Books by D P Chattopadhyaya

1. Anthropology and Historiography of Science Isbn: 8120809548 by D P Chattopadhyaya
2. Forms, Concerns, and Development in Historical Perspective: History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization Isbn: 8121509041 by D P Chattopadhyaya
3. Induction, Probability, and Skepticism [Suny Series in Philosophy] Isbn: 0791406814 by D P Chattopadhyaya
4. Interdisciplinary Studies in Science Technology Philosophy and Culture [Phispc Monograph Series on History of Philosophy, Science and Culture in inDia, 6] Isbn: 8121507200 by D P Chattopadhyaya
5. Knowledge Freedom and Language: An Interwoven Fabric of Man, Time and World Isbn: 8120806301 by D P Chattopadhyaya
6. Language Logic and Science in India: Some Conceptual and Historical Perspectives [Phispc Monograph Series on History of Philosophy, Science and Culture in inDia, No 4] Isbn: 8121506891 by D P Chattopadhyaya
7. Mathematics, Astronomy and Biology in Indian Tradition Isbn: 8121506883 by D P Chattopadhyaya
8. Realism: Responses and Reactions Isbn: 8185636451 by D P Chattopadhyaya
9. Science, Philosophy and Culture Part 2 Isbn: 8121507855 by D P CHATTOPADHYAYA
10. Sociology, Ideology and Utopia: Socio-Political Philosophy of East and West [Philosophy of History and Culture, Vol 18] Isbn: 9004108076 by D P Chattopadhyaya
11. Sri Aurobindo and Karl Marx: Integral Sociology and Dialectical Sociology Isbn: 8120803884 by D P Chattopadhyaya
12. Ways of Understanding the Human Past: Mythic, Epic, Scientific and Historic Isbn: 8187586052 by D P Chattopadhyaya

True knowledge is available only through true cognition

In any study of Buddhist philosophy there is a paradox that John Dunne describes in the introduction to his book Foundations of Dharmakirti’s Philosophy. He discusses the Buddhist notion of “beginninglessness” that is present in the sacred texts and beliefs of the tradition. For a Buddhist philosopher to choose a starting point almost seems as though it would already disprove the system of Buddhism as a whole. He writes: “if a beginning occurs, there must be some moment, some “now,” in which it occurs. For the present to exist however there must be a past and a future, for what would “now” mean if there were no time other than now? (Dunne 1-2)”

I would suggest that the most useful solution to this problem lies in the nature of literature itself. It is impossible for a philosophical work to be on an unending loop. Instead for a successful Buddhist philosophy to be unveiled it must not suggest that there is a point at which to start. There should be what Dunne calls a “Point of Departure”. In his work Nayaya-Bindu Dharmakirti chooses a careful analysis of his Pramana Theory as his foundation.To correctly analyze Dharmakirti’s philosophy it is prudent to first examine foundational components of his thought. As with most Indian thinkers the discourse in which he operates focuses on Pramana Theory. Dunne describes Pramana Theory as “the determination of what constitutes indubitable or indisputable knowledge and the reliable means of attaining it (Dunne 16).”

J.N. Mohanty offers a different interpretation in stating “Pramana means “that by which true cognition is arrived at (2001 5)”. Though at first glance these two definitions may seem to drive a wedge in the understanding of Pramana Theory, upon careful examination they highlight an important feature of Indian thought. Using the Mohanty notion of cognition, true knowledge is available only through true cognition.

According to Mohanty every sect that investigated Pramana Theory (Lokayatas, Buddhists, Vaisesikas, Samkhyas, Nyayas, Vedantas, Bhatta Mimamsas, and Prabhakara Mimamsas) ascertain that perception is a pramana, though they often disputed the nature of perception. All of the aforementioned sects other than the Lokayatas accept inference as another pramana. The other pramanas are “Comparison, Word, Postulation, and Nonperception (Mohanty 16-17).” posted by Tucker Brennan I AM THE WINTERNET! Friday, December 9 @ 11:43 AM

The Society for Phenomenology and Media

The Society for Phenomenology and Media, 8th Annual International Conference, 23-25 Feb, 2006, San Diego, CA, United States Contact name: Gabriella Romani E-mail: socphenmedia@yahoo.com

Papers dealing with any aspect of media are considered. Theoretical diversity is encouraged. Past Keynoters: Anna-Teresa-Tymienieska, Vivian Sobchack, J. N. Mohanty, Bina Gupta, Maricio Beauchot, Antonio Zirion, Janina Makota, Barry Smith.

Derrida is a remarkably economical thinker

Camille Paglia rips on "the pretentious, verbose trinity of Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault." I don't know Paglia well enough to even guess whether she's being ironic. May be the reference to her "78- page review essay" is a clue. Anyhow, her target is Foucault, which doesn't interest me so much. I am interested in the charge of verbosity being leveled against Derrida, because in my limited experience Derrida is a remarkably economical thinker.

Clark at Mormon Metaphysics touches on Derrida's way of thinking with regard to metaphor. At a certain level of abstraction, I think can understand what Clark is saying. It's as if Derrida had a model similar to Gödel's incompleteness theorem that he applied to various problems. For sure, Derrida is adept at axiomatic reduction and manipulation, and keen to logical contradictions, and the idea of a supplement does seem to be a constant element of his thinking.

I'd been meaning to respond to Clark's reading of Derrida since he commented on Derrida's interpretation of Husserl's Origins of Geometry, because I didn't think Clark's synopsis of Husserl's argument got it quite right. Sometimes it takes me forever and a day to assemble my thoughts, and meanwhile Clark has whizzed on by in several other posts devoted to Derrida's thinking. And it's difficult to concieve of responding to somebody who uses some but not all of the books that you've read, and some books that you haven't read and maybe won't ever get around to. It's funny that this difficulty should appear in the context of a hypothetical difference of opinion on a topic where I believe we would largely and essentially agree. How much worse could it be?

Jacques Derrida has become an icon, a transcontintental cultural marker. Some of the people who have read Derrida's works also have informed opinions about Camille Paglia, one way or another. Others don't. In cases like this, it is very hard for me to see what is essential about a thinker. Can we imagine that Socrates understood Heraclitus better than the Heracliteans? Of course, but it does raise questions about thinking, essence, logos, nous, etc.. One thing that persistently bugs me--a fault in my own thinking as much as a constant feature of pretentious and verbose discourse--is the feeling that opinions are formed primarily based on identification with a name, and once they are set, if they turn out to be pretty worthless, it's like a root canal trying to get them unset. The Whole Enchilada.... posted by Fido the Yak at Friday, February 17, 2006 5:57 PM.

Western vs. Eastern

While large tracts of Western philosophy and some theology are acceptable in scientific discourse, this is by and large not true for Eastern philosophy. If I bring up Plato, Socrates, Aquinas, Fichte, Schelling, Kant etc. in a discussion, there's no problem. But if I were to bring up Nagarjuna, Fa-tsang, Sankara, Aurobindo, Trungpa Rinpoche etc., I'm usually amazed and taken aback by the hostile reception.

Sometimes the discussion veers off into finding approximate Western counterparts for Nagarjuna (Derrida), Sankara (Berkeley), Aurobindo (de Chardin) etc. as though this makes the person feel safe that the discussion is now again "Western." Or else, and this happens sometimes, the person (that I'm talking to) will just state baldly that there is not a single idea of merit in "Eastern mysticism" (whatever that term means). What amazing and breathtaking arrogance. Where does it come from? I have no clue. # posted by NoOne @ 10:50 AM Sutra, Tantra and Ati

Eco-philosophy

Henryk Skolimowski

T'he idea of scientific philosophy arrived on the stage around 1910 with Bertrand Russell. Then the philosophers from the Vienna Circle in Vienna, in Austria, picked up the idea and pushed it to an extreme. Philosophy became a scrutiny of the structure of language and, in my opinion, was short-changed. Bit by bit, philosophy was made an inquiry into the nature of linguistic propositions. Philosophers became preoccupied, to the point of obsession, with how language works. Distinguished philosophers such as J.L. Austin started writing essays on "Ifs and Cans." If you think how much that is removed from the real quest of philosophy, then you realise that something bizarre has happened.

Nowadays, even analytical philosophers themselves are rather unhappy with the position they have been pushed into. They try to get out of it. Somehow, however, they are stuck. They try to get unstuck in a piecemeal way, while what we need is a total reconstruction, changing the whole mode of thinking, of perceiving and of valuing. It is here that Eco-philosophy comes into focus as a new cosmology, a new way of rethinking the multitude.Instead of conceiving the universe as a clocklike mechanism, governed by deterministic laws, in which we are stuck as a little bolt or screw, we can assume that the universe is a sanctuary and we am its custodians-priests if you will. The mechanistic universe was based on the assumptions of the mechanistic nature of the cosmos.

