Transformative Philosophy: A Study of Sankara, Fichte, and Heidegger

Transformative Philosophy

Transformative Philosophy A STUDY OF SANKARA, FICHTE, AND HEIDEGGER

JOHN A. TABER

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII PRESS Honolulu

© 1983

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII PRESS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Taber, John A., 1948Transforma tive philosophy. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Sailkaracarya. 2. Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 1762-1814. 3. Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976. I. Title. 83-4993 B133.SST27 1983 181'.483 ISBN 0-8248-0798-7

For my parents

Every thinker is prone to claim that his conclusions are the only logical ones, that they are necessities of universal reason, they being all the while, at bottom, accidents more or less of personal vision which had far better be avowed as such; for one man's vision may be much more valuable than another's, and our visions are usually not only our most interesting but our most respectable contributions to the world in which we play our part. What was reason given to men for, said some eighteenth-century writer, except to enable them to find reasons for what they want to think and do?-and I think the history of philosophy largely bears him out. "The aim of knowledge," says Hegel, "is to divest the objective world of its strangeness, and to make us more at home in it." Different men find their minds more at home in very different fragments of the world. William James, A Pluralistic Universe

ala."" sukumarahrdayopadesyajanavairasyadayinfbhi/:t kathabhi/:t. citsaktyarthibhi/:t pratyabhijna parfk~ya. K~emaraja, Spandanin;taya

Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction

The Transformative Structure of Sankara's Advaita Vedanta 1. Is Sankara's Advaita Vedanta Exclusively a Path of Knowledge? 2. Sankara's Prerequisites 3. The Quest for Liberation and Levels of Discourse

xi 1

CHAPTER 1:

Indian Philosophy, Western Philosophy, and the Problem of Intelligibility Sankara's Theory of Consciousness Self-Consciousness as a Self-Contradiction Mysticism and Paradox The Mechanics of Transformation Transformative Philosophy as a Type

5 6 13 24

CHAPTER 2:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

3: Fichte as Transformative Philosopher 1. The Intellectual Intuition and the Emergence of Self-Consciousness 2. The Transformation Wrought by Knowledge 3. Fichte's Educational Program 4. The "Logic" of Transformative Philosophy

CHAPTER

4: Ramifications of Transformative Philosophy 1. Heidegger and the Task of Thinking 2. Is Transformative Philosophy Edifying Philosophy? 3. In Defense of Transformative Philosophy

CHAPTER

Notes Bibliography . Index

27 29 37 45 54 65 68 69 83 91 97 103 104 116 130 139 177 185

Acknowledgments

was submitted in August 1979 to the Universitat Hamburg as a Ph.D. dissertation in Philosophy (Fachbereich Philosophie und Sozialwissenschaften) under the title "On the Relation of Philosophical Knowledge and Self-Experience in the Philosophies of Sankara and J. G. Fichte: A Study in Transformative Philosophy." It is being published after considerable revision. lowe thanks above all to my Ph.D. advisers: Prof. L. Schmithausen of the Seminar fur Kultur und Geschichte Indiens, Universitat Hamburg, and Prof. R. Wiehl of the Philosophisches Seminar, Universitat Heidelberg. Without their learned and patient guidance and encouragement this work would not have been possible. Many others have contributed in various ways. The late Prof. Bernard Martin of Case Western University carefully read earlier drafts of the manuscript and made many helpful suggestions toward improving its style and argument. Professor T. Vetter of the Kern Institut, Leiden, offered trenchant criticisms of the material relating to Sankara. Comments made by Harvey Alper, Eliot Deutsch, Jurgen Dunnebier, Kenneth Inada, and Karl Potter have also been taken into account. I am, more generally, indebted to Prof. A. Wezler of Hamburg for introducing me to Indian philosophy and showing me its analytic-philosophical worth. I am grateful, finally, to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who originally suggested the theme of the work-namely, in his words, that "knowledge is structured in consciousness." It is necessary to add that perhaps none of these men will be in total agreement with the method or outcome of this study, whereas I alone am responsible for any errors it may contain. During the period that I was revising the manuscript I was supported by a grant from the Andrew Mellon Foundation. Prior to that I was supported by my wife, Marianne Cramer. I offer my thanks to both. lowe special thanks too to Eliot Deutsch for leading me to my publisher and, finally, to my editor, Stuart Kiang, who encouraged me to expand the work. THE PRESENT WORK

