thought, as the work of Teilhard de Chardin and Jean-Luc Marion (or, in the Jewish tradition, that of Levinas and Derrida) testifies. However, it is the global challenge of Islamism that has forced deeply secular philosophers, like Jürgen Habermas, to at least partly engage their Eurocentrism. The secular project in the West has been so successful that Christian philosophers like Charles Taylor think that they live in a secular age. The fact, however, remains, that the majority of humanity lives in the Global South and is not secular, although secularism as a political project can be found everywhere.  At this juncture in world history, philosophy needs to critically engage not only the traditions of Europe but also those outside of Europe. This has hardly happened, and therefore it is anthropology rather than Western philosophy that continues to be the disciplinary site of that engagement.
By far the greatest problem for the anthropological study of Christianity today is that it is not part of a comparative endeavor that examines the interaction of religious movements and projects in different regions of the world. In South, South-East, and East Asia, we find extraordinary competition between different religious movements: Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and others. Also, within these religions this competition is intense—for example, between Shi’as and Sunnis, or between Protestants and Catholics. Since Christian missions were the first modern endeavors of their type in the world, many of their tactics and strategies have provided models for other religious movements. Education, health care, and social welfare are the fields in which these movements are competing with each other, often without much presence of the state. In refugee camps in Asia, one finds also a heated competition for the souls of the displaced.
An element that needs careful consideration in the study of religious networks and competition between religious movements is the issue of religious freedom. The U.S. in particular is at the forefront of attempts to enlarge the space for Christian missionary activity in countries that limit possibilities for proselytization. It brings the issue up during trade negotiations, like those around entry to the WTO. While one can sympathize with efforts to make the exercise of religious practice and belief more free in countries that have long faced suppression of religion, the fact that there are close connections between such clamors for religious freedom, American evangelism, and American politics makes it into a highly contested issue. Perhaps the anxieties surrounding Saudi Arabian support for Wahhabi mosques in Europe can be referred to for a better understanding of the anxieties that surround U.S. supported Christian evangelism in Asia.

I've been meaning to catch up on the discussions over Buddhism and objects/relations, Slavoj Zizek's critique of "Western Buddhism," and related topics, which have been continuing on Tim Morton's Ecology Without Nature, Jeffrey Bell's Aberrant Monism, Skholiast's Speculum Criticum Traditionis, and elsewhere. I haven't quite caught up, but here are a few quick notes on some of what's been said... 1) Michael at Archive Fire rightfully points to the virtues of Jeffrey Bell's lucidly articulated point that...

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Abellio, Sri Aurobindo, Gurdjieff, and Husserl

