Purushottama Bilimoria

What is the subaltern of the comparative philosophy of religion

It is claimed that Comparative Philosophy of Religion (CPR) mistakenly builds on the dogmas of comparative religion (or history of religions) and philosophy of religion. Thus, the belief that there are things common and therefore comparable between two or more traditions and that these objects of comparison are of philosophical or theological significance are questions that continue to trouble the field. Just what does one compare, how does one choose what to compare or why, through what methodological and epistemic tools, and who is it that carries out the tasks? But what has remained unasked and unanalyzed are the larger meta-questions concerning the motivation, civilizational presuppositions, cultural parochialism, or legacies of orientalism, modernity, and (post-)colonialism that together affect the boundedness of certain key categories and thematic issues in the comparative enterprise such as God or the Transcendent, Creation, the Problem of Evil, the Afterlife, Sin, Redemption, Purpose, and the End. Is difference with respect to alterity and altarity permissible? If so, what a postcolonial, differently gendered, cross-cultural critique would look like and what is left of CPR are two such questions explored here.

Heidegger and the Japanese Connection

This collection of new essays on phenomenological themes reviews aspects of the philosophical movement which began with the publication in 1900-01 of Edmund Husserls path-breaking Logical Investigations. A broad survey of phenomenology is particularly timely given that this philosophical movement is reaching a hundred years of its existence. The thirteen contributions represent a wide range of approaches and interests within the phenomenological framework. Some present approaches to Husserl, while others explore aspects of the fundamental texts of phenomenology and provide critical discussions of later thinkers such as Heidegger, Sartre, and Derrida whose relation to Husserl receives particular attention. The final section relates phenomenology to other disciplines and to broader issues in social thought and cultural studies. This book will enable students and professional philosophers alike to explore the various strands of this widely influential school of thought.

Is Adhikāra good enough for ‘rights'?

Abstract The paper considers the question of whether ‘rights’ as we have it in modern Western thinking has an equivalence within the Indian framework of Dharma. Under Part I we look at purusārthas to see if the desired human goals imply rights by examining the tension between aspired ‘values’ and the ‘ought’ of duty. Next, a potential cognate in the term ’adhikāra’ is investigated via the derivation of a refined signification of ‘entitlements’, especially in the exegetical hermeneutics of the Mimāmsā. Finally, adhikāras re‐emergence in the Bhagavadgitā is considered. We suggest that while the boundary is significantly extended, the Gitā too appears to be circumspect in opening up the discourse in the more abstract and absolute sense which the term ‘rights’ nowadays enjoys.

Thinking Negation in Early Hinduism and Classical Indian Philosophy

A number of different kinds of negation and negation of negation are developed in Indian thought, from ancient religious texts to classical philosophy. The paper explores the Mīmāṃsā, Nyāya, Jaina and Buddhist theorizing on the various forms and permutations of negation, denial, nullity, nothing and nothingness, or emptiness. The main thesis argued for is that in the broad Indic tradition, negation cannot be viewed as a mere classical operator turning the true into the false (and conversely), nor reduced to the mainstream Boolean dichotomy: 1 versus 0. Special attention is given to how contradiction is handled in Jaina and Buddhist logic.

Negation (abhāva), Non-existents, and a Distinctive pramāṇa in the Nyāya-Mīmāṃsā

The chapter examines the three types of negation described in the Mīmāṃsā school in their treatment of the kinds of permissible, prohibited, and excluded (vipratipratiṣedha, niṣedha, pratiṣedha) sacrifices that are otherwise enjoined as injunctions (vidhis) in the Vedic passages. The paribhāṣā (‘meta-language’) rules becomes instructive with the development of grammar for its application to more secular speech. To give one prominent example, the injunction, ‘he shall eat’ is denoted by N[F(x)], where F(x) denotes ‘he eats’ (and modally, ‘it is necessary that he eats’). Now a prohibition (niṣedha) or negation of this injunctive sentence, if it is as injunction, is symbolized by N[¬F(x)], not by (¬N)([F(x)]) or (¬N[F(x)]). Hence it is signified by the sentence ‘she shall not-eat’. N[¬F(x)] belongs to the paryudāsa or exclusionary negation, where a noun (as distinct from a verb-form) is negated; its other form being N[F(¬x)].

