We have not only failed in providing theoretical systems but also failed in realising this as a problem

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Book Review Analysis of Indian philosophical system
S. PANNEERSELVAM The Hindu Tuesday, Jun 09, 2009
ENDURING COLONIALISM — Classical Presences and Modern Absences in Indian Philosophy: A. Raghuramaraju, Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 545.

The Indian philosophical tradition has two periods: the classical and the modern. The author is of the view that, unlike in the classical period, there has been no new philosophical system or text in India in the contemporary period. With this as the backdrop, he explains, in the book under review, the contributions made by a contemporary Indian thinker, Veddera Chandidas, a known Telugu novelist who also served as Professor of philosophy at the Sri Venkateswara University in Tirupati. Though he was successful as a novelist, his philosophical views have not received the serious attention of the peers. His book, Desire and Liberation: The Fundamentals of Cosmicontology, is analysed by the author from the Indian and Western philosophical standpoints.

Notion of absence
One of the important philosophical themes is the notion of absence which involves pre-existence, post-existence, and non-existence. There are scholars who believe that colonialism has destroyed many philosophical systems in India. The author’s criticism that there was no significant text or philosophy during the colonial period may not be valid. During the colonial period, though there was no construction of philosophical system as in the classical period, the focus on man and his existential problems were not ignored. This is reflected in the philosophy of Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Gandhi, K.C. Bhattacharya, and many others. The traditional concepts were interpreted to suit man and his place in the society, thus exhibiting the interrelation between tradition and modernity.

The author says: “Philosophy could have played a major role and come with new theoretical system. We have not only failed in providing theoretical systems but also failed in realising this as a problem.” This view can be challenged. There has been a serious discussion on philosophical concepts, combining both theory and practice. Perhaps he is trying to look at contemporary Indian philosophy in comparison with the Western system, and this may not be correct.

According to him, Chandidas’ work is a complete metaphysical text and hence he tries to place it in the philosophical tradition and makes an analytical study by comparing the text with Indian systems such as Buddhism, Advaita, and Sankhya and also with those of modern thinkers like Descartes, Hume, Bergson, Hegel, Deleuze, and Foucault. One can understand his intention to place the text in the modern philosophical context. But then, any comparison has to be natural, not a forced one, and there should not be any ‘extra-reading’ of the text. This is one of the hermeneutical guidelines. Permanence

The first chapter explains the various aspects of permanence — pre-existence, existence, and post-existence. According to the Indian tradition, existence is caused by desires, and liberation is considered as devoid of desire. In the second chapter, the author shows how in Chandidas, we find a distinction between the ontic and the ontological. The ontic is structural and metaphysical, whereas the ontological is functional and empirico-physical. There is also the fusion of both which sustains oneness and plurality. The third is on the significance of creativity in Chandidas’ text, and here the comparison is with Roland Barthes, T.S. Eliot, Foucault, Deleuze, Bersani, and so on. Creativity as a multi-directional fusion is novelty, repetition, and aesthetic. In chapter four, Chandidas’ understanding of the nature of reality, causality, and temporality is examined.

The author shows how Chandidas’ notion of causality differs from the Indian conception and how it is related to the idea of process. The fifth chapter analyses ‘desire’, and the author is of the view that Candidas’ conception is more complex than that of Deleuze. For Chandidas, desire is continuous and multi-directed and is grounded in contradictoriness, and he thinks that liberation is not cessation of desire, but a perpetual process of intensification.

The author needs to be commended for presenting a difficult philosophical text in a simple and easily understandable way. His approach to the text is exemplary and the publication will certainly be of interest to specialists and students of philosophy alike.

Feenberg proposes a reversal of technological destining

Re: Heidegger, Habermas and the Essence of Technology by Andrew Feenberg
by Debashish on Sat 06 Jun 2009 06:15 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

AF: On this basis, I have argued elsewhere for a reform of modern technology to incorporate workers' skills and environmental limits into its very structure. Similar arguments could be made with respect to the possibility of culturally specific technological configurations.

In what I consider a brilliant analysis of the transformative handles of secondary technological characteristics, Feenberg proposes a reversal of technological destining. But, as he himself acknowledges technology permeates the modern lifeworld and determines our world experience and our identity ubiquitously:

Technical choices establish the horizons of daily life. These choices define a "world" within which the specific alternatives we think of as purposes, goals, uses, emerge. They also define the subject who chooses among the alternatives: we make ourselves in making the world through technology. Thus fundamental technological change is self-referential. At issue is becoming, not having. The goal is to define a way of life, an ideal of abundance, and a human type, not just to obtain more goods in the prevailing socio-economic model.

How much contrary agency do we have in such a world whose very episteme is technicity? I have tried to explore this issue in my articles on Techno-Capitalism and Post-Human Destinies (I, II and III)

Here I have tried to show that the intimate and perhaps inextricable braiding of technology and capitalism have led to the ubiquity of technology as the Modern episteme, instrumentalizing human agency to the point of radical objectification and commodification. This lethal compounding of technology and capitalism has set the discursive condition of our Age with technicity as the autonomous and mechanistic basis of an ever increasing and proliferating desiring, building system on system and girding the geo-sphere, bio-sphere and psycho-sphere with its determining regime.

Feenberg in his essay does not address this postmodern technological ubiquity and draining of human agency. Unless this is acknowledged, his critique and reformative initiative, while potentially fertile, will remain either impotent or insignificant. For a cultural revolution in the ground of technicity as he envisages, to be possible or make a difference, one must first theorize the social conditions of global postmodernity under which it can be enacted.

• Does post-industrial conditions of technicity offer any grounds for such a possibility?
• What social and political choices are necessary to take advantage of any such grounds?

What I believe Feenberg could profitably add to his critique is the transformation not merely of technological characteristics in production and distribution but in the agency of social becoming which will utilize such transformations in its alternate destining. DB Reply

That dogs identify other dogs as companions for forming social packs or for reproducing says nothing about the human experience of this class of objects. An empirical layer of human experience pertaining to such a class of objects bound by such behaviors may or may not be pertinent as cultural currency (language). Historical contingency determines such things for different societies. Still I can concede that over time commonalities of social experience in a variety of cultures may arrive at universals of description with certain irreducible bases. In fact, it is this problem of subjective indeterminacy which marks the reaction against the "Dark Ages" in Europe and the decision to ground human understanding in empirical descriptions of materiality - the birth of Science. DB Re: Convergent evolution Debashish Sat 06 Jun 2009 06:37 PM PDT Science, Culture and Integral Yoga

Negri's humanism desires a biopolitical enlightenment

Negri and vitalism from Critical Animal by Scu

Regardless, that Negri is not a vitalist, that he rejects the bergsonism in Deleuze, is a key and critical difference. Not just between Negri and Deleuze, but oddly also between Negri and Agamben. Negri does believe in an ontology of becoming, which clearly places him alongside Deleuze. And their shared interest in Spinoza and a Marxism that focuses on the production of subjectivity means this shouldn't surprise you. What changes however is that for Deleuze this ontology of becoming is rooted in a vitalism, with the force of life that comes from outside and exceeds everything. This life is certainly not contained within just the human, necessary. Though certainly life, as Deleuze (with and without Guattari) understands it includes things like metal, and various other things that would not traditionally be considered life.

