Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Philosophy deals with our mental ability to overview and conceptualize


more on integral knowledge

Study of the Humanities

The six faculties of our consciousness have essential correspondence with the main humanitarian subjects: 1) Psychology deals with our subjective processes of thinking and self-evaluation; 2) Philosophy deals with our mental ability to overview and conceptualize; 3) Linguistics deals with our faculty of Speech, as a device of communication and self-expression; 4) Sociology and History deal with relationship as such: how the individual and collective relate to one another, on the scale of space (Sociology, Ethnography etc.) or time (History); 5) Art and Culture deal with the refinement of our feelings and senses. 6) Science of Nature deals with Matter as such - the Physical in an objective way.


Every key subject can be combined with another subject, giving it a new dimension. For example, Philosophy of Science, Psychology of Art, History of Philosophy, History of Linguistics, etc. These key disciplines, of course, may include other subjects and topics related to their field of concern. For instance, History of Psychology could include Mythology of Self-discovery (Vedic Mythology, Egyptian Myths, etc.), History of Occultism and Yoga, History of Religion; etc.

Such an approach to knowledge, where all major cognitive functions and capacities of our consciousness could be integrally exercised, is needed for modern education. Having identified the nature of different studies with their cognitive faculties of consciousness, the scholars themselves in their subjective approach could become the field of research. The self-education then would be direct and effective. The division on subjective and objective approach to knowledge would have only a classifying value within the field of studies and the humanitarian disciplines would become a means for self-education, necessary to develop Metaphysical, Psychological, Social (Historical), Artistic, Linguistic and Scientific modes of Consciousness, tuning them to the One Consciousness beyond. Such an integral approach might prepare a wider ground for a truer perception of our life, and lead us eventually to a globalisation of our faculties, opening them up to higher possibilities. <<Previous Page Yoga is nothing but practical Psychology... Sri Aurobindo     

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

The only evidence for consciousness in and by itself is its own self-experience


Understanding Thoughts of Sri Aurobindo, Ed: Indrani Sanyl & Krishna Roy
by Debashish on Fri 07 Sep 2007 12:48 AM PDT  |  Permanent Link
by Srikanth on Sat 08 Sep 2007 03:15 PM PDT |  Profile |  Permanent Link
Wonderful book review! Substantial, focussed, and synthesizing! 

Debashish, does Kireet Joshi say anything about how exactly genetic alterations/mutations or physical changes in DNA affect "consciousness"? For that matter does anyone? What might be the physical basis for the connection? True - mutations are the basis of several diseases - but is "consciousness" regulated or influenced by specific or groups of genes as well? Can we at least speculate as to how sensory awareness and mental capacities of an organism distinguish themselves from "consciousness" at the genetic level. Scientists are very close, I think, to understanding the functions of various genes individually and in association with others, but I am not so sure that they can make the distinction, at least not yet. Reply
by Debashish on Mon 10 Sep 2007 08:43 AM PDT |  Profile |  Permanent Link
No, Kireet Joshi does not comment directly on the relationship between genetic mutations and consciousness except to point out that this question is one that remains unaddressed by biological evolutionary theories, which consider evolution purely in terms of form and function. But quite evidently, nature demonstrates an evolution of consciousness as well, which is why philosophers such as Bergson, Whitehead or Sri Aurobindo who address this question, cannot be dismissed. 
Regarding speculation on the relation between the two, clearly the complexity of form and function is related to the expression of consciousness, but consciousness has an independent basis which is self-evident. By "self-evident" I mean the only evidence for consciousness in and by itself is its own self-experience. The self-evident knowledge of consciousness is primordially non-dual darshana, then the objectification of direct vision of self-experience, pratyaksha, then intuition and finally faith. 
Science has proceeded by shutting the avenues of this form of direct knowledge and rests entirely on external evidence for "proofs." Hence the question of consciousness cannot be adequately answered by it. Only a science of consciousness can answer the question regarding the true relation between evolution of consciousness and form, such for example, as Mother's discovery of the mind of the cellsDB Reply

Monday, December 28, 2009

Where modern science and technology are taking us

Phenomenology: Nature, Science and Technics
The theme for the 2010 meeting of the International Symposium on Phenomenology is “Phenomenology: Nature, Science and Technics.” The dates of the meeting are 12-17 July 2010 in Perugia Italy.
Today it is an opportune moment to re-investigate the ties that unite us with technics, to ask where modern science and technology are taking us. Inspired by Husserl’s and Heidegger’s critiques of modern science and technology, as well as Merleau-Ponty’s critical interrogations of the sciences of nature, the ambition is to create a dialogue between phenomenology broadly construed, the sciences, and technology. If contemporary science has changed the way we think of nature and of ourselves as an organism, species, or being, and if technology has changed the temporality of existence and the relation to space, then how does phenomenology respond to, and what does it become in light of, these developments? The phenomenological, the post-phenomenological, and even the non-phenomenological approaches to this network of questions are all invited to participate in this dialogue.
Among the questions we wish to address are the following:
– In a time characterized by an important, perhaps unprecedented, scientific and technological innovation, how does one reflect, beyond any technophobia or technophilia, on the relation of phenomenology to technics/technology in its plurality of expressions?
– What can phenomenology gain from a careful and critical attention to investigations conducted in the sciences? Conversely, what does phenomenology offer to the sciences?
– What are the philosophical and ontological implications of research in the sciences and developments in technology for the meaning of human being? Is human being alienated and de-humanized, or is it rather the case that technology open new possibilities to enrich our experience, give access to new dimensions of reality, and reconfigure the relations of the human to Being?
With these questions, then, we invite you to consider this Call For Papers. Anyone who would like to be considered for a presentation should send a short, paragraph-long description of current research on the theme to Bob Vallier at rvallier@depaul.edu no later than 1 March 2010. Those who might like to attend the Symposium may also send enquiries to Bob Vallier. A website is forthcoming. call for papers from Object-Oriented Philosophy by doctorzamalek
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Thursday, December 24, 2009

