Abstract
This comparative study aims at juxtaposition of modern Western naturalistic evolutionism and the mostly similar attitude in the classic Indian philosophy in the shape of Sankhya’s cosmology in the context of their corresponding critiques by contemporary creationists and Advaita-Vedanta. The long and pointed polemics with Sankhya in the Brahmasutrabhasya by Šankaracharya (7th-8th centuries A.D.) is in the focus of this investigation along with numerous references to the Sankhya-karika by Isvarakrsna (5th century A.D.) as the basic text of the philosophical school criticized by its most powerful opponent. Comparing Western and Indian evolutionism reveals some very important differences to such a degree that the Indian species of the genus would be, in the author’s opinion, better identified as not evolutionism in the strict sense but as a “développisme” combining features of evolutionism with those of emanationism. As to Sankhya’s naturalism, it turns to be much more “sophisticated” than that, e.g., of Thomas Huxley or the so-called New Atheists because its “stuff” is more psychological than material. Nevertheless, crucial logical gaps remain the same in both cases (along with an antitheistic “faith” instead of rationalism), while their taking into account by opponents of naturalism offers a challenge for comparative philosophical theology.
Highlights
This comparative study aims at juxtaposition of modern Western naturalistic evolutionism and the mostly similar attitude in the classic Indian philosophy in the shape of Sāňkhya’s cosmology in the context of their corresponding critiques by contemporary creationists and Advaita-Vedānta
Crucial logical gaps remain the same in both cases, while their taking into account by opponents of naturalism offers a challenge for comparative philosophical theology
Naturalistic Evolutionism: Combining of Incompatibilities It is a well known fact that according to some statistics many more academic scientists today prefer to be regarded atheists rather than as theists or even as agnostics (Note 2), that some books of the so-called New Atheists are regularly enlisted among bestsellers and that evolutionists have greatly succeeded in supplanting creationists in almost all fields of education
Summary
This comparative study aims at juxtaposition of modern Western naturalistic evolutionism and the mostly similar attitude in the classic Indian philosophy in the shape of Sāňkhya’s cosmology in the context of their corresponding critiques by contemporary creationists and Advaita-Vedānta. It is Pradhāna, common for all and constituted by delight, suffering and delusion, i.e. by the three guņas, and being insentient like сlay undergoes diverse transformations in accordance with its nature for serving goals of the consciousness, i.e., puruşa (Note 19).
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