A Brief Tribute to Eliot Deutsch (1931-2020) ______

Journal of World Philosophies Remembrances/209

GRAHAM PARKES University of Vienna, Austria ([email protected])

A brief celebration of the contributions of the late Eliot Deutsch to Asian, comparative, and world philosophy, and to the academic community more generally.

Key words: Eliot Deutsch; Indian philosophy; comparative philosophy; world philosophy; aesthetics

Eliot Deutsch’s first books were his translation of the Bhagavad Gita (1968) and a brief but rich study, Advaita Vedanta: A Philosophical Reconstruction (1969). It was through these that I first encountered him in the early 1970s, when I was the teaching assistant for a course at the University of California, Berkeley called “Philosophies of India.” When at the end of the decade I took up a position at the University of Hawaii, the first member of the Philosophy Department I ran into was Eliot Deutsch. I was looking for the Department office when he approached with extended hand and a welcoming smile, saying, “You must be our new colleague. Let me take you to lunch!” This first encounter proved providential: for the next three decades in Hawaii, Eliot was an extraordinarily supportive colleague and most faithful friend. In 1979 his achievements were already impressive, and he continued to build on them in subsequent decades. After twelve years as the editor of Philosophy East and West, he transformed a peripheral publication into the premier journal in the field. He was a founding member of the Society of Asian and Comparative Philosophy, which grew similarly from small beginnings into an organization powerful enough to persuade (at least some members of) the profession that analytic philosophy wasn’t the only legitimate way. Eliot also played a major part in the East- West Philosophers’ Conferences during the 1980s and 1990s. Eliot was able to make Asian philosophies acceptable and reputable because of the strength of his credentials in western philosophy. On more than one occasion, when a Big Name from the mainstream in analytic philosophy made dismissive remarks about “non-western” philosophy in our presence, Eliot’s expression became suddenly stern as he demonstrated how that particular argument in western philosophy was less sophisticated than a corresponding argument from Indian thought. Although he began with Advaita and Hindu philosophy, he later extended his interests to the Chinese and Japanese traditions—and eventually became one of the first eminent practitioners of “world philosophy.” Another reason Eliot could do this was his expertise in different philosophical fields, writing about metaphysics and issues around truth in the beginning, but then moving on to aesthetics, philosophy of religion, and questions of personhood and freedom. After co-editing (with Ron Bontekoe) A Companion to World Philosophies (1991), he went on to write Introduction to World Philosophies (1996) and Persons and Valuable Worlds: A Global Philosophy (2001). In a profession where dogmatism is a constant temptation, Deutsch was delightfully open-minded most of the time. He was present at some departmental review where I, as an untenured member, had to provide a preview of my future research. I explained that an interest in Chinese and Japanese gardens had given me the idea of taking up the philosophy of rock and stone. The idea was met with dismissive derision by some of my senior colleagues, but Eliot rose

Journal of World Philosophies Remembrances/210 to my defense by saying, “I think the project has potential. In any case we could certainly use a different kind of craziness around this department.” Some philosophers live what they talk and write about, others just write and talk the talk. Eliot was among the former. While writing about aesthetics he practiced an aesthetic way of life, with style. A generous and hospitable soul, he was always inviting friends, colleagues, and graduate students for lunches, cocktail parties, and dinners in his elegantly appointed home. I don’t recall any visit chez Deutsch where more than five minutes went by before a cool glass of gin and tonic was in my hand, and the gracious host was raising his glass with a smile that verged on the mischievous. His latest home was in a spectacular natural setting—lush tropical vegetation all around—whose beauty he appeared to appreciate more with every passing year. Recently my old friend and colleague Lee Siegel, who knew Eliot long before I did, recommended his last book, Death & Sacred Silence (2019) as being “very poignant, very touching.” Then I received a message from Marcia Roberts-Deutsch, asking for my address so that she could send a copy. It arrived a few weeks later, and its slim form and open texture prompted me to plunge in straight away. The experience was poignant and touching indeed. It’s a brief work in several styles: aphorisms, haiku-like poems, short stories, and “random thoughts” where the author sometimes seems to be channeling the later Wittgenstein. As the title indicates, many of the thoughts are of impermanence, with senses of mortality. The next day came the news that Eliot had died. The death of someone you know well—knew well—always reminds you of your own mortality, especially if you’re not that far apart in age. “To one growing older and older,” he writes, “the world becomes at once more friendly and strange.” And then these parting words: “Living, perhaps, should be less a consciousness of chronic generation/degeneration and more a feeling of rightness, of the appropriateness, of it all—until and with the very end.” Yes, that “with” is right. It’s all impermanent, so we’d better be there while we can, in case it really is the end. At the age of 89, Eliot Deutsch turned out to be less impermanent than many of us— something for which the field of world philosophy is to be grateful, since it allowed a greater contribution from him. May the example of his life and work inspire those of us who remain (for the time being) to build on his legacy and help enlighten the profession concerning the rich diversity of philosophy worldwide.

Graham Parkes was born and raised in Glasgow and educated at Oxford and UC Berkeley. He taught Asian and comparative philosophy at the University of Hawaii for twenty-five years, punctuated by three years as a visiting scholar and fellow at Harvard and two semesters teaching in Austria. After seven years as Professor of Philosophy at University College Cork in Ireland, he moved to Vienna, where he is a Professorial Research Fellow in Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy, University of Vienna. His latest book is How to Think about the Climate Crisis: A Philosophical Guide to Saner Ways of Living (London: Bloomsbury, 2020).