Philosophy, as a search for the transcendental ground of mundaneity, began to make sense

J.N. Mohanty From Between Two Worlds, East and West: An Autobiography,

Oxford, 2002, 224pp, $19.95 (pbk), ISBN 0195648358.

Earlier in my youth, I spun on a spinning wheel—following the Mahatma’s example—and used only hand-spun and hand-woven clothes, practiced vegetarianism, walked, if not on bare feet, with a locally made pair of sandals, said, when possible, the evening prayers for all major religions, read and memorized large parts of the Bhagavadgita, washed my own dishes after meals (this was not usually done in middle-class families in India), and tried to cultivate a spirit of empathy with nature and my fellow villagers. It was a way of life—where religion, social activism, and ethical spirit merged together. After finishing high school, I was spending the summer in the village, translating Tagore’s poems (originally in Bengali) into Oriya, when I decided to learn tilling the land with a bullock-drawn plough, as was the practice then (and also now). It was hard work, but I wanted to experience what work in the field meant. (17)...

Our task was to translate [a hymn] into German, point out and resolve problems in translations, identify grammatical problems, and solve them with the help of Panini as well as other Vedic grammars. “Never use,” he warned us, “any existing translations, never use Sayana’s commentary (for, he said, Sayana is closer to us in time than to the Vedic period); use dictionaries, especially nirukta and grammar books, and prepare your own translations and report.” And when you presented yours in the class, Waldschmidt would critique you, question you at every step, and tear your arduous work to pieces. He once said to the class, “My goal is to train you in such a way that given a fragment of a manuscript, you can make something of it, date, build a reasonable hypothesis about its style, internal and external cross-references, produce a translation, and raise a host of questions.” And in all this, he remained a philologist—an excellent one at that—with no interest in the value and validity of the ideas, concepts, or philosophies in the texts. That was German Indology at its best. (44)...

This was more due to “homesickness” and boredom than due to the love for and understanding of that culture. If I look at it with the eyes of young children who were growing up, in high schools or in colleges, “Indian culture,” for their parents, meant a certain taste in food, music (mostly film songs), Bhajan (religious songs), and certain religious rituals. A young person is said to be “Americanized” if he prefers to eat hamburgers, prefers Western music, and does not understand the Bahjan or puja [religious rituals]. For many parents, cultivating Indian culture, including religious ceremonies, was meant for en-culturing the children, and the latter need this so that they, when they grew up, do not marry American girls (or boys). “Understanding” the culture was of no concern to anyone, for no one understood all that, in any case. This perhaps explains why the children in the beginning accompanied their parents to feasts and festivals, but eventually gave up. (81, but cf. 101)...

Once I clearly and unambiguously rejected belief in God, the idea of spirituality, despite its equivocations and ambiguities, became more interesting. Philosophy, as a search for the transcendental ground of mundaneity, began to make sense. I also attempted to recover the sense of religiosity that was important for me. Religiosity now meant to me a sensitivity to the irreducible sacredness of things; the sacredness of life; sacredness of humanity; and the sacredness of nature; the moral responsibility to preserve life, nature and humankind, to let humans flourish and develop to their best ability—in brief, using Whitehead’s expression, “world-loyalty.” (120)

Americans are increasingly indifferent to the truth-value of discourse

I’m McLovin It: Sexuality in the Age of Advertising from The Kugelmass Episodes

by Joseph Kugelmass (x-posted to The Valve)

Or, on the other hand, I could side with conservative philosophers like Harry G. Frankfurt, who argued in On Bullshit that Americans are increasingly indifferent to the truth-value of discourse; inevitably, he would see seducers and rules-mongers as a monkey wrench gang that wants words and signifying acts to have power independent of the world, of the way things “really are.” But this betrays my own feeling that we do, in fact, inhabit fictions, and that the value of those fictions is determined in large part by our happiness, rather than by their fidelity to a vast and impersonal truth.

Instead, I will end by suggesting that the intertwined phenomena of individuality and intimacy are both vastly expensive fictions: expensive in time, and rich in failure. In the truest sense of the term, they are luxuries. Luhmann considered it “impossible to specify how selflessness and an orientation to the other person might become embedded in a broader and deeper understanding of exchange.”

It isn’t enough to hold the line against seduction, or chicanery, or the irrational: the game is flawed. There is a chicken-and-egg problem here. I don’t see how we can embrace the larger fictions of selflessness and devotion without greater security, equality, and leisure, things one person cannot have at another’s expense. Nor do I see how, without that, we can hope to supplant the stingy, stagey drama of contemporary sexuality with something finer — as Yeats expressed it, with something wrought of high laughter, loveliness, and ease.

When Jesus and the prophets criticized the Pharisees, they were doing the same thing as Marx, Nietzsche and Freud

That idea, he says, comes from St. Anselm, the 11th century philosopher who described religious philosophy as “faith seeking understanding.” By Janet Sassi Fordham home page

Through his research and analysis, Westphal has found that a wide range of ideas put forth by continental philosophers can be applied to religious life. “Some of them were not religious people themselves,” he says, “and some of them were antireligious people, like Marx, Nietzsche and Freud—to whom I found myself strangely but strongly drawn.” The three philosophers, in fact, were not only atheists; they were suspicious of, and hostile toward, Christianity, seeing it as self-serving.

Yet Westphal believes that Christians can glean something important from them. “What Marx, Nietzsche and Freud argued is that motivations are often not terribly honorable and, therefore, we hide them from ourselves behind religion,” he says. “When they offer this kind of critique, they describe something that happens all too often in religious life, something that is a betrayal of religion. But I argue that it’s not the whole story.”

For Westphal, the reality of Christianity is more complicated. Christians can interpret their religion for good motivations as well as for bad. American slave owners justified the system of human bondage, Westphal says, by arguing that God made blacks inferior to whites. But it is also true, he says, that abolitionists used a religiously based argument that blacks were equal to whites in God’s kingdom.

Westphal’s insights resulted in a book, Suspicion and Faith: The Religious Uses of Modern Atheism (Fordham University Press, 1998), and includes a chapter on “Atheism for Lent.” This incongruous idea has been the focus of many of his lectures throughout the country.

“When Jesus and the prophets criticized the Pharisees, they were doing the same thing as Marx, Nietzsche and Freud,” Westphal says. “In the spirit of Jesus and the prophets, Christian believers might learn from Marx, Nietzsche and Freud’s kind of critique . . . through a self-examination to try to purge their distortions of the religion. That’s a Lenten exercise: self-examination leading to repentance. So my suggestion is just as Christians might read Jesus and the prophets as a Lenten exercise, they might also read these secular prophets.”

Westphal has been at work on his 10th book, Lévinas and Kierkegaard in Dialogue, which will be published next year by the Indiana University Press. It is a collection of eight essays about Emmanuel Lévinas and Søren Kierkegaard, and it deals, in part, with the Enlightenment belief that human reason is an adequate foundation for moral and religious life. Both Lévinas and Kierkegaard argued that the belief that human reason was a good foundation for moral and religious life was mistaken, and Westphal tends to agree.

“In the 20th century, faith in that belief has become increasingly shaken, partly because of the world wars, partly because of the Holocaust, and partly for reasons internal to philosophical discourse,” he says. “People have begun to worry if ethical values have any force.

