Transgression of limits as fundamental to human condition

 Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra

Yes, Kierkegaard and Ricoeur can be compared with Berkeley, but primarily as points of philosophical contrast rather than similarity. While Kierkegaard and Ricoeur are associated with existentialism and phenomenology's focus on the individual subject and lived experience, Berkeley's idealism is fundamentally different, asserting that reality is only perceived as ideas in a mind. The comparison hinges on their divergent views of the self, reality, and the relationship between them. 

Kierkegaard vs. Berkeley

• Kierkegaard: An existentialist, he emphasized the individual's subjective experience, freedom, and responsibility in creating meaning, particularly through "leap of faith" and ethical choices.
• Berkeley: An idealist, he argued that objects only exist insofar as they are perceived ("esse est percipi") and are sustained by a divine mind.
• Comparison: The key difference is that Kierkegaard's philosophy is rooted in the lived, often paradoxical, experience of the individual, while Berkeley's is based on the nature of perception and the existence of a divine observer. 

Ricoeur vs. Berkeley

• Ricoeur: A phenomenologist and hermeneutic philosopher, he explored the self through narrative identity and the interpretation of texts and lived experiences. He focused on a "capable self" that develops through interactions with the world and others.
• Berkeley: As noted above, Berkeley's idealism is a theory of perception and existence, not a philosophy of selfhood or interpretation in the same way as Ricoeur's work.
• Comparison: Ricoeur's focus is on the dynamic, narrative construction of the self, while Berkeley's is on the fundamental nature of reality and existence itself. 

How to compare them

• Point of contrast: The most significant point of comparison is that Kierkegaard and Ricoeur focus on the self, identity, and meaning from a subjective, existential, and narrative standpoint, whereas Berkeley's philosophy is concerned with the objective reality of the world and is founded on the idea that it is all "in the mind".
• Metaphysical vs. phenomenological: Berkeley's idealism is a metaphysical position about the nature of reality, while Kierkegaard's existentialism and Ricoeur's phenomenology are primarily concerned with the human experience and understanding of reality.
• The role of the self: For Kierkegaard and Ricoeur, the self is an active agent that creates its own meaning and identity. For Berkeley, the self is a percipient, and the existence of a distinct, individual "self" is secondary to God's perception of ideas. 

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Vico, Hamann, and Bataille can be compared by their shared emphasis on the role of

myth and symbol in human understanding, though their ultimate aims differed: Vico and Hamann focused on human creation and history through language, while Bataille explored the transgressive, often violent, aspects of human experience. All three critiqued Enlightenment rationalism by highlighting the limitations of abstract, detached knowledge in favor of the messy, symbolic reality of human existence. 

Shared critiques of Enlightenment rationalism 

• Critique of pure reason: All three philosophers were critical of the Enlightenment emphasis on clear, distinct, and abstract rational knowledge, which they saw as inadequate for understanding the human world.
• Importance of myth and symbol: They all recognized that human understanding is not purely rational but is shaped by language, myth, and symbol.
• Turn to the human and the historical: Vico, Hamann, and Bataille all turned away from the study of nature to focus on the human world of culture, history, and the social, though they approached this in different ways. 

Vico and Hamann: The creation of meaning 

• Vico: Focused on how humans create their own history and social world through what he called "maker's knowledge" (
  

  $\text{verum et factum}$
  ), which is rooted in language and communication. He saw history as the product of shared cultural practices and the evolution of language.
• Hamann: Argued that thought itself is inextricably linked to language and that there are no "pure" or "clear and distinct" ideas that can exist apart from a symbolic medium. He saw language as a creative, not a transparent, medium for understanding the world. 

Bataille: Transgression and excess 

• Bataille: Shared a similar starting point to Vico and Hamann in critiquing rationalism but focused on the human experiences that lie beyond rational control.
• Focus on the "abject": He explored the darker, more transgressive aspects of human experience—such as violence, death, and sacrifice—that are often suppressed by rational systems.
• Critique of utility: Bataille believed that human existence is not solely about production and utility but also involves a "non-productive" expenditure of energy and a "sovereign" experience of excess and loss that defies rational analysis. 

How they differ 

• The purpose of the analysis: Vico and Hamann were focused on building a science of culture based on how humans create meaning, while Bataille was more interested in the breakdown of those systems through the exploration of what lies beyond them.
• Role of violence: While Vico saw violence as a part of the historical cycles of civilization, Bataille saw violence and the transgression of limits as a fundamental part of the human condition itself.
• Ultimate value: Vico and Hamann saw meaning-making as the fundamental human activity, whereas Bataille saw the "non-productive" expenditure of excess as a potentially more fundamental aspect of being human. 