Eco-philosophy is based on the view that the nature of the universe is unfolding, evolutionary, and emergent. Because it's emergent, you don't know what will happen next. It is the glory and the beauty of evolution that it is creative, producing new variation f which the human mind is one. Every new idea is a blossoming of creative evolution. A new philosophy is for me a manifestation of the ability of evolution to create through us. Put otherwise, a new creative conception of the cosmos is a response of evolution-through us!-to get unstuck. For if we are stuck evolution is stuck. We have got locked In a cul-de-sac and now we are unlocking ourselves by creating new vistas through which we show that we have somewhere to go, and that evolution has somewhere to go.This is a very short answer to what Eco-philosophy wants to accomplish. It wants to create a new cosmology within which we are at home in this universe and at peace with all creation...

Take the history of science. Until the second half of the twentieth century, the view prevailed that science is like a monolithic pyramid to which scientists, like masons, add one stone each. If you look at the picture of the evolution of science as presented nowadays by such people as Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn, it is a different picture altogether. It is a dramatic picture, a discontinuous picture, reminding us more of a kind of Shakespearean stage in which main actors basic theories-like kings in old tragedies are slain and new ones emerge. After a new paradigm emerges, the old paradigm is dethroned like an old dynasty.

This is also confirmed by psychologists, according to whom our own individual development does not proceed smoothly from year to year. At certain points, there are periods of tension which is so great that we do not know who we are any more. After the process of Inner transformation, as it were, a new person has emerged. For instance, a teenager has become a young adult.

What I hate about Foucault

Camille Paglia

I never met or saw Foucault in the flesh. (He died in 1984.) My low opinion of him is based entirely on his solipsistic, mendacious writing, which has had a disastrous influence on naïve American academics. I miss no opportunity to throw darts at Foucault's scrawny haunches because he is the last standing member of the Terrible Triad of French poststructuralists, whose work swept into American universities in the 1970s and drove out the home-grown radicalism of our own 1960s cultural revolution. I militantly maintain that the intellectual gurus of my college years -- Marshall McLuhan, Norman O. Brown, Leslie Fiedler, Allen Ginsberg -- had far more vision and substance than did the pretentious, verbose trinity of Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault.

Derrida's reputation was already collapsing (thanks to the exposure of his ally Paul de Man as a Nazi apologist) when I arrived on the scene with my first book in 1990. Lacan, however, still dominated fast-track feminist theory, which was clotted with his ponderous prose and affected banalities. The speed with which I was able to kill Lacanian feminism amazes even me. (A 1991 headline in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera blared my Achillean boast, "I and Madonna will drive Lacan from America!")

Though much diminished with the waning of the theory years, Foucault still survives, propped up by wizened queer theorists who crave an openly gay capo in the canon. I base the rhetoric of my anti-Foucault campaign on Cicero's speeches in the Roman Senate against the slick operator and conspirator Catiline ("How long, O Catiline, will you continue to abuse our patience?"). Greek and Roman political history -- about which Foucault knew embarrassingly little -- remains my constant guide.

Yes, I have indeed written at length about my objections to the grossly overpraised Foucault, in a 78-page review-essay, "Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders: Academe in the Hour of the Wolf," published in 1991 by the classics journal Arion and reprinted in my first essay collection, "Sex, Art, and American Culture." One of my observations was that Foucault's works are oddly devoid of women. Shouldn't that concern you as a feminist? It is simply untrue that Foucault was learned: He was at a loss with any period or culture outside of post-Enlightenment France (his later writing on ancient sexuality is a garbled mishmash). The supposedly innovative ideas for which his gullible acolytes feverishly hail him were in fact borrowed from a variety of familiar sources, from Friedrich Nietzsche, Emile Durkheim and Martin Heidegger to Americans such as sociologist Erving Goffman.

Foucault's analysis of "power" is foggy and paranoid and simply does not work when applied to the actual evidence of the birth, growth and complex development of governments in ancient and modern societies. Nor is Foucault's analysis of the classification of knowledge particularly original -- except in his bitter animus against the Enlightenment, which he failed to realize had already been systematically countered by Romanticism. What most American students don't know is that Foucault's commentary is painfully crimped by the limited assumptions of Sussurean linguistics (which I reject).

As I have asserted, James Joyce's landmark modernist novel "Ulysses" (1922) contains, chapter by chapter, far subtler and more various versions of language-based "epistemes" inherent in cultural institutions and epochs. I'm afraid I bring rather bad news: Over the course of your careers, your generation of students will slowly come to realize that the Foucault-praising professors whom you respected and depended on were ill-informed fad-followers who sold you a shoddy bill of goods. You don't need Foucault, for heaven's sake! Durkheim and Max Weber began the stream of sociological thought that still nourishes responsible thinkers. And the pioneers of social psychology and behaviorism -- Havelock Ellis, Alfred Adler, John B.Watson and many others -- were eloquent apostles of social constructionism when Foucault was still in the cradle.

A massive work like W.E.B. DuBois'"The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study" (1899) shows the kind of respect for empirical fact-gathering and organization of data that is completely missing from Foucault, who selectively tailors his material to fit a monotonous, rigidly dualistic a priori thesis. For those in the humanities, where anti-aesthetic British cultural studies (shaped by the out-of-date Frankfurt School) has become entrenched, I recommend "The Social History of Art" (translated into English in 1951), an epic work by the Marxist scholar Arnold Hauser that influenced me in graduate school. No one in British or American cultural studies has Hauser's erudition, precision and connoisseurship.

Foucault-worship is an example of what I call the Big Daddy syndrome: Secular humanists, who have drifted from their religious and ethnic roots, have created a new Jehovah out of string and wax. Again and again -- in memoirs, for example, by trendy but pedestrian uber-academics like Harvard's Stephen Greenblatt and Brown's Robert Scholes -- one sees the scenario of Melancholy, Bookish, Passive, Insecure Young Nebbish suddenly electrified and transfigured by the Grand Epiphany of Blindingly Brilliant Foucault. This sappy psychodrama would be comic except for the fact that American students forced to read Foucault have been defrauded of a genuine education in intellectual history and political analysis (a disciplined genre that starts with Thucydides and flows directly to the best of today's journalism on current events).

When I pointed out in Arion that Foucault, for all his blathering about "power," never managed to address Adolph Hitler or the Nazi occupation of France, I received a congratulatory letter from David H. Hirsch (a literature professor at Brown), who sent me copies of riveting chapters from his then-forthcoming book, "The Deconstruction of Literature: Criticism After Auschwitz" (1991). As Hirsch wrote me about French behavior during the occupation, "Collaboration was not the exception but the rule." I agree with Hirsch that the leading poststructuralists were cunning hypocrites whose tortured syntax and encrustations of jargon concealed the moral culpability of their and their parents' generations in Nazi France.

American students, forget Foucault! Reverently study the massive primary evidence of world history, and forge your own ideas and systems. Poststructuralism is a corpse. Let it stink in the Parisian trash pit where it belongs! SALON Dec. 2, 1998

The aim of this play

Sri Aurobindo not only saw these possibilities in his yogic vision but also found them corroborated by reason. All our scriptures describe this earth as a field of divine play where God is playing hide and seek with Himself. He had hidden Himself completely in gross matter, from where by a slow process of self-finding, He has evolved at present as man in whom He has partially displayed a little of His wonderful knowledge, love and power. The aim of this play is a complete self-finding and a full display of all His capacities, knowledge, love and power. posted by Ulysses Saturday, May 31, 2003 @ 12:31 AM <<>

Intuition

Is there a spiritual way to enhance creativity? RAM SEHGAL The Hindu Tuesday, August 10, 2004

I belive the answer lies in what Sri Aurobindo has written in his magnificent book, The Life Divine. He states that we need to go beyond the mind and reason. For, if we examine carefully, he says, we shall find that intuition is our first teacher. Intuition brings to man those brilliant messages from the unknown, which are the beginning of his higher knowledge. "Reason only comes in afterwards to see what profit it can have of the shining harvest," writes Sri Aurobindo.

Intuition gives us that idea of something behind and beyond all that we know. The path towards creativity is to enlarge the mind and let it grow and encompass the higher layers and spheres above the mind. In fact, this is the start to a spiritual seeking. The journey is long and tough. It will need a great deal of sincerity, tenacity and relentless pursuit; to keep the mind silent and passive. One will need to curb one's ego and to acknowledge that what we know is far less than what we can know.

One needs to leave behind all that one knows; the courage to travel towards the unknown by breaking all the shackles. Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine shows the way. It is quite an extraordinary book, which offers every seeker a path of self-discovery and true creativity. You will get out of this book what you wish to take out of it. # posted by Tusar N Mohapatra : 11:08 PM 1 comments

Ambiguity

Richard Hamming: You and Your Research Pavan Kumar Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Richard Hamming in his famous talk at Bellcore on 7 March 1986.