“I think my understanding of my faith, and of God and who I am in relationship to God, has evolved and developed over time,” Westphal says. “But it’s been a fairly smooth evolution. I’ve never had a crisis of faith, and I consider myself very fortunate.” More Top Stories in this issue: Return to In Focus: Faculty and Research index Return to Inside Fordham home page

Personal relationship between the two Gandhis of Saurashtra

The Systems of Indian Philosophy Author - Shri V. R. Gandhi Edited By - Dr. K. K. Dixit

SOMETHING ABOUT LATE SHRI V. R. GANDHI `The Systems of Indian Philosophy' is published here for the first time. It contains lectures which late V. R. Gandhi delivered before American audience of the common people, while he was on his journey to attend the World Congress of Religions held for the first time in the United States of American in 1893 A.D... The third thing which is noteworthy is his association with Mahatma Gandhiji.

The manuscript of the work, written in the author's own handwriting, remained unknown for very long. And fortunately it was discovered just in his centenary year. It is really a matter of happy co-incidence that Dr. K. K. Dixit, who himself is a sincere student of Indian and Western philosophy as well as a proficient scholar of ancient Indian language-Sanskrit, Prakrit, Pali, etc., has carefully edited the present work. It is an outstanding characteristic of Dr. Dixit that whatever he writes, he writes after mature consideration, without any partiality or exaggeration.

Dr. Dixit has written an elaborate introduction to this work. Any sensible enquirer, who sincerely tries to understand 0it, will find no difficulty in properly evaluating these lectures. When I think on this line I feel that there remains nothing particular for me to write. But because I hold Gandhi in high esteem and because I have good faith in Shri Mahavira Jaina Vidyalaya, the Institute which publishes the present work, I am inspired to say few words...

We know that according to Gautama's theory there is nothing permanent in man, that every particle mental, spiritual or physical, perishes every moment and new aggregates come into existence by reason of the influence left by teh 9 ) or action of the former aggregates. Everything is momentary, and if a man leads a perfectly holy life he would not collect new ( ) which will lead him into new hbirth; and therefore the aggregates of which he is composed come to an end without the new aggregates coming into existence. So although Gautama might not have said in so many words that the future state after ( ) is a state of annihilation, still the natural conclusion is that the state must be that of total annihilation. In an article in the Lucifer of march 1874, Mr. G. R. Meads tries to save buddhism from the charge of propounding a theory of annihilation and quotes a passage by Col. Olcott sanctioned by the High Priest of Ceylon. he says that although soul according to Buddhism is impermanent and changeable, still there is in man the permanent part called spirit. He says, "Buddhism does not deny the imperishable nature of an ultimate spiritual reality in man, of a ture transcendental subject, of an immortal changeless self." Now this self or transcendental subject has been know in all Indian philosophy by the name of ( ) or ( ). With reference to Brahma, Gautama Has distinctly said in Tevijjia Sutta that the talk of the Brahmins about that Brahma is foolish talk and that there existed no such state as Braham. With reference to ( ), I have already quoted Gautama as saying that it is heresy to to say that there is any such thing as ( ). Soul and spirit, ( ) and Brahma, are all identical in Indian philosophies and an attempt to put into the mouth of Gautama views which he never maintained is fruitless attempt.

Not a jejune relationship of one thing to another

Books coming soon from Ignatius Press by Carl Olson

The Order of Things Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.

James Schall, the well-known author and professor at Georgetown University, inquires about the differing orders found in the cosmos, the human mind, the city, the human corpus, and seeks to reflect on the unity of these orders.

In a world in which the presence of mind and order are denied, presumably in the name of science, in favor of chance explanations of why things are as they are, it is surprising to find that, in area after area that is open to the human mind, we find a persistent order revealed. At first sight, this recurrence can be explained by chance occurrence, but after a point, the sense that behind things outside of our theories there is, in fact, an order. This order can be traced in the various areas that are open to the human mind. Aquinas had said that the order within the cosmos pointed to an order outside of it, since the cosmos cannot be the cause of its own internal order.

Philosophers have long inquired about the curious fact that the order of things implies not only a jejune relationship of one thing to another, but a hint that the universe is created in a certain abundance. Why is the universe, and the things within it, not only ordered but, within the order and above it, a beautiful order? Not only is there an order in things but the human mind seems attuned to this order as something it delights in discovering. This relationship implies that there is some correspondence between mind and reality almost as if they were intended to go with one another. The Order of Things explores these questions. It relies on common sense and the experience available to everyone. It concludes that it requires more credulity to disbelieve in order than to experience it. Finally, it wonders that if there is a source of order, what it is like? In this sense, it is not surprising that the revelation of the Godhead is itself in terms of an inner order of Persons. from Insight Scoop The Ignatius Press Blog

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

Re: Understanding Thoughts of Sri Aurobindo 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 Aurobbindo 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 cells. DB

Quantum physics provides a stronger case than Hume

Michael Prescott's Blog Occasional thoughts by the bestselling author of nine suspense novels

The Midas touch
Stephen E. Braude's new book, The Gold Leaf Lady and Other Parapsychological Investigations, isn’t even out yet, but a blogger named Jason Kuznicki has already taken aim at it, on the basis of an excerpt that appears on the publisher's Web site.
The tone of Kuznicki's review is captured by its title: "University of Chicago Press: Why Are You Publishing This Nonsense?" Skeptics are always sure they know what is or is not nonsense. Kuznicki is no exception...

As part of his post, Kuznicki refers to a positive review of Braude's book in the journal Antimatters. Here we find some other misinterpretations and one glaring omission. Kuznicki begins his assault on the Antimatters reviewer, whom he does not name, with this broadside:

Contrary to what one reviewer of this book wrote, science isn’t a myth.

But the reviewer never says that science is a myth. (Click here for the review; PDF file) Here is what he does say:

Braude dispels a widespread myth: that parapsychological data derived from formal experimentation are necessarily superior to data from outside the lab.

Which is hardly the same thing as calling science a myth. It's a recognition of the obvious fact that some perfectly valid data can be gathered outside the laboratory. This is true of many sciences. Try studying the migratory patterns of birds without leaving the lab.
Kuznicki then goes on to quote a longer passage from the Antimatters review. (Because it isn't clearly identified, on my first reading I thought it was a quote from Braude's book, but it's not.) He prefaces the quotation with the caveat that "the following critique of mainstream science — in favor of parapsychology — is wrong from start to finish."
Again, though, it seems as if Kuznicki has misunderstood the passage. The passage he cites is not a "critique of mainstream science — in favor of parapsychology." It is a simple acknowledgment of a blind spot shared by both mainstream science and parapsychology – namely, that neither has so far developed a satisfactory explanation of how matter interacts with matter. As the Antimatters reviewer notes, there are algorithms in physics that successfully predict such interactions, but the algorithms don't explain the mechanism. The mechanism itself remains mysterious – just as the mechanisms of psi are mysterious.
Bafflingly, Kuznicki jumps in to announce that "mechanism is conspicuously absent in most accounts of parapsychological phenomena, too." Of course it is. That is precisely the point of the quoted passage, as even the most casual reading ought to make clear. "In its place," he continues, "we get not the modest silence of the scientific method, but a noisy insistence that no one can possibly explain these things." Wrong again. Parapsychologists do not say that the mechanism cannot possibly be explained, only that it is unknown at present. (Some of them have made tentative stabs at a theoretical explanation, though not, I think, with much success so far.)
So much for the misinterpretations. How about the glaring omission? It concerns the Antimatters reviewer himself, who remains anonymous throughout all of this fulmination. Why does he go unnamed?
Well, maybe because he is Ulrich Mohrhoff, a famed quantum physicist and the originator of the influential Pondicherry interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Now, it's a safe bet that most readers, gauging the scientific expertise of an unknown blogger against that of a leading quantum physicist, would put their money on the physicist. Which is perhaps why Mohrhoff must be made a nameless unperson. If he were identified, Kuznicki's conclusions would suddenly look a lot less authoritative.
Kuznicki's review is a sadly typical product of the skeptical mindset. Rather than grappling with the evidence as presented, it omits the most salient facts and casts derision on the resulting straw-man case. Like much skeptical material, it exhibits what we might regard as a reverse Midas touch - turning the potential gold of exciting new discoveries into the worthless dross of preconceived, half-digested banalities.
The review does have one positive feature, though: it reminds us that Dr. Braude's book will be coming out soon – on October 1, in fact. Reserve your copy now! September 11, 2007 in Books Permalink