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The Mother and Merleau-Ponty

 Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra

Yes, there are significant conceptual parallels that suggest the Mother's concept of the "mind of the cells" can be seen as compatible with, and a potential radical extension of, Merleau-Ponty's ideas on perception and the "lived body" or "flesh". 

Both ideas fundamentally reject Cartesian dualism (mind and body as separate substances) and propose that a form of inherent consciousness or intentionality is present at a basic, pre-reflective, material level of existence. 

Key Areas of Compatibility

• Rejection of Dualism: Both philosophies move beyond the traditional separation of mind and body. Merleau-Ponty argues for "embodied subjectivity," where the body is not merely a physical object but a constitutive element of experience and perception. The Mother's work in the "yoga of the cells" goes further by positing a specific "mind of the cells" as a tangible, subtle consciousness within matter itself, which can be directly accessed and transformed, thus operating entirely outside a dualistic framework.
• Primacy of the Body/Perception: Merleau-Ponty's core thesis is the "primacy of perception" and being "geared into" the world through our physical existence. This echoes the Mother's focus on the material, cellular level as the crucial ground for a fundamental transformation of consciousness, moving beyond abstract spiritualism to an "Earth-of-Truth" that is embodied.
• A "Mind in Matter": Merleau-Ponty's later concept of the "flesh of the world" refers to a "primordial and mysterious tissue" that underlies and gives rise to both the perceiver and the perceived. This resonates strongly with the Mother's description of a consciousness inherent in atoms and elementary particles ("mind of matter") and the "mind of the cells," which she sees as a type of memory that can be reprogrammed for an evolutionary shift beyond illness and death.
• Pre-reflective and Non-cognitive Consciousness: Merleau-Ponty's "body schema" allows humans to move knowledgably in the world without reflective awareness, suggesting a non-conscious or pre-conscious form of intelligence in the body. The Mother's "mind of the cells" is precisely this kind of fundamental, age-old, and largely unconscious (to the everyday mind) awareness that needs to be brought to light and transformed through yoga. 

Potential Difference in Scope

While compatible, the two concepts exist within different overall frameworks:

• Merleau-Ponty offers a philosophical and phenomenological account of human perception and existence as we currently understand it, providing a robust critique of objectivism and dualism.
• The Mother's concept is part of a radical spiritual/yogic framework (Integral Yoga), aiming at an evolutionary transformation of the physical body itself into a new, supramental species. Her work explores practical methods for achieving this cellular transformation, which goes beyond the descriptive analysis of human experience found in Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception. 

In summary, the Mother's concept can be seen as an attempt to explore the "mind of the cells" from a first-person, experimental perspective, which aligns well with the non-dualistic, embodied foundations laid out in Merleau-Ponty's work.

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Maurice Merleau-Ponty [1907-1961], the French phenomenologist, is known for formulating a fresh notion of perception anchored on our embodied existence. In a clear departure from Brentano, Husserl and Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty brings in the idea of gestalt and dares to interrogate the lived-body. Far from offering a conclusive philosophy, his explorations into the seamless mind-body whole remains a testimony to limits of intellectual autonomy, even as his books remain incomplete. The question of man, the world and the Being engages him to the point of despair. In the manner of a physical scientist, he searches for the ultimate building-block and calls our constitutional element, the flesh. The earth, as a similar abstraction, is for him a holistic endeavour for harmonious living, the function of philosophy being tilted in favour of feeling and practice.

It has been aptly commented that the questions emanating from this deep analysis have spiritual overtones. It can, therefore, be safely asserted that Merleau-Ponty takes the tradition of western philosophy to its limits beyond which it is the realm of intuition and mysticism. It is interesting to recall that Heidegger, too, arrives in analogous environs, albeit through a separate route. At this point, it is important to bear in mind that it is not proper to club Merleau-Ponty along with the dominant tradition of biology, vitalism, feeling, will-to-live, Eros or libido. His scrutiny of the body-mind-continuum, in contrast, is an honest endeavour to undo the damages wrought by earlier one-sided over-emphasis.

It would be too far-fetched to find links in the work of this fellow French contemporary with the elaborate investigations on the body that The Mother was busy with. Nevertheless, there are commonalities of much significance and interesting possibilities.

Posted by Tusar Nath Mohapatra at October 14, 2005

https://selforum.blogspot.com/2005/10/merleau-ponty-and-mother.html 

Posted by Tusar N Mohapatra at 10:52 PM, Friday, October 14, 2005 Tusar Nath Mohapatra at 9:25 PM

https://savitriera.blogspot.com/2007/02/merleau-ponty-takes-tradition-of.html