For Negri, the ontology of production has nothing to do with the nature of life, but rather with the particular nature of humanity. To be human, for Negri, is rooted with our unique capacity for production, for living labor power. This is not vitalism, as people keep calling it, but humanism. And a not surprising humanism from a man whose early philosophical projects were undertaken in examining many of the great enlightenment era humanists (Descartes, Machiavelli, and a certain conception of Spinoza). And that this is a thinker who desires a new enlightenment, a biopolitical enlightenment. Now, I have no doubt that Negri would disagree with my characterization of this as humanism. Most likely because the production of subjectivity that is uniquely human for Negri can overcome itself (with all the Nietzschean and Foucauldian overtones this is suppose to evoke).

This humanism is also stands as stark contrast to Agamben. Negri believes it is when vitalistic concerns are introduced, when we come to care about zoe instead of just bios, that we see introduced the concerns of the thantopolitical. This comes to heart of Negri's criticisms of Agamben's figure of the homo sacer becoming a political figure. He is terrified that we will rally around naked life as something to be protected, which for him continues to justify being able to see humans as being separable from their bios.

Heidegger pays scant heed to the body in Being and Time

(title unknown) from enowning by enowning
Robert Vallier reviews Brett Buchanan's Onto-Ethologies, and notes the missing body in Being and Time's description of embodiment.

It becomes quite clear that Heidegger's interest in animality is less to determine its essential being, which he always seems to leave in suspense, but rather in the notion of "world," so that he might clarify the fundamental existential structure of Dasein as "being-in-the-world" through a comparative study. The very close reading of the relevant sections of the 29/30 course is clear and sober, and instead of propagating "heideggerese," clarifies it, cautiously examining and explaining every substantive claim in light of both Heidegger's overall project during these years and Uexküll's contribution (especially his notion of the Umwelt) to that project. I believe that these two chapters will (or should) become a standard secondary source for all those who want to question and understand Heidegger's analytic of animality and its relation to Dasein.

That said, Buchanan at one point contends that those (like Lowith, Sartre, Jonas, and Merleau-Ponty, to name just a few) who have rued that Heidegger pays scant heed to the body in Being and Time would gain much from close attention to what he says of animal being. I am not yet quite convinced by that claim. Certainly they would gain something, but the human body and embodiment, is qualitatively different from animality, and this difference is not simply a function of the degree and kind of world that Dasein has and is in, and in which animals are poor. Heidegger is always a bit cagey, I think, about the exact nature of that difference, and while Being and Time may be, as some claim, a wholly new and ontological description of embodiment, Heidegger does leave the originary structure of the body itself -- animal and human -- in suspense.

Reading Resides in the Voice and in the Hands from Fido the Yak by Fido the Yak

Dermot Moran, commenting on Merleau-Ponty (blogged about at However Fallible and Perverse Egalitarianism), argues that seeing is tactile, that even when our gaze moves from one thing to another, "we do not drop into the invisible." After a thing drops from visual focus there remains a background of the visible, analogous to a tactile background that remains after something has been touched. Moran then presents what appears to be an exceptional case. "Reading is a kind of seeing that has transcended the seeing of the letters and marks on the page and resides in the pure incorporeality of the meanings," he says. I, having expressed the view here that reading is coporeal, will offer a few words to elaborate my sense of reading and then, hopefully, further a critical appreciation of reading.

Instead of the transcendence of our bodily experience of written signs–there are reasons, such as the eye strain Moran cites, to believe that such a transcendence could never be perfectly accomplished–we should think of rough transpositions from one bodily mode of experience to another. Reading represents a practically silent transposition of the visual into the vocal, or, in the case of those who read sign language, a practically motionless transposition into the manual. Naturally one can read aloud or gesturally or both, and one can respond demonstrably as one reads, affirming or denying, testifying, commenting, revising, thinking, speaking. All reading passes through the faculty of speech, which resides in the body and its assuetudes. In fact it has its genesis in assuefaction, the faculty of faculties, so to speak, and this being the case it never transcends bodily experience.

Reading never transcends bodily experience. The idea can be critiqued. Obviously. I've raised the problem of the noetic faculty before, which according to some views would be a transcendent faculty, presumably, being transcendent, transcending even assuefaction itself. Quite a conundrum, given certain definitions of noesis. A version of the conundrum appears to be presented to us by Moran's idea of the pure incorporeality of meanings. Does it make sense for me to talk about a faculty for speech separate from a faculty for language, pure language, which according to many reasonable definitions allows for, indeed demands, the disembodiment of meanings? I've sometimes taken the view that the incorporeality of meanings is such a fantastic notion that those who propose it bear an onus to explain it. I've spoken of *language. Have I blinded myself to a reality of language? Of thought? How do I know what a body is? What burden do I bear?

The case of reading does not appear to a simple matter of transcendence into pure incorporeality. As in the past, I ask that you attend to your own experiences of reading as you think about the issue. As much as the eyes, reading resides in the voice and in the hands.

Comfortable perspectives of one's own belief system to make sense of the world

Re: Convergent evolution Tony Clifton Science, Culture and Integral Yoga

At the end of the day as far as the wider metaphysical issues that are called into play through these scientific accounts of evolution I really don't think there are any to be had. The evidence of physical evolution remains incommensurable with the explanations that can be given by any spiritual narrative.

In the end all metaphysical conclusions -even those of the atheist- that one draws from evolution are simply matters of interpretation. These interpretations will be constructed from ones own socio-religious orientation so that the final answer one wishes to find regarding the meaning of evolution will always be essentially dependent on the world view of the subject making the interpretation. Stephen Jay Gould as an agnostic will eschew teleology, Conway Morris as a Catholic will find satisfaction in a Christian narrative, a follower of Integral Yoga will defer to Sri Aurobindo's narrative on the evolution of consciousness.

For example in my own view contingency can reconcile to a metaphysical view of evolution that defers to a Lila or the free play of Spirit. But I have to admit that is just my own interpretation, and there are a myriad ways one can find to construct the facts to fit ones own theory.

The scientific narrative of evolution and the spiritual interpretations of the meaning of evolution are incommensurable because they belong to separate discipline that rely on different orders of experience. While one can interpret either discipline in terms of the other there is no master narrative to which one can appeal to verify these claims. Besides the cultural platform upon which both science and spirituality rest there is no meta-discipline to be found to reconcile the two world views of science and spirit, except perhaps to say that both are condemned to language and as such are both trapped within its linguistic and symbolic constraints.