Just to say thanks, Micheal.
P.S. It seems our paradogmatist has missed a delightful excerpt from The Gold Leaf Lady in AntiMatters: a chapter on astrology! (http://tinyurl.com/29wo8j) Posted by: Ulrich Mohrhoff September 12, 2007 at 12:08 AM

Another P.S. This time the URL (my name) points to a copy of this post at my blog, with some comments. Warm regards, Ulrich Posted by: Ulrich Mohrhoff September 12, 2007 at 04:36 AM

"As the Antimatters reviewer notes, there are algorithms in physics that successfully predict such interactions, but the algorithms don't explain the mechanism. The mechanism itself remains mysterious – just as the mechanisms of psi are mysterious."
Why is this a controversial point? Anybody who has read David Hume is aware of this. Posted by: Ben September 12, 2007 at 12:37 PM

Ben: Hume notwithstanding, in classical physics the fact that processes are just transmogrified algorithms could be overlooked. In quantum physics the same sleight of hand simply does not work. Quantum physics provides a stronger case than Hume. Posted by: Ulrich Mohrhoff September 12, 2007 at 07:18 PM

From Averroës to Cusanus to finally Shelling

The God Who May Be: A Hermeneutics of Religion: by Richard Kearney, Chapters 4-5.
by James R. Getz Jr., a Doctoral Candidate at Brandeis University.

In his conclusion "Poetics of the Possible God" Kearney ties two general premises of the book together. The first is his attempt to retrieve an alternate hermeneutic of the possible; and the second is the concept of Godplay in this possibility.
First, Kearney looks at various philosophers from Averroës to Cusanus to finally Shelling in an attempt to explain the possible in a way that allows for the eschatological hope of the possible. Kearney sees "the divine Creator transfiguring our being into a can-be", a being capable of creating and recreating anew meanings in our world, without determining the actual content of our creating or doing the actual creating for us." (p.102). This openness of God is revealed in a new hermeneutical understanding of the trinity, "The Father might thus be re-envisages as the loving-possible which transfigures the Son and Spirit and is transfigured by them in turn." (p. 106)
This inner Trinitarian transfiguration plays finally into Kearney?s understanding of Godplay. God and humanity are in an eschatological play of possibility, the possibility of the Kingdom never fully possessed. The Trinity is understood in the Eastern Church as a sacred dance or perichoresis. Kearney holds that this dance is the God-play into which the Triune invites humanity to partake. Posted by geoff holsclaw Permalink

Spinoza went furthest in thinking ontological immanence

September 7, 2007 Philosophy and Immanence Posted by larvalsubjects under Doxa , Intersubjectivity , Antagonism , Immanence , Grounds , Difference , Communication , Ethics , Epistemology , Politics

Take, for example, Plato’s Meno and Phaedo. It will be recalled that Plato famously argues that learning is recollection. That is, to learn is not to acquire new information from the outside given to us by a teacher– elsewhere Socrates will refer to himself as a midwife of knowledge, i.e., he does not bestow or give knowledge but only asks questions that allow a person to recollect knowledge they already have –but rather to learn is to recollect an unconscious, innate knowledge.

Every beginning philosophy student is baffled by Plato’s theory of learning. Indeed, it is likely that a number of Plato scholars are themselves baffled by Plato’s theory of recollection (as can be seen in the way that it is quickly swept under the rug as but a moment in Plato’s thought). However, as soon as we situate Plato’s theory in terms of the problem of immanence, its motivation suddenly becomes clear. Recall that for Plato, knowledge is not a knowledge of this or that particular thing, but a knowledge of forms, essences, or universals. The problem is that we nowhere encounter forms in sensible experience. This comes out clearly in the Phaedo, when Socrates is discussing the Identical. We never see anything identical in the world. All things differ in some respect or another.

Consequently, the story goes, we could not have learned about the identical from experience. Yet we have knowledge of the identical. As Socrates reasons– almost as a proto-Kantian –we could never recognize two things as being the same if we did not first (a priori) know the form of the Identical. Knowledge of the form precedes knowledge of any particulars.

• So 1) we have the concept of the Identical,
• and 2) we did not learn this from experience.

The grammar of philosophy stipulates that we cannot appeal to authority (”because I said so!”) or revelation as a ground for knowledge. Consequently, we must account for this knowledge in some other ways. The theory of recollection or innate ideas! What marvelous conceptual gymnastics to maintain immanence! What magnificent conceptual creations!

We can see the history of philosophy as a series of attempts to preserve or think immanence. Some of these attempts are more successful than others. Some are more interesting than others. If Deleuze and Guattari are led to describe Spinoza as the “Christ of philosophers”, then this isn’t because Spinoza was a prophet or divine, but because Spinoza went furthest in thinking ontological immanence, or a way of explaining the world that relied on no intervention from anything outside the world, history, or nature (certainly this claim can be disputed). The history of philosophy will therefore be a history of strategies for thinking immanence.

• Empiricism would be one strategy (whatever is immanent to sensation).
• Rationalism will be another (whatever is immanent to reason).
• Transcendental idealism will be yet another, and
• phenomenology yet another.

Each of these strategies generates its own unique problems– like Plato’s problem of learning arising out of the immanence of the forms to thought and their absence to experience –and it would be possible to write a “cartography” of the history of philosophy that charted the problems that emerged as a result of particular drawings of immanence and the conceptual gymnastics and inventions that result as a function of these problems.

"Without prejudice"

15. Conclusion: Linking the Humanities ( "Contents"/title page.)
Chapter 15 of Experiencing the Humanities by Richard Jewell

Phenomenology was first developed by early-twentieth century German philosopher Edmund Husserl, and what arguably constitutes a religious version of it was developed by Martin Buber in his book I and Thou. Phenomenology suggests that the most basic experience common to human beings is composed of three basic parts: our own consciousness or awareness, the contents of our consciousness--everything that is "out there" for us to sense; and our memories, thoughts, and reflections about what we have seen and done. A fourth and equally important basic element is that we discover, early in life as children, that there are other "consciousnesses"--other beings--outside of ourselves who seem to be just like us. They have a consciousness like we do, and they have experiences and memories like we do.

According to phenomenology, the most important attitude we can have for viewing these basics of life is to start by being "without prejudice." "Without prejudice" means that in our most basic views or understandings--the part of ourselves we consider the most central to our self identity--we set aside a part of our time each day or week and simply watch the flux of life--observe what we see and hear, observe what we think and feel, and even observe our observing--without yet making decisions about it. After we have made a number of unprejudiced observations about life--what Husserl calls a "scientific" method of viewing life--we can then begin to fit its parts together with fewer prejudgments and more accuracy. Nonreligious phenomenologists such as Husserl claim that by using this process of pure observation, we will have a much clearer and stronger understanding of our and other lives. Religious phenomenologists such as Buber say that this process of pure observation will lead us back to essentially the same religious foundation we have developed, but with a much clearer sense of what our belief means and what it can do.