Mudpacks and Prozac: experiencing Ayurvedic, biomedical and ... - Page 18 - Murphy Halliburton - 2009 - 232 pages - Preview
For every Husserl, Heidegger and Dewey, there is a Śankara, Praśastapāda and Aurobindo, and these philosophers have had a role in shaping how people in India, and in other places where people are in dialogue with Indian thought, ...
Lectures on consciousness and interpretation - Mohanty, Jitendranath Mohanty, Tara Chatterjee - 2009 - 168 pages - No preview
J.N. Mohanty is one of the most distinguished philosophers India has produced in recent years. Written mostly in the 21st century, this collection deals with the nature of consciousness and its interpretation.
Reading Hegel: The Introductions - G. W. F. Hegel, Aakash Singh, Rimina Mohapatra - 2008 - 272 pages - Full view
Bringing together for the first time all of G.W.F. Hegel's major Introductions in one place, this book ambitiously attempts to present readers with Hegel's systematic thought through his Introductions alone.
Beyond Orientalism: the work of Wilhelm Halbfass and its impact on ... - Page 101 - Eli Franco, Karin Preisendanz - 2007 - 673 pages - Preview
... Bankim Chandra Chatterji, Aurobindo Ghose are all Bengalis. The list of non- Bengalis, to whom comparable attention is given in India and Europe, is much shorter and may be actually exhausted by three names: Dayananda Saras vati, ...
Buddhism: art and values : a collection of research papers and ... - Lokesh Chandra - 2007 - 469 pages - Snippet view
The philosopher E. Husserl said that Europe alone can provide other traditions with a universal framework of meaning and understanding. ... Sri Aurobindo has said: "When we have passed beyond knowing, then we shall have Knowledge. ...
Within the four seas--: introduction to comparative philosophy - Page 439 - Ulrich Libbrecht - 2007 - 634 pages - Preview
... what Husserl calls 'the inner horizon of their time' and are not able to distance themselves from it. ... Five of them compare to Sankara, one to Ramanuja, two with the Samkhya philosophy and one to Sri Aurobindo. ...
Lifeworlds and ethics: studies in several keys - Margaret Chatterjee - 2006 - 179 pages - Preview
Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change Series IIIB, South Asia, Volume 11 Lifeworlds and Ethics Studies in several keys Indian Philosophical Studies, XI
r by Margaret Chatterjee R -V The Council for Research in Values and ...
Space-Time Continuum - Page 77 - K. Pramila Sastry - 2006 - 308 pages - Preview
Again, Husserl desired to give a rational texture to philosophy and furnish it with scientific clarity. ... as Aurobindo would put in his interpretation of the Upanishads: "It is both the beginning and end, the cause and the result of ...
Religion, philosophy, and science: a sketch of a global view - Debi Prasad Chattopadhyaya, Indian Institute of Advanced Study - 2006 - 253 pages - Snippet view
... of Post Modernism the reader may like to familiarize himself at least with some works of Husserl and Heidegger. ... See, in particular, Sri Aurobindo and Karl Marx: Integral Sociology and Dialectical Sociology, Macmillan, New Delhi, ...
Indian literary criticism in English: critics, texts, issues - P. K. Rajan - 2004 - 363 pages - Snippet view
... Plato to the contemporary scene — Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Husserl. ... KD Sethna rightly notes the main points of Aurobindo's candid criticism of Cousins (Sri Aurobindo on Shakespeare 5-6). ...
Choice; books for college libraries: Volume 41 - Association of College and Research Libraries - 2004 - Snippet view
She also discusses the transformations of the Advaita theory of consciousness with reference to Sri Aurobindo, KC Bhattacharya, and JN Mohanty; she compares the Indian theories of consciousness with those of Husserl, Heidegger,...
Foundations of a Global Spiritual Awakening - Page 34 - Edgar John Burns - 2003 - 332 pages - Preview
Western philosophers such as Hegel, Schopenhauer, Husserl, Bergson, Toynbee, and de Chardin certainly owe a great debt to Eastern thought and mysticism in general. In the twentieth century, great Eastern teachers including Sri Aurobindo...
Knowledge, consciousness and religious conversion in Lonergan and ... - Page 17 - Michael T. McLaughlin - 2003 - 318 pages - Preview
... thought with other philosophical systems and approaches; those of Kant,Husserl, Paul Ricoeur and others. ... aims to make a step forward in Lonergan studies by bringing together Lonergan and the Neo-Vedanta of Sri Aurobindo. ...
A moral critique of development: in search of global responsibilities - Page 274 - Philip Quarles van Ufford, Ph Quarles van Ufford, Ananta Kumar Giri - 2003 - 309 pages - Preview
In this context, Sri Aurobindo writes: 'Rome was the human will oppressing and disciplining the emotional and ... order and law' (Sri Aurobindo 1962: 89). 6 JN Mohanty (in Gupta 2000), building on Edmund Husserl, calls this enigma. What Mohanty writes about the ...
Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research - Indian Council of Philosophical Research - 2003 - Snippet view
... from Greek philosophers to modern and contemporary western thinkers like Sartre, Husserl, Putnam, Dennett and Davidson among others, as well as Indian philosophical standpoints of Yoga, Advaita Vedanta, Tantra and Sri Aurobindo. ...
Hinterlands and horizons: excursions in search of amity - Page 142 - Margaret Chatterjee - 2002 - 139 pages - No preview
Collection of nine phenomenological essays ranging across cultures and time periods - studies the historical and cultural evolution of the idea of amity and the concomitant concepts of fraternity, friendship, and tolerance.
The reader is exposed to a brilliant array of thinkers, among them Husserl, Buber, Levinas, Sri Aurobindo, Radhakrishnan, ...
Reflections on a white elephant - Page 160 - Mulk Raj Anand - 2002 - 229 pages - Preview
Before him Husserl had said: "In beginning one is empty..." Then by meditation one becomes aware of oneself! That is Yoga! ... But we can be aware... If we wish to be...
 What Sri Aurobindo calls inner soul can be reached only by deep Yoga. As he had become aware of universe by achieving his ...
Phenomenology and culture - Maija Kūle - 2002 - 292 pages - Snippet view
The founder of integral yoga Sri Aurobindo has said that to everybody capable of more or less consciously approaching the ... 81 E. Husserl, commenting on the principles of transcendentalism, noted that the old ontological doctrine ...
Antaral: end-century meditations - Saccidānandan, Sāhitya Akādemī - 2002 - 177 pages - Snippet view
... Tilak, Lala Lajpat Rai, Bipin Chandra Pal, Gopalakrishna Gokhale, SN Banerjee, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Aurobindo, ... unquestioningly follow the high priests of Western philosophy from Satre and Husserl to Derrida and Foucault. ...
Explorations in Philosophy: Indian philosophy - Jitendranath Mohanty, Bina Gupta - 2001 - 229 pages - Snippet view
We know of various excellent scholars who have been working on Kant, Husserl, Samkara, and Aurobindo. However, I know of no one who has contributed more than Mohanty to make both Indian and western thought accessible to the modern...
in western thought as well: Hegel thought his system to include, and leave room for, all others; Husserl regarded his ... I have in mind the three towering figures: of Gandhi, Tagore and Sri Aurobindo. While these three figures have ...
Sri Aurobindo Ghose: the dweller in the lands of silence - William Kluback, Michael Finkenthal - 2001 - 167 pages - Snippet view
Descartes, Hegel, Husserl reign supreme among them. Even their proclaimed opponents yield to reason's domination. Within the dimensions of knowledge, contingencies, possibilities, accidents, and ambiguities finally submit to reason. ...
History, culture and truth: essays presented to D.P. Chattopadhyaya Daya Krishna, K. Satchidananda Murty, Debi Prasad Chattopadhyaya - 1999 - 393 pages - Snippet view
Corpus of critical study on the thought and works of Debi Prasad Chattopadhyaya predominantly on philosophy of sciences with cultural philosophy; contributed articles.
Phenomenological inquiry in psychology: existential and ... - Page 385 - Ronald S. Valle - 1998 - 442 pages - Preview
Sri Aurobindo (1989). The psychic being. Wilmont, Wl: Lotus Light Publications. Boff, L. (1979). Liberating grace. ... Husserl, E. (1962). Ideas: General introduction to pure phenomenology. New York: Collier. James, W. ( 1 977). ...
Sociological abstracts: Volume 46, Issue 1 Leo P. Chall - 1998 - Snippet view
Changes in the term phenomenology as used by Edmund Husserl & Maurice Merleau-Ponty are outlined, particularly the idea that ... The future that Sri Aurobindo sought was not specific to any nation, but was that of the human personality, ...
Gurdjieff: Essays and Reflections on the Man and His Teachings - Page 269- Bruno De Panafieu, Jacob Needleman, George Baker - 1997 - 462 pages - Preview
In their own way Abellio, Sri Aurobindo, Gurdjieff, and Husserl each added what was missing, the third term of the infinitely vivifying: matter = energy = consciousness. The practical application of any teaching, ...
The Atman project: a transpersonal view of human development - Page 70 - Ken Wilber - 1996 - 240 pages - Preview
As Aurobindo explains, "By an utilization of the inner senses — that is to say, of the sense powers, in themselves, in their purely ... I do not mean to deny that either Bergson or Husserl saw beyond the centaur and into higher realms; ...
Interdisciplinary studies in science, technology, philosophy and ... - Debi Prasad Chattopadhyaya - 1996 - 323 pages - Snippet view
... account of the physical world, others like Aristotle, Ramanuja and Husserl defend a teleological theory of nature. ... In their efforts to reconcile these two views some evolutionists like Sri Aurobindo argue that there are two ...

