Phenomenology is one of the most important developments in philosophy in the twentieth century that has had a deep impact on Theology and Religious Studies. The reading group seeks to engage with some of the fundamental concepts of phenomenology that underlie much work in Theology and the Phenomenology of Religion. This term we hope to read Pierre Hadot’s Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault. Like Heidegger and others, Pierre Hadot felt that it was important for philosophy to recover some of the impulses that had shaped its development in classical culture and religion. Countering the development of phenomenology into an objective ‘science’, Hadot has led moves to reclaim the place of philosophical reflection as a ‘Spiritual Exercise’ concerned with human flourishing, self-development, and humanity’s place in the cosmos. To get some perspective on this development in phenomenology, we will read Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995).
Lecture tag: Philosophy
Readings in Phenomenology: Session 1 (HT 16)
Phenomenology is one of the most important developments in philosophy in the twentieth century that has had a deep impact on Theology and Religious Studies. The reading group seeks to engage with some of the fundamental concepts of phenomenology that underlie much work in Theology and the Phenomenology of Religion. This term we hope to read Pierre Hadot’s Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault. Like Heidegger and others, Pierre Hadot felt that it was important for philosophy to recover some of the impulses that had shaped its development in classical culture and religion. Countering the development of phenomenology into an objective ‘science’, Hadot has led moves to reclaim the place of philosophical reflection as a ‘Spiritual Exercise’ concerned with human flourishing, self-development, and humanity’s place in the cosmos. To get some perspective on this development in phenomenology, we will read Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995).
Indian Theories of Life (MT15)
Religion and the Philosophy of Life Series
How do we account for the persistence of religion in human life? To answer this question these lectures will examine the idea of religion in relation to philosophies of life. In particular it will examine the thesis that life itself comes to expression through religions. This entails an empirical claim that the origins of religion can be explained in terms of the evolution of human interactivity, what we call social cognition; a historical claim that philosophies of life have operated within religions in terms of what we might call a transcendent teleology that have continued into secular modernity; and a philosophical claim we can account for the persistence of religion in terms of a realist ontology of life. The three lectures roughly correspond to these interrelated claims.
Taking the theme of the first lecture that life itself comes to expression through religion, the second lecture will illustrate these themes through examining how ‘scholastic’ reflection in India has dealt with the category ‘life’ with particular reference to the realist non-dualism in Abhinavagupta and Kṣemarāja.
Week 1. Is language eternal? The Mīmāṃsā theory of an objective word-referent relation (TT18)
Week 2. Do persons exist? The ancient Indian controversy about the existence of an ātman (TT18)
Heidegger and the Netratantra: Using Philosophy as a Meta-language in Tantric Studies
Based on selected passages from the Netratantra this paper will investigate how the tantric practitioners perceive reality through the esoteric anatomy of the yogic body. With a focus on Śākta anthropology and the yogic technique of the khecarīmudrā I will show how the body is utilized as an instrument in a tantric context. Through the application of Heideggarian terminology I will investigate how philosophical concepts such as Dasein, Vorhanden, Zuhanden and Angst are helpful in enhancing our understanding of such complex ideas as met with in the Netratantra and Tantric Studies more generally. As an example, I will demonstrate how the application of the concept of Dasein in a Zuhanden relationship with one’s own body can work as a model for understanding the pragmatic aspects of the esoteric anatomy. Simultaneously, philosophical concepts may be further developed and gain new features through their application on such foreign material. The Study of Religion is indeed in need of such a metatheoretical vocabulary of carefully developed philosophical concepts in relation to a more in-depth and intellectually stimulating study of Indian religions and philosophies – at the same time pointing toward a new vocabulary that may work in more general and comparative contexts as well.
Jesper Moeslund is pursuing an MA in the Study of Religion at Aarhus University with a minor in Philosophy. Jesper’s interests are primarily related to the study of esoteric anatomy in a tantric context and how the body is understood and used in a religious discourse. He is a visiting student at the OCHS and a participant in the Haṭhapradīpikā translation project led by Dr Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen and Silje Lyngar Einarsen.
