Hindu philosophy

Author(s):  
Edeltraud Harzer Clear

Hindu philosophy is the longest surviving philosophical tradition in India. We can recognize several historical stages. The earliest, from around 700 bc, was the proto-philosophical period, when karma and liberation theories arose, and the proto-scientific ontological lists in the Upaniṣads were compiled. Next came the classical period, spanning the first millennium ad, in which there was constant philosophical exchange between different Hindu, Buddhist and Jaina schools. During this period, some schools, such as Sāṅkhya, Yoga and Vaiśeṣika, fell into oblivion and others, such as Kashmir Saivism, emerged. Finally, after the classical period only two or three schools remained active. The political and economic disturbances caused by repeated Muslim invasions hampered intellectual growth. The schools that survived were the Logic school (Nyāya), especially New Logic (Navya-Nyāya), the grammarians and, above all, the Vedānta schools. The central concerns of the Hindu philosophers were metaphysics, epistemological issues, philosophy of language, and moral philosophy. The different schools can be distinguished by their different approaches to reality, but all considered the Vedas (the sacred scriptures) authoritative, and all believed that there is a permanent individual self (ātman). They shared with their opponents (Buddhists and Jainas) a belief in the need for liberation. They used similar epistemic tools and methods of argument. In contrast to their opponents, who were atheists, Hindu philosophers could be either theists or atheists. Actually we can observe an increased tendency towards theistic ideas near the end of the classical period, with the result that the strictly atheistic teachings, which were more philosophically rigorous and sound, fell into disuse. Hindu metaphysics saw ātman as part of a larger reality (Brahman). Because these views of the world differed, they had to be proved and properly established. Accordingly, logical and epistemological tools were developed and fashioned according to the needs and beliefs of individual philosophers. Most agreed on two or three sources of knowledge: perception and inference, with verbal testimony as a possible third. In this quest for philosophical rigour, there was a need for precision of language, and there were important philosophical developments among the grammarians and the philosophers who explained the Vedas (the Mīmāṃsakas). A culmination of these linguistic efforts can be seen in the philosopher of language Bhartṛhari. One of his greatest accomplishments was the full articulation of the theory that a sentence as a whole is understood in a sudden act of comprehension. It is customary to name six Hindu schools, of the more than a dozen that existed, thus lumping several into a single school. This is particularly the case with Vedānta. The six are listed in three pairs: Sāṅkhya–Yoga; Vedānta–Mīmāṃsā; Nyāya–Vaiśeṣika. This does not take account of the grammarians or Kashmir Saivism. In their quest for freedom from rebirth, all the Hindu schools operated within the same framework. Their ultimate goal was liberation. How much they were truly engaged in the quest for liberation apart from their philosophical preoccupations is not always clear, yet they never doubted its real possibility.

Author(s):  
Hallie M. Franks

In the Greek Classical period, the symposium—the social gathering at which male citizens gathered to drink wine and engage in conversation—was held in a room called the andron. From couches set up around the perimeter of the andron, symposiasts looked inward to the room’s center, which often was decorated with a pebble mosaic floor. These mosaics provided visual treats for the guests, presenting them with images of mythological scenes, exotic flora, dangerous beasts, hunting parties, or the specter of Dionysos, the god of wine, riding in his chariot or on the back of a panther. This book takes as its subject these mosaics and the context of their viewing. Relying on discourses in the sociology and anthropology of space, it argues that the andron’s mosaic imagery actively contributed to a complex, metaphorical experience of the symposium. In combination with the ritualized circling of the wine cup from couch to couch around the room and the physiological reaction to wine, the images of mosaic floors called to mind other images, spaces, or experiences, and, in doing so, prompted drinkers to reimagine the symposium as another kind of event—a nautical voyage, a journey to a foreign land, the circling heavens or a choral dance, or the luxury of an abundant past. Such spatial metaphors helped to forge the intimate bonds of friendship that are the ideal result of the symposium and that make up the political and social fabric of the Greek polis.


Author(s):  
Elena Menshikova

Civilizational breakthrough of “axial time”, implemented «human band» in the middle of the first millennium BC practically simultaneously in different latitudes of our planet – this is the time of the birth of science and arts, the development of language as a literary tradition, the becoming of Myth as an active picture of the world – a subjective objective, a philosophical understanding of what is the person and being that surrounds him and what he creates, and formation of knowing the world by the word and deed of the subject and, at the same time, the thinking object possessing political reflection. However, political reflection has one significant drawback – the brevity of historical memory, which should from time to time be brought to life, refreshing the milestones of events and the wisdom of others’ reflections, so that cognitive dissonances do not arise freely (arbitrarily) or malicious aforethought of political phenomena (war, state , strategist-politician, political power, etc.), breaking the membrane of human hostel – ethos, the philosophy of culture, art with science and the craving for work. The twentieth century (and lasting the first quarter of the 21st century), as a vivid illustration of endless wars and permanent revolutions, as an age of world and local conflicts, demonstrating an indissoluble connection with the ancient myth, the 20th scattered the teeth of mythology, rehashing the world and the principles of the state, destroying boundaries and the empire, unleashing new wars, multiplying ethnic conflicts, sweeping away valued reference point and changing anthropological signs, disagreeing with the essential in man: depriving the Word and the Cause.