At the end of the day investing physical processes that fall under the scrutiny of science with spiritual meaning or spiritual meaning in terms of quantifiable scientific processes does not so much speak to the "truth" of the matter as it does an attempt to make sense of the world and its phenomena by contextualizing them according to the comfortable perspectives of one's own belief system. tc

Of peppers, grapes, and philosophy

Continental Writing from Larval Subjects by larvalsubjects

One of the problems with Continental writing is that it is unreadable to anyone who lacks an extensive background in the history of philosophy. It is difficult, for example, to pick up a copy of Derrida’s Speech and Phenomena without already having a deep familiarity with the work of Husserl, and it is difficult to pick up Husserl without already having a background in a whole host of philosophical texts. Increasingly I have students approach me remarking that they have bought my book, Difference and Givenness. Every time I hear this I cringe with shame and embarrassment. What value could this book possibly have for them outside of a deep acquaintance with the work of Deleuze and familiarity with Kant, Bergson, Hegel, etc? I feel as if I’m wasting their money and the money of anyone who is not steeped in Deleuze.

I would like to write a book that anyone could pick up, regardless of whether or not they have a philosophical background. When I fantasize about writing such a book I am not fantasizing about writing a book that is “easy” or “clear”. Rather I am fantasizing about a book that could function as an element of other assemblages or networks without the reader already having to be linked in to a pre-existent and extensive network characterized by the history of philosophy... Is it possible, today, to write in the fashion of a Descartes, Spinoza, or Hume?

from Larval Subjects by larvalsubjects

Husserl begins with an obvious thesis – “look at the things themselves!” – yet in executing this project he unsettles our assumptions about what it is to experience the world and objects, opening a vast domain that continues to challenge central assumptions in cognitive science, psychology, the social sciences, etc. [5:27 AM]

From: Jitendra Nath Mohanty - Phenomenology. Between essentialism and transcendental philosophy - Chapter 3: Nicolai Hartmann's phenomenological ontology - Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 1997 pp. 26-27. [6:40 PM]

One of the errors of phenomenology — including both Husserl's and Scheler's — is that when it regards itself as investigation into essences, as distinguished from existence (as a consequence of eidetic reduction), it forgets that essences also have their Dasein (existence) and their Sosein, that Dasein is not as such real existence. There is also, as with essences and mathematical idealities such as numbers, and values, ideal Dasein.

Essays on Consciousness and Interpretation by J.N. Mohanty

Essays on Consciousness and Interpretation
Edited with an Introduction by Tara Chatterjee
Mohanty and Tara Chatterjee Oxford University Press
Add to Cart ISBN13: 9780195698510 ISBN10: 0195698517 Hardback, 168 pages
Feb 2009, Not Yet Published Price:$39.95 (06)
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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. Starting from the concept of consciousness as an event in time, he investigates the notion of consciousness as a social phenomenon. The temporality and historicity of consciousness are also emphasized. He examines experiences from various walks of life, from religion to quantum physics, from interpretation of perception to that of sacred Indian texts to demonstrate his theory. The introduction locates Mohanty's work in the larger context of philosophical discourses in the West and India. Product Details 168 pages; ISBN13: 978-0-19-569851-0 ISBN10: 0-19-569851-7 About the Author(s) J.N. Mohanty is Professor (Retd), Department of Philosophy, Temple University, Philadelphia

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For Hartmann, the Dasein-Sosein distinction is not quite the same as real-ideal distinction

Theory and History of Ontology. A Resource Guide for Philosophers
Nicolai Hartmann is only one of the many great figures of the past that have lapsed into oblivion, as witnessed by the well-known cases of Brentano, Peirce and Whitehead. From Roberto Poli - Foreword to Axiomathes - Vol. 12 Nos. 3-4 2001, Special Issue: The legacy of Nicolai Hartmann (1882-1950).

HARTMANN'S PHENOMENOLOGICAL ONTOLOGY
"How to get at the basis of Hartmann's ontology? Let us sketch the superstructure, and then descend into the depths of the foundation. Besides the two primary spheres, there are two secondary spheres of being — the spheres of 'logic' and 'knowledge'. These are mid-way spheres inasmuch as they share the categories of both the primary spheres. (Compare Whitehead's 'hybrid' entities.)

Following the Aristotelian tradition, Hartmann takes ontology as the science of beings as beings. Ontology is concerned with what first makes beings beings. The word "Sein" gives rise to the illusion, as if there is some entity or attribute corresponding to it, something over and above, may be, underlying or pervading the various beings. Hartmann rejects this thought. A science of beings as beings is not a science of any such entity or attribute as Sein. On the other hand, it can only be a science which lays bare the various spheres of being along with their general and special categories and inter-categorial (hence, inter-sphere) relations. Hence, ontology becomes a doctrine of categories, a "Kategorienlehre".

To keep these primary and secondary spheres along with their general and special categories before the mind, in their distinctions as well as in their interrelations, is essential for an understanding of Hartmann's ontology. Hartmann displays great acumen in drawing these distinctions and in keeping clearly apart what he considers to be distinct. Through these distinctions, he claims to have the clue in hand for avoiding many of the errors of the traditional ontologies.

There are two primary spheres of being : the real and the ideal. The real consists of the chain of temporal events. The structure of the real sphere is a stratification of various levels : the material, vital, psychical and spiritual. The stratification consists in the relation of "founding". The higher level is "founded" on the lower. The lower provides the basis for the higher. The real sphere has its general categories, those which determine the entire sphere, irrespective of the differences of strata. Such categories are, for example, the modal categories. But each stratum of reality has also its own special categories. The relation in which two levels of reality stand I o each other is concretely illustrated in the relation in whit l lie categories of the

The key to this entire discussion lies in the formulation of the nature of the ideal sphere. In setting aside what he calls the errors of tradition, Hartmann shows here his capacity at its best." pp. 116-117. From: Jitendra Nath Mohanty. Phenomenology and ontology. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff 1970 - Chapter XI. A recent criticism of the foundations of Nicolai Hartmann's ontology - pp. 115-128.

"... Hartmann regards ontology to be concerned with: (1) the two aspects ("moments") of being: Dasein and Sosein, or that and what; (2) the two spheres of being: real and ideal; and (3) the modalities of being: actuality, possibility, and necessity.

One of the errors of phenomenology — including both Husserl's and Scheler's — is that when it regards itself as investigation into essences, as distinguished from existence (as a consequence of eidetic reduction), it forgets that essences also have their Dasein (existence) and their Sosein, that Dasein is not as such real existence. There is also, as with essences and mathematical idealities such as numbers, and values, ideal Dasein. Husserl does sometimes insist that essences are a kind of objects sui generis, so it may be just right to interpret eidetic reduction not as abstracting from existence, but as abstracting from real existence. But, then there is the curious consequence that essences have both real and ideal existence (when they are taken in their purity). Hartmann seems to have wavered on this question. In his early work Grundzüge einer Metaphysik der Erkenntnis, he denied existence and individuality to ideal entities, but still ascribed to them Ansichsein, intrinsic being. In Die Grundlegung der Ontologie, he ascribed existence to them, but that only means he was taking "existence" and "Ansichsein" as being the same.