There's another trait on the side which I want to talk about; that trait is ambiguity. It took me a while to discover its importance. Most people like to believe something is or is not true. Great scientists tolerate ambiguity very well. They believe the theory enough to go ahead; they doubt it enough to notice the errors and faults so they can step forward and create the new replacement theory. If you believe too much you'll never notice the flaws; if you doubt too much you won't get started. It requires a lovely balance. But most great scientists are well aware of why their theories are true and they are also well aware of some slight misfits which don't quite fit and they don't forget it. Darwin writes in his autobiography that he found it necessary to write down every piece of evidence which appeared to contradict his beliefs because otherwise they would disappear from his mind. When you find apparent flaws you've got to be sensitive and keep track of those things, and keep an eye out for how they can be explained or how the theory can be changed to fit them. Those are often the great contributions. Great contributions are rarely done by adding another decimal place. It comes down to an emotional commitment. Most great scientists are completely committed to their problem. Those who don't become committed seldom produce outstanding, first-class work.

Now again, emotional commitment is not enough. It is a necessary condition apparently. And I think I can tell you the reason why. Everybody who has studied creativity is driven finally to saying, "creativity comes out of your subconscious.'' Somehow, suddenly, there it is. It just appears. Well, we know very little about the subconscious; but one thing you are pretty well aware of is that your dreams also come out of your subconscious. And you're aware your dreams are, to a fair extent, a reworking of the experiences of the day. If you are deeply immersed and committed to a topic, day after day after day, your subconscious has nothing to do but work on your problem. And so you wake up one morning, or on some afternoon, and there's the answer. For those who don't get committed to their current problem, the subconscious goofs off on other things and doesn't produce the big result. So the way to manage yourself is that when you have a real important problem you don't let anything else get the center of your attention - you keep your thoughts on the problem. Keep your subconscious starved so it has to work on your problem, so you can sleep peacefully and get the answer in the morning, free.

Philosophy of Intelligent Design

California Parents File Suit Over Origins of Life Course By LAURIE GOODSTEIN The New York Times January 11, 2006 A group of parents are suing their small California school district to force it to cancel a four-week high school elective on intelligent design, creationism and evolution that it is offering as a philosophy course. Forum: Human Origins

The course at Frazier Mountain High School in Lebec, which serves a rural area north of Los Angeles, was proposed by a special education teacher last month and approved by the board of trustees in an emergency meeting on New Year's Day. The 11 parents are seeking a temporary restraining order to stop the course, which is being held during the session that ends on Feb. 3. Last month, a Federal District Court in Pennsylvania ruled that it was unconstitutional to teach intelligent design in a public school science class because it promoted a particular religious belief. After the ruling, people on both sides of the debate suggested that it might be constitutionally permissible to examine intelligent design in a philosophy, comparative religion or social studies class.

But the parents, represented by lawyers with Americans United for Separation of Church and State, contend that the teacher is advocating intelligent design and "young earth creationism" and is not examining those ideas in a neutral way alongside evolution. Intelligent design posits that biological life is so complex that it must have been designed by an intelligent force. Young earth creationism holds to the biblical account of the origins of life and the belief that the earth is 6,000 years old.

In their suit, the parents said the syllabus originally listed 24 videos to be shown to students, with 23 "produced or distributed by religious organizations and assume a pro-creationist, anti-evolution stance." They said the syllabus listed two evolution experts who would speak to the class. One was a local parent and scientist who said he had already refused the speaking invitation and was now suing the district; the other was Francis H. C. Crick, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, who died in 2004.

A course description distributed to students and parents said, "This class will take a close look at evolution as a theory and will discuss the scientific, biological and biblical aspects that suggest why Darwin's philosophy is not rock solid." The school principal referred inquiries to the superintendent, John W. Wright, who was in Washington and did not respond to an interview request. But Mr. Wright said in a letter on Jan. 6 in response to a complaint from Americans United, "Our legal advisers have pointed out that they are unaware of any court or California statute which has forbidden public schools to explore cultural phenomena, including history, religion or creation myths."

Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, said, "This is apparently the next wave of efforts to bring creationism to schools, and that's why we want to dry it up immediately." The school district, with 1,425 students, serves several towns in a mountain area where many students are home schooled. The special education teacher, who is married to the pastor of the local Assemblies of God church, amended her syllabus and the course title, from Philosophy of Intelligent Design to Philosophy of Design after parents complained. The course was approved by the trustees in a 3-to-2 vote, despite testimony from science and math teachers that it would undermine the science curriculum. The parents who brought the lawsuit said 13 students were enrolled in the class. Kitty Jo Nelson, a trustee, said the community was split. "If we had to describe this in one word," Ms. Nelson said, "it would be 'controversial.' "

Aesthetic distance

MILL: CULTURE AND THE SATISFIED PIG (From Jorn Bramann: Educating Rita and Other Philosophical Movies, Copyright © 2003)"Educating Rita"Bramann

Socrates told the citizens of Athens to be ashamed of spending so much time and energy on making money, instead of caring for such things as truth, goodness, and beauty, which would benefit their souls. Marx, as part of his socialist outlook, took it for granted that workers were cut off from something very essential by being deprived of the knowledge and aesthetic pleasures of classical culture. Thoreau deplored that "the mass of men" wasted the days of their lives on their drudgery jobs, instead of studying philosophy, literature, and "the book of nature," thus by and large missing out on "the finer fruits of life." It has been a persistent complaint throughout the history of Western thought that people ought to, but in fact do not, develop their full human potential--mainly because they do not partake in what could and should be a reasonably sophisticated culture for all.

Liberal Arts colleges require that all their students take courses in history, literature, philosophy, and the fine arts, even if students prefer to be just athletes, business majors, or future doctors and lawyers. And most sufficiently affluent societies are pledged to the support of the arts and humanities in one way or another, even if the majority of citizens has only a very moderate interest in higher education or "high" culture, if any at all. Whence, then, this commitment to the idea of a culture and education which clearly transcend the necessities of everyday life and the more immediate interests of most people? Is the official regard for these matters just a thoughtless tradition? Is it pretentiousness? Is it the snobbish habit of a particular social class which is foisted on the rest of society? It is, after all, quite possible to go through life without ever reading a single serious book, or without giving any thought at all to truth, goodness, and beauty beyond the minimal requirements of economic survival. Cultural “lowbrows,” in fact, often seem to be far better off than the proverbial "eggheads" who spend their time fretting over questions that seem void of any vital practical import. That "philosophy does not bake bread" has been known for a long time.

• Why then bother with "high" culture, if it does not make any money, and requires a lot of time and effort to boot?
• Could the entirety of cultural aspirations not be considered a dead weight that had better be jettisoned by people who wish to live unencumbered and enjoyable lives?

Radicals on the far Right as well as the extreme Left have occasionally suggested that all high culture be simply abolished as an insidious deformation of true life, or as so much pretentious bourgeois bombast. “Every time I hear the word ‘culture’ I instinctively reach for my revolver,” a character in some Nazi novel remarks. But such programmatic anti-culture radicalism may not even be necessary to bring about the effective demise of any serious concern with the arts and related matters. What is known as “high culture” may easily die of such natural causes as lack of interest, waning energy, commercialization, or the plain inability of culture enthusiasts to make a good case for their cause. It is, furthermore, far from clear whether genuine culture has not already been replaced by a comprehensive entertainment industry that produces consumer items for the refined bourgeois taste as routinely as for the mass audiences of “pop.” Under present conditions the very idea of “high” culture seems quaint or suspicious, and it has become an established habit among artists to cringe at its mention and deny any connection with it.

Writers and film makers occasionally belabor a stereotype that allegedly reflects the difference between Californians and New Yorkers. (See, for example, the relevant scenes in "Annie Hall" or "California Suite.") New Yorkers, according to this typology, are highly cerebral, seriously committed to culture, well-read, fast thinking and talking, very productive, aggressive to the point of being obnoxious, and hopelessly neurotic. They diligently keep up with what people think around the world, and they endure pain and neglect their physical health in pursuit of understanding and demanding levels of intellectual discourse. Their stereotypical Californian counterparts, by contrast, are deliberate airheads with no taste for the gritty and serious aspects of human existence--easygoing health nuts with a nice tan, and generally satisfied with having no higher aspirations than experiencing a good time near the beach in a perpetually mellow climate.

• Assuming for a moment that these stereotypes represent two possible ideals of life, is there any good reason for insisting that one is better than the other?
• Is the high-strung and hardworking intellectual superior to the relaxed and benevolent airhead?
• Considering that high culture requires so much attention and effort, and that it does not seem to pay off too well in terms of sociability and contentment, is it really worth the price it exacts?