Author(s):  
Emma Simone

Virginia Woolf and Being-in-the-world: A Heideggerian Study explores Woolf’s treatment of the relationship between self and world from a phenomenological-existential perspective. This study presents a timely and compelling interpretation of Virginia Woolf’s textual treatment of the relationship between self and world from the perspective of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Drawing on Woolf’s novels, essays, reviews, letters, diary entries, short stories, and memoirs, the book explores the political and the ontological, as the individual’s connection to the world comes to be defined by an involvement and engagement that is always already situated within a particular physical, societal, and historical context. Emma Simone argues that at the heart of what it means to be an individual making his or her way in the world, the perspectives of Woolf and Heidegger are founded upon certain shared concerns, including the sustained critique of Cartesian dualism, particularly the resultant binary oppositions of subject and object, and self and Other; the understanding that the individual is a temporal being; an emphasis upon intersubjective relations insofar as Being-in-the-world is defined by Being-with-Others; and a consistent emphasis upon average everydayness as both determinative and representative of the individual’s relationship to and with the world.


2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-259
Author(s):  
Joseph Acquisto

This essay examines a polemic between two Baudelaire critics of the 1930s, Jean Cassou and Benjamin Fondane, which centered on the relationship of poetry to progressive politics and metaphysics. I argue that a return to Baudelaire's poetry can yield insight into what seems like an impasse in Cassou and Fondane. Baudelaire provides the possibility of realigning metaphysics and politics so that poetry has the potential to become the space in which we can begin to think the two of them together, as opposed to seeing them in unresolvable tension. Or rather, the tension that Baudelaire animates between the two allows us a new way of thinking about the role of esthetics in moments of political crisis. We can in some ways see Baudelaire as responding, avant la lettre, to two of his early twentieth-century readers who correctly perceived his work as the space that breathes a new urgency into the questions of how modern poetry relates to the world from which it springs and in which it intervenes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 38-43
Author(s):  
MARIETA EPREMYAN ◽  

The article examines the epistemological roots of conservative ideology, development trends and further prospects in political reform not only in modern Russia, but also in other countries. The author focuses on the “world” and Russian conservatism. In the course of the study, the author illustrates what opportunities and limitations a conservative ideology can have in political reform not only in modern Russia, but also in the world. In conclusion, it is concluded that the prospect of a conservative trend in the world is wide enough. To avoid immigration and to control the development of technology in society, it is necessary to adhere to a conservative policy. Conservatism is a consolidating ideology. It is no coincidence that the author cites as an example the understanding of conservative ideology by the French due to the fact that Russia has its own vision of the ideology of conservatism. If we say that conservatism seeks to preserve something and respects tradition, we must bear in mind that traditions in different societies, which form some kind of moral imperatives, cannot be a single phenomenon due to different historical destinies and differing religious views. Considered from the point of view of religion, Muslim and Christian conservatism will be somewhat confrontational on some issues. The purpose of the work was to consider issues related to the role, evolution and prospects of conservative ideology in the political reform of modern countries. The author focuses on Russia and France. To achieve this goal, the method of in-depth interviews with experts on how they understand conservatism was chosen. Already today, conservatism is quite diverse. It is quite possible that in the future it will transform even more and acquire new reflections.


Author(s):  
Karen J. Alter

In 1989, when the Cold War ended, there were six permanent international courts. Today there are more than two dozen that have collectively issued over thirty-seven thousand binding legal rulings. This book charts the developments and trends in the creation and role of international courts, and explains how the delegation of authority to international judicial institutions influences global and domestic politics. The book presents an in-depth look at the scope and powers of international courts operating around the world. Focusing on dispute resolution, enforcement, administrative review, and constitutional review, the book argues that international courts alter politics by providing legal, symbolic, and leverage resources that shift the political balance in favor of domestic and international actors who prefer policies more consistent with international law objectives. International courts name violations of the law and perhaps specify remedies. The book explains how this limited power—the power to speak the law—translates into political influence, and it considers eighteen case studies, showing how international courts change state behavior. The case studies, spanning issue areas and regions of the world, collectively elucidate the political factors that often intervene to limit whether or not international courts are invoked and whether international judges dare to demand significant changes in state practices.