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Leviathan contains the most devastating attack on Christian political theology ever undertaken

His time in England was fruitful in the making of lifelong friendships with the leaders of English thought in the stirring days of King Henry VIIIJohn ColetThomas MoreJohn FisherThomas Linacre and William Grocyn. … Erasmus's best-known work was The Praise of Folly (published under the double title Moriae encomium (Greek, Latinised) and Laus stultitiae (Latin)).[36] a satirical attack on the traditions of the European society, of the Catholic Church and popular superstitions, written in 1509, published in 1511, dedicated to his friend, Sir Thomas More, and inspired by De triumpho stultitiae, written by Italian humanist Faustino Perisauli born at Tredozio, near Forlì.

At this time Hobbes friend Mersenne was encouraging scholars to respond to Descates' forthcoming treatise Meditationes de prima philosophia. In 1641 Hobbes sent his critique to Descartes in Holland, and they were published in Objectiones with the publication of the treatise. The two men continued their discourse, exchanging letters on the Dioptrique, which had been published in 1637. Hobbes disagreed with Descartes' theory that the mind, independent from material reality, was the primal certainty. Hobbes instead used motion as the basis for his philosophy of nature, mind and society. His correspondence with Descartes led to a paper on his views on physics and a Tractatus Opticus to works published by Mersenne.

