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Indian and Chinese Philosophies in Dialogue on Self, Ethics and Society University College Utrecht, 24 February 2020

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Indian and Chinese Philosophies in Dialogue on Self, Ethics and Society University College Utrecht, 24 February 2020 Lecture: Indian and Chinese Philosophies in Dialogue on Self, Ethics and Society University College Utrecht, 24 February 2020 Indian Absolutism and other Ultimisms (abstract) Purushottama Bilimoria For my part, I am coming to this dialogue from the terrains of Philosophy of Religion, albeit with a cross-cultural aperture on the more arcane predecessor in Philosophical Theology. I want to ask if every tradition has to have a concept of the Ultimate, or perhaps begin with, or maybe end with some transcendentally-conceived Ultimate, which can of course, take various forms and names. And the Ultimate might be the focus of concern that believers of the tradition bestow to it – some, after Paul Tillich – would call the Ultimate Concern. Couched in these terms, the Abrahamic traditions do assert such an Ultimacy whose common factor is a theistically-conceived Omni-God. The question that arises from the perspective of non-Western traditions is whether the Brahman of classical Hindu philosophy, Buddha-Nirvāṇa of Buddhism, the Tao of Daoism, and the Heavenly Principle in Neo-Confucianism form likely candidates for Ultimacy? There are obvious problems with this comparison. The theistically-conceived Omni-God is taken to be an individual who enters into a distinctive differential relationship with other individuals (one- on-one, as it were); whereas the non-theistic conceptions of Ultimacy are not such. Besides, some would argue that even the category of the Ultimate fails these traditions: the Absolute is a better comparative category – as Robert Neville has pointed out – especially in Advaita Vedānta, and for some forms of Mahāyāna Buddhism such as Vasubandhu (Yogācāra Idealism?), Aśvaghoṣa, and Hua-yen; perhaps even for Neo-Platonism and Bradleyan Absolute Idealism. The mark of difference is elided; and out the window go evil, sin and unfaithfulness; where, instead, avidyā (ignorance), disharmony, as contingent, even inexplicable, categories are retained for the relative weltbild. This observation ties in somewhat with Bryan Van Norden’s claim for reading monism Across non- Western philosophies. I would agree mostly, but with some considered qualifications and differences within non-Western traditions. Thus the following caveats: what happens when Śaṅkara is moved towards the end of his life to give up Brahman as well – as the Absolute, let alone the Ultimate (quasi-theistic) of the common Hindu believers – and enters the digāṃbaric (snowclad) clouds of Nothingness up in the remote Himalayas (borrowing a Mīmāṃsā trope: antyābhāva-devaḥ; forever absent Deity)? Or when Rāmānuja tries to rescue the Sugaṇa Brahman (Relative Brahman) by transforming the erstwhile Vedānta Absolute into a Panentheistic Presence? Various commentators take a more or less Spinozian-Pantheistic route; until Madhva (13th century) finishes off the Advaitic Absolute and dresses It up as a monotheistically-conceived Kṛṣṇa ever in playful - līlā - musement with his cowherds and bhakti-absorbed individual devotees. How did East Asian philosophies escape both the extremes: of the Absolute in utter abstraction and the monotheistic strand? Were there variations of pantheism, henotheism, panentheism, or other forms of Ultimism? The metaquestion that arises in the context and course of this dialogue is best framed as the following; how would Chinese philosophy respond to this rather extreme and world- exclusionary metaphysical view? Is there any resonance with even ‘a more moderate monist like Zhu Xi’? Need there be an Absolute, an Ultimate, an abiding self (that might in a monistic metaphysic be identical with the Absolute), an Omni-God of some transcendental description, and so forth? Finally, what might be the ethical ramifications of such a worldview? Is morality possible within a monistic (nondualist) philosophy? And what of theodicy, free-will, determinism, and retribution? These latter questions are asked in similar vein of Buddhist philosophy as well with its ‘Ultimate’ commitment to Emptiness : if all and everything including selves are empty (or there is ultimately ‘no-self’, it is only so from the point-of-view of conventional reality) then is there someone or no-one who is responsible and accountable for their actions? Why would they be, and who to? Does the reductive position eliminate ethics? (This is dubbed the ‘Siderits Question’) .
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