Introduction: The State of Philosophy of Religion and Postcoloniality

The prominent philosopher of religion, Robert Cummings Neville, has recently argued that in late modern times, “the worlds great religious cultures are confused by fragmentation in two directions.” The first confusion stems from uncertainty as to how the religions relate to one another, the second from the failure of the religions to address the distinctive forces of a complex world society (Neville 2002: 137–138).

What Is the “Subaltern” of the Philosophy of Religion?

Philosophy of religion concerns itself with certain questions arising from the traditional tussle between the judgment of reason and the commitment to faith, augmented by disputes over whether it is language and conceptual analysis or some direct intuitive experience that provides access to the truth claims underpinning specific scriptural utterances, as articulated in philosophical (or “natural”) theology. The late Ninian Smart lamented that philosophy of religion as conventionally practiced in discipline-bounded departments rested on two mistakes, namely its singular focus on problems of natural theology (in the context of Western theodicy) and, apropos of this, its inattentiveness to religion, even less to religions, as a totality of worldviews, ranging over a wide compass of doctrines, ideologies, myths and symbolic patterns, sacred practices, ultimate beliefs (that deeply inform human life rather than simply provide a basis for propositional assertions), and so on.1 (An analogue to this is the tendency once, in philosophy of science, to be divorced from the history of science, not to speak of the laboratory itself.) Smart went on to suggest a three-tiered prolegomenon for the philosophy of religion, structured around the comparative analysis of religions, the history of religions, and the phenomenology of a range of (religious) experience and action (Smart 1995: 31).

Being and Text: Dialogic Fecundation of Western Hermeneutics and Hindu Mīmāmsā in the Critical Era

Hermes, [Gr.] Myth. A deity, the son of Zeus and Maia, the messenger of the Greek gods, the good of science, commerce, eloquence, and many of the arts of life; commonly figured as a youth, with the conduceus, or rod, petasus or brimmed hat, and talaria or winged shoes. From which comes hermeneuein [Latin, hermeneuticus; German, Hermeneutik] “to make something clear, to announce or to unveil a message”1 – in short, to interpret. Hermeneutics, then, first and foremost is about Meaning; and its presupposition is language or Speech. (What would the Sanskrit equivalent of the toppied-Kumārasvāmin of Indra, Vāc, and Māyā, with dan. d. a and uddatichappel, imaginary look like?)

*Intuition* in Classical Indian Philosophy: Laying the Foundation for a Cross-Cultural Study

There are three main questions one can ask about *intuition*. The analytical—phenomenological question is: what is the correct conceptual analysis and phenomenological account of intuition? The empirical-cognitive question is: what is the correct process-wise robust account of *intuition* phenomenon? In this paper we provide an answer to a third question, the cross-cultural question concerning sufficiently similar, yet distinct, uses of *intuition* in classical Indian philosophy. Our aim is to compare these uses of *intuition* to some conceptions of *intuition* in Western philosophy. We conceive of our project here as an attempt to fill a gap in current research on *intuition*, which focuses predominantly on Western conceptions of rational intuition.

Comparative Philosophy and J.L. Shaw

Professor Shaw wrote a battery of land mark articles and several books over four decades. There are several systems in Indian Philosophy and they have their own explanations on Meaning. Shaw is a devout Naiyāyika. By using Nyāya methodology, Shaw provides a new dimension to Western Philosophy. Saul Kripke criticized both Frege and Russell especially their theories of proper names. Shaw however, attempts to reconcile Kripke and Frege-Russellian views by the concept of “pravṛtti-nimitta” following Raghunātha Śiromoṇi. Russell’s theory of definite description is widely known in Western hemisphere. Following Gadādhara, Shaw reasons that Nyāya explanation of Proper name is better than that of Bertrand Russell. Shaw suggested that meaning may be discussed at six levels: etymological, conventional, deep structure (kāraka), causal, metaphorical and suggestive. In this context, Shaw gives an illuminating explanation of the metaphysical term, ‘Brahman’ (Absolute). Brahman is said to be ‘indescribable’. How does the word, ‘Brahman’ then refers to anything at all?