This is the question that John Stuart Mill tries to answer in the second chapter of his book Utilitarianism (1861). In that chapter Mill offers the famous judgment (in favor of the New Yorkers, as it were) that "it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied." Basically Mill contends that a highly cultured person is a happier person, a person who gets more pleasure out of life than an airhead--even if such a person experiences a great deal of frustration and dissatisfaction as a result of being educated and cultured. This calls for some elaboration.

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) was by far the most influential philosopher in the English speaking world of the nineteenth century, and he was the most convincing defender of Utilitarianism, the philosophy which his father James Mill and his father's friend Jeremy Bentham had launched a few years earlier. As a Utilitarian J. S. Mill defended happiness as the highest principle of morality (opposing Kant, for example, who took rational self-determination to be the highest value).

In his book On Liberty (1859) J. S. Mill made an important contribution to the theory of democracy by arguing that individuals and social minorities have inalienable rights that not even a democratic majority can abrogate. In 1861, with the collaboration of his wife Harriet Taylor, he wrote the feminist tract The Subjection of Women, a vigorous defense of women's rights in a society that generally ridiculed such thinking. As a social philosopher he was not against Capitalism as an economic system, but he strongly opposed the appalling social conditions that had been brought about by the Industrial Revolution and an unregulated market economy.

In contrast to his contemporary Karl Marx, J. S. Mill was not a revolutionary, but a reformer who achieved much in terms of inspiring progressive legislation and establishing minimal standards for social justice.To make happiness the highest value in a system of morality was a daring and controversial proposition in Mill's days, and he was lambasted for it not only by orthodox churchmen, but also by numerous philosophers and journalists. In the second chapter of Utilitarianism Mill defends himself against such critics, to whom he angrily refers as "the common herd, including the herd of writers." He starts out his defense by defining the basic terms of Utilitarian ethics: The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure ...

Next, Mill turns to the critics of his theory: Now, such a theory of life excites in many minds ...inveterate dislike. To suppose that life has (as they express it) no higher end than pleasure--no better and nobler object of desire and pursuit--they designate as utterly mean and groveling; as a doctrine worthy only of swine, to whom the followers of Epicurus were, at a very early period, contemptuously likened; and modern holders of the doctrine are occasionally made the subject of equally polite comparisons by its German, French, and English assailants.

Epicurus (341-270 BCE) was the Greek founder of Epicureanism (also called Hedonism, from the Greek word hedones = "pleasures"). It was a very influential philosophy both in ancient Greece and in the Roman Empire. Contrary to what is often assumed, Epicurus did not advocate the reckless pursuit of such pleasures as wild sex, fame, and all the material things that money can buy, but a simple and quiet life that leads to enduring contentment and peace of mind. Interestingly, as Mill points out, it is usually the pious enemies of Hedonism who think of crass debauchery whenever they hear the word "pleasure": When thus attacked, the Epicureans have always answered, that it is not they, but their accusers, who represent human nature in a degrading light; since the accusation supposes human beings to be capable of no pleasures except those of which swine are capable. If this supposition were true, the charge could not be gainsaid, but would then be no longer an imputation; for if the sources of pleasure were precisely the same to human beings and to swine, the rule of life which is good enough for one would be good enough for the other. The comparison of the Epicurean life to that of beasts is felt as degrading precisely because a beast's pleasures do not satisfy a human being's conception of happiness. Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness, which does not include their gratification. ...

[T]here is no known Epicurean theory of life which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation. ... It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognize the fact that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. It would be absurd that while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity alone.

The last remark is a swipe at Mill's predecessor Bentham. For Bentham all pleasures were equal. If some people get their pleasures from reading sophisticated poetry, while others prefer simple-minded board games, there is no reason for maintaining that the one kind of pleasure is better than the other: "Pushpin [the board game] is as good as poetry." The only thing that counts in Bentham's theory of ethics is the amount of pleasure that a person receives, its quantity. It was Bentham's indifference to the quality of pleasure which earned Utilitarianism the reputation of being a philosophy for cultural lowbrows. Because of this J. S. Mill saw a need for re-defining the basic principle of Utilitarian ethics. Talk about more or less valuable pleasures inevitably raises the question of how one can distinguish and evaluate them:

• What makes one pleasure more valuable than another?
• Why is appreciating poetry more valuable than enjoying a simple game or a Porterhouse steak?
• Why is listening to a complex Mahler symphony preferable to happily singing along with some tune in the jukebox?
• What exactly is the characteristic that distinguishes the more valuable from the less valuable pleasure?

This is how Mill answers the question: If I am asked ... what makes one pleasure more valuable than another, ... there is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. In other words, people who are familiar with both kinds of pleasure, the pleasures of the intellect and the pleasures of "mere sensation," are the competent judges who can decide which pleasures are more desirable. Whatever kind of pleasure they prefer is the more valuable kind. And it is the intellectual pleasures which, according to Mill, these knowledgeable individuals invariably prefer:

Now it is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally acquainted with, and equally capable of appreciating and enjoying both, do give a most marked preference to the manner of existence which employs their higher faculties. Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for the promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs. …

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be a Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is because they know only their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.This settles the matter for Mill, and it can be assumed that the vast majority of educated people have always been in agreement with his valuation of culture. Philosophers, however, may feel prompted to raise some doubts concerning Mill’s argument. Is it really an unquestionable fact, for example, that all people capable of enjoying both "higher" and "lower" pleasures will give a marked preference to the former? Will the “higher” form of existence, that of human beings, always be considered to be preferable to the life form of animals by people who have thoughtfully considered both options? In the absence of any scientifically conducted poll, it will be worthwhile to take a look at history.

There have, in fact, been notable dissenters to Mill’s view throughout the course of Western philosophy. In the 18th century Jean-Jacques Rousseau made a name for himself as a radical critic of civilization and as an advocate of the virtues of primitive nature, and in classical Greece the so-called Cynics were famous for deriding human culture while praising the beauty of a pure animal existence. The name of this latter school of thought is derived from the Greek word kynos, which means "dog." Dogs were revered by the Cynics as role models, because dogs were seen as more honest than humans, and as being more in touch with the truths of nature than their human brothers and sisters. Virtue, according to the Cynics, consists in rejecting all social conventions and cultural artificiality, and thus to live in harmony with the forces and laws of the physical universe. Cynics deliberately lived in poverty--with torn clothes, unwashed, and sleeping wherever they found a place to rest. Diogenes, a contemporary and humorous critic of Plato, is said to have lived in a barrel, and to have masturbated in public to press home the point that only artificial convention would make such a natural activity appear offensive. The Cynics, although mostly quite familiar with the pleasures of the mind, seemed to have believed that the simplicity of an animal existence is ultimately preferable to the life of civilized and mentally complicated people.

It will help to remember this historical precedent in reading the following poem by the contemporary American poet Duane Locke. The speaker in "Circe, I on Sanibel, Think of My Former Life as a Pig" is one of Odysseus' sailors in a 20th century embodiment. This sailor talks about the modern island of Sanibel in Florida, as well as the mythical island of the sorceress Circe from Homer's Odyssey. Odysseus, during his long voyage home after the Trojan War, was marooned with his crew on Circe's shores. As Circe wished to keep Odysseus on her island, she changed his men into pigs. Through his cunning Odysseus eventually managed to make her change the sailors back into men, and thus to escape from a form of existence that most Greeks would have considered inferior. This episode from Homer's Odyssey is usually read as a triumph of human civilization over animal lust and the dark forces of nature. In his poem Duane Locke proposes a different reading:

Duane Locke sketches an unfavorable picture of human culture, to say the least: Unhealthy shoes, desk jobs and hemorrhoids, fast food joints and robberies, pollution and wholesale destruction through real estate development, sex as a commodity, the knowledge of one's inevitable death--and all of this buttressed by the presumption that human beings are somehow more important than animals. The life of a pig, by contrast, emerges as one of innocence, warmth, lack of unnecessary restraints, simplicity, and harmony with nature. The wholesome world of the pig is said to be a "paradise," and in connection with the magic and godly descend of Circe, the pig's existence is outright divine. There have, as mentioned, always been critics of civilization, and the general counter-vision invoked by these critics has always been a more or less romantic vision of nature. In light of the enormous wastelands which relentless industrial expansion, unfettered financial greed, and an out-of-control population expansion have created on this planet, however, Mill's high esteem for culture and the human form of existence look particularly problematic, and the idea of somehow minimizing the distance between humans and the animal kingdom would be particularly appealing.