Transformative Philosophy

Introduction

IN THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY there have been certain figures for whom philosophy has been not so ·much a quest for true ideas as a search for higher states of consciousness. Such thinkers tell us that ordinary experience is a dream, an illusion, a faint reflection of what is truly real, and that if we are to know the truly real we must awaken from the dream, enliven slumbering faculties, make a transition to a new state of awareness. Plato is a prime example of this type of philosopher. He exhorts us in his Republic to turn our faces toward the Good which shines like the sun in resplendent self-evidence. But this can be done only by tearing ourselves loose from the shackles that bind us in darkness, that is, by overcoming delusion. Thus Plato does notindeed, he cannot-demonstrate the truth for us. He cannot deliver it to us in the form of a finished logical proof, but he does detail a program for cultivation of the spirit which, if followed, will enable one eventually to see the truth, not excogitate it, by employing dialectic as an instrument. Spinoza similarly resolves to improve and purify the understanding at the outset, so that he may apprehend things without error before attempting to realize human perfection in the form of recognizing the unity of man and nature. Although the practical, soteriological outlook of these thinkers has been acknowledged, resistance to investigating them under this aspect has been great. Scholars continue to deplore the mystical interpretation of Plato. The emphasis of modern research, rather, has been on his theory of knowledge, his theory of truth, the Third Man Argument, and so on-matters which are more or less contiguous with contemporary philosophical concerns and can be dealt with in a formal, analytical way. We are wont to study Plato by rearranging his ideas according to rules with which we are familiar or replacing them with concepts we already know. Thus, on the profoundest of available interpretations, Plato's works are a textbook for extrapolating from the seen to the unseen-a soul, immortality, the forms. But, clearly, Plato means to

2

TransfoTmative Philosophy

inspire us to open our eyes so that the unseen will c.ease to be so. The formal approach to holistic thinkers such as Plato or Spinoza entirely misses the point. Not by shuffling ideas, but by altering our way of perceiving ideas, do we gain an appreciation of what they have to say. Fichte and Sankara, the two thinkers with whom the present study is primarily concerned, are philosophers of this same breed. Indeed, the purpose of this investigation is to show precisely that-that they are "transformative philosophers," as I shall call them, philosophers intent on effecting a total transformation of consciousness, the basic relationship between the knower and the things he knows. Full cognizance is here taken of their practical, soteriological outlook. In this respect, too, one must go against the mainstream of interpretive tradition. For, as in the case of Plato, scholars have refused to consider Fichte a mystic; and, although most regard Sankara a mystic, some have made his mysticism seem completely dependent on formal knowledge (episteme), as if for him a vision of Unity were to emerge miraculously out of philosophical ratiocination. But both thinkers emphasize in their works the necessity of a special spiritual faculty for understanding their philosophies, and they recommend programs of religious practice (Sankara) or education (Fichte) to cultivate it. The comparison of Fichte and Sankara was first attempted by Rudolf Otto in an appendix to his famous study of Sankara and Meister Eckhart, West-ostliche Mystik (Mysticism East and West). Otto, however, concentrates on doctrinal parallels between the two, concerning himself with the question whether Sankara and Fichte deal, ultimately, with "the same experience." In the case of completely different cultural traditions, such a question may well be meaningless, since, in that case, the concepts and categories used to talk about experience will diverge drastically. That the content of an experience may be somehow divorced from its formulation in concepts is by no means a gratuitous assumption. Nevertheless, general similarities having to do with the methods of philosophers of different cultures, or with the overall structure of their systems, can be meaningfully observed. We are thereby able to ascertain types of philosophical systems, and by contrasting systems of the same type from different cultures we are often better able to understand them. By seeing what a certain philosophy is not, we see more clearly what it is. Similarity-not identityestablished by means of comparison, is the ground for contrast, which

