Husserl’s Epoché and Sarkar’s Pratyáhára

Abstract

This article proposes an evolution of Edmund Husserl’s transcendental epoché (reduction) by integrating P. R. Sarkar’s Tantra sádhaná (meditation), which engages ipseity as both the subject and the object of consciousness. First, it explores some of the recent philosophical and scientific obstacles that confound the transcendental reduction. Following this, an East-West trajectory for Husserl’s first science of consciousness is examined by combining Sarkar’s 3 shuddhis (reductive concentrations) in pratyáhára (mental withdrawal), effecting an experience of noumenal consciousness. Combining Husserl’s phenomenology with Sarkar’s spiritual praxis reinvigorates the transcendental epoché and emphasizes practice in a field both undermined by logical positivism and dominated by the scholasticism of Husserl’s protégés. Furthermore, the efficacy of an East-West approach is contextualized in view of Husserl’s admiration of Buddhism and Sarkar’s cognitive cosmology.