So, for Hartmann, the Dasein-Sosein distinction is not quite the same as real-ideal distinction. In addition, Hartmann insisted that some Soseins are "neutral" as against both real and ideal existence: "roundness" belongs to a real spherical ball as well as a geometrical circle.

If concerns (1) and (2) do not coincide, it is also a mistake to collapse (2) with (3). The latter mistake is committed by those who hold that reality is the domain of all that is actual, while essences are pure possibilities. A corollary of this view is that truths about reality (i.e., about what is actual) are contingent, whereas truths about essences (i.e., about pure possibilities) are necessary. This is a widely held view, and one of Hartmann's important theses is that this view is based on an inadequate analysis of modal concepts.

Hence the importance of modal concepts in Hartmann's thinking. It is only the modal concepts as pertaining to a sphere of being, which explicate the precise mode of being of that sphere. In other words, Hartmann held that while in an important sense we cannot say much about what "real existence" (or "ideal existence") consists in, the best we can do in this regard is to look at how the concepts of "possibility" "actuality," and "necessity" (and their opposites) behave with regard to the domain of reality (or, with regard to the domain of ideality). So we shall turn to his modal theory, but before I do that, perhaps a quick sketch of what he counts as belonging to the two domains would be in order.

The real world is a stratified structure, on Hartmann's view, with nonliving matter at the base, living organisms founded on it, mental reality founded on organic life, and spirit or Geist (including society and all social formations) at the apex. Each of these strata has its own categorial structure, and the entire domain of reality also has certain common structures.

The domain of idealities consists of: mathematical entities (such as numbers) , essences, and values. None of the idealities is spatiotemporally individuated. An ideality maybe instantiated or be an ingredient in many real individuals, without surrendering its own identity.

Besides these two primary spheres of being, Hartmann also recognized two intermediate (or hybrid) spheres: those of logic and cognition. With this brief sketch, let us look at his modal theory worked out in Möglichkeit and Wirklichkeit." From: Jitendra Nath Mohanty - Phenomenology. Between essentialism and transcendental philosophy - Chapter 3: Nicolia Hartmann's phenomenological ontology - Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 1997 pp. 26-27.

HARTMANN'S THEORY OF MODALITY
"In his Möglichkeit und Wirklichkeit (Berlin 1937, 2nd. ed. 1949), Hartmann gives us an ontological theory of the modes. He starts from a distinction between the modes of the various spheres of being, primary and secondary. The two primary spheres of being, according to his ontology, are the real and the ideal. The two secondary spheres are those of logic and knowledge. The modes of the real world are accordingly contrasted with those of the ideal realm; the modes of the realm of logic are again different from those of knowledge. The modal doctrine is thereby divided into four parts. But there must be also a part on the relations between these different spheres.

Traditional discussion of the problem of modality did not see clearly through these distinctions. This gives to Hartmann's treatment of the problem its originality. Further, these modes of the various spheres are distinguished from the naive day to day consciousness of modality.

The ontological point of view requires specification. For this purpose, we are to distinguish between three different approaches to the problem of modality:

First, it is possible to consider the modalities as criteria for classifying all objects in the three groups, those that are merely possible, those that are both possible and actual, and those that are possible, actual and also necessary.

Secondly, it is possible to consider the modes as if they were different stages of a process. Thus, it may be said that a thing first becomes possible, then is made actual, and further may or may not be necessary. The process however may not be carried to the end; what is possible may never be actualised.

Thirdly, the modes may be taken neither as criteria nor as stages of a process, but as the constituent aspects of the existent or the subsistent, as the case may be. This is the point of view which we may call the critical point of view, because we may trace it to Kant. Kant starts from the given object of experience and then asks how the same is possible, actual and necessary.

Hartmann rejects the first two approaches. Modes are for him neither criteria nor stages, but the most primary characteristics of the being of anything. As such, given an object of experience, we can ask: what makes it possible? What makes it actual? What makes it necessary?

Thus in an important sense, Hartmann's treatment of the problem is similar to Kant's, even though Kant's own solutions are rejected by Hartmann. For Kant, the given is possible when considered in relation to its form and actual when considered in relation to its matter. Hartmann finds this not only inadequate but also misleading; to this however we shall turn later on.

The second approach is attributed to Aristotle. Both the first and the second approaches attribute to the merely possible which is not 'or has not yet become actual' a sort of ghostly existence — a position in between being and non-being. Aristotle's doctrine of dynamis and energia is further criticised as an illegitimate extension of the categories of the sphere of organic being to the entire domain of being. Further, if a prior stage of mere possibility is admitted, the question arises as to what must be added to it in order to render it actual. Kant had shown that any answer to this question is absurd. For, that which must be so added, argued Kant, must be other than the possible, that is to say, must be impossible! (1)

As such, we come back to the critical formulation of the question. This is one of the points where we begin to see the influence of Kant on Hartmann's ontology which claims the name of critical ontology." pp. 181-182. (1) I. Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, WW III p. 206, hg. v. Ernst Cassirer. From: Jitendra Nath Mohanty - Remarks on Nicolai Hartmann's modal doctrine - Kant-Studien 54, 1963, pp. 181-187.

Between Two Worlds, East and West: An Autobiography: Mohanty ... Amazon.com: Phenomenology and Indian Philosophy: D. P. ... Reason and Tradition in Indian Thought: An Essay on the Nature of Indian Philosophical Thinking by Jitendra Nath Mohanty Essays on Consciousness and Interpretation by J. N. Mohanty (edited with an Introduction by Tara Chatterjea) (Oxford University Press, 2009, forthcoming)

The furniture of the universe does not rely upon us for existence or for essence

Realism Through the Eyes of Anti-Realism
from Larval Subjects by larvalsubjects
After grading all day and making substantial progress (hopefully I’ll be done tomorrow, yay!), I sat down and read the introduction and first chapter of Lee Braver’s A Thing of This World: A History of Continental Anti-Realism. Although I am of the realist orientation myself, I can already tell that this book will be deeply valuable to my own philosophical project. [...] What I do not endorse is the anti-realist thesis that all objects are constituted (in the non-Berkeleyian sense) by mind or some other agency like culture.
One final point, Braver’s initial description of the realist’s metaphysical thesis help to distinguish different orientations among Speculative Realist orientations of contemporary realism. The realist, as Braver describes her, is committed to the thesis that there are objects that are not dependent on humans. As Roy Bhaskar and Quentin Meillassoux so beautifully put it, we must conceive a world without humans, a sort of wild open. However, Braver then goes on to distinguish between trivial dependent entities like beliefs and real independent entities. Attitudes towards this distinction actually define something of a fault line among Speculative Realists. Speculative Realists like Ray Brassier, Nick Srinicek, and perhaps Quentin Meillassoux (I can’t speak to Iain Hamilton Grant’s Position here) would wholeheartedly endorse Braver’s description. To be real, for these realists, is to be independent of humans. Object-Oriented realists such as myself, Graham Harman, and Bruno Latour adopt a more egalitarian ontological position. Our view is not that the puff of matter on the other side of the universe is somehow more real than the United States (an entity dependent on humans). Rather, the Object-Oriented Philosophies are united around the thesis of a flat ontology in which there is no hierarchy of being or modernist distinction between culture and nature. There is just being. Being is pluralistic and differential, coming in many kinds and flavors, but it is no less real for all that. [...]