Considering the relevant details of human history, and the over-all conduct of the human race on this planet, one does not have to be much of a Cynic to be at least intrigued by the question whether the whole of human evolution may not have been something like an aberration--a cosmic wrong turn. It is more than mere whim if the thoughts of contemporary science fiction writers have time and again moved in the direction of describing the whole of human civilization as a failed experiment that might as well be abandoned. A plausible rejoinder by Mill's followers would be to point out that the undeniable perversions of our particular civilization cannot be equated with civilization as such. Mill obviously cannot be taken to advocate a littering, polluting, bulldozing, and greed-driven consumer economy as the epitome of human achievement. Humanity may move in this direction, and to all appearances seems to be doing just that, but there is no reason for saying that it has to travel down that road. Thoughtless greed and environmental destruction could be controlled like deadly floods or ravaging diseases. It is not the mindless and bulldozing developer, but thinkers like Socrates or poets like Duane Locke, whom Mill considers preferable to satisfied pigs.

Still, why bother to be human? Why emphasize and develop all those faculties that set human beings so dramatically apart from the rest of the animal kingdom—highly developed intelligence and knowledge, complex communication skills, reasoned predictions of the future and evidence-based reconstruction of the past, self-reflection and voluntary restraints, irony and disinterested contemplation, and so forth? Why create an inevitably fragile human civilization and maintain an often exasperating and frustrating life of the mind--rather than emulate (as much as is humanly possible) the natural minimalism of an animal existence? Why spend all the time and energy on something for the existence of which there does not seem to be any compelling reason? Why all the exertions, discomforts, and frustrations that accompany advanced schooling if there are only questionable benefits and results? Did not even Socrates recommend at one point in Plato's Republic (at 372 d-e) the "minimal city" as a better alternative to the "inflamed" economy and highly developed culture of Athens--until his friends denounced it as a community worthy only of swine? Why not give up all strenuous culture efforts and let things and people go where they naturally want to go—the way of the satisfied pig? Educators have always had a hard time defending the demands of higher education and culture. Traditionally it has often been attempted by simply invoking the seemingly self-evident virtues of truth, goodness, and beauty. Because this triad has become a somewhat hackneyed and tired cliché, it is not often mentioned anymore, except with a derisive sneer. Yet, it still pinpoints much of what a liberal education tries to achieve, and it explains to some extent the inherent attraction that Mill attributes to culture and the specifically human form of existence. Truth, goodness, and beauty, if understood in the right way, do define a way of being in the world the virtue of which comes close to being self-evident.

Truth is pursued in higher education in the sense of developing a rational and comprehensive picture of the world in which we live. Truth is, of course, crucially important in numerous practical ways. Physicians need to know what exactly causes certain diseases, agronomists need to know how much water is carried by certain aquifers, and city planners need accurate demographic data to provide for schools, roads, hospitals, and other infra-structure needs. But the Truth at which a liberal education aims goes beyond such practical concerns, and it is not necessarily motivated by any special needs. Human beings become absorbed in questions like "What caused the collapse of the civilization of the Mayas?" or "Is the universe contracting or expanding?" They try to find out regardless of whether such knowledge is useful or not. They pursue knowledge and understanding for the sake of knowledge and understanding--because that is part of realizing of their human potential, and because that is what it means to exist as a human being. In light of the human potential, a mere animal existence appears to be confining and dull.Human interest and learning is certainly not as limited as that of other animals with their specific survival needs. It is “universal” in that it transcends the needs of any particular individual or species. Its ability to acquire knowledge beyond special needs justifies the description of human comprehension as “objective.” Understanding often starts with partial perceptions and slanted opinions, but human beings can learn how to correct one-sidedness and bias.

The human species is endowed with the faculty of detached and impersonal analysis, and with the ability to distinguish between the perception of things as they appear and as they are. The recognition of things independently of need, desire, or the lust of appropriation is part of a freedom that locates a human existence within dimensions that are significantly wider than those of other creatures.In his book Theaetetus Plato waxes enthusiastic about the broad horizons of a person who has emancipated himself from the limitations of merely practical knowledge: His mind, disdaining the littleness and nothingness of ordinary human affairs, is 'flying all abroad,' as Pindar says, measuring earth and heaven and the things that are above and below heaven and earth, investigating the unabridged nature of each and all in their entirety, but not condescending to the things close at hand (174c). Acquiring only narrowly practical knowledge is, according to Plato, like being a prisoner in a dark cave, while acquiring the liberal knowledge that transcends practical utility is like seeing a wide world spread out in broad daylight. It is, one could argue, Plato’s and Pindar’s “flying all abroad” into unlimited spaces that makes being educated and cultured inherently attractive.The potential of universality and freedom that characterizes human knowledge also comes into play with respect to morality and law--with respect to goodness.

While pigs, satisfied or otherwise, are mostly driven by their instincts of self-preservation and the survival of their species, humans are capable of taking into detailed consideration the needs and desires of other and different beings. The instinctual egotism of animals asserts itself, of course, in human behavior as well. Throughout most of their history human beings certainly have not risen very far above the level of other animals in this respect (which is why some thinkers consider the present age still part of the "pre-history" of the human race). But human beings are not by necessity limited to being only concerned with what is good for this or that individual or group; their natural constitution enables them to understand what is good for all beings--what is good “as such.” They do not have to behave, either as individuals or as collectives, like the proverbial pigs around the trough--competitive, greedy, and desperately out for just themselves. They can assert their humanity by taking a step back from their immediate natural instincts and arrange for the satisfaction of their needs with consideration of what is good for others as well.

With respect to goodness, too, it is being free that is inherently attractive for human beings. Whoever is familiar with the difference between being in the grip of self-righteousness, moral tunnel vision, and fanatic dogmatism on the one hand, and being capable of a liberal contemplation of options on the other, will hardly agree to be committed to the former. "Aesthetic distance" is the basis for the perception of beauty. A certain distance to everything characterizes the ability of human beings to enjoy things and people without bringing into play their practical needs or personal desires. A person who can see in a tree nothing else than so much lumber, in a naked body nothing more than an object for sexual stimulation, or in a landscape nothing but a location for a business venture or an artillery site, is someone who has not developed the aesthetic dimension of his or her life. To perceive things as unrelated to practical uses or personal desires, to see them as fascinating in themselves, to have a "disinterested interest" in things (as Kant called it), is a sign of a person's emancipation from the limiting necessities and pressures of an animal-like existence, and his or her transformation into a free being. It is this freedom at which a liberal education aims.

Considering once more the assertion that nobody who has become familiar with culture and the life of the mind would ever knowingly and voluntarily regress to a form of existence that is typical for animals, we can see now why Mill thought that a fully developed human life is more attractive and inherently superior to anything an animal existence can offer. It is the fact of the larger dimensions that the life of the mind provides, and the freer movements within these wide spaces, that cannot fail to appeal to beings that have the natural constitution and capabilities of humans. As no person who has ever been free and living in the light of day would voluntarily agree to become a prisoner in a cave, nobody who has ever been a free spirit would seriously consider becoming a poorly informed, one-sidedly indoctrinated, and utility-driven humanoid. Someone who knows both kinds of life would find it grotesque to choose an existence of unnecessary restrictions and limitations. In spite of the many dissatisfactions and occasional hardships that a life of the mind will inevitably bring, Mill has excellent reasons for saying that a dissatisfied Socrates is a happier being than a satisfied pig.

Brahman-centered evolutionary world-view

Many philosophers, particularly in India, have discovered and championed important philosophic theses of classical Indian thought, and these individuals may eventually bring a global standing to classical Indian philosophy comparable to that of classical Greek philosophy. Prominent 20th-century Indian academics include K. C. Bhattacharyya, professor of philosophy at the University of Calcutta and the teacher of many important succeeding philosophers; T. M. P. Mahadevan, professor of philosophy at the University of Madras and the author of several books on classical Advaita Vedanta; and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the former President of India, vice chancellor of Benares Hindu University (1939-1948), and chancellor of Delhi University (1953-1962), who was known for his deft comparisons between Western and Indian thought.

Some of the great names of modern Indian spiritual thought are also great names of modern Indian history. Raja Ram Mohan Roy, sometimes referred to as the father of modern India, founded the Brahmo Samaj (Church of Brahman) in 1828 and was the first to articulate, in English, a synthesis of Western and Indian religious views. The late-19th-century spiritual leader (guru) Swami Vivekananda was an elegant writer in English on broadly philosophic and psychological topics. He founded the Ramakrishna Mission and gave it a modern version of Vedanta. Mystic and guru Sri Aurobindo Ghose also wrote elegant arguments in English. He originated a new Brahman-centered evolutionary world view sensitive both to science and mysticism.