It is just such a phenomenological attitude--one of pure "scientific" observation--that can help us unite the disciplines of the humanities. One of the most important themes common to the humanities disciplines is that of oserving and understanding human life and meaning. A purer phenomenological stance regarding human experience can help us see how and what the humanities mean to so many different types of people.

Process Theory: A third field theory that has gained some followers is that of process philosophy and psychology. This theory is a mixture of principles from philosophy, society and culture, history, and methods used in the arts. They state that the world and human beings always are processing life.

Some of the proponents of process types of theories include philosophers such as British-American philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, American pragmatists John Dewey and William James, French existentialists Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus and the French philosopher of time, Henri Bergson, South American educational theorist Paolo Freire, theologians Martin Buber (Jewish) and Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Protestant), psychologists such as Jewish German Victor Frankl and Briton R.D. Laing, and many others.

The theory of process states, in its many forms, that everything is in a state of flux and movement. This includes human institutions--all thinking, belief, and action. Whole parts of history, movements of philosophy, social and cultural events, and schools and styles in art all are a constantly intertwining, intermixing series of actions, reactions, and more reactions.

And within this intermixing flux, there is movement. Some of the movement is backward, some forward; but in general we move forward in the very process of trying out more things, reacting to old things, and synthesizing new things.

Any two things that seem opposite will help us discover a better way of dealing with both things, both issues, as we try to choose which one is best. Then, once we have chosen, other opposites come along, and we must rethink our way through these new opposites--learning something from both sides of the coin, both issues, both sides--as we try to reach a new conclusion or choice.

Nietzsche, like Rousseau, praised the natural, the instinctive, against the enlightened and civilized and traditional

Courage Style Aristocracy

Michael Walker undertakes a reckoning with Nietzsche

I shall start in good religious tone, as befits this subject, with a confession, and a dramatic one at that. My first reading of Nietzsche, when I was at university, fatally determined the course my life was to take. I was not to take the normal career to be expected of one of my background and education. I voluntarily entered a kind of bohemian pilgrimage for twenty years, and, to coin a phrase apt for this essay, my tragedy was born of the spirit of Nietzsche’s music. Reading Nietzsche-first Beyond Good and Evil, later Thus Spoke Zarathustra and then Twilight of the Idols, The Anti-Christ and Ecce Homo - in the Penguin classic editions, depressed and exhilarated me. In the latter edition I had written in a poor hand, "M Esdaile Walker ’74 Courage, Style aristocratic" which last three words indeed could be used to summarise the most important qualities in Nietzsche’s view, of human life.

It seemed impossible to me after reading Nietzsche, to take seriously the course of career, success and well-being in a world teeming with the "last man" predicted in Also sprach Zarathustra and marked by the facile acceptance of the now Godless world as it is. The future should not be separated from the past. Thoughtless careers for money, petty fame and security were ambitions I disdained, as Nietzsche disdained them and inspired me to disdain them. Nietzsche was and is for me and despite his own disdain for the movement to which we give the name, a thorough romantic. To an extent, this magazine has been conceived and continued in Nietzsche’s shadow. To be a romantic is to be "half in love with easeful death" and in the spirits of the past.. Now, nel mezzo cammin di nostra vita, it is time for my reckoning with Friedrich Nietzsche.

Summarised, Nietzsche is associated with a number of key radical philosophical positions. These positions are frequently extreme. They provoke and because they provoke, compel the reader to take a stand, to answer Nietzsche with either a yea or nay. God was dead and along with God the metaphysics of good and evil which Christian theology had constructed around the concept "God"- Inequality and hierarchy belonged to the natural order of the cosmos and was ordered through the exercise of the will. The superior human is right to crush the inferior. The justification of life is found in aesthetics, in art. Man is only justified in life in his highest types. The highest level of culture was reached by the Ancient Hellenes and their twin Gods of form and intoxication, Apollo and Dionysus. Evil is necessary to the vitality of life.

A new man is coming whom Nietzsche dubbed the Übermensch, (superman, overman, higher man) who will give the earth a new meaning and create new values. Nietzsche, like de Sade, whom in some ways he resembles, poses the reality of radical positions and invites us to accept them if we are not afraid of where the truth will take us. Time is not linear but circular. Life consists in becoming through a striving of the will to conquer, so that conquering and life are indistinguishable. War forges great men. Women are the enemies of human progress because by their nature they make peace with pertaining reality and prefer security to seeking to change an existing order. Style is more important in human life than happiness...

The opposition to Platonism is the basis of Nietzsche’s phenomenology; the opposition to Christianity leads to the Übermensch; opposition to Kant’s categorical imperative and English utilitarianism leads to an aristocratic imperative, in the assertion that the purpose of human development is the raising of humanity in its highest types; his opposition to conservatism leads to his exaltation of the creative force of the destructive will; his opposition to religious eschatology leads to his discovery of the ring of eternal recurrence. His opposition to nationalism leads to his imperialism, with Napoleon as the ideal, who willed the unity of Europe. Napoleon saw in the emerging world of capitalism "something like a personal enemy" he was "organized violence of the first order", the "contrary of Rousseau". Out of opposition springs affirmation and by the by one more paradox: this resembles Hegel or Marx’s dialectic.

Much of Nietzsche’s writing can be understood as violent rejection and reaction, and principally to four figures, namely Plato, St. Paul, Rousseau and Hegel. The basis of Nietzsche’s rejection of metaphysics is an attack on Plato and the notion that our world is a shadow world, our existence corruptible contrasted with an incorruptible after-life. St. Paul, not Christ, was the person Nietzsche held personally responsible for turning Christianity into an instrument of Sklavenmoral. Hegel believed that history is a rational story which is moving inexorably onwards to a prescribed, pre-scripted end. Nietzsche insisted that this was an illusion. Finally, Nietzsche rejected Rousseau, whom he regarded as a hateful post-Christian moralist, with his belief that civilization was responsible for social evils. But once again there is a contradiction: Nietzsche, like Rousseau, praised the natural, the instinctive, against the enlightened and civilized and traditional. [The remainder of this essay is available in the print version.] Return to home

A different characteristic of “thought” as an ascending occult mentality

Understanding Thoughts of Sri Aurobindo by Debashish on Fri 07 Sep 2007 12:48 AM PDT Permanent Link
UNDERSTANDING THOUGHTS OF SRI AUROBINDO – ED. INDRANI SANYAL AND KRISHNA ROY, CENTER FOR SRI AUROBINDO STUDIES, J.U. PUBLICATION, KOLKATA, 2007. A Review by Debashish Banerji Science, Culture and Integral Yoga

It is not often that a collection of advanced and original writings of such consistent quality on various aspects of Sri Aurobindo’s teachings enters the mainstream of published texts and it is thus even more of a pity that the book should bear such a clumsy title as “Understanding Thoughts of Sri Aurobindo” or wear a jacket of such mediocre design merit. The term “thoughts” with respect to Sri Aurobindo’s oeuvre is obviously a problematic one, given his explicit repeated statements regarding the cessation of “thinking” in him, while at the same time affirming an impersonal “thought” function to a higher mental and even supramental consciousness.

Moreover, a different characteristic of “thought” as an ascending occult mentality in the liberated human nature is also affirmed by him as in his poem “Thought the Paraclete.” So, conceivably, the ideas, whether belonging to the human intellect or not, present in Sri Aurobindo’s writings, could be called “thoughts” – “Those thoughts that wander through eternity” to draw on one of his own favored lines from Milton. There is also what could be called the discursive “author-function” that the postmodern philosopher Michel Foucault envisions as the legitimate impersonal designation of the author, a convenient spatial and historical marker in the ceaseless and unending flow of thought-text that maps out idea-space in human becoming.

