Mīmāṃsā

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Taber
Keyword(s):  
Physical World ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Indian Science ◽  
The World ◽  
Basic Orientation ◽  
The One ◽  
Immortality Of The Soul ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
The Way

The school of Mīmāṃsā or Pūrva Mīmāṃsā was one of the six systems of classical Hindu philosophy. It grew out of the Indian science of exegesis and was primarily concerned with defending the way of life defined by the ancient scripture of Hinduism, the Veda. Its most important exponents, Śabarasvāmin, Prabhākara and Kumārila, lived in the sixth and seventh centuries ad. It was realist and empiricist in orientation. Its central doctrine was that the Veda is the sole means of knowledge of dharma or righteousness, because it is eternal. All cognition, it held, is valid unless its cause is defective. The Veda being without any fallible author, human or divine, the cognitions to which it gives rise must be true. The Veda must be authorless because there is no recollection of an author or any other evidence of its having been composed; we only observe that it has been handed down from generation to generation. Mīmāṃsā thinkers also defended various metaphysical ideas implied by the Veda – in particular, the reality of the physical world and the immortality of the soul. However, they denied the existence of God as creator of the world and author of scripture. The eternality of the Veda implies the eternality of language in general. Words and the letters that constitute them are eternal and ubiquitous; it is only their particular manifestations, caused by articulations of the vocal organs, that are restricted to certain times and places. The meanings of words, being universals, are eternal as well. Finally, the relation between word and meaning is also eternal. Every word has an inherent capacity to indicate its meaning. Words could not be expressive of certain meanings as a result of artificial conventions. The basic orientation of Mīmāṃsā was pragmatic and anti-mystical. It believed that happiness and salvation result just from carrying out the prescriptions of the Veda, not from the practice of yoga or insight into the One. It criticized particularly sharply other scriptural traditions (Buddhism and Jainism) that claimed to have originated from omniscient preceptors.

Causality Then and Now

1993 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-177
Author(s):  
Karen Harding
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Mechanical Model ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Way

Ate appearances deceiving? Do objects behave the way they do becauseGod wills it? Ate objects impetmanent and do they only exist becausethey ate continuously created by God? According to a1 Ghazlli, theanswers to all of these questions ate yes. Objects that appear to bepermanent are not. Those relationships commonly tefemed to as causalare a result of God’s habits rather than because one event inevitably leadsto another. God creates everything in the universe continuously; if Heceased to create it, it would no longer exist.These ideas seem oddly naive and unscientific to people living in thetwentieth century. They seem at odds with the common conception of thephysical world. Common sense says that the universe is made of tealobjects that persist in time. Furthermore, the behavior of these objects isreasonable, logical, and predictable. The belief that the univetse is understandablevia logic and reason harkens back to Newton’s mechanical viewof the universe and has provided one of the basic underpinnings ofscience for centuries. Although most people believe that the world is accutatelydescribed by this sort of mechanical model, the appropriatenessof such a model has been called into question by recent scientificadvances, and in particular, by quantum theory. This theory implies thatthe physical world is actually very different from what a mechanicalmodel would predit.Quantum theory seeks to explain the nature of physical entities andthe way that they interact. It atose in the early part of the twentieth centuryin response to new scientific data that could not be incorporated successfullyinto the ptevailing mechanical view of the universe. Due largely ...

The Metaphysics of Representation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Robert G. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Representational Content ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Degrees Of Belief ◽  
Public Language ◽  
Language And Thought ◽  
Final Layer ◽  
The World ◽  
Interactive Relationship ◽  
Compositional Interpretation ◽  
The One

