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Advaita and Neoplatonism (1961)

Advaita and Neoplatonism

(1961)–Frits Staal–rechtenstatus Auteursrechtelijk beschermd

A Critical Study in Comparative Philosophy


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3. Comparative philosophy as philosophy

When comparative philosophy is studied by Europeans it becomes a twentieth century European phenomenon. As an aspect of philosophy it is not free to choose an arbitrary mode of thought to which it would like to belong. It is by nature connected with modern European philosophy, whether this relation is at the moment manifest or hidden.

 

The consequences thereof seem to be grave. Should the philosophical problems which play an essential part in comparative philosophy, such as the problem of truth, be determined by modern European philosophy? But this merely means that comparative philosophy is philosophy; that it is not a tool; and that it is not irrelevant who deals with it. It is clear that this leads

to the problem of historicism. Thus it is inevitable that the following pages will contain contemporary European philosophy, as the treatment intends to be philosophical and absence of explicitness would only mean hidden dependence. (Lack of knowledge of modern European philosophy on the part of scholars dealing with any subject does not mean that there cannot be any dependence, as philosophy previously shaped and still permeates the cultural tradition in a fundamental though often unnoticed way).

 

The first philosophical problem of comparative philosophy, determining its actions, its assertions and its judgments, is the problem of truth.

A. Truth in Comparative Philosophy.

The present section falls into five subdivisions. The titles of the first three are taken from a lecture by Karl Jaspers in Frankfurt on August 28, 1947, on the occasion of the Goethe prize being awarded to him. The words give an indication as to the direction of this investigation: ‘How can we receive what need to be in art, in poetry, in philosophy - receive it not in dogmatic traditionalism, not in relativistic indifference, not in esthetic irresponsible emotion, but as a claim upon us, affecting all that we are?’.1

 

In dealing with the problem of truth our point of view will depend on considerations concerning the special kind of comparative philosophy dealt with here.

(i) Relativistic indifference. Is faith necessary?

One preconceived view about the truth-nature of philosophical questions is the view that each philosophy is true for the community and period in which it arose, and this is all that can be said about the truth-value. If two solutions of a philosophical problem are contradictory they are nevertheless equally true, because there is no absolute truth to which both could refer or fail to refer and which would be a common measure. The reason is that this, truth would again be the truth according to a special philosophical view. Though this relativistic view seems to be

theoretically weak, there is a difficulty regarding actual philosophies, which favours it. Each philosophy arose in a special context and closer study often reveals that the tenets of each are in certain respects best suited to the context. This relativism, therefore, is not so easy to overcome and it will occupy us again.

 

The personal attitude connected with relativism is generally one of indifference. It might be despair. The former attitude is, in matters of philosophy, undesirable and it should never prevail so long as the case of relativism is not proved. For indifference fails to participate in the seriousness either of conviction or of quest which is inherent in almost all philosophies; it excludes the possibility that the studying subject should ever be personally involved; it has a negative answer in advance and it does not allow for the possibility that new truth can be found. It also ignores the fact that the philosophy studied deals with entities which may be of vital importance to the student, irrespective of philosophical context.

 

Thus, in the quest for truth in comparative philosophy, the attitude of indifference on the one hand and relativism as a preconceived view and method on the other, are both to be rejected. But the possibility that relativism is true - the unique and only truth in this case - eventually to be reached as a kind of conclusion, may not be initially excluded.

 

The one certain device against relativistic indifference is faith. If we accept faith, we will reach the truth embodied and presupposed in the act of faith. This is evidently a circle for the outsider, but we are not ready to reject it even when we are not ready to ‘jump’ into it. For faith may lead to certainty and experience.

 

The philosophies with which we are to deal have stressed the importance and even the inevitability of faith. That faith (śraddhā) has to be accepted as a serious claim especially in Indian thought can be seen from many texts. The Chāndogya Upaniṣad says: ‘When one has faith, then one reflects; without faith one does not reflect; one reflects only when one has faith’2 and the

Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad: ‘In this fire (i.e., heaven) the Gods offer faith’.3 The Bhagavad Gītā says: ‘The faith of each is in accordance with his nature, O Bhārata. Man is made up of his faith; as a man's faith is, so is he’.4 Faith is further given as one of the qualifications needed for those who want to study Advaita: Śaṅkara's Brahmasūtrabhāsya enjoins5 as the third requirement for an adhikāri the attainment of the means of realisation beginning with peace and restraint (śama-dama-ādisādhana-sampad). The sixth and last of these is, according to the Vedāntasāra6, śraddhā, ‘faith’ interpreted7 as ‘faith in the truths of Vedānta as taught by the guru’.8 Plotinus also mentions faith (pístis) in given teachings as a requirement for those who want to contemplate the One.9

 

Even if we were personally and existentially ready to accept faith, it cannot be presupposed in the present study. In philosophy faith prevents communication with those who do not share the same faith. Even though the ‘credo ut intelligam’ aspect of philosophy and religion - ‘I believe in order that I may understand’ - cannot be excluded in advance, it should not be utilized in a philosophical study. One must realise however that this may fundamentally limit our understanding of other philosophies, and therefore our own philosophising.