Here, the “thoughts of Sri Aurobindo” would not be considered entities originated and thus possessed as personal property by the author Sri Aurobindo, but rather a special configuration or constellation of ideas released into the dynamic flow of jostling mental-vital forces materially distributed as text, constantly reconfigured by time and influencing or shaping human reality. From all these special and rather esoteric considerations, one may try to justify the title, but even at best it remains ungracious in its impression. Even “Understanding the Thought of Sri Aurobindo” may have been better in spite of the problematic nature of the term “thought” - more in keeping with the miraculous global unity and integrality of the ideas expressed in his writings.

But for those who may chance to get past these surface infelicities, there is much of value and originality inside and the serious reader interested in approaching the world-wide teaching of Sri Aurobindo will find much new ground laying out the limbs and proportions of his teachings and relating his ideas to various contemporary thought-currents...But aside from these taxonomic concerns, the selections themselves, as mentioned before, are of a scarcely rivaled excellence in terms of their hermeneutic insight and their contemporary reach.

Of the Philosophical essays, Kireet Joshi’s comparative review of the theories of evolution stands out by its comprehensiveness and clarity. The idea of evolution has been introduced into the modern mainstream by Charles Darwin and Kireet Joshi makes this the starting point of his consideration. He points to the two main characteristics of Darwinian evolutionary biology as: (1) gradualism; and (2) natural instead of supernatural selection – that is, mutations are statistically random and express equal probability but the survival of consciousness in living things selects for the persistence of certain mutations as the building blocks of more complex and better adapted living organisms.

To Joshi’s characteristics, one may add that Darwinism reduces evolution to a scale of physical forms and has no place in its logic for any change of consciousness. Joshi goes on to point to a number of problems with Darwinian evolutionism, some of which have been acknowledged by and responded to by biologists and some of which surpass the scope of biology as a physical science and can only be addressed by philosophers or experimental psychologists/yogis. He points, for example, to the lack of evidence for gradualism and the solutions offered by modern “saltationists,” such as that of the punctuated equilibrium of Stephen Jay Gould. He also points to the problems of explaining complex mutations as against accidents and variations in the emergence of significant functional properties and their similarities and repetitions across different genealogies. He then goes on to consider philosophical solutions to the question of evolution, which mostly add a teleological element to the reductive assumptions of chance held by biology as also a consideration of an evolution of consciousness.

The philosophers he take sup in turn include Henri Bergson, Herbert Spencer, Samuel Alexander, Lloyd Morgan, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Whitehead, before arriving at Sri Aurobindo and explicating his evolutionary philosophy based on a prior involution of consciousness. An essay of this kind of incisive comprehensiveness leaves one with a sense of the total field of evolution and how completely Sri Aurobindo answers all its issues and problems. Comparative perspectives like this are sorely needed today in Sri Aurobindo studies. Arabinda Basu’s succinct and concentrated essay on Sri Aurobindo’s Doctrine of Evolution and Dilip Kumar Roy’s elaboration of Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Approach to the Concept of Evolution are both fit companions to Kireet Joshi’s essay in this philosophic vein.

Merleau-Ponty started in this direction with his discussion of the body, but we need to go even further

One Response to “Conference on After Postmodernism” Open Integral

Edward Berge Says: September 6th, 2007 at 1:13 pm

A common dichotomy repeatedly brought up here is between direct experience and intellectual concepts. Here are a few comments on the topic from the above website in an article called “Beyond postmodernism: From concepts through experiencing” at

http://www.focusing.org/gendlin_beyond_postmodernism_excerpt.html

What and where is this experiencing to which we have direct access? Merleau-Ponty (1945) started in this direction with his discussion of the body, but we need to go even further.

First, psychologists and their public have discovered experience, but do not sufficiently recognize the role of culture, history, and language that informs our experience. Sophisticated intellectuals know this but go to the other, postmodern extreme, and argue that everything comes from culture, history, and language. Philosophically I think there needs to be a further step. The step forward would be to recognize what is with and after language. The body is always in a fresh situational interaction that exceeds culture, history and language.
Second, currently some thinkers are searching for “emergent” con¬cepts and knowledge. To find this requires finding the direct access to ongoing bodily experiencing. The direct access exceeds the common phrases. But language is inherent in all human experiencing. New facets of experiencing rearrange the implicit language and can generate new sentences. These do not copy; rather they carry experiencing forward. Naive observers believe they can “match” experience with something they say. Many postmodernists know that it is impossible to “represent,” capture, or copy experience, but they take this to mean that everything is up to arbitrary interpretation. A philosophical advance is provided if we notice that we can speak-from direct access to experiencing. We can recognize the difference when we are speaking-from our direct access, and when we are not.
Third, to speak-from direct access to experience leads to a zig-zag process between speaking and access, in which experience changes, but not arbitrarily. This occurs in a sequence of small bodily sensed shifts.
Fourth, living bodies have a holistic life-forward direction that is usu¬ally called “adaptive” as if they only fit themselves to external require¬ments. But in fact the living systems create new and more intricate meanings and actions.
The experiencing process I have described has its own coherence. It took me a long time to affirm that the ongoing bodily experiencing has its own inherent life-forwarding implying. The little steps that arise at the edge are creative, imaginative, and always in some positive direction.
The life process is self-organizing, but much more intricately than we can conceptualize. A great undivided multiplicity is always at work. The higher animals live quite complex lives without culture. Culture does not create; it elaborates. Then we live creatively much further with and after culture. To think that we are the creation of culture is not a view one can maintain if one senses ongoing bodily experiencing directly. Culture is crude and inhuman in comparison with what we find directly. The intri¬cacy you are now living vastly exceeds what cultural forms have con¬tributed to you. With focusing we discover that we are much more organized from the inside out. Direct access to this intricacy enables us to think-from much more than the usual concepts and assumptions.

Polanyi argued that the objective-subjective dualism is false

Newbigin on Polanyi: All Knowing Involves Personal Commitment Published by Cynthia R. Nielsen September 5th, 2007 in Lesslie Newbigin, Recent/Contempoary Protestant Thinkers/Movements, Michael Polanyi, Knowledge

In chapter 3, “Certainty as the Way to Nihilism,” of his book Proper Confidence, Newbigin discusses a number of dualisms that come to the fore in Modernity, and which can (at least on a traditional read) be trace to Descartes.

The first is the dualism between the res cogitans and the res extensa.

The second and third dualisms consist of a sharp division between objective and subjective, and a dichotomizing view of theoria and praxis.