In A Realist Theory of Science, Roy Bhaskar develops a realist metaphysics of science and theory of inquiry that both integrates the mind independence of objects and integrates the findings of philosophers of science like Kuhn, Feyerabend, Foucault, etc., that accentuate the role that politics, history, the social, power, training, etc., play in the process of inquiry. For Bhaskar, scientists aren’t born but must be built. They are the result of an ontogeny. However, Bhaskar argues, this ontogenesis of scientists, while resembling certain aspects of anti-realism, does not lead to the anti-realist conclusion that we can never “grasp a bit of the real” through scientific inquiry.

In my own case, my ontology forbids or prohibits anything like a simplistic correspondence theory of truth based on a sort of mirroring between world and object. The basic principle of my ontology– what I call the Ontic Principle –states that there is no difference that does not make a difference. To be, I hold, is to make a difference. Not necessarily to you or me or anyone else (I’m a realist, after all), and not necessarily to any other object in the universe (the object could be completely unrelated), but nonetheless a difference in some manner, way or form is made in being. To be is to act. From this principle follows what I call “Latour’s Principle”. Latour’s Principle states that there is no transportation without translation, or that no object is ever simply a vehicle for another difference. “Transportation”, of course, refers to the transport of difference from one object to another. “Translation” here should be understood in terms closer to the translation of DNA into RNA, than the translation of something into another language.

To say that there is no transportation without translation is to say that there is no difference imposed on another entity wherein the target or receiving entity does not contribute its own differences translating the difference from the source object (cf. my recent post on Category Theory). My skin does not simply transport sunlight as I weed my garden, but rather it translates that sunlight, creating a dark pigment that constitutes a tan. Likewise with the relation between mind and world. In the relation between mind and world, just as in the case of any other relation between objects, there is a translation that takes place that cannot be characterized as a simple transport of the difference embodied in the object to the mind as a simple wax table. [...]

In a post-quantum, post-Darwinian world it is difficult to know what it could possibly mean to claim that there is a totality of all objects, for we have learned that new types of objects come into being at both the atomic level and at the species level. Indeed, if we go with Gould’s biological orientation, our ontology becomes even more exotic, including a variety of different ontological levels differing in scale and temporally individuating themselves (i.e., differing from themselves) in natural history.

But setting aside appeals to history, we can refer to the positions of various realists as well. Realists such as Deleuze and DeLanda would object to this thesis on the grounds of systems thought, as assemblages of objects themselves, in turn, form objects that possess their own properties. As a result, there are no grounds on which there could ever be a complete catalog of beings. Moreover, this thesis seems to be premised on the idea that beings or entities are unchanging, yet if beings or entities are processes, events, verbs or becomings– as most current evidence seems to suggest –this thesis seems to be significantly challenged. In the case of my ontology, such a thesis couldn’t possibly hold by virtue of Latour’s Principle.

Like Leibniz’s universe where each monad represents the entirety of the universe from a particular point of view, Latour’s Principle entails a sort of ontological relativity that is ontological (and not simply epistemological). That is, quoting Deleuze, it entails a Truth of Relativity rather than a Relativity of Truth. Yet this Truth of Relativity holds not simply for subject-world relations, but for any object-object relation. My skin grasps the sun from a particular point of view and under a particular translation. Finally, in the case of Graham’s metaphysics, the infinitely withdrawn nature of objects that only touch through a sort of vicarious causation undermines the possibility of a privileged point of view on the universe. Another Leibnizian.

Sri Aurobindo's synthesis of the Indian tradition

INDIAN PSYCHOLOGY INSTITUTE
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Events
This webpage contains information on Indian Psychology relatedconferences, seminars, workshops, lectures, courses, etc. Please send us information on Indian Psychology events

National Conference on Indian Psychology: Psychology, Culture and the Ideal of Human Unity
October 1-4, 2009 Department of Psychology University of Delhi, Further information 6:01 PM

Two Introductory Courses in Indian Psychology organised by Indian Psychology Institute- "Pondicherry course": 8-day intensive + 6 weekends , all in Pondicherry- "Delhi course": 8-day intensive in Pondicherry + 6 weekends in Delhi 8-day intensive: June 7-14, 2009 6 weekends: August, Sept, Nov, Dec 2009; Feb, March 2010 Further information

Two Courses Indian Psychology
Academic year 2009 - 2010

These two courses will focus on the needs of post-graduate students, teachers and professionals in Psychology and related subjects, who want to get a basic understanding of Indian approaches to Psychology. They offer an introduction to Indian Psychology, based on the work of Sri Aurobindo, and cover topics like philosophical background; self and personality; cognition and modes of knowing; motivation and the aim of life; emotions and attitudes; individual change and development; relationships; professional work involving psychology (education, therapy, organisational psychology, etc.); research methodologies.

Information transfer is, however, only one aspect of these courses. The central focus is on increasing one's self-knowledge, and on developing those psychological skills and attitudes that help in one's personal growth. It is, after all, only to the extent that one understands one's own self and is able to apply that understanding in life, that one can help others.

Background
More and more people are becoming aware of the treasures which the Indian tradition can contribute to our psychological understanding of human nature. Indian literature, philosophy and yoga are based on a very deep insight in life and how it unfolds on this planet, and Indian approaches to psychology can add depth and meaning to psychological theory as well as practice. The life-affirming spirituality that is the very basis of the Indian civilization is not only essential for our own individual happiness, but also for the harmonious evolution of the global civilization. In theoretical fields as well as in applications like counselling, psychotherapy and education, Indian approaches to psychology are not only more in harmony with the Indian culture but also with human nature in general, so that they can play a crucial role in the future of the whole of humanity. In each of these courses we will try to develop a genuinely integral approach to psychology, for which we will base ourselves largely on Sri Aurobindo's synthesis of the Indian tradition, though other sources will be brought in when needed.