(ii) Esthetic approach.

The esthetic approach likes the philosophy it deals with. It is ready to pronounce judgments such as ‘a profound statement’, ‘a beautiful passage’, ‘an impressive thought’. But it is afraid to think clearly and calmly to the end. It escapes, consciously or not, from the philosophical questions: is it true? What does it mean if it is true? What does it imply if it is true? And what does it imply for me if it is true?

The esthetic approach therefore betrays the presence of a weakness of thinking. The final implications are not faced, the philosophy is not taken as what it is meant to be and as what it may have signified for human beings. As such it is irresponsible, it does not rely exclusively upon the one philosophy, but considers it implicity as of relative importance. The esthetic approach dominates many Westerners who are attracted by Oriental systems of thought. They do not ask the question about absolute truth, and they generally do not confront the actual problems of their own life with the philosophies they like. Thus a difference between theory and practice arises. This shows that through the esthetic approach the Romantic movements of the West have been attracted by the East.

 

This approach can also be evaluated in a different way. If there is no sympathy for a certain way of thinking, or at least for the human beings who thought so, there can be no proper understanding in philosophy, because much in philosophy goes beyond the level of pure reason (certainly in the philosophies studied here). This applies especially in the case of comparative philosophy, where the philosophies studied are often foreign to one's own philosophical climate. Thus a certain degree of congeniality, an initial liking at least in certain respects, is needed.

 

There is truth too in Augustine's dictum: ‘One does not enter in the truth, if not by charity’10 and in Pascal's thought: ‘We know the truth not only by reason, but also through our heart.’11

(iii) The approach through tradition.

This is an approach, which is properly speaking no approach at all, as there is no question of a movement from a starting point to a goal: there is inmutability. One's own philosophy, as it has been consciously or unconsciously accepted from early childhood, is continuously looked upon as the only valuable philosophy; it may be occasionally restated, even readapted within certain limits

and also defended against other views. The truth of the philosophical statements is never doubted or even questioned, nor is the truth of the personal relation to them. New experience is truth of the personal relation to them. New experience is integrated as a confirmation of the old view, absent is the truly ‘experiencing attitude’: to have no theory, simply to experience in the widest and fullest sense, and afterwards to attempt an explanation which may lead to a theory. This attitude can be in particular dogmatic if it refuses to question the validity of certain principles; in addition to that, it can be traditionalistic if it refuses to question the reliability of those who have transmitted the principles concerned. The disadvantage of self-sufficiency, one-sidedness, etc., belonging to this attitude, are obvious. It may be asked, however, whether there are advantages too.

 

For this, in our case, we turn to the Indian philosophical climate. Here tradition is essential for several reasons: firstly, the texts often aim at an experience and are most properly transmitted by one who has had that experience: his experience is valued higher than our own free investigation which is considered limited by our mental development. Secondly, there is often an oral tradition alongside the text in which such experiences are embodied, and a traditional way of expounding a text without which it would remain partly unintelligible (not only where religious experience is to be transmitted, but also for instance in scientific disciplines). In Indian philosophy these two factors cause the importance of initiation of a disciple by a qualified teacher.

 

At the same time it is clear that in this case also there can be no certainty. There is no method whatsoever to ascertain whether there are different kinds or degrees of ‘divine’ experiences, and there is no guarantee that the word-transcending experience of the guru (or even of the student of comparative philosophy) is the same as the experience to which the text alludes. In addition the oral tradition may have undergone innumerable changes in the course of centuries, unmanifest and unverifiable (though there is no parallel in the modern West for the accuracy with which some texts in the Orient - for instance the. Vedas - are orally transmitted and for the power of memory needed therefore). Notwithstanding the obvious reasons for carefulness and

a critical attitude, the student of comparative philosophy has with regard to Indian philosophy to take into account the data provided by this traditional approach, as they may contain elements of truth which are not otherwise accessible. Therefore we must consider the approach through tradition if we want to receive the past as ‘a claim upon us, affecting all that we are’.

 

Among orientalists, dealing with ancient civilisations that continue to-day (Islam, India, China, until recently perhaps), there is increasing interest for traditional interpretations, because it is realised that the Western philological and historical methods are, in their exclusiveness, not sufficiently adapted to their subject (c.f., for instance, the work on Hindu Tantrism by Sir John Woodroffe or Arthur Avalon, together with his collaborators).12 The differences between the two methods are brought out clearly by D.H.H. Ingalls.13

(iv). Objective truth.