Indian Institute of Advanced Study

Beauty, Art, and Man: Studies in Recent Indian Theories of Art pabitrakumar roy 
INDIAN AESTHETICS AND ART ACTIVITY Indian Institute of Advanced Study
Towards a literary history of India (Occasional papers / Indian Institute of Advanced Study)
Some concepts of Indian culture;: A philosophical interpretation Narayanrao Appurao Nikam 
Some Concepts Of Indian Culture N.A. Nikam
India and Europe: Selected essays (Writings from the Indian subcontinent) Nirmal Verma
Rethinking Indian Federalism Rasheeduddin Khan 
God in Advaita A. G. Krishna Warrier
Social Philosophy: Past and Future Daya Krishna 
Philosophy and religion (IIAS occasional papers)

Philosophy of psychoanalysis Mrinal Miri
Gandhi and the present global crisis

Self-images, identity, and nationality

Religious consciousness and life-worlds

The Indian philosophy of beauty (Madras University philosophical series) T. P Ramachandran 
Lectures on some aspects of Indian social philosophy T. P Meenakshisundaram 
The realm of between: Lectures on the philosophy of religion K. Satchidananda Murty 
Causation in History Indu Banga

Jitendra Nath Mohanty


Classical Indian Philosophy: An Introductory Text
January 28, 2000
$29.95
The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl: A Historical Development (Yale Studies in Hermeneutics)
June 17, 2008
$55.00
Phenomenology: Between Essentialism and Transcendental Philosophy (SPEP)
June 20, 1997
$29.95
Essays on Consciousness and Interpretation: Edited with an Introduction by Tara Chatterjee
August 1, 2009
$39.95 $35.04
Reason and Tradition in Indian Thought: An Essay on the Nature of Indian Philosophical Thinking
February 11, 1993
$125.00
Logic, Truth and the Modalities: from a Phenomenological Perspective (Synthese Library)
March 31, 1999
$124.00

August 22, 2002
$35.00

Monday, December 21, 2009

Reason, Faith, and Transformation of Consciousness


Vision and volition for l’avenir


Manifesto

The sense of the end of an epoch hangs strongly over our times, whether in the hegemonic notion of the end of a Hegelian world history, the culminant rational godhood of the Enlightenment or the exploding apocalyptic millenarianism claiming sectarian fulfillments from every direction of the earth. The age of science and technology uniformalizes the world today under the sign of neo-liberal globalization. Multinational capitalism streams through nation-states constructing its control apparatus, a omniscient panopticon, poised to fulfill the prophecy of the modern knowledge academy – the human sciences dictating a universal anthropology and psychology based on behaviorism and the market, configuring world populations as standing reserve and increasingly as appendages of fantastically efficient machineries, meshed together in finer and more invisible systems aspiring to the condition of integrality.
Against this, singularities of all kinds revolt, in suicide missions of mutual destruction in the name of god’s will and its universal claim on world history. Origin myths, blood cleansing rites, control societies of historical purity raise their shrill voices in a discordant cacophony – or is this rather the ambiguous harmony of a new subjectivity? Is it possible anymore to talk of humanism, when human consciousness is physically and metaphysically thought of and described in terms of platforms for running machine-codes of Darwinian algorithms; or when a tangle of human destinies contest the future and in the thick of this contest, human agency is forcibly hybridized in incalculable ways? Who and how many are the seen and unseen contestants slouching towards Bethlehem to be born?  Our technologies are increasingly the ubiquitous environments of our Lifeworld. Will humanity disappear in technology or will technology disappear in the human? In this the age of comparative-culture-gone-crazy in which the digital commodity forms of hyper-modernism assault consciousness mercilessly at almost every waking moment, are there a set of inexorable options or alternate modernities that can grow rhizomatically from our present orientation to promise a future free from the terror of code, the horrors of consumerism, and the death wish of fundamentalism?
And what kind of human would remain to live such a future – what universal anthropology redeemed as the collective body of poesis and techne? Is this the possibility held out by purnayoga that deterritorializes human consciousness in terms of its subjugation to the desiring codes of prakriti (nature) but languages a reconstruction of the sacrificed body of purusha (soul) in terms of tapas and shakti? How can a practice that cultivates a Foucauldian care of self wield its inner technologies to harvest attention and sublimate desire to facilitate the reversal of the equation of purusha and prakriti, freedom and control? Given the blind play of word forces kneading an unpredictable chaos is the epic imagination or self-discipline conceivable to the liberal humanist subject who suffers the painful memory traces of a long history of failed metaphysics?
If man is ropewalker between beast and overman we are suspended above a species aporia vacillating in a present in which the soul’s history has become tightly bound to its destining as technological artifact, its individuation a process of binary abstraction from networked circuits of global collectivization. The question that confronts the human future is not simply one of inevitable change or endings but whether the last man whimpered or not before succumbing to its post-human destiny. But can a transitional vision and volition (prakamya, aishwarya) play some role in the ruptured arrival of the post-human? At what we consider a temporal bifurcation point of not one but many post-human destinies we stand poised before we the editors of this webzine engage with theoria to negotiate these questions to explore the fashioning of new tools for a praxis of individual and social contemplation of l’avenir.