Content and structure of the courses
The basic concepts and processes that are part of Indian psychology will be explained in lectures and discussion groups that are based on an intense, direct interaction with the participants. To the extent possible we will have, besides the larger groups, also small-group and individual sessions.
An attempt will be made to help the participants experience the core concepts and processes that come up in the lectures, and to explore, both collectively and individually, how they can be used for one's personal growth as well as in one's professional work.
During the course the participants are required to take up one or more research projects in any area of Indian psychology of their choice. These largely self-directed projects will involve besides literature study, detached self-observation and other yoga-based research methodologies.
Maintaining a diary will be part of the course structure.

All those small little local interactions through which something like social structure emerges

Entropy and Locality from Larval Subjects by larvalsubjects

Perhaps one of the greatest achievements of Western philosophy and science has been the so-called “locality hypothesis”. The locality hypothesis, articulated nicely in Lucretius’ axiom that “nothing can come from nothing”, is roughly the thesis that things must touch or interact to affect one another. Although this hypothesis has now been called into question in the highly specific and strange(!) case of quantum entanglement where particles at very great distances appear to immediately influence one another in a way that exceeds the speed of light (thereby excluding the possibility of any information exchange), this hypothesis has been extremely fruitful in shedding light on the workings of the world. If the locality hypothesis is kept firmly in mind, it significantly changes the way you conceive of the world about you.

For example, where before it might not have ever occurred to you to consider how vision is possible, you now wonder what might allow you to see something over there, here. There must be some interaction with your eyes and the object you see, but what is that interaction? The transfer of photons of light, of course. Yet now you see that what you see as simultaneous to you is not, in fact, simultaneous as light takes time to travel. The world becomes a very strange place when the locality hypothesis is kept in mind.

The problem with explanations of social phenomena through things like “social forces”, “power”, “social structures”, “ideology”, etc., is that it black boxes the entropy reducing mechanisms, the local interactions, that are the very things to be explained. In moving in an overly hasty fashion to explanation it believes itself to have explained what it sought to understand when instead it has simply given a name to the phenomenon. As a result, it denies itself an insight into all those small little local interactions through which something like social structure emerges, foreclosing the means to change the forms of social organization it would like to change.

More Agamben Notes: Il sacramento del linguaggio, §§7-12 from An und für sich by Adam Kotsko

In Greek, the link between faithfulness and the oath is even closer, as pistis could often serve as a synonym for horkos. The link with personal fidelity makes sense of the dual sense of faith (active and passive, given and received) — because faith is a bond. Bringing in the close link in Latin between fides and credere, which as he notes was to have a huge influence in Christian theology, he claims that etymologically credere meant “to give one’s *kred,” meaning a promise of protection that binds two people in a bond of fidelity. Fides also took on an important role in international law, modelled on the fides between individuals — a city could capitulate to a conquerer and swear fealty, leading to more merciful treatment. In every case, what’s at stake in fides is the correspondence between word and action.

And again, as Dumezil has demonstrated in his study of archaic Roman institutions, fides or the oath is the origin of religion rather than being grounded in religion. The oath is where our concepts of law and religion, as well as moral and social, break down — and so we don’t need to bring in some concept of the “pre-juridical” that would be solely religious, but rather to call into question our entire notions of religious and juridical on the basis of the oath.

A footnote attempts to dispel the notion that the separation between human and divine law was an ancient principle in Roman and Greek law by showing that scholars have missed the irony in the passages from Tacitus and Plato usually brought forward in support of that view. [This footnote was pretty amusing, but it's hard to capture in this format.]

Nature is a condition of mind, not the reverse

The Correlationism Debate Continues
from Larval Subjects by larvalsubjects

Those of us on the realist side have been charged with “misreading Kant” or “misinterpreting him”, but all we’ve done is take him at his word. For in order to account for times prior to life and especially humans, we have to posit a time belonging to things themselves. But this is explicitly forbidden by Kant’s position. Claims pertaining to things in themselves cannot but appear dogmatic to the Kantian. [...]

The issue is that according to the well supported theories of evolution and neurology, Nature is a, if not the, condition of mind, not the reverse. But the correlationist claims just the opposite: that mind is the condition of Nature, not the reverse. Nature, for the correlationist, is purely a phenomena such that the idea of phenomena giving rise to the conditions (mind) is not intelligible or consistent. If all of these distinctions are being flattened then this is because this flattening is what is required of by our best biological theories concerning the emergence of life and the human. This would be a prime example of a situation where our science requires a significant revision of how certain philosophical problems have been posed, but strangely, oddly, this gets ignored by a certain style of philosophy as if these discoveries make no difference and we can continue talking about the world blithely as if Darwin makes no difference as to how we conceive the nature of mind.

Latour presents a new philosophical epistemology and ontology consistent with a realist position

Latour: Hybrids from Larval Subjects by larvalsubjects

Over the next few weeks I will, as time permits, be writing a commentary on Bruno Latour’s wonderful We Have Never Been Modern. In part, this is in preparation for the final release of Graham Harman’s long awaited Prince of Networks. If Graham’s study of Latour is so unique and exciting, then this is because he approaches Latour not as a sociologist, but as a philosopher.

In form of reading not unlike Deleuze’s approach to Foucault or to great artists, novelists, and cinema, Harman reveals a highly original– and relevant –philosopher in his own right. Thus, extending the comparison of Graham’s Prince of Networks to Deleuze’s Foucault, Deleuze in his great Foucault book, approaches Foucault’s thought not as a series of historical or sociological analyses of various things such as madness, discipline, the human sciences, etc., but rather as the work of a great philosopher proposing a very new and highly original account of the nature of knowledge.

While Deleuze certainly touches on all of Foucault’s great archeological and genealogical studies, it is this question of the nature of knowledge that is at the heart of his book. Likewise, while Graham certainly delves into Latour’s various sociological investigations, his approach to Latour is so unique insofar as he reads Latour primarily as a philosopher proposing a new ontology. In part, I am also writing on Latour as I will be teaching We Have Never Been Modern for the first time and this will help me to prepare for that course.

However, finally, I am undertaking this close reading of We Have Never Been Modern because, with Graham, I think Latour presents a new philosophical epistemology and ontology consistent with a realist position, but which also allows us to retain the best of a critical tradition arising from sociology and Continental linguistic philosophy from the last century.

Realism and Correlationism: Some preliminaries
from Grundlegung by Tom

Over at Larval Subjects, Now-Times and Perverse Egalitarianism there has been a fractious debate regarding realism which has gone on for some time. This is in the wake of ’speculative realism’ coming to increased prominence, under the influence of Quentin Meillassoux, Ray Brassier, Iain Hamilton Grant and Graham Harman. This realism has been contrasted with a correlationist position, which is taken to infect much contemporary philosophy.

Meillassoux introduced the term ‘correlationism’ to describe a non-realist position which claims that “we only ever have access to the correlation between thinking and being, and never to either term considered apart from the other.” (AF: 5) As Meillassoux also puts it, the correlationist denies that it is possible to ‘consider’ the realms of subjectivity and objectivity independently of one another. Of course, this could mean any number of things. Whether correlationism proves to be a useful philosophical category depends upon how this claim is spelled out.