With regard to the second dualism, Newbigin brings Polanyi’s insights of “personal knowledge” into the conversation. Polanyi, a Hungarian scientist turned philosopher, argued that “the objective-subjective dualism is false and that all knowing of reality involves the personal commitment of the knower as a whole person” (p. 39). One might perhaps see Polanyi’s ability to break through the rather ossified enlightenment-inspired tradition that had come to reign among scientists in terms of approaching the issues of knowledge from a new set of questions. Rather than ask, “how are truth claims to be justified,” Polanyi asks, “how do we come to know, and how are discoveries made?” (p. 40). Discoveries are not typically made as a result of following a set of rigidly defined rules, as discoveries are hitherto unknown and often involve bending the rules. As he explored these epistemological issues, Polanyi came up with the following as possible answers to the question of how discoveries in science occur.
First, one must be apprenticed to a tradition of knowledge. Second, one must “indwell” this tradition. As Newbigin explains,
The assumptions, the assured findings of the past, and the methods of science become part of their own equipment on which they [scientists] rely. All this functions like the lenses of our spectacles. While we are wearing our usual spectacles and exploring the world around us, we do not attend to the lenses; we attend through them to the things we are examining. They function as an extension of the lenses in our own eyes, and we indwell them just as we indwell our own eyes. Likewise when we have come to use a language freely, we indwell the language. We don not look at the language as an object over against us; we think through the language. By indwelling it we are able to make contact with the world around us. We are subsidiarily aware of the words we use, but we focus on the things to which they refer. In the same way, scientists are subsidiarily aware of the tradition to which they are apprenticed, while, at the same time, they are focally attending to the object of their research. If their work is to make progress, they have to trust this tradition, just as we have to trust the lenses in our eyes or in our spectacles. This trust is a precondition for our exploration of the world (pp. 40-41).
Hence, according to Polanyi, the scientific tradition itself serves a kind of “fiduciary framework” in which the scientist must trust so as to make progress in knowledge (p. 41).
Third, in order to further scientific knowledge, one must recognize a problem and attempt to find a solution. Here Polanyi introduces his idea of recognition as a kind of intuition that there is some kind of “pattern or harmony waiting to be found” amongst what hitherto seems to be merely chaotic empirical reality. Such intuitions of course can turn out to be illusory, and in those cases, they would simply be abandoned or redirected. Not only does scientific discovery involve intuition, but it also requires imagination and a kind of prudence that co-exists with risk taking. To this, Newbigin adds,
[a]t every point along this course, there is need of personal judgment in deciding whether a pattern is significant or merely random. None of these things can be covered by formal rules. They all involve the personal commitment of the scientist, and it is absurd to pretend that the findings of science can be understood without taking into account all these subjective factors (p. 41).
Fourth, the scientist’s work involves what Polanyi calls “tacit knowledge.” In other words, much of what we know, which influences our thinking, we are not able to explicitly express (p. 42). Fifth, contrary to the idea promulgated in the 19th century, science will not one day be able to predict and control all events. Such a notion fails to take into consideration the hierarchical structure of the physical world. Here the idea is that one cannot limit the laws governing one field to that of another (e.g., the laws of chemistry cannot be limited to the laws of physics, nor can those of biology be reduced to physics). “The exhaustive examination of the physical, chemical, and mechanical structure of the machine will not enable us to discover the purpose for which the machine was constructed. We have to be informed either by the designer of the machine or by someone who is accustomed to using it for its proper purpose” (p. 42).
Lastly, though it is the case that all knowledge claims involve personal commitment, the scientist makes these “with universal intent” (p. 43). In addition, “a valid truth claim will lead to new discovery” (p. 43). Newbigin adds, for Polanyi, truth claims made by scientists are not “irreformable and indubitable claims to possess the truth; rather, they are claims to be on the way to the fullness of truth. There is thus no absolute dichotomy, such as Descartes has bequeathed to us, between knowing and believing” (p. 43). Newbigin ends the chapter by citing one of Polanyi’s most concise statements of his position. After affirming, “the personal participation of the knower in all acts of understanding,” Polanyi says
[b]ut this does not make our understanding subjective. Comprehension is neither an arbitrary act nor a passive experience, but a responsible act claiming universal validity. Such knowledge is indeed objective in the sense of establishing contact with a hidden reality, contact that is defined as the condition for anticipating an indeterminate range of as yet unknown (and perhaps yet inconceivable) true implications. It seems reasonable to describe this fusion of the personal and the objective as personal knowledge. (Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, pp. vii-viii).[1]
[1] As cited in Proper Confidence, p. 44.
3 Responses to “Newbigin on Polanyi: All Knowing Involves Personal Commitment”
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1 WTM Sep 5th, 2007 at 8:22 am
This is interesting, Cynthia. I didn’t know Newbingen was into Polyani. TF Torrance interacts with him occasionally, and from what I gather, liked what Polyani was doing and found resonances there with his own epistemological work. It’s a shame that Polyani’s “Personal Knowledge” seems to be out of print.
2 Dru Johnson Sep 5th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
WTM - Personal Knowledge should not be out of print. I know I’ve seen it at Borderst recently. But, yes, Newbigin almost becomes a straightforward expositor of Polanyi in PC. I used PC as a text in my epistemology class at the seminary and people seemed to really like it. Trevor Hart (St. Andrews) also has one of the best and most concise theological expositions of Polanyi in his Faith Thinking. Despite the cheesy sound of its title, FT is a wonderful book and a fairly easy read. I think Trevor Hart and Newbigin probably make Polanyi the most accessible to theology.
Although, I think everyone ought to just read Personal Knowledge, IMHO. But it’s a hard read and his motivations are not always perspicuous. The aspect you have picked up on here in Newbigin is generally termed his ‘fiduciary programme’. Once you ‘get’ the import of it, traditional epistemologies floating around today look utterly paltry. As always, it never hurts to throw a little Polanyi into the conversation.
3 Cynthia R. Nielsen Sep 5th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Dear WTM,
Thanks for dropping by. I’ve really enjoyed Newbigin’s book thusfar. It is an easy read and is a great introduction to a number of philosophical themes/narratives for those not having a background in philosophy.
Dear Dru,
I am glad that you commented, as this post was in your honor. In case you guys were not aware of it, Dru is our local Polanyi expert. He did a guest post series for me on Polanyi that is still widely read. Just do a search on my blog for Polanyi and Dru’s series will pop up.
Best wishes, Cynthia

A similar ethno-socio-historical analysis could be written for various religious experiences

September 5, 2007 Gabriel Tarde and the Individuation of Social Classes

Posted by larvalsubjects under Individuation , Deleuze

For those who are interested, a translation of Tarde’s Social Laws: An Outline of Sociology can be found online here. Tarde is one of those underground figures in the thought of Deleuze and Guattari (if memory serves, Deleuze refers to his work as early as Difference and Repetition). Speaking of his importance, Deleuze and Guattari write,
In homage to Gabriel Tarde (1843 - 1904): his long-forgotten work has assumed new relevance with the influence of American sociology, in particular microsociology. It had been quashed by Durkheim and his school...

It bears repeating that, for Deleuze, the problem of individuation is not the question of how an individual is identified or distinguished from another individual, but rather is the question of how an individual comes-to-be or is produced. As Deleuze will tirelessly repeat, “individuation is not the individual.” Individuation, rather, is an ontological process. In Difference and Repetition, this process is shown to have two dimensions or halves: differentiation and differenciation. Differentiation refers to the differential relations and singularities belonging to a multiplicity and defining a “problematic field”, where a problematic field can be taken as the forces, matters, and tensions a being must navigate in coming to be. Differenciation, by contrast, refers to the manner in which this field is resolved so as to precipitate species, qualities, and parts. For instance, the color of your skin (a quality and part) will be a function of how it is actualized or how it intergrates, sunlight, genetics, diet, and so on. These integrated elements are the problematic field resolved in the course of individuation...

In this particular instance, class would belong to the domain of differenciation, whereas the tensions and forces populating the field of masses would belong to the realm of differentiation. We must not assume a sort of universal human nature where we are born with inherent ways of being affects, of perceiving, of living the world, and so on. For instance, we must not begin with the premise that “humans”, at all times and places, are born with inherent mystical or transcendent experiences, or with the capacity to love as we think it today. Rather, we must examine the way in which bodies are individuated so as to produce these kinds of affects. Niklas Luhmann, for instance, shows how the contemporary experience of love emerged from a particular set of social and historical processes in Love as Passion.