Academic philosophy in India is deeply conversant with Western philosophy and addresses many of the same issues and methods. The Indian intellectual environment extends beyond the universities, where continuation of India’s spiritual philosophy is influenced by religious and mystical practices, such as yoga, that are distinct or much more prominent in Indian culture. This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 30th, 2005 at 11:50 am Indian Philosophy - A Small Look

To a larger and more complex perfection

I simply wish to engage in free thinking; attempting to integrate and incorportate as much of my experience as possible. I think the attitude is captured best by Sri Aurobindo in this quote:

"The charactistic energy of pure Mind is change and the more it acquires elevation and organisation, the more this law of Mind assumes the aspect of a continual enlargement, improvement and better arrangement of its gains and so of a continual passage from a smaller and simpler to a larger and more complex perfection. For Mind, unlike bodily life, is infinite in its field, elastic in its expansion, easily variable in its formations. Change, then, self-enlargement and self-improvement are its proper instincts" (Synthesis of Yoga, 16).

My mind, having been expanded my a plethora of new concepts, can never return to its original dimensions. And, so, this cross-boundary freethinking approach is simply a psycho-spiritual instinct and such an instinct has nothing to do with rebellion. posted by Heretical Hare 16 November 2005 @ 3:02:00 PM

The words 'tree' and 'true' [they are both 'treow']

SACRIFICE. The outer symbol of an inner work, an inner interchange between the gods and men-man giving what he has, the gods giving in return the horses of power, the heroes of Strength to be his retinue, winning for him victory in his battle with the hosts of dissolution..."

"The work of the Aryan is a sacrifice which is at once a battle and an ascent and a journey, a battle against the powers of darkness,an ascent to the highest peaks..."

"The principal features of the sacrifice are the kindling of the divine flame,the offering of the 'ghrta' and the Soma-wine and the chanting of the sacred word..."

"The object of the sacrifice is to win the higher or divine being and possess with it and make subject to its law and truth the lower or human existence..."[from 'Key To Vedic Symbolism', by Sri Aurobindo]

This is all too uncanny for words! The same emphasis on battle; the same joyousness! Not one scrap of Xtian style importuning-no, 'please God, give me more of this and less of that'-pah! Can we not see the mighty tree and roots of our Aryan Master Morality here? And all this from the word 'lark'! And in Nietzsche do we not see Nietzsche as the fruits of this tree...and Zarathustra, the sacrifice?

I'm moved by the relationship between the words 'tree' and 'true' [they are both 'treow'] in O.E., as they sum up the pagan faith known as 'Asatru' in its ethical and spiritual facets.As to fire, we must recall the Viking practice of cremation [and Hindu sutee] and the Zarathustrian belief in the ever-living fire; -like-wise the same belief is found among pagan Romans. When the fire is extinguished, then the world will end, or at least, the Aryan world. Of course the myth of Prometheus is central here [the latter's eternal torment is just another example of the eternal recurrence]. posted by WilliamNietzsche at 9:52 AM

True knowledge

True knowledge is not attained by thinking. It is what you are; it is what you become.

- Sri Aurobindo
posted by Tenebris Monday, December 19, 2005 3:32 AM

A new radical idea

"The arrival of a new radical idea in the minds of men is the sign of a great coming change in human life and society; it may be combated, the reaction of the old idea may triumph for a time, but the struggle never leaves either the thoughts and sentiments or the habits and institutions of the society as they were when it commenced"

"Its highest knowledge is often abstract, lacking in a concrete grasp; it has to use expedients and unsure means of arrival, to rely upon methods of inductive or dedutctive logic, suceeding only if it is the same data different results and varying consequences; it has to use means and accept results of a method which is hazardous even when making a claim to certitude and of which there would be no need if it had a direct or a supra-intellectual knowledge. "

"A transformation of the body must be the condition for a total transformation of the nature."

-Sri Aurobindo
Cecilia Suhr Saturday, January 15, 2005 6:25 PM

Logic, fallacy and interpretations

Navin (mrsgollum) wrote,@ 2006-01-07 10:06:00 gita, philosophy

Sitting in a library and finding a book such as the one I found a couple of days back, a strange sense of connection between the thoughts in the book and one's self was sensed. The idea of identification with a thought, concept, principle is itself contingent on our own conditioning and the parts of us which end up liking/disliking the particular concept/thought. Delving on the teachings of the Gita is a humungous task in itself, however Aurobindo's thoughts on the same are immensely clear from his personal standpoint. The following part about how our minds are victims of their own conditioning and may choose to interpret an idea with respect to this conditioning is superbly worded thus:

"A clear conception fastening upon the essential idea, the central heart of the teaching is especially necessary here because the Gita with its rich and many-sided thought, its synthetical grasp of different aspects of the spiritual life and the fluent winding motion of its argument lends itself, even more than other scriptures, to one-sided misrepresentations born of a partisan intellectuality. The unconscious or half-conscious wresting of fact and word and idea to suit a preconceived notion or the doctrine or principle of one's preference is recognised by Indian logicians as one of the most fruitful sources of fallacy; and it is perhaps the one which it is most difficult for even the most conscientious thinker to avoid. For the human reason is incapable of always playing the detective upon itself in this respect; it is its very nature to seize upon some partial conclusion, idea, principle, become its partisan and make it the key to all truth, and it has an infinite faculty of doubling upon itself so as to avoid detecting in its operations this necessary and cherished weakness. The Gita lends itself easily to this kind of error, because it is easy, by throwing particular emphasis on one of its aspects or even on some salient and emphatic text and putting all the rest of the eighteen chapters into the background or making them a subordinate and auxiliary teaching, to turn it into a partisan of our own doctrine or dogma.

In human life some sort of a clash arises fairly often, as for instance between domestic duties and the call of the country or the cause, or between the claim of the country and the good of humanity or some larger religious or moral principle. An inner situation may even arise, as with the Buddha, in which all duties have to be abandoned, trampled on, flung aside in order to follow the call of the Divine within. I cannot think that the Gita would solve such an inner situation by sending Buddha back to his wife and father and the government of the Sakya State, or would direct a Ramakrishna to become a Pundit in a vernacular school and disinterestedly teach little boys their lessons, or bind down a Vivekananda to support his family and for that to follow dispassionately the law or medicine or journalism. The Gita does not teach the disinterested performance of duties but the following of the divine life, the abandonment of all dharmas, sarvadharman, to take refuge in the Supreme alone, and the divine activity of a Buddha, a Ramakrishna, a Vivekananda is perfectly in consonance with this teaching. Nay, although the Gita prefers action to inaction, it does not rule out the renunciation of works, but accepts it as one of the ways to the Divine. If that can only be attained by renouncing works and life and all duties and the call is strong within us, then into the bonfire they must go, and there is no help for it. The call of God is imperative and cannot be weighed against any other considerations. " --- Essays on the Gita by Sri Aurobindo

Rid yourself of the myths and ideologies

HAPPINESS, PLEASURE AND KNOWLEDGE: It’s possible to make numerous distinctions with regard to pleasure, but the main seem to me to be

• a) the pleasures of the senses vs. the pleasures of the mind
• b) the different kinds of happiness.

It may also be possible to relate the different kinds of pleasures, and observe that an excess in one kind of pleasure often results in the diminution of another kind, perhaps even pain of some kinds. I think the first thing to observe about pleasures is their variety. Apart from the two identified above, there is also a third kind which some regard as a life goal or wish: the pleasure that is brought about by the exercise of power or influence. I would extend that to include the pleasure associated with helping others, or exercising compassion or kindness towards others. This third kind I will (for the purpose of this discussion) call psychic pleasure. Not all psychic pleasures are benign, such as the pleasures of sadism or domination or “schadenfreude”.

The first point that I would like to make about the three kinds of pleasures is that they are so different that they cannot be measured by a common measure or metric. Bentham tried to do this with his concept of a util, but it’s an absurdity that lives on in shadowy form in economics. The second point is that they are sufficiently different that it is often difficult to see what is common to them. Try and compare the pleasure of sitting and trying to catch fish on a sunny day on the Bosphorus, and the pleasure of listening to say, Bach’s Unaccompanied Cello sonata. The only way of “comparing” them is to ask which of the two one would rather do if one is given a choice, or what sacrifice one is prepared to make in terms of a common numeraire or measure of value (such as money). Either way, one is expressing a subjective preference between two pleasures, but this outwardly shown preference is a substitute for choosing between the two literally incomparable kinds of subjective internal experience one undergoes with each action or source of pleasure.

If one examines this subjective internal experience (called qualia in the philosophical jargon) associated with various kinds of pleasure, one discovers that there is indeed something common to them all, and that is the fact that bodily sensations accompany them. (Of course the sensations themselves may differ from case to case.) This is clear in the case of sensual pleasures (eating, sex, music, etc.) but I suspect (and scientists claim that there is evidence to show that) there is also a certain set of physical bodily reactions or phenomena associated with the qualia of mental and psychic pleasures, of which we are only dimly aware, such as slightly raised heartbeats, the release of certain hormones or neurochemicals, or certain sorts of muscular reactions such as hair standing up. In other words, the act of feeling pleasure is accompanied by emotion and a physiological response from our bodies. Anyone who has developed a neat and “elegant” solution to a difficult mathematical problem, or written a really good poem or essay, or watched a deeply satisfying film, is likely to have become acquainted with such mental and bodily processes.