Repeated reference has been made to truth as a goal for the investigations of comparative philosophy. To come closer to this truth and eliminate possibilities of error, the previous three sections have attempted to judge which methods, approaches and attitudes have to be considered. Which truth is meant? Evidently ‘objective’ truth, i.e., the truth of the ideas expressed in a text. For instance if we have a statement in Plotinus' Enneads like ‘one need not remember everything which one has seen’, objective truth does not mean that it is true that this statement occurs in the Enneads (a truth we have to accept from philologists who have provided us with the text), nor that it was taken from earlier Greek thinkers and in turn taken by later medieval thinkers (a truth to be investigated by historians of philosophy), nor that the manuscript provides us with certain variants; but it

means that one need not remember everything that one has seen. This can only be established as an objective truth by ascertaining whether everything that has been seen is remembered. We have to effectuate what Edmund Husserl has called the ‘historical epoche’, i.e., refrain from historical judgments about the opinions of others; we are interested in the ‘things’ themselves. If it can be established that a certain statement corresponds directly to that to which it refers, it is evidently objectively true. This follows from the well known characterisation of truth as ‘adequatio intellectus et rei’, the adequacy of the intellectual image of the thing and the thing itself. If the truth is investigated in this sense, it will have answered in a philosophical way to the challenge which each philosophical text contains. Unfortunately this is impossible.

 

We have assumed that there is an objective truth which can be found by us rather than by the philosophers studied. This pretentious view is not justified. We have no right to believe that philosophy brings questions nearer to a final solution in the course of time, as experience neither shows this nor the contrary. We cannot therefore claim that we belong to a higher level than the thinkers we study, which would enable us to pass final judgments on the truth value. We can at the most investigate our opinion about the ‘things’ themselves, with which the texts also deal, and then compare the two. But do we not slip back then into relativism? There is no way out of these difficulties unless we are willing to reconsider the concept of objective truth itself.

(v) Existential truth.

Martin Heidegger14 has analysed the traditional concept of truth as ‘adequatio rei et intellectus’15 and has shown how this derives from an original concept of truth as dis-covery and dis-covering. Anything which is dis-covered in this sense has a ‘discovered-being’ (‘Entdecktheit’) which is called truth. The human being (‘Dasein’) who has originally discovered it, has a ‘discovering-being’ (‘Entdeckendsein’), which is also called truth.

But these truths as ‘discovered-being’ and ‘discovering-being’ are only possible on account of a special mode of human being, which is therefore to be called ‘truth’ in the original and primary sense, whereas discovered-being is true in the secondary sense. Secondary truth depends on primary truth. Thus there is only truth in so far and as long as there is human being (‘Dasein’). Heidegger illustrates this with the laws of Newton, which were before Newton neither true nor false. With these laws, however, being was discovered and showed itself as being, which had existed previously. There can be ‘eternal truths’ if human being is proved to be eternal, which is not the case. ‘Objective truths’ are not only erroneously conceived as eternal, but also presuppose that there could be discovered-being without discoveringbeing, which is not so.

 

Heidegger's concept of truth corresponds not so much to the notion of truth which everyday language uses for instance in: ‘his statement is true’ as to that which is used in: ‘he is a true friend’ and still more in: ‘he is true to himself’. By the thesis that the former kind of truth depends upon the latter kind, no subjectivism is intended. It merely means that the foundation of a concept which has become apparently self-evident is made visible by means of a phenomenological, ‘hermeneutical’, analysis. - Since ‘Dasein’ is temporal (‘zeitlich’), Heidegger's analysis implies a certain ‘temporality’ of truth, which he has not further specified.16

 

It is possible to give several interpretations of Heidegger's thesis. For our purpose, we will try to confront the philosophies studied with a truth concept referring to the student of comparative philosophy rather than to these philosophies. This exemplifies one way in which this concept of truth can be understood. Accordingly we will not ask the unanswerable and meaningless (according to Heidegger's analysis) question of objective truth, but inquire how far we can establish a relation which can be called true between ourselves and the philosophies studied, Advaita and Neoplatonism. Thus we may discover truth and discover ourselves.

(B). The problem of historicism.

The history of philosophy shows different thinkers stating different truths. If we classify them historically we find different ages believing in different truths. We can try to find the ‘real’ truth by comparing these different ideas and concepts; but then we forget that we necessarily belong to our own age and hence will be inclined to accept as true that which is considered true in this age. Wilhelm Dilthey, who was fully aware of this ‘problem of historicism’ saw no other task for philosophy than a historical treatment of all philosophical systems. One wonders whether there is a way out of this difficulty.

 

If the problem is stated thus (and we shall see that it is only possible to state it in a slightly different way) theoretically no solution is possible. We cannot become independent from our own age, and there would be no standard to measure such independence. Even if we should state an objective, ‘timeless’ truth concerning any philosophical idea expressed in the course of history, we would have no certainty that it was such a truth. Burckhardt once expressed this by defining history as an account of the facts which one age considers important in another age.