Introduction

3

in turn aids comprehension. Thus, with a view to achieving a deeper comprehension of the philosophies of Fichte and Sal'lkara, I compare them here with regard to their method. Apart from this comparative or evaluative purpose, however, I wish to establish 'the transforrnative pattern as a distinct type of philosophy, casting Sankara and Fichte as outstanding examples, and to explore some of its unique problems and advantages. Frederick Streng, in his pioneering study Emptiness: A Study in Religious Meaning, calls transformation the mark of the religious; I aim to show that it is the mark of the philosophical as well. Under the heading of "problems" comes the mystical or subjective attitude of the transformative philosopher. How can a system of thought which is intelligible to only a gifted few claim to be a viable contribution to science, which is necessarily objective and accessible to everyone? How can transformative philosophy claim to be philosophy at all, which is necessarily-or, at least, ideallyscientific? On the other hand, the advantage of transformative philosophy lies precisely in its appeal to intuitive knowledge-mystical experience-which provides it with a certificate of authenticity that traditional, formal metaphysics, in its attempt to extend reason beyond its proper scope, does not have. These issues will emerge naturally in the course of elucidating the systems of Fichte and Sal'lkara as transformative philosophies. The plan of the work is therefore as follows. In Chapter I I make the case for viewing Sankara as a transformative philosopher, underlining his acceptance of religious practice as an aid in engendering a kind of spiritual purity which is to be transformed into supreme knowledge by philosophical understanding. The complexity of the matters dealt with requires that we start in medias res; unfortunately, a general introduction to Sankara's philosophy cannot be offered here. Nevertheless, I have tried to keep the argument as comprehensible as possible for readers who are unacquainted with Indian philosophy; technical points are pursued in the notes. In Chapter 2 the correctness of the interpretation offered in the first chapter is confirmed by seeing that Sal'lkara's system would be egregiously incoherent if he did not himself consider it transformative in the sense described. In this context the problem of the restricted intelligibility, hence restricted validity, of transformative philosophy is introduced. That problem is provisionally solved in connection with a discussion of the psychological

4

Transformative Philosophy

mechanism of transformation. Here, too, some tecl;mical, philological m~tters must be given attention; but-perhaps inevitably to the dissatisfaction of Indologists-they are treated lightly. Chapter 3 is a straightforward exposition of the principles gleaned from the investigation of Sailkara in relation to Fichte's philosophy. At the conclusion of that chapter transformative philosophy is distinguished from metaphysics, and in considering its immunity to a Kantian critique of metaphysics the discussion of the validity of transformative philosophy is carried forward. In Chapter 4 I demonstrate the scope of the concept of transformative philosophy by applying it to another figure in Western philosophy: Martin Heidegger. Although Heidegger does not develop a full-fledged transformative system, his concern to introduce a new mode of "authentic thinking" expresses the essential spirit of transformative philosophy. And insofar as he identifies authentic thought as the original impetus of Greek speculation he assigns transformative philosophy a central role in the Western philosophical tradition. In a final effort to clarify the notion of transformative philosophy I contrast it to Richard Rorty's concept of "edifying philosophy." My study concludes with a general defense of transformative philosophy, drawing, once again, on Fichte.

1

The Transformative Structure of Sankara 's Advaita Vedanta

INDIAN SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY are commonly divided into different "paths" to salvation: the path of knowledge (jiianamarga), the path of devotion (bhaktimarga), the path of action (karmamarga), and, sometimes, the path of yoga. This scheme of classification goes back to the Bhagavadgfta,l but it was made popular by certain Neohinduistic thinkers (such as Vivekananda) who have much influenced contemporary scholars. Sankara's Advaita Vedanta-a radically monistic interpretation of the mystical texts of the Veda, the Upani~ads-besides being generally regarded the greatest of the Hindu philosophical systems is also typically characterized as the path of knowledge par excellence. 2 By this path, it is claimed, one can attain liberation or enlightenment-salvation-solely by means of the cognition of the true nature of the self and its relation to the world without the least dependence on religious practice, such as the performance of sacred ritual, the worship of a personal god, or the practice of yoga. In the present chapter I wish to challenge, or at least qualify, this idea. It will be argued that, far from rejecting religious practice, Sankara presupposes it as a necessary means for establishing a higher state of consciousness, on the basis of which his philosophy first becomes comprehensible and is able to effect the profound transformation he alleges it should cause. In other words, Sankara's philosophy is transformative. It is meant primarily to structure religious experience and thus depends on the presence of the experience in question, or the seed thereof, in an unexpressed form. This experience, it will be argued, is to be brought about by means of traditional religious observances-at least, so Sankara believes. In demonstrating this thesis my procedure will be as follows. First, the passages in Sankara's writings which suggest that his Vedanta system is exclusively a path of knowledge will be examined. Next, that interpretation will be critically assessed from a strictly philosophical, as opposed to a philological, point of view. Third, other textual evidence will be brought for-

6

Transformative Philosophy

ward which will suggest that Sankara indeed accepts a variety of religious and "spiritual" disciplines as an ~ssential 'part of his system. Finally, the apparent conflict between Sankara's denial of religious practice and his acceptance of it will be resolved. It should be noted at the outset that the present inquiry takes its place among numerous attempts, both ancient and modern, to view Advaita Vedanta holistically. Later systems of Advaita Vedanta, such as that of VidyaraJ).ya, attempt to reconcile the approaches of karma, knowledge, worship (upasana), and yoga,3 while in systems prior to Sankara (that described by Bhavya in his Madhyamakahrdaya,4 Gau