Possibly because of these physiological reactions, we tend to become attached to pleasures, and to seek their sources, but also to avoid pain. (The absence of pleasure need not be pain, nor the absence of pain, pleasure.) This tendency to develop attachments or addictions to pleasures is the source of desire, which in turn is the source of pain and suffering. Note that although the absence of pleasure need not be pain, the dependence and attachment caused by repeated experiences of pleasure cause desire. And because the sources of pleasures in the world that we experience are ephemeral and finite, they are ultimately causes of suffering. Yet it is impossible to avoid them altogether, for that would mean that one has to cease to live.

The central teachings of more than one major Indian philosophical tradition (but not all!) try to address this problem. Essentially, what these philosophies say (and I am simplifying horribly here) is that our highest goal is to liberate ourselves from those attachments I spoke about, and to treat both pleasure and pain the same. This consists in trying to “see through” the illusory nature of the phenomenal and sensual world known as samsara, and therefore attain the realization that our pleasures and pains, our love and anger and desire, are all subjectively real but objectively not so. We feel pleasure and pain, but we must try and stop mentally and psychically running after pleasure and from pain. Important parts of Indian philosophy, even when they are quite secular, are devoted to an examination of how the illusory nature of the phenomenal world is preserved by our psychological processes. This creates a trap into which all of us fall, but few of us learn to escape from them by “seeing through” the trap. We think the self is real, but in the noumenal world there is no self, only the world. In fact, the self and the world are objectively one, but subjectively separate, according to these schools. The Sanskrit word for the philosophy of knowledge is “darşana” which literally means “seeing” or vision - seeing through the traps of concepts and language and the Kantian categories.

So what about happiness? Happiness lies in the cultivation of the senses and the emotions and the psyche, at the right stage of one’s life, and in the right ways; but ultimately one needs to realize (and not just intellectually) as one gets older that the attachment to the senses and emotions and psyche is a trap through which one needs to liberate oneself. Indian philosophical literature is apparently full of analogical references to this entrapment (such as the caged bird), and the contrast between the real and the illusory, (such as the diamond hiding in the ashes, the rope being mistaken for a snake, the man looking desperately for a necklace he thinks he has lost, all the while wearing it around his neck).

The critical thrust in much of western philosophy has a similar message, but a different motivation: the search for truth. The true world is hidden from us through myths, ideology, and other sources of bias and deception that act like dirt on our cognitive and intellectual spectacles. If you want to encounter the real world, learn to “see” the world clearly: rid yourself of the myths and ideologies through rigorous examination of the concepts and categories and language and discourse which are part of the spectacles which we all must wear. GYANOPROBHA November 26, 2005 in Philosophical Musings Permalink

Comments

One tension that your post highlights between the science-centric (excuse my clumsy phrasing) and the Indian philosophical tradition is this:
Suppose that I were to attain the Indian enlightenment of the sort you are talking about. Suppose I were to "see through" and "attain the realization that our pleasures and pains, our love and anger and desire, are all subjectively real but objectively not so."
It is natural to assume that this would be an achievement for me. My nature dictates that I have some desires for things like food, companionship of others, warmth, sex and etc. If I am to "see through", I'd have to overcome or defeat these desires. In that sense, "seeing through" would be a mental achievement. However, previously you had argued that mental achievements are not purely mental but also have physical indicators:

"...there is also a certain set of physical bodily reactions or phenomena associated with the qualia of mental and psychic pleasures, of which we are only dimly aware, such as slightly raised heartbeats, the release of certain hormones or neurochemicals..."
So I am going to assume that if I manage to see through, since this is an achievement, this will effect pleasure on me, which in turn will have physical epiphenomena associated with it.
This indicates that although I try to overcome the physical world and "see through", I still am redirected to the physical world due to my own physical nature and limitations (i.e. via my own physical reactions at my achievement). Of course, the Indian tradition would just deny that psychic peace would have physical consequences. Posted by: Cihan Baran November 26, 2005 at 12:04 PM

The disciplines and practices that are aimed at the kind of emancipation that I have referred to do indeed seem to have physical epiphenomena accompanying them. There is at least one group of scientists who are investigating these epiphenomena in collaboration with practitioners of Buddhist meditation. See mindandlife.org/collaboration. But I don't know whether this indicates that the physiological accompaniments to the achievement of liberation are identical to those accompanying the more earthly pleasures that I have referred to.

The basic message of these religious traditions seems to be well attested in life experience - do not become dependent on the pleasures of the senses, because this dependence is the cause of suffering. But even to take this message seriously, it would seem that one would need to be aware of the pleasurable sensations accompanying them, and say to oneself: "There lies a trap!" and stay away from overindulging them. Both the scientific findings and the acknowledgement of the suffering caused by in the trap of desire seem to affirm the physical reality of the trap itself. When one "sees through" a trap or an illusion, one is not denying it, but realizing that what looks like X (pleasure or happiness) can in fact turn out to be Y (suffering) if one becomes attached to it.

For me people fall into three categories (not necessarily mutually exclusive, because one can jump from on to another and back again): people who are trapped and don't know it, people who are trapped and know it, and people who see the trap for what it is and escape from it (but they have to fall into it first!). All those aspects of our psychology which we associate with our sense of who we are (especially our cultural/ideological filter) keep changing. Hence what we call the self is in fact a very elusive, changeable thing, difficult to define, although we all have a sense of self. According to some philosophies, the self is a constructed illusion, part of the "web of illusion" without which we can't live in this world, but which is the cause of much suffering and unhappiness. Spiritual enlightenment then lies in seeing "through" this illusion, allowing one to become "detached" from the world even while living fully in it. In fact, this detachment is a condition for engaging joyfully and compassionately with the world without allowing oneself to become swept up by its suffering.

Intellectual enlightenment too is a similar process of "seeing through" ideas, recognizing their weaknesses and strengths, moving towards objectivity through realizing the value of other perspectives. One can see connections between different kinds of knowledge and belief and world-views more clearly, and develop them further, if one frees oneself from "attachment" to any of them (i.e., stop clinging to them). To be able to perceive things in a new way, one has to overcome the perceptions to which one clung earlier.To retain an open mind (both intellectually and spiritually), and still be committed to some things without turning into a jellyfish - this kind of engaged detachment is difficult, as I am finding out all the time. (So is this talk of "treating both pleasure and pain the same", or denying the objective reality of our qualia part of the entrapment by concepts and language through their careless use?) Posted by: GYANOPROBHA November 27, 2005 at 05:39 AM

Over-intellectuality of the mind of Europe

SRI AUROBINDO

Letters on Yoga Volume 1 Section Four REASON, SCIENCE AND YOGA I - Reason and Yoga

EUROPEAN metaphysical thought — even in those thinkers who try to prove or explain the existence and nature of God or of the Absolute — does not in its method and result go beyond the intellect. But the intellect is incapable of knowing the supreme Truth; it can only range about seeking for Truth, and catching fragmentary representations of it, not the thing itself, and trying to piece them together.

Mind cannot arrive at Truth; it can only make some constructed figure that tries to represent it or a combination of figures. At the end of European thought, therefore, there must always be Agnosticism, declared or implicit. Intellect, if it goes sincerely to its own end, has to return and give this report: "I cannot know; there is, or at least it seems to me that there may be or even must be Something beyond, some ultimate Reality, but about its truth I can only speculate; it is either unknowable or cannot be known by me." Or, if it has received some light on the way from what is beyond it, it can say too: "There is perhaps a consciousness beyond Mind, for I seem to catch glimpses of it and even to get intimations from it. If that is in touch with the Beyond or if it is itself the consciousness of the Beyond and you can find some way to reach it, then this Something can be known but not otherwise."

Any seeking of the supreme Truth through intellect alone must end either in Agnosticism of this kind or else in some intellectual system or mind-constructed formula. There have been hundreds of these systems and formulas and there can be hundreds more, but none can be definitive. Each may have its value for the mind, and different systems with their contrary conclusions can have an equal appeal to intelligences of equal power and competence. All this labour of speculation has its utility in training the human mind and helping to keep before it the idea of Something beyond and Ultimate towards which it must turn. But the intellectual Reason can only point vaguely or feel gropingly towards it or try to indicate partial and even conflicting aspects of its manifestation here; it cannot enter into and know it.