Author(s):  
Michael N. Barnett

How do American Jews envision their role in the world? Are they tribal—a people whose obligations extend solely to their own? Or are they prophetic—a light unto nations, working to repair the world? This book is an interpretation of the effects of these worldviews on the foreign policy beliefs of American Jews since the nineteenth century. The book argues that it all begins with the political identity of American Jews. As Jews, they are committed to their people's survival. As Americans, they identify with, and believe their survival depends on, the American principles of liberalism, religious freedom, and pluralism. This identity and search for inclusion form a political theology of prophetic Judaism that emphasizes the historic mission of Jews to help create a world of peace and justice. The political theology of prophetic Judaism accounts for two enduring features of the foreign policy beliefs of American Jews. They exhibit a cosmopolitan sensibility, advocating on behalf of human rights, humanitarianism, and international law and organizations. They also are suspicious of nationalism—including their own. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that American Jews are natural-born Jewish nationalists, the book charts a long history of ambivalence; this ambivalence connects their early rejection of Zionism with the current debate regarding their attachment to Israel. And, the book contends, this growing ambivalence also explains the rising popularity of humanitarian and social justice movements among American Jews.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yogi Prasetyo

The Constitution as the legal basis for formation of legislation in the system of Indonesia. The misuse of the constitution (UUD 1945) by the political interests of goverment caused mislead and made the situation of the nation getting worse. Liberal capitalistic value wrapped in modern positivistic legal system that puts the ratio had diverge from culture constitution. needs to be clarified with the balance of conscience through culture constitution. Culture constitution is a constitutional concept who saw citizen of Indonesia as creatures of God by virtue of intelligence and unseen. So with that constitution is formed, conceived and executed to be qualified and to bring the benefit of the world and the hereafter.


2019 ◽  
pp. 512-519
Author(s):  
Teymur Dzhalilov ◽  
Nikita Pivovarov

The published document is a part of the working record of The Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee on May 5, 1969. The employees of The Common Department of the CPSU Central Committee started writing such working records from the end of 1965. In contrast to the protocols, the working notes include speeches of the secretaries of the Central Committee, that allow to deeper analyze the reactions of the top party leadership, to understand their position regarding the political agenda. The peculiarity of the published document is that the Secretariat of the Central Committee did not deal with the most important foreign policy issues. It was the responsibility of the Politburo. However, it was at a meeting of the Secretariat of the Central Committee when Brezhnev raised the question of inviting G. Husák to Moscow. The latter replaced A. Dubček as the first Secretary of the Communist party of Czechoslovakia in April 1969. As follows from the document, Leonid Brezhnev tried to solve this issue at a meeting of the Politburo, but failed. However, even at the Secretariat of the Central Committee the Leonid Brezhnev’s initiative at the invitation of G. Husák was not supported. The published document reveals to us not only new facets in the mechanisms of decision-making in the CPSU Central Committee, the role of the Secretary General in this process, but also reflects the acute discussions within the Soviet government about the future of the world socialist systems.


Author(s):  
Vasyl Karpo ◽  
Nataliia Nechaieva-Yuriichuk

From ancient times till nowadays information plays a key role in the political processes. The beginning of XXI century demonstrated the transformation of global security from military to information, social etc. aspects. The widening of pandemic demonstrated the weaknesses of contemporary authoritarian states and the power of human-oriented states. During the World War I the theoretical and practical interest toward political manipulation and political propaganda grew definitely. After 1918 the situation developed very fast and political propaganda became the part of political influence. XX century entered into the political history as the millennium of propaganda. The collapse of the USSR and socialist system brought power to new political actors. The global architecture of the world has changed. Former Soviet republic got independence and tried to separate from Russia. And Ukraine was between them. The Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine was the start point for a number of processes in world politics. But the most important was the fact that the role and the place of information as the challenge to world security was reevaluated. The further annexation of Crimea, the attempt to legitimize it by the comparing with the referendums in Scotland and Catalonia demonstrated the willingness of Russian Federation to keep its domination in the world. The main difference between the referendums in Scotland and in Catalonia was the way of Russian interference. In 2014 (Scotland) tried to delegitimised the results of Scottish referendum because they were unacceptable for it. But in 2017 we witness the huge interference of Russian powers in Spain internal affairs, first of all in spreading the independence moods in Catalonia. The main conclusion is that the world has to learn some lessons from Scottish and Catalonia cases and to be ready to new challenges in world politics in a format of information threats.


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