What is representation? How do the more primitive aspects of our world come together to generate it? How do different kinds of representation relate to one another? This book identifies the metaphysical foundations for representational facts. The story told is in three parts. The most primitive layer of representation is the ‘aboutness’ of sensation/perception and intention/action, which are the two most basic modes in which an individual and the world interact. It is argued that we can understand how this kind of representation can exist in a fundamentally physical world so long as we have an independent, illuminating grip on functions and causation. The second layer of representation is the ‘aboutness’ of (degrees of) belief and desire, whose representational content goes far beyond the immediate perceptable and manipulable environment. It is argued that the correct belief/desire interpretation of an agent is the one which makes their action-guiding states, given their perceptual evidence, most rational. The final layer of representation is the ‘aboutness’ of words and sentences, human artefacts with representational content. It is argued that one can give an illuminating account of the conditions under which a compositional interpretation of a public language like English is correct by appeal to patterns emerging from the attitudes conventionally expressed by sentences. The three-layer metaphysics of representation resolves long-standing underdetermination puzzles, predicts and explains patterns in the way that concepts denote, and articulates a delicate interactive relationship between the foundations of language and thought.

Hegel’s Account of Christianity and Religious Alienation

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-152
Author(s):  
Jon Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
The Other ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Insight Into

In his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Hegel argues that the development of the religions of the world leads up to and culminates in Christianity, which is the one true religion. One key element which separates Christianity from the other religions, according to Hegel, concerns the issue of alienation. He argues that the previous religions all contain some form of alienation, which can be found in their conceptions of the divine. In this paper, I wish to examine Hegel’s view that Christianity alone overcomes religious alienation. What is it that makes Christianity so special in this regard? This is a particularly important issue given that the question of alienation is so central in the post-Hegelian thinkers such as Feuerbach, Bauer, and Marx, who all insist that, far from overcoming alienation, Christianity is guilty of causing it. I wish to argue that this issue provides new insight into the old criticism of Hegel as a thinker of abstraction.

scholarly journals Haka and Hula Representations in Tourism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Acushla Deanne O'Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
The World ◽  
Art Forms ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
The Way

<p>Haka and hula performances tell stories that represent histories, traditions, protocols and customs of the Maori and Hawai'ian people and give insight into their lives and the way that they see the world. The way that haka and hula performances are represented is being tested, as the dynamics of the tourism industry impact upon and influence the art forms. If allowed, these impacts and influences can affect the performances and thus manipulate or change the way that haka and hula are represented. Through an understanding of the impacts and influences of tourism on haka and hula performances, as well as an exploration of the cultures' values, cultural representations effective existence within the tourism industry can be investigated. This thesis will incorporate the perspectives of haka and hula practitioners and discuss the impacts and influences on haka and hula performances in tourism. The research will also explore and discuss the ways in which cultural values and representations can effectively co-exist within tourism.</p>

Hegel’s Account of Christianity and Religious Alienation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
The Other ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Insight Into

In his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Hegel argues that the development of the religions of the world leads up to Christianity, which is the one true religion. One key element which separates Christianity from the other religions, for Hegel, concerns the issue of alienation. He claims that the previous religions all contain some form of alienation, which can be found in their conceptions of the divine. I wish to examine Hegel’s view that Christianity alone overcomes religious alienation. What is it that makes Christianity so special in this regard? This is a particularly important issue given that the question of alienation is so central in the post-Hegelian thinkers such as Feuerbach, Bauer, and Marx, who all insist that, far from overcoming alienation, Christianity is guilty of causing it. I argue that this issue provides new insight into the old criticism of Hegel as a thinker of abstraction.

Ibn al-‘Arabi, Muhyi al-Din (1164–1240)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neal Robinson
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Inner Experience ◽  
Divine Essence ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Creation ◽  
One And Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Southeast Spain ◽  
The Way

