Phenomenology And Indian Philosophy

This book shows the close relation between the phenomenology of the West and the phenomenological approach taken by Indian thinkers, both classical and modern. It illustrates that the underlying spirit of phenomenology and hermeneutics has been consciously followed by Indian philosophers for centuries and is not peculiar to Western thinkers. It also shows that Edmund Husserl and K. C. Bhattacharyya were aware of these parallel trends of thought. Phenomenology and Indian Philosophy addresses not only the basic theme of phenomenology, but its aesthetic, social, psychological, scientific, and technological aspects as well.

A thought tradition, like that of the philosophies of India, tends to fall in the stereotype of systems and doctrines. But the dynamics of understanding demand fresh interpretations, relating contents and strands of classical Indian philosophy to themes and concerns of present-day thought. Drawing from mainstream Vedanta and allied areas, this study focuses on the crucial question of 'human' significance. This guiding motive is examined in thematic interaction with a range of relevant topics on methodology, knowledge and most importantly, human condition. The explorations, based on source materials, offer critical reflections across the arena of East-West thought.

This Volume Containes Essays Written In The 1990`S That Provide Insights Into Indian Philosophy And Mohanty`S Work Spanning Three Decades.

Comparative study of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophical systems of classical India and phenomenology of modern West.

"Being is no longer the essential matter to be thought." Martin Heidegger Western thought clings to the notion that consciousness is essentially both 'intentional' (awareness of something) and the private property of an egoic 'subject'. It has no concept of a Universal Awareness or 'Absolute Subjectivity' of the sort that Indian thought has long understood as the source of all individualised consciousness. Yet in the language of Martin Heidegger we find words such as 'The Open' or 'The Illuminating Clearing', which suggest a primordial 'space' or 'light' of awareness - one that is the condition for any consciousness of things, and is not the private property of any being, body, brain or 'ego'. Heidegger, Phenomenology and Indian Thought explores in an original way the proximity of this language to those schools of Indian thought which recognise a pure, universal and 'non-intentional' dimension of consciousness - an Awareness (Chit) prior to and transcending 'Being' itself (Sat).

Philosophers Of All Persuasions Claim That It Is Only Phenomenology That Can Show Us The Way Out Of The Philosophical Cul De Sac And Can Lead Us To The Disclosure Of The Structures Of Consciousness And Life-World. The Present Work Analyses Such Proud Claims Threadbare From The View¬Points Of: Psychology, Existentialism, Marxism And Indian Philosophies. It Also Includes The Author S Own Criticisms Of Phenomenology. But The Book Is Not All Negative In Attitude; It Also Gives An Account Of The Plus-Points Of Phenomenology. In Addition, Chapter I Of The Book Briefly Intro¬Duces Phenomenology Itself, Which Will Help Even The Uninitiated Pursue The Arguments Of The Work.

To know the work of Jitendra Nath Mohanty even slightly is to commence to appreciate it immensely. Lucidity and sagacity have been its armor; originality and ingenuity have been its strength. And wearing the former and wielding the latter have become so persistent a mark of his work as to suggest that their appeal for Mohanty lies altogether more in the refmed reaches of philosophical craftsmanship than on the coarse ground of intellectual partisanship. The multifaceted character of his work in phenomenology and Indian philosophy has never left us palled by its significance and, as a consequence, has always left us conceding its command on our philosophical discourse. It has fulfilled the most welcomed promise of striking the chords of both imagination and reason by exposing Husserlian phenomenology to the concerns of both the so-called "analytical" and "continental" traditions and by exposing the philosophical tradition of Indian thought to the intricacies of Husserl. Although charting and periodizing the body ofMohanty' s work in phenomeno logy may be the function of a memory inconspicuous for originality and liveli ness, they nonetheless offer a precis conspicuous for the variety of topics that Mohanty has both engaged and enriched. Mohanty's career in phenomenology can be characterized by three phases, each concentrating on different themes, but with the latter two also epitomizing a more incisive and deeper discussion of the issues raised in the first.

Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad offers illuminating new perspectives on contemporary phenomenological theories of body and subjectivity, based on studies of classical Indian texts that deal with bodily subjectivity. Examining four texts from different genres - a medical handbook, epic dialogue, a manual of Buddhist practice, and erotic poetry - he argues for a 'phenomenological ecology' of bodily subjectivity in health, gender, contemplation, and lovemaking. An ecology is a continuous and dynamic system of interrelationships between elements, in which the salience accorded to some type of relationship clarifies how the elements it relates are to be identified. The paradigm of ecological phenomenology obviates the need to choose between apparently incompatible perspectives of the human. The delineation of body is arrived at by working back phenomenologically from the world of experience, with the acknowledgement that the point of arrival - a conception of what counts as bodiliness - is dependent upon the exact motivation for attending to experience, the areas of experience attended to, and the expressive tools available to the phenomenologist. Ecological phenomenology is pluralistic, yet integrates the ways experience is attended to and studied, permitting apparently inconsistent intuitions about bodiliness to be explored in novel ways. Rather than seeing particular framings of our experience as in tension with each other, we should see each such framing as playing its own role according to the local descriptive and analytic concern of a text.