Kant is supposed to be the paradigm correlationist. This is because Kant was meant to disallow us knowledge of any object subsisting ‘in itself’. Instead, knowledge was to be restricted to objects as they are ‘for us’. Thus, Kant is said to have eroded the pre-critical distinction between primary and secondary qualities, since even central candidates for the status of primary qualities (such as its mathematisable ones) must be “conceived as dependent upon the subject’s relation to the given — as a form of representation.” (AF: 4)

Does Kant’s position get fairly characterised by the new realists? A lot of acrimony has resulted from the attempt to answer this question in discussions between Levi, Alexei and Mikhail. Both sides are now pretty entrenched, and that is when they are on speaking terms. I don’t want to reignite these ‘Kant wars’ but I will offer some comments on this issue in the next few posts.

Realism and Correlationism: Kant and the Short Argument
from Grundlegung by Tom

A final thought on the question of metaphysics. The metaphysics which Kant seeks to cut down to size is an unbridled rationalism. But speculative realism has typically championed a kind of empirical metaphysics. It seeks to be porous with respect to scientific discovery: it is science which is to be the leading-edge of ontology. I have some limited sympathy with this approach with respect to certain theoretical endeavours, and agree that on the whole there is no need for a metaphysical grounding for science, provided by philosophy. However, I wonder quite how speculative realism will come to understand the status of its own metaphysical claims.

Alexei has raised the problem of normativity in this area: does a radical materialism have the resources to account for its own justification? We are all naturalists now — after a fashion, at least. But speculative realists have adopted a particularly strident form, which does not seem to be friendly to normativity. Just witness Ray Brassier’s Nihil Unbound. Can it understand, or sufficiently redescribe, the context in which it puts forward its own theory, such that it can allow that such a theory is meaningful, justifiable and truth-apt, whilst cleaving to a sparse materialist metaphysics which admits values, if it all, only in an anti-realist fashion? I will have more to say about this at a later date.

Written in a style that marries great clarity of expression with argumentative rigour

After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency (Hardcover) by Quentin Meillassoux (Author), Ray Brassier (Translator), Alain Badiou (Introduction) Key Phrases: aleatory reasoning, ancestral statement, contradictory entity, Critique of Pure Reason (more...) (1 customer review)

Editorial Reviews
Review "Talented and exciting new voice in contemporary French philosophy" -- Bookseller Buyers Guide

'In his clearly argued essay, now available in an excellent English translation, the French philosopher Quentin Meillassoux shows that subjectivity and objectivity must be conceived of independently of each other ... It is a truly philosophical work in that it develops the original idea of a speculative materialism with uncompromising passion and great consistency.' -- Alexander Garcia Düttmann, Professor of Philosophy and Visual Culture, Goldsmiths University of London, UK

'Rarely do we encounter a book which not only meets the highest standards of thinking, but sets up itself new standards, transforming the entire field into which it intervenes. Quentin Meillassoux does exactly this.' -- Slavoj Zizek

'You may entirely disagree with the author's solution (I do) but not with the courage with which he proposes to escape from the prison of discourse and to put the much abused metaphor of the Copernican Revolution right at last.' -- Bruno Latour

Product Description
From the preface by Alain Badiou:
It is no exaggeration to say that Quentin Meillassoux has opened up a new path in the history of philosophy, understood here as the history of what it is to know ... This remarkable "critique of critique" is introduced here without embellishment, cutting straight to the heart of the matter in a particularly clear and logical manner. It allows the destiny of thought to be the absolute once more.

"This work is one of the most important to appear in continental philosophy in recent years and deserves a wide readership at the earliest possible date ... Après la finitude is an important book of philosophy by an authnted emerging voices in continental thought. Quentin Meillassoux deserves our close attention in the years to come and his book deserves rapid translation and widespread discussion in the English-speaking world. There is nothing like it." --Graham Harman in Philosophy Today

Quentin Meillassoux's remarkable debut makes a strikingly original contribution to contemporary French philosophy and is set to have a significant impact on the future of continental philosophy. Written in a style that marries great clarity of expression with argumentative rigour, After Finitude provides bold readings of the history of philosophy and sets out a devastating critique of the unavowed fideism at the heart of post-Kantian philosophy.

The exceptional lucidity and the centrality of argument in Meillassoux's writing should appeal to analytic as well as continental philosophers, while his critique of fideism will be of interest to anyone preoccupied by the relation between philosophy, theology and religion.

Meillassoux introduces a startlingly novel philosophical alternative to the forced choice between dogmatism and critique. After Finitude proposes a new alliance between philosophy and science and calls for an unequivocal halt to the creeping return of religiosity in contemporary philosophical discourse. See all Editorial Reviews

Besant, Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Tilak, Ranade, and Gokhale

Book Reviews : Richard G. Fox, Gandhian Utopia: Experiments with Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, 1989, 330 pp. Cloth $ 27.50
David L. White Journal of Asian and African Studies, Jan 1991; vol. 26: pp. 160 - 161.
...orientalized India into a strength. He was assisted in doing so by Bengali and Bombay experimenters like Besant, Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Tilak, Ranade, and Gokhale. Adopting their concepts of affirmative orientalism, spiritual revolution, reliance on indigenous... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

Ritualistic tolerance and ideological rigour: the paradigm of the expatriate Hindus in east Africa
Agehananda Bharati Contributions to Indian Sociology, Jul 1976; vol. 10: pp. 317 - 339.
...east African Hindu milieu. Some two or three dozen elitist families in east Africa identify themselves as followers of Sri Aurobindo, and a probably much larger number looks to Sathya Sai Baba for charismatic inspiration. But these are well-identifiable... Check item Full Text (PDF) References Table of Contents MatchMaker

Malaysia and Singapore
Ooi Boo Eng The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, Jan 1976; vol. 11: pp. 94 - 99.
...Rd., Calcutta 700029, Rs3.00. Annual sub., Rs6.00; publishes Indian poetry; twice annually. The Advent, XXXII, I-4. Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry 605002, RS2.00. Annual sub., Rs7.00; quarterly. The Aryan Path, XLIV, 8-9, XLV (I974 token issue... Check item Full Text (PDF) References Table of Contents MatchMaker

An Annotated Select Bibliography
Current Sociology, Jan 1973; vol. 21: pp. 129 - 178.
...Prophet of Indian nationalism. London, George Allen & Unwin, 1963. Interesting study of the background and ideology of Sri Aurobindo Ghosh and his debt to Herder, Fichte and the German Romantics, as well as to traditional Indian thought. 24 Snyder... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