 

We cannot break through this circle, but it leads to a conclusion with respect to method. In the history of Western philosophy we see ‘not at all the perpetual change of standpoints, which historicism claims, but the amazing continuity, with which European thinking reflects upon the same themes and problems’.17 When dealing with the history of Western philosophy, therefore, we can only hope to arrive at a relatively correct picture by showing the relationship of a certain period to our own period and by becoming conscious of our own position in this way. In another way we reach the same conclusion i.e. that we should be related to the philosophies studied and study this relationship.

In Indian philosophy ‘most of the systems developed side by side through the centuries’ and this development made them ‘more and more differentiated, determinate and coherent’.18 It is possible to give fundamental points of agreement between all of them.19 A modern Indian can study Indian philosophy on account of this continuity and tradition. But how can comparative philosophy grasp its subject? For a Westerner, the only possibility is to find in the Western philosophical tradition which factors can account for the understanding of Oriental philosophy. The corresponding historical question is how and when Oriental philosophies entered the West. Comparative philosophers should first study how it became possible on account of the internal development of Western philosophy for Oriental philosophies to be studied in Western civilisation. Oriental philosophies can be studied in Western philosophy only as possibilities of Western philosophy, just as, in (existential) phenomenology in general the phenomena can only be understood as possibilities of human existence.20

(C). The concept of time.

The first to deal with the history of philosophy in a similar way was Nietzsche in ‘Die Philosophie im tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen’ (1873). He exemplifies here the unity between scholar and human existence. Unfortunately the unity between subject and object led in this early work to subjective statements. This is the danger inherent in a method, which includes the relation of the person studying to the philosophy studied - but it is no reason to abandon this method for the sake of so-called impersonal objectivity.

 

In the prefaces of his work of 1874 (?) and 1879 Nietzsche expresses a view which is typical of the European attitude with regard to the history of philosophy: ‘Philosophical systems are absolutely true only to their founders, to all later philosophers

they are usually one big mistake....’.21 He turns to the personal element as the only irrefutable element: ‘For in systems which have been refuted it is only this personal element that can still interest us, for this alone is eternally irrefutable’.22

 

In the West there is also a contrary opinion. This is a consequence of a particular view of time.23 We will sketch this concept of time which is of Christian origin (but since long secularised in different ways) and compare it with the Greek as well as the Indian view.

 

In Greece and India time is generally conceived as cyclical. The world is a perpetually recurring phenomenon. The deity is above these circles and is non-temporal; hence, especially in India, time is little valued. In Christianity God manifests himself in time. He has created the world once and Christ has come once, just as there will be in the end one Day of Judgment. This rectilinear view forms the background of the later ideas of evolution and progress. We must understand this as constituent of European consciousness (which at the same time remains often unconscious), not as a belief in external progress or evolution. For the Occidental possibilities are always open towards the future and can always be realised in the present. What has happened, happened once and for all; we can learn from it because tradition forms our consciousness. Through the process of time we will be able to find truth. This is no vulgar and unreflected optimism; it is a mode of conceiving our experiences, a kind of (cultural) a priori. From this view the doctrine that truth is temporal arose.

The Indian view is, like the ancient Greek one, connected with a different sentiment (‘Stimmung’): the ideal is at the beginning; it is the golden age, the age of Kronos amongst the Greeks and the Satya yuga of each kalpa in Hinduism. Thus we should look back, and try to restore and preserve tradition faithfully.

 

We have given a rough sketch, in black and white as it were, of the complicated picture reality offers. However, the circular view exists also in the West, whereas the rectilinear view is at present influencing the whole of Asia. Here we are interested in these concepts in so far as they reflect a method for the history of philosophy. Each attitude affects every total view, also if the contrary view is taken into account. Nietzsche24 manifests an attitude with regard to history, which is mainly determined by a feeling of ‘being ahead’. The Occidental may look back at sources because they led to later developments which are his real concern. The Indian looks in general at sources as the richest germs, the later development of which is an adaptation to changing circumstances and often a degeneration (‘Hiraṇyagarbha’).

 

In the study of comparative philosophy one has to be aware of this difference, especially in the study of Plotinus and Śaṅkara, both ‘circularists’, whereas the modern Western view is mainly (but not exclusively) ‘rectilinear’. Similarly the aim at a ‘personal’ approach differs greatly from both ‘object’ -philosophies.25 Only a conscious use of inevitable, but often unconscious modern Western concepts may clear the way for a relatively adequate understanding of philosophies like Advaita and Neoplatonism, which utilize different concepts. Only in this way one may attain awareness of and perhaps independence from one's own concepts and basic presuppositions.


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