On the journey from London to Hanover, Leibniz stopped in The Hague where he met Leeuwenhoek, the discoverer of microorganisms. He also spent several days in intense discussion with Spinoza, who had just completed his masterwork, the Ethics. Leibniz respected Spinoza's powerful intellect, but was dismayed by his conclusions that contradicted both Christian and Jewish orthodoxy.
Leibniz disagreed harshly with Spinoza in Leibniz's own published Refutation of Spinoza, but he is also known to have met with Spinoza on at least one occasion[15][16] (as mentioned above), and his own work bears some striking resemblances to specific important parts of Spinoza's philosophy (see: Monadology).

Comparing Locke and Voltaire Locke and Voltaire - A Tale of Two Exiles by Rit Nosotro
The lives and works of these two men overlap each other, yet their views on politics and religion were quite different. They were different men too. Locke took a more humble view of his call, “…to be employed as a laborer in clearing the ground a little and removing the rubbish that lies in the way on knowledge.” Voltaire, on the other hand, determined to edify an entire country. Locke saw the need for religion in a steady government while Voltaire thought religion, especially Orthodox Christianity, was useless to the well being of a government. In the great experiment of America Locke’s views were put to the test. During the French Revolution the ideas of Voltaire were applied.

When the philosopher David Hume offered refuge to the persecuted writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau it was apparently a meeting of minds. But the friendship soon soured, casting a shadow over the Age of Reason and calling into doubt Rousseau's sanity and Hume's reputation …So, in less than a year, the relationship between Hume and Rousseau had gone from love to mockery by way of fear and loathing.
In hindsight, it seems unlikely that they were ever going to get along, personally or intellectually. Hume was a combination of reason, doubt and scepticism. Rousseau was a creature of feeling, alienation, imagination and certainty. While Hume's outlook was unadventurous and temperate, Rousseau was by instinct rebellious; Hume was an optimist, Rousseau a pessimist; Hume gregarious, Rousseau a loner. Hume was disposed to compromise, Rousseau to confrontation. In style, Rousseau revelled in paradox; Hume revered clarity. Rousseau's language was pyrotechnical and emotional, Hume's straightforward and dispassionate. JYT Greig wrote in his 1931 biography of Hume, "The annals of literature seldom furnish us with two contemporary writers of the first rank, both called philosophers, who cancel one another out with almost mathematical precision." 

As I have detailed in my latest book - which you can read here - there is a "natural order" in civilized human society. I am certainly not the first to think along these lines - in my collection of Basiat's essays, which you can read here, the second essay is on "natural order." Adam Smith too looked at human society as self-regulating and self-ordered. That is, Thomas Hobbes was wrong. It was Hobbes who recommended Leviathan to us all - and in that book he predicted that without the State, society would degenerate into a "war of each against all." Hobbes said that human interests are always in conflict. Bastiat said there was harmony. 

The fundamental preoccupation of classical western political philosophy has been to address the functioning of the human community. As rural village communities developed into city-states, the city provided the context in which philosophers understood themselves as human and then, progressively, as humans with specific rights prescribed by their context – they came to understand themselves as citizens. The contentions of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle over the nature of justice were fuelled by their identification of the city-state as a human arrangement to promote such a value (Meagher, 2008, 3-5). St. Augustine, moving away from Athenian concerns, contended that common good, lost on earth, ought to be recreated in a heavenly city. Machiavelli moved away from the tradition of founding philosophical utopias, yet he too began his work by classifying cities.
It is only with Hobbes that one first sees the privileging of the concept of the state as an entity that goes beyond the city (Ibid, 6-7). Skinner has attributed this to Hobbes’ desire to articulate the state in a new form – one in which sovereignty is located above both the ruler and the ruled – in effect, the manner in which we understand the state today (Skinner, 1989). While the utopia that was dreamt of and written about from Hobbes onward was no longer directly a city-state, it is undeniable that the city continued to be central to the imagination of the state in classical western political philosophy. Indeed, Henri Lefebvre argues that in “classical philosophy from Plato to Hegel, the city was much more than a secondary theme, an object among others. The links between philosophical thought and urban life appear clearly upon reflection, although they need to be made explicit” (Lefebvre, quoted in Meagher, op cit, 3).