Ibn al-‘Arabi was a mystic who drew on the writings of Sufis, Islamic theologians and philosophers in order to elaborate a complex theosophical system akin to that of Plotinus. He was born in Murcia (in southeast Spain) in AH 560/ad 1164, and died in Damascus in AH 638/ad 1240. Of several hundred works attributed to him the most famous are al-Futuhat al-makkiyya (The Meccan Illuminations) and Fusus al-hikam (The Bezels of Wisdom). The Futuhat is an encyclopedic discussion of Islamic lore viewed from the perspective of the stages of the mystic path. It exists in two editions, both completed in Damascus – one in AH 629/ad 1231 and the other in AH 636/ad 1238 – but the work was conceived in Mecca many years earlier, in the course of a vision which Ibn al-‘Arabi experienced near the Kaaba, the cube-shaped House of God which Muslims visit on pilgrimage. Because of its length, this work has been relatively neglected. The Fusus, which is much shorter, comprises twenty-seven chapters named after prophets who epitomize different spiritual types. Ibn al-‘Arabi claimed that he received it directly from Muhammad, who appeared to him in Damascus in AH 627/ad 1229. It has been the subject of over forty commentaries. Although Ibn al-‘Arabi was primarily a mystic who believed that he possessed superior divinely-bestowed knowledge, his work is of interest to the philosopher because of the way in which he used philosophical terminology in an attempt to explain his inner experience. He held that whereas the divine Essence is absolutely unknowable, the cosmos as a whole is the locus of manifestation of all God’s attributes. Moreover, since these attributes require the creation for their expression, the One is continually driven to transform itself into Many. The goal of spiritual realization is therefore to penetrate beyond the exterior multiplicity of phenomena to a consciousness of what subsequent writers have termed the ‘unity of existence’. This entails the abolition of the ego or ‘passing away from self’ (fana’) in which one becomes aware of absolute unity, followed by ‘perpetuation’ (baqa’) in which one sees the world as at once One and Many, and one is able to see God in the creature and the creature in God.

Nature and Function of Rules

1997 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 7-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry A. Fields
Keyword(s):  
Way Of Life ◽  
Primary Classrooms ◽  
The World ◽  
School Rules ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Way ◽  
Classroom Rules

In this paper the nature and function of teacher rules in Year I and 2 primary classrooms is discussed. It is argued that the classroom is a complex mini-society which children must come to understand if they are to adjust to and succeed in school. Rules, it is believed, help children make sense of the world of the classroom. Rules are viewed as serving both a managerial function (helping to establish order) and as a mechanism for defining and understanding the ‘way of life’ in the classroom. Against this backdrop of perspectives on school and teacher rules, the rules of 60 Year 1 and 2 teachers were examined. The findings are discussed with reference to the above two perspectives and to the importance of rules in reinforcing the authority of the teacher in the classroom.

The Attributed to Aristotle

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina D'Ancona
Keyword(s):  
Causal Chain ◽  
First Principle ◽  
The World ◽  
Great Chain Of Being ◽  
First Cause ◽  
The One ◽  
The Way

The pseudo-Theology of Aristotle is the most important example of the exposure of the cultivated Arab readership to Neoplatonism in Aristotle’s garb. Plotinus’s doctrines are construed as the exposition genuinely made by Aristotle himself. Plotinus’s One and Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover merge, and the Plotinian principles Intellect and Soul are endowed with the task of letting the power of the First Cause expand until it reaches the world of coming-to-be and passing away. The great chain of being has its beginning in the First Principle: the One, the Pure Being, and Pure Good: every degree depends on it, and its power reaches the sublunar beings through the medium of Intellect and Soul. This causal chain is dominated by the pattern of the double journey of the soul, the way down along the necessary declension of the degrees of being, and the way back toward its homeland.

Aristotelianism, Newtonianism and the Physics of the Layman

Perception ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benny Shanon
Keyword(s):  
Physical World ◽  
The Other ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Philosophy Of Nature ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

Written and visual surveys were administered in order to assess people's models of the physical world. A comparison was made between scientific theories and the layman's philosophy of nature on the one hand, and between people's conceptions and perceptions on the other hand. The findings suggest that there are discrepancies on both levels: people do not conceive the world as physicists do, and their conceptions are different from their perceptions.

scholarly journals Christian-orthodox view of the world and environmental problem

Sabornost ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 13-22
Author(s):  
Ignatije Midić
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Problem ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
The World ◽  
Orthodox View ◽  
Entire Planet ◽  
Ecological Catastrophe ◽  
The Way

Pollution of environment and the irreversible destruction of nature has become the way of life of the modern world. The consequences of that are obviously tragic for human life and for the survival of the entire planet Earth. This article has an aim to answer the question: what can the Orthodox Church do to stop this problem, if it cannot regain what has already been lost? To answer this question, the author first analyzes the causes of the ecological catastrophe, and then offers a theological answer to the posed problem.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document