Marx shows how new types, sensibilities, subjectivities emerge historically in the bourgeois and proletariat (thereby undercutting a good deal of bourgeois ideology that posits universal human passions such as greed by showing the historical specificity of this sort of subjectivity). A similar ethno-socio-historical analysis could be written for various religious experiences. These are all instances of subjectivization that refer to particular individuations within a social field. The themes here are very close to those Deleuze had explored decades before in his study of Hume, Empiricism and Subjectivity, where he sought to show how Hume is attempting to account for the formation of the subject or how a subject emerges. I have not yet read the Tarde [here], but it looks well worth the time.

Here the claim is that there is something fundamentally malevolent in human nature

pebird Says: September 3, 2007 at 6:09 pm
I’ve never found the argument that people are by nature sinful to be philosophically limiting. In fact, the opposite.
If we are by nature unable to reach perfection, how is it we can even conceive of perfection?
Or perhaps our conception of perfection is itself flawed? Maybe there is no perfection - but the concept reflects a desire, a fantasy, to simply avoid error. Is perfection just a lack of error?
Is it possible for people to create anything without error, without an assumption, without some gap?
For example, if people were involved in writing any part of the Bible, and since no human is perfect, how is it that people can believe that the Bible is a reference containing no mistakes? Not to argue about the Bible, but how is that on the one hand we can hold that human fallibility is inherent, but on the other accept a work by inherently error-prone humans as perfection?
And perhaps the belief of attaining material perfection was what doomed the communist experiment?
These are simple twists on commonplace beliefs, sometimes needed to get students off their unconsciously accepted ideologies.

larvalsubjects Says: September 3, 2007 at 6:26 pm Pebird, nice to see you!
Is the claim that people are sinful identical to the claim that we are imperfect? I completely agree that we perpetually posit ideals and values (I would argue they change throughout history) and that we experience ourselves as falling short of these values.

By contrast, it seems to me that assertions of inherent sinfulness are often saying far more than this. Here the claim is that there is something fundamentally– for lack of a better word –malevolent in human nature that entails the necessary failure of any attempts to change aspects of science. This line of argument comes up quite often, in my experience, in fundamentalist circles. Somehow the claim that humans are sinful and we are forgiven by Christ gets translated into the claim that we are forgiven and shouldn’t even try to engage in any good works or attempts at self-betterment because

1) since we are already forgiven there’s no point in doing so anyway, and

2) because we are sinful by nature we’ll necessarily fail in trying to do so.

Often these claims asserted at the level of individual ethics get transferred to political change. I should emphasize that I’m not just pulling this thesis out of thin air, but have observed this rhetoric at work far more than I would have ever expected from those who are predominantly conservative in their thought. Moreover, I’m uninterested in whether talk of inherent sin is accurate theologically or is true, but only with the way this particular rhetoric seems to function (a number of the posts in this thread have gotten into discussions about the theological accuracy of this claim, which strikes me as beside the point).
As for how people can believe the Bible contains no mistakes… The thesis is that the Bible is divinely inspired such that even though it was written by people it was actually written by God who animated these people. Ergo it can contain no mistakes.
It seems to me that we can come up with many more reasons for why the communist experiment failed, not the least of which was Stalinism (i.e., the belief that the transformation of economic conditions is sufficient to transform social conditions). Couple this with a state centered, hierarchical bureaucratic form of government that believes it can predict all needs and you get quite a mess.

Our favorite Scientifico-Enlightenment-Lacanian-Rationalist

An und für sich “This is more a comment than a question…”
Fall Book Preview (w/ Link Dump!) by Anthony Paul Smith August 31st, 2007

I’ve made a list of some new books coming out this Fall that have sample chapters online, so interested parties that don’t already know can check them out.
The Centre of Theology and Philosophy is publishing five books this fall on SCM Press. Some of these books have their respective introductions and first chapter’s online. As I spent a month indexing the conference volumes I can say that they are well worth reading if you have interests in these areas and present a good variance of viewpoints and work. Our favorite Scientifico-Enlightenment-Lacanian-Rationalist has a blog post cited in Belief and Metaphysics in an essay by Marcus Pound, whose Theology, Psychoanalysis and Trauma is sure to be controversial amongst Lacanians. It should be noted that I don’t exactly quite line up with the purpose of the books series, so don’t expect a defense of the orientation, but I will say that they are looking to be quite good regardless. For those attending the AAR this year do come to the book launch and drink free alcohol with me.

Palgrave has really taken off as a publisher of interesting work in Continental philosophy. Three books in the Renewing Philosophy series look particularly interesting to me. Art Encounters Deleuze and Guattari: Thought Beyond Representation by Simon O’Sullivan, On Futurity:Malabou, Nancy & Derrida by Jean-Paul Martinon, and of course Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction by Ray Brassier. The last of which I believe will be the focus of a reading group here at Nottingham, but the price may prohibit that. Palgrave has also founded two new series that look very promising. Miguel de Beistegui will be editing the Palgrave Forum for French Philosophy and John Protevi will be editing New Directions in Philosophy and Cognitive Science. All of this with the recent Henri Bergson Centennial Series makes Palgrave my current favorite publisher. Now if only they’d publish these at an affordable price.
Lastly is Philip Goodchild’s Theology of Money. I’ve read about a 2/3 of this in draft form and think it is a very powerful piece of work. Sure to be controversial, I can only hope it will also be read. Posted by Anthony Paul Smith Filed in academia 6 Responses to “Fall Book Preview (w/ Link Dump!)”

Alex Says: August 31st, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Dude, we are gonna read Brassier if we have to share one copy. It is the shizz nizzle, although probably seriously wrong, but like his other stuff inspirationally wrong. Totally inspirationally wrong.
See also the book in the Centre affiliated series, Illuminations, The End of Work, a critique of capitalism criticizing its inherent utilitarianism drawing upon the resources of John Ruskin and William Morris. I have read a fair bit of it, and it is pretty damned interesting stuff, though not as good, of course, as my work on the subject (mah hahahahahahah etc).
You forgot the upcoming release of Conor Cunningham’s book on Darwinism, Evolution: Darwin’s Pious Idea, which is likely to put the Centre on the map by critiquing both dogmatic Dawkinish neo-Darwinism and intelligent design, and giving a theological re-reading of Evolution. This, of course, being trailed by his excellent essay in the Belief and Metaphysics volume, which might be the best thing a theologian proper has written on the subject.
The Goodchild book also looks very sexy.
Anthony Paul Smith Says: August 31st, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Is Illuminations Centre affiliated?
Anyway, I didn’t include the books that didn’t have sample chapters up. Conor’s Darwinism book should be good, but I’m not sure that it’s coming out in the Fall.
Alex Says: August 31st, 2007 at 3:14 pm
I seem to recall the “this idea is further explored in my book” citation in Belief and Metaphysics is vaguely 2007, I am assuming soonish, as it is finished.
As the Illuminations thing is edited by John, I would assume that it is affiliated. One of the books has already arrived and is mentioned on the site. It just isn’t getting as much promotion.
£40 for Proposing Theology - you are having a laugh!
Anthony Paul Smith Says: August 31st, 2007 at 3:16 pm
I assume that price will be changed once they get the manuscript. It’s under 200 pages and supposed to be a kind of manifesto!
Alex Says: August 31st, 2007 at 3:19 pm
I suspect that it must be based upon his programatic address five or six months back. Thats what he said anyhow!
Goodchild’s Introduction is so much cooler with the inclusion of “a parable”.
marcegoodman Says: August 31st, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Anthony,
Thanks for these. The link to the Palgrave Forum for French Philosophy series appears broken. Here is a working link. http://www.palgrave.com/philosophy/pffp.asp
Are you presenting at AAR?