As long as we remain in the domain of the intellect only, an impartial pondering over all that has been thought and sought after, a constant throwing up of ideas, of all the possible ideas, and the formation of this or that philosophical belief, opinion or conclusion is all that can be done. This kind of disinterested search after Truth would be the only possible attitude for any wide and plastic intelligence. But any conclusion so arrived at would be only speculative; it could have no spiritual value; it would not give the decisive experience or the spiritual certitude for which the soul is seeking. If the intellect is our highest possible instrument and there is no other means of arriving at supraphysical Truth, then a wise and large Agnosticism must be our ultimate attitude. Things in the manifestation may be known to some degree, but the Supreme and all that is beyond the Mind must remain forever unknowable.

It is only if there is a greater consciousness beyond Mind and that consciousness is accessible to us that we can know and enter into the ultimate Reality. Intellectual speculation, logical reasoning as to whether there is or is not such a greater consciousness cannot carry us very far. What we need is a way to get the experience of it, to reach it, enter into it, live in it. If we can get that, intellectual speculation and reasoning must fall necessarily into a very secondary place and even lose their reason for existence. Philosophy, intellectual expression of the Truth may remain, but mainly as a means of expressing this greater discovery and as much of its contents as can at all be expressed in mental terms to those who still live in the mental intelligence.

This, you will see, answers your point about the Western thinkers, Bradley and others, who have arrived through intellectual thinking at the idea of an "Other beyond Thought" or have even, like Bradley, tried to express their conclusions about it in terms that recall some of the expressions in the Arya. The idea in itself is not new; it is as old as the Vedas. It was repeated in other forms in Buddhism, Christian Gnosticism, Sufism. Originally, it was not discovered by intellectual speculation, but by the mystics following an inner spiritual discipline. When, somewhere between the seventh and fifth centuries B.C., men began both in the East and West to intellectualise knowledge, this Truth survived in the East; in the West where the intellect began to be accepted as the sole or highest instrument for the discovery of Truth, it began to fade. But still it has there too tried constantly to return; the Neo-Platonists brought it back, and now, it appears, the Neo-Hegelians and others (e.g., the Russian Ouspensky and one or two German thinkers, I believe) seem to be reaching after it. But still there is a difference.

In the East, especially in India, the metaphysical thinkers have tried, as in the West, to determine the nature of the highest Truth by the intellect. But, in the first place, they have not given mental thinking the supreme rank as an instrument in the discovery of Truth, but only a secondary status. The first rank has always been given to spiritual intuition and illumination and spiritual experience; an intellectual conclusion that contradicts this supreme authority is held invalid. Secondly, each philosophy has armed itself with a practical way of reaching to the supreme state of consciousness, so that even when one begins with Thought, the aim is to arrive at a consciousness beyond mental thinking. Each philosophical founder (as also those who continued his work or school) has been a metaphysical thinker doubled with a yogi. Those who were only philosophic intellectuals were respected for their learning but never took rank as truth-discoverers. And the philosophies that lacked a sufficiently powerful means of spiritual experience died out and became things of the past because they were not dynamic for spiritual discovery and realisation.

In the West it was just the opposite that came to pass. Thought, intellect, the logical reason came to be regarded more and more as the highest means and even the highest end; in philosophy, Thought is the be-all and the end-all. It is by intellectual thinking and speculation that the truth is to be discovered; even spiritual experience has been summoned to pass the tests of the intellect, if it is to be held valid — just the reverse of the Indian position. Even those who see that the mental Thought must be overpassed and admit a supramental "Other", do not seem to escape from the feeling that it must be through mental Thought, sublimating and transmuting itself, that this other Truth must be reached and made to take the place of the mental limitation and ignorance. And again Western thought has ceased to be dynamic; it has sought after a theory of things, not after realisation. It was still dynamic amongst the ancient Greeks, but for moral and aesthetic rather than spiritual ends.

Later on, it became yet more purely intellectual and academic; it became intellectual speculation only without any practical ways and means for the attainment of the Truth by spiritual experiment, spiritual discovery, a spiritual transformation. If there were not this difference, there would be no reason for seekers like yourself to turn to the East for guidance; for in the purely intellectual field, the Western thinkers are as competent as any Eastern sage. It is the spiritual way, the road that leads beyond the intellectual levels, the passage from the outer being to the inmost Self, which has been lost by the over-intellectuality of the mind of Europe.

A philosopher’s journey

Dipankar Sinha The Statesman Mar 25, 2003

From a secure life in the sleepy village Nilakantapur and in Cuttack to hectic professional life in Kolkata, Bardhaman, Göttingen, Oklahoma, New York and Philadelphia. This is how JN Mohanty, a leading scholar of philosophy, found his physical trajectory and more important, intellectual mobility in life. This autobiography, which took 15 years to complete, bears testimony to this remarkable journey. The volume for obvious reasons is not about his philosophical investigations and discourses. It does not throw new light on Husserl or phenomenology or modalities of the self, all of which happen to be favourite themes in Mohanty’s intellectual quest. The volume is based on reminiscences of an extremely talented and hardworking individual — a “West-trained analytic thinker” conscious of his Oriya Indian upbringing and identity.

The very first impression that one gets about the author is that of his quiet scholarship. He is not a cult figure, nor someone who invites intense public attention and media hype associated with quite a few scholars (including Indian academics) nowadays. While his discipline, philosophy, might have something to do with such quiet intellectual pursuit, it might also be attributed to the fact that his academic height and career, so to say, were built up slowly but steadily — block by block. True, it gave rise to a wonderful combination of diversity of interests and intense rigour to his scholarship, but it was not exactly a smooth journey. East and West, which occupy the centrestage of his autobiography, enter Mohanty’s life not only materially but also metaphorically, to lead to a creative tension. In the beginning it was of course ‘the East’ that prevailed. It came in the form of the instruction of the Sanskrit pundit in school, who had initiated him to Tarkasamgraha and Raghuvamsham, to walk barefoot and make contact with the earth to energize the brain. It was also in the form of Pundit Yogendranatha Tarka Vedantatirtha, with whom Mohanty studied Samkara’s Bhasya on Brahmasutra, who in order to “discharge obligations to his students” would dictate from his death-bed Vidya Vamsa, the Pundit’s memory-based narrative of his students.

It was also evident in an insatiable urge to understand the philosophical underpinnings of Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo. In institutional terms, Mohanty’s academic encounter with the East would be within the walls of Presidency College and Calcutta University, the institutions that form a substantial part of his recollections. When it comes to encountering the West Mohanty as a doctoral student would meet and closely observe some of the best known names in German philosophy and pure mathematics. It seems that Mohanty’s intellectual interactions with his research supervisor, Hermann Wein, whom he at best describes as a “highly intelligent man,” would be limited, and he would be influenced more by other professors like Joseph Konig and Helmut Plessner. He also admits being overwhelmed by the majestic elegance of formal mathematical structures, which might have helped him immensely in later years. Mohanty also sensitively recounts the darker side of some of the finest German intellectuals of the fifties, a number of whom collaborated with the Nazis more out of craving for material benefits than ideological affinity. Then again, East and West would ‘meet’ in unforeseen and somewhat unthinkable ways.

Thus the logician Pandit Ananta Kumar Tarkatirtha, to whom Mohanty expresses his greatest intellectual debt, would ask his ‘Göttingen-educated’ student to introduce him to Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Kant’s first Critique. What’s more, the Pundit would raise “new questions” about them. The East-West interaction would be personified in “mahaguru” Ernst Waldschmidt who by his phenomenal scholarship of Vedic Sanskrit would demolish Mohanty’s stereotypical image of a pundit. Mohanty writes: “He would give me a final test in the traditional manner of Salakanyaya. He would put a needle through a palm-leaf manuscript, open the manuscript where the needle stopped, and ask me to explain just that page – first translate it, then point out grammatical problems, and then raise questions…”. What could be a better symbolic confluence of the intellectual East and its Western counterpart? When the East and the West engrave themselves in the cognitive map of such a thinker the manifestations at times become apparently paradoxical. Thus a self-proclaimed atheist like Mohanty would repeatedly repose faith in Hindu tradition and rituals.

The author who treats life as an “aesthetic project” has a philosophical explanation to offer. To him, performing rituals is “obligatory” because participation in common social practices facilitate the bond among the members of community. Thus, he seems to have a ‘secular’ logic to his enthusiastic participation in pujas. Mohanty’s elegant style and absorbing writing steer clear of unpleasant encounters, frictions and regrets which one finds in the autobiography of Western scholars, including philosophers. Thus it is not an autobiography which uncovers a life in full. However, this is not to be taken as a criticism. Because an individual has the ultimate prerogative in deciding the content an autobiography is meant to be read, not necessarily to be critiqued. Reading such a book is always a great experience not only because it depicts an important segment of life of an eminent scholar but also because it captures so well the past and present ambience in the East and in the West, in which scholars of such proportions are made.