Semantics of Indian Philosophy: Toshihiko Izutsu’s “Oriental Philosophy”
The purpose of this lecture is to elucidate the characteristics of Indian philosophy on reality and consciousness, from the semantic perspectives of the famous Japanese philosopher Toshihiko Izutsu (1914-93). Through his semantic attempt to construct an “Oriental Philosophy,” Izutsu interpreted such Indian philosophical texts as the Upaniṣads and Śaṅkara’s commentaries on the Upaniṣadic texts. In this lecture, while clarifying the hermeneutical structure of his “Oriental Philosophy,” I would like to argue how he semantically interpreted the structure of reality and consciousness in Indian philosophy, focusing on Śaṅkara’s advaita (non-dual) Vedānta philosophy. For Izutsu, among various Indian thoughts, Śaṅkara’s philosophy is the most representative thought in Izutsu’s Oriental philosophical reflection. In Izutsu’s view, the main stream of Oriental philosophy, including Indian philosophy, has been traditionally “anti-cosmic,” i.e., ontologically destructive.
Prof. Yoshitsugu Sawai is Professor of the History of Religions and former Dean of the Faculty of Human Studies at Tenri University (Japan), as well as Advisor of the Japan Association of Religion and Ethics. He is the author of The Faith of Ascetics and Lay Smartas: A Study of the Sankaran Tradition of Srngeri (Sammlung De Nobili).
Rethinking Advaita Within the Colonial Predicament: The Subject as Freedom and the ‘Confrontative’ Philosophy of K. C. Bhattacharyya (1875–1949)
In this talk I will examine the distinctive way in which the prominent Indian philosopher Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya (1875–1949) engaged with Advaita Vedānta during the terminal phase of the colonial period. I propose to do this by looking, first, at ways in which Krishnachandra understood the role of his own philosophizing within the colonial predicament. I will call this his agenda in ‘confrontative’ philosophy. I shall proceed, then, by sketching out the unique manner in which this agenda was successfully carried out through his engagement with the Advaitic notion of self-knowledge and articulated in his The Subject as Freedom (1930).
Pawel Odyniec is a Ph.D. candidate in Indology at the Department of Linguistics and Philology, Uppsala University, Sweden. He has worked on several eminent Indian philosophers of the twentieth century and their reinterpretations of the classical Advaita Vedānta with particular attention to the concept of liberating knowledge. His research interest is in the area of Indian philosophy/theology, from classical to modern, in its Sanskrit, Hindi, and English sources which he addresses from a perspective that combines philosophy, philology, and history of ideas. Over the past few years, he has been teaching Introduction to Indian Philosophy and has been assisting in teaching Sanskrit and Hindi.
Hermeneutics, Philosophy and Religion: Gadamer: Week 7: Rethinking Divinity (HT17)
Classic problems in Philosophy, Religion and the Humanities more broadly can be approached through the branch of phenomenology that Hans-Georg Gadamer termed ‘Philosophical Hermeneutics’. Texts become living objects of dialogue. Spirituality becomes a process through which the self grows. Community becomes a form of expanded selfhood, and religious truth claims become an invitation to adapt oneself to a new picture of the world. These seminars will explore key themes, drawing on Gadamer’s writings on beauty, health and ethics, Plato and Hegel, spiritual growth and multicultural society.
Narratives selves and embodied conditioning: Advaitin techniques for waking up within the saṃsāric story (HT17)
The phenomenon of experience is ambiguous, even chaotic, outside of explanatory models or narrative frameworks that saturate the world with meaning. In this hermeneutical context, I explore the relationship between the nature of the Advaita Vedāntin soteriological framework, egoity (ahaṃkāra) and embodied conditioning (vāsanā) in the work of the Advaita Vedāntin Vidyāraṇya (14th century) and his preeminent advaitic source text, the (Laghu-)Yoga–Vāsiṣṭha. I argue that the nexus between conditioned ways of being in the world and interpretative frameworks is central to the ‘vertical’ movement of Advaita Vedāntin soteriology. In doing so, I pursue the synergistic intersection between Vidyāraṇya’s account of ahaṃkāra, articulated in his praxeological discussion of yogic inwardness, and his employment of pedagogical stories, or ‘narrative hooks’, as a means of drawing personae into the Advaita Vedāntin soteriological story and out of frameworks that concretize dualism and valorize objects. I conclude the paper with exploratory remarks about the nature of liberation-while-living (jīvanmukti) or ‘waking up’ within the interpretative story.
Dr. James Madaio is a fellow at the Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. He received his PhD from the Religions and Theology department at the University of Manchester and has held research positions at New Europe College in Bucharest and at the University of Maryland, USA.