His interest in siddhis and his conviction that they can become a normal part of a transformed human nature

The Normality of the Supernormal: Siddhis in Sri Aurobindo’s Record of Yoga
by Richard Hartz Science, Culture and Integral Yoga

Of the specific siddhis of power, the one most often mentioned in the Record of Yoga is aishwarya. In pure aishwarya, the will is exerted and then left to work itself out. But Sri Aurobindo observed early in 1914:

“Hitherto aishwarya has usually had to take the help of vashita; this dependence is now disappearing. Ishita is still slow & uncertain in its results.”37

He recorded many examples of the exercise of aishwarya, beginning with some as modest as “Aishwaryam on ant to give up its object and go back, done after a short persistence in the forward movement.”38

Eventually he was able to write:
Successive movements of birds & ants etc can now often be determined for some minutes together with less resistance than formerly & fewer deviations, but in the end the object escapes from control, often however with an after effect inducing the sudden fulfilment of unfulfilled aishwaryas when the actual pressure was withdrawn.39

One of his most elaborately recorded experiments, this time with a human subject, is found in the entry of 8 July 1914 under the heading Typical aishwarya. First the “materials” for the experiment are listed: “the house & shop at the distant corner, the door of the house in one street, the door of the shop in the other. A child of about four going round the corner from the house to the shop. Two bamboo mats at the corner of the pavement.” Next the object of the exercise is stated: “Aishwarya for the child not to go to the shop, but turn aside to the mats.” The effect of the aishwarya is then described:
The child first turned the corner, took two paces, then stopped dead under the influence of the aishwarya, uncertain for a time whether to go on or return. Then it drew back to the corner & stayed there fronting the shop. After a while one of the mats was blown on to the road by the wind, but this was not observed by the child, as its eyes were turned elsewhere. (Contributory circumstance created by pressure of Aishwarya on Prakriti [nature]). It finally turned the corner & went some way to the house then paused & turned again in the direction of the mats, but without observing them. It was seen that it would go into the house, not [to] the mats.

To bring the experiment to a successful conclusion required an exercise of communicative vyāpti and a renewed application of aishwarya:
Sent vyapti to suggest to the mind the idea of the mats. The vyapti had effect; the child observed the mats & began to get the idea that they were not in the right place. After a long hesitation it went on towards the house in obedience to the prior impulse & then, overcome by fresh aishwarya, turned, went to the mats & brought them one by one to the door of the house.40

Sri Aurobindo seems to have conducted countless such experiments, only a fraction of which he noted down. These had a serious purpose despite their frequently playful appearance, which perhaps reflected his vision of the lila (cosmic game) of Krishna (the personality of the Divine associated especially with the ānanda aspect of Sachchidananda). The aim of his experimentation was partly theoretical—he spoke of proving “the theory of the Yoga”,41 if only to himself—but there was also the practical motive of perfecting the siddhis as means of action. At one point he wrote:
Aishwarya increases considerably & rapidly in force & effectiveness, no longer in the old field of exercise mainly (movements of birds, beasts, insects, people around) but in the wider range of life.42

His applications of aishwarya and other siddhis to life included distant healing, the transmission of spiritual experiences to others, and the influencing of world events. Not surprisingly, it was in the attempt to influence large-scale events at a distance that failures were most often recorded. In one entry in 1913 we come across the statement: “The two great disappointments of the aishwarya have been the fall of Janina & Adrianople & the outrages in Bengal; the aishwarya has failed to avoid these disasters.”43 On a “day of baffled aiswaryasiddhi”, Sri Aurobindo observed: “The siddhis of power acted in small things with partial effectiveness, but failed in great.”44 Nevertheless, during a certain period we also find him recording many instances of what he regarded as the fulfilment of aishwarya even in public matters.
In any case, the exercise of this siddhi was always subject to the condition: “Aishwarya has to be utilised only where there is perception of the Divine Will behind.” In the same entry, Sri Aurobindo described his state as one of complete surrender (dāsya) “whether in motion, speech, emotion or thought”, extending even to “such involuntary motions as the closing or blinking of the eyelids”. He added, using the formula of the sixth or brahma chatushtaya: “sarvam anantam jnanam anandam Brahma is seen everywhere.”45

The realisation expressed by the words sarvam anantam jñānam ānandam brahma is the perception of Brahman, the spirit, in its four aspects, by which one experiences “all the universe as the manifestation of the One [sarvam brahma], all quality and action as the play of his universal and infinite energy [anantam brahma], all knowledge and conscious experience as the outflowing of that consciousness [jñānam brahma], and all in the terms of that one Ananda [ānandam brahma].”46 This is another way of describing the realisation that all is Sachchidananda, with sat represented by sarvam brahma and the two sides of chit as energy and consciousness represented by anantam and jñānam brahma.
In Sri Aurobindo’s experience, such a spiritual realisation made the flowering of siddhis virtually inevitable. An especially close connection between jñānam brahma and the siddhis involved in telepathy is indicated by statements such as: “It is the firm basing of the Jnanam Brahma which admits of a more & more complete telepathy.”47 In another diary entry we read:
The whole day has been devoted to a struggle, attended by revived asiddhi [imperfection, the contradiction of siddhi] . . . to establish the organisation of the ritam [truth] in trikaldrishti, telepathy etc on the basis of entire Brahmabodha [Brahman-consciousness] including especially the jnanam Brahma.48

In the awareness of Brahman, if it could be made complete and constant, evidently the separative mentality that is the normal human condition might be replaced by a unity of consciousness in which obstacles to the direct communication and interaction of mind with mind could be largely abolished.

Brahman, Vijnana and Siddhis
If Sri Aurobindo’s diary is taken to be a reasonably accurate account of his experiences, it may lend some support to certain trends that have recently emerged in the field of parapsychology; it may also suggest potentially fruitful directions for long-term future investigation, especially in view of the gradual weakening of Eurocentric biases and a growing willingness to learn from other cultures. Already we find the concept of Brahman invoked by parapsychologists such as Dean Radin, who writes:

The idea that consciousness may be field-like is not new. William James wrote about this idea in 1898, and more recently British biologist Rupert Sheldrake proposed a similar idea with his concept of morphogenic fields. The conceptual roots of field consciousness can be traced back to Eastern philosophy, especially the Upanishads, the mystical scriptures of Hinduism, which express the idea of a single underlying reality embodied in “Brahman,” the absolute self.49

Sri Aurobindo joins the yogis of the entire Indian tradition in affirming the possibility of developing psychic abilities, while cautioning us at the same time against pursuing siddhis for the wrong reasons. Ideally their awakening should be part of a total change of consciousness based on a discovery of our inner or higher self, which must replace the ego if we are to be free from the temptation to misuse our enhanced powers.
Admittedly this is a tall order in our impatient age. Yet the theory of evolution has accustomed the modern mind to the idea that radical change is possible over time. Sri Aurobindo was a pioneer of philosophical thinking on the evolution of consciousness. It was in this context that he proposed an integral yoga as a way of accelerating the process. The next step in evolution, he believed, would depend on transferring the centre of our being and action from the mind to a higher plane he called vijñāna, gnosis or supermind. His interest in siddhis and his conviction that they can become a normal part of a transformed human nature was connected with this primary goal of his yoga... posted by Rich on Fri 31 Aug 2007 09:46 AM PDT Permanent Link