Book Reviews : MOHD. ABDUL WAHEED KHAN, Brief History of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad. State Archives, Government of Andhra Pradesh, 1972, Pp. 131. J. MANGAMMA, The Rate Schools of Godavari, Regular Monograph Series of State Archives No. 3, Hyderabad, Government of Andhra Pradesh, 1973, Pp. 100
Dharma Kumar Indian Economic & Social History Review, Jan 1977; vol. 14: pp. 574 - 575.
...and colleges. Tagore and Aurobindo also initially interested...Did Tagore, Gandhi, and Aurobindo generalize from their...realistic are Tagore's or Aurobindo's ideas on education in...round a craft or about Sri- niketan where an attempt... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

The Study of South Asian Religion in the 1980s
Dermot Killingley South Asia Research, May 1991; vol. 11: pp. 1 - 15.
...The Forest Monks of Sri Lanka. Delhi : OUP...Buddhist nuns in Sri Lanka ', SAR, 4, 32-49...McElvaney, M., 1988. Aurobindo and Zaehner on the...Buddhist nuns in Sri Lanka', SAR, 4, 32...McElvaney, M., 1988. Aurobindo and Zaehner on the... Check item Full Text (PDF) References Table of Contents MatchMaker

Human Values in the Plays of Klidsa: Some Glimpses
Shekhar Sen Journal of Human Values, Apr 1996; vol. 2: pp. 3 - 18.
...impurities and leaves behind what is pure, noble and exalted. In 'Sri?g?ratilakam', the poet says that pleasure cannot be obtained...says 'the joy that follows grief gains richer zest '. Rishi Aurobindo comments in `Savitri': 'None can reach heaven who has not... Check item Abstract Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

Corporate Gita: Lessons for Management, Administration and Leadership
Subhash Sharma Journal of Human Values, Oct 1999; vol. 5: pp. 103 - 123.
...with the Gita (Chennai: Sri Champalal Savansukha Public...management. While Tilak, Aurobindo, Vivekananda and Gandhi...as many, including Tilak, Aurobindo, Subhash Chandra Bose and...with the Gita (Chennai: Sri Champalal Savansukha Public... Check item Abstract Full Text (PDF) References Table of Contents MatchMaker

Abstracts —Volume 34
Journal of Asian and African Studies, Jan 2000; vol. 35: pp. 449 - 457.
...a revival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and India. Though in...The Buddhist revival in Sri Lanka led by Anagarika Dhammapala...that extends him beyond Aurobindo and Gandhi, taking him outside...OF WOMEN: A COMPARISON OF SRI LANKA AND MALAYSIA BARBARA... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

Book reviews and notices : ARVIND SHARMA, Hinduism for our times. Delhi: Oxford, 1996. 116 pp. Notes, index. Rs. 225
C.N. Venugopal Contributions to Indian Sociology, May 1998; vol. 32: pp. 133 - 135.
...Tillich, K.N. Jayatilleke and Walpola Sri Rahula. He has made a praiseworthy...ally, a contemporary of Gandhi was Aurobindo, who too gave a new interpretation...Hinduism seem to be akin to those of Aurobindo in some respects, though he has shown... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

Recuperating Masculinity: Hindu nationalism, violence and the exorcism of the Muslim 'Other'
Thomas Blom Hansen Critique of Anthropology, Jan 1996; vol. 16: pp. 137 - 172.
...present-day Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka), images of the god Ram, saffron...Renaissance in Bengal, Arya Samaj, Aurobindo and Tilak. This heritage had posed...etc. as found in Vivekananda and Aurobindo: This was not the case with the Punjabi... Check item Full Text (PDF) References Table of Contents MatchMaker

The Functions of Hindu Social Reformers— With Special Reference to Kerala
Charles H. Heimsath Indian Economic & Social History Review, Jan 1978; vol. 15: pp. 21 - 39.
...century Bipin Chandra Pal, Aurobindo Ghose, Swami Vivekanan- da...indeed, were inspired by Sri Narayana Guru's religious...the great Ilava association, Sri Narayana Dharma Paripalana...north, and the movement of Sri Narayana Guru in Kerala. In... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

India
Sudha Rai The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, Dec 2005; vol. 40: pp. 109 - 138.
...25 [representations of politics in literature from India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh]. A History of Hindi Literature F.E...Chatterjee 275pp Indialog (New Delhi) pa. Tagore's Chitra and Aurobindo's Savitri: A Comparative Study Ketki N. Pandya 176pp Atlantic... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

Which Leadership Modet—Gandhian or Machiavellian?
L.M. Bhole Journal of Human Values, Oct 2001; vol. 7: pp. 131 - 145.
...Chaitanya, Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi, Aurobindo, etc. are failures and ruined. There...decimated in Punjab, Kashmir, Assam, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Ireland, Palestine...on Leadership (Prasanathi Nilayam: Sri Sqathya Sai Books, 1993). 4. The list... Check item Abstract Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

Hindu-Muslim Relations in Swadeshi Bengal, 1903-1908
Sumit Sarkar Indian Economic & Social History Review, Jan 1972; vol. 9: pp. 161 - 216.
...brief account of his contacts with Aurobindo's circle established through Shyamsundar...obtained through the courtesy of Sri Sukumar Mitra). 104. Halliday to Carlyle...obtained through the courtesy of Sri Arani Banerji). 118. Mihir-O-Sudhakar... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

From Frenzied Progress to Serene Perfection
Journal of Human Values, Apr 1996; vol. 2: pp. 1 - 2.
...utilitarian catas- trophe ? It is instructive to listen to Sri Aurobindo on 'progress': Modern society has discovered...plagiarization of old wisdom). Let us then go back with humility to Aurobindo again: Intellectual, volitional, ethical, emotional, aesthetic... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

Mechanical reproduction and the world of the colonial artist
Partha Mitter Contributions to Indian Sociology, Feb 2002; vol. 36: pp. 1 - 32.
...revolutionary societies in early 20th century Bengal, notably Aurobindo Ghosh's Bhawani Mandir (Chatterji 1992; Hobsbawm 1965...of prosperity; Siva and his family; Krishna 18 Figure 3: Sri Sri Mahadev (Siva), chromolithograph, Calcutta Art Studio... Check item Abstract Full Text (PDF) References Table of Contents MatchMaker

The Ecumenical Route
Christian Godin Diogenes, Jan 1996; vol. 44: pp. 119 - 136.
...modern India are all ecumenists: Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Gandhi. For all of them, Krishna and Jesus, Rama and Allah...1975, Vol. IV, p. 912. 7. An independent nation today, Sri Lanka's history is nevertheless pervaded by the influence... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

Will India's Past be America's Future?: Reflections on the Caitanya Movement and Its Potentials
K. Klostermaier Journal of Asian and African Studies, Jan 1980; vol. 15: pp. 94 - 103.
...communities. If one considers the century-old endeavour of modern Hindus-from Dayananda Saraswati, to Vivekananda, to Aurobindo, to Radhakrishnan, to Krishnamurti (omitting a great many others)-to prove the harmony of Indian religion and modern science... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker