Pure Consciousness Research Articles

Gustav Shpet: Russian Philosopher of the Human Level of Being

M. Denn [Maryse Dennes], Vladislav Aleksandrovich Lektorskii, Boris Isaevich Pruzhinin, and Tat'iana Gennad'evna Shchedrina, eds., Gustav Shpet i ego filosofskoe nasledie: U istokov semiotiki i strukturalizma (Gustav Shpet and His Philosophical Legacy: At the Sources of Semiotics and Structuralism). 527 pp. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2010. ISBN-13 978-5824313673. Galin Tihanov, ed., Gustav Shpet's Contribution to Philosophy and Cultural Theory. 322 pp. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2009. ISBN-13 978-1557535252. $39.95. Gustav Gustavovich Shpet (1879-1937) has a reputation for being a very demanding but equally rewarding thinker, a philosopher's philosopher if ever there were one. That reputation is confirmed by these two excellent volumes, which are written for specialists well versed in European intellectual history and philosophy. Various contributors explicate the theoretical foundations of Shpet's system, which are in the sometimes esoteric realms of (immanent analysis of pure consciousness through reduction to its essential ideas), hermeneutics (which understands human beings as uniquely cultural beings--that is, as creators and conveyors of meaning through the use of signs, especially words), the philosophy of language (which approaches the word as the distinctive human capacity), and, at the most general level, ontology (the philosophical discipline concerned with the study of being). Yet despite the complex theoretical grounding, the burden of both volumes is to demonstrate Shpet's broad relevance to--and deep power to inform--some of the central problems of philosophy, history, and the humanities. Taken together, these volumes thus mark a new stage in Shpet scholarship, a shift from earlier representations of him as primarily a phenomenologist (indebted especially to Edmund Husserl, the principal founder of phenomenology) to appreciation and assessment of his staggering overall significance for the humanities, or for what Wilhelm Dilthey (whose ideas had a major impact on him (1)) termed the human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften). As S. S. Khoruzhii (Horujy) writes in Gustav Shpet i ego filosofskoe nasledie, The Shpet phenomenon is one of those great individual projects of the synthesis of human knowledge created in his time, an era that also produced (as Horujy notes) the comparable figure of Ernst Cassirer. (2) Shpet's first major work was Iavlenie i smysl (Appearance and Sense [1914]). It is a masterful exposition of Husserl's Ideen zu einer reinen Phanomenologie und phanomenologischen Philosophie (Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and a Phenomenological Philosophy, known as Ideas I [1913]); in it Shpet already outlines a revision of phenomenology. Over the next 14 years, he wrote a series of important books, including Istoriia kak problema logiki (History as a Problem of Logic [1916]), Germenevtika i ee problemy (Hermeneutics and Its Problems [1918]), (3) Esteticheskie fragmenty (Aesthetic Fragments [1922-23]), Vvedenie v etnicheskuiu psikhologiiu (Introduction to Ethnic Psychology [1927]), and Vnutrenniaia forma slova (etiudy i variatsii na temy Gumbol'ta) (The Inner Form of the Word: Studies and Variations on Humboldt's Themes [1927]). (4) These highly theoretical works advance a system that Alexander Haardt calls hermeneutical or a phenomenology of reason (after 1914 it developed more in the direction of hermeneutics than of phenomenology). Its leading idea is the correlation of signs (as combinations of expression and meaning) and sign-interpreting consciousness. (5) His system took shape under the influence not only of Husserl (with whom Shpet studied in Gottingen in 1912-13 and who considered Shpet one of his most remarkable students) but also of Hegel, Humboldt, and Dilthey, among others. For this reason, George L. Kline has called him a Russian neo-Husserlian, a characterization adopted (explicitly or implicitly) by most contributors to the volumes under review. …

Christian Mysticism and Science: The Phenomenological Dimension

In this second of three papers, I identify three fundamental phenomenological themes that have informed Christian mystical theology and then explore how these themes might be given further understanding via natural science. The first theme, detachment, minimizes any association with the secular world in favor of humility and openness to God. Detachment is chosen in consciousness using a resonant global workspace linked through the hippocampus to reconstructions of both declarative and emotional memory. The second theme, infused contemplation, is concerned with God's top-down revelation to the recollected mind of the mystic. The resulting top-down resonance creates an appropriate theory of mind for infused contemplation, as the human mind is now more perfectly linked with the mind of God. The third theme is mystical union, which both theology and science claim occurs within consciousness. Starting in intentional consciousness, the mystic undergoes an unmediated surrender beyond cognition to non-intentional consciousness. Because God fills the center of our being, a resonating luminosity can thus occur arising from the union of God and self within pure consciousness.

Sŏn Master T'oeong Sŏngch'ŏl's (1912-1993) Legacy: One Century after his Birth and (almost) Two Decades after his Death

Sŏn Master T'oeong Sŏngch'ŏl's (1912-1993) Legacy:One Century after his Birth and (almost) Two Decades after his Death Bernard Senécal (bio) T'oeong Sŏngch'ŏl ŭi kkaedarŭm kwa suhaeng [T'oeong Sŏngch'ŏl's awakening and practice] 退翁性徹의 깨달음과 修行. Edited by Cho Sŏngt'aek 조성택, Seoul: Yemun sŏwŏn, 2006, 431 p. Chaengjŏm ŭro salp'yŏ ponŭn kanhwasŏn [Keyword Meditation examined from the Perspective of disputed points] 爭點으로 살펴보는 看話禪. By Ingyŏng 인경, Seoul: Myŏngsang sangdam yŏn'guwŏn, 2011, 396 p. On the Eve of the 25th Anniversary of South Korea's Democracy This year (2012), Korean Buddhism celebrates the hundredth anniversary of the birth of T'oeong Sŏngch'ŏl 退翁性徹. Next year, it will celebrate the twentieth anniversary of his demise.1 As the meditation master of Haein-sa 海印寺 from 1967 until 1993, and the Sixth and Seventh Supreme Patriarch of Chogyejong 曹溪宗 between 1981 and 1993,2 Sŏngch'ŏl is one of the, if not the, most representative figures of modern Korean Buddhism. Furthermore, having been a great reformer of the Buddhist tradition, he is reckoned to be one of the twelve most prominent personalities of the Republic of Korea (hereafter Korea) during the fifty years that followed its foundation in 1948. But Sŏngch'ŏl's place in Korean Buddhist history is not without controversy, particularly his utter rejection of the then well-established "Sudden Awakening/Gradual Practice Doctrine (tono chŏmsuron 頓悟漸修論)" advocated by Master Pojo Chinul 普照 知訥 (1158-1210). The effort to replace it with his own "Sudden Awakening/Sudden Cultivation Doctrine (tono tonsuron 頓悟頓修論)" of ultimate awakening (kugyŏnggak 究竟覺) to the middle path (chungdo 中道) or "seeing of one's nature (kyŏnsŏng 見性)", through the practice of kanhwasŏn 看話禪3, has given rise to the ongoing Korean Sudden/Gradual Debate (han'guk tonjŏm nonjaeng 韓國頓漸論爭). Sŏngch'ŏl proclaimed that through the practice of kanhwasŏn anybody could suddenly achieve an uncaused and non-cognitive experience of pure consciousness, which could definitely transform anyone into a Buddha. As he did so, Sŏngch'ŏl not only placed his teaching under the absolute authority of the Sixth Patriarch Huineng 六祖慧能, but he also seems to have identified with him (Sŏ 2009, 209-27). With such a doctrine, which powerfully evokes the rhetorics of immediacy and experience described by Faure and Sharf respectively (Faure 1991; Sharf 2000), the sudden/gradual debate has reached an unprecedented degree of exacerbation in Buddhist history (Chŏng 2012, 84). Indeed, Sŏngch'ŏl's teaching has so alienated the majority of Korean Buddhist scholars that it is still difficult to find balanced accounts of its significance. On the eve of the twenty-fifth anniversary of South Korea's democracy, these facts induce us to critically reflect upon the impact of Sŏngch'ŏl's legacy on contemporary Korean Buddhism and society. This reflection will be based on the review of two representatives Korean works directly related to Sŏngch'ŏl [End Page 174] and/or the Korean Sudden/Gradual Debate: T'oeong Sŏngch'ŏl ŭi kkaedarŭm kwa suhaeng 退翁性徹의 깨달음과 修行 (2006) and Chaengjŏm ŭro salp'yŏ ponŭn kanhwasŏn 爭點으로 살펴보는 看話禪 (2011). Let us review them each in turn. T'oeong Sŏngch'ŏl ŭi kkaedarŭm kwa suhaeng T'oeong Sŏngch'ŏl ŭi kkaedarŭm kwa suhaeng is a compilation edited in 2006 by Cho Sŏngt'aek of the philosophy department of ŭi University.4 It comprises ten chapters divided into two parts of equal length: Sŏngch'ŏl ŭi pulgyogwan kwa tono tonsuron 성철의 불교관과 돈오돈수론 ("Sŏngch'ŏl's view of Buddhism and Sudden Awakening/Sudden Cultivation Doctrine") and SSŏngch'ŏl ŭi hy ŏnsil insik kwa pulgyo silch'ŏn 성철의 현실인식관 불교실천 ("Sŏngch'ŏl's understanding of reality and the practice of Buddhism"). It is because of this twofold division, into Sŏngch'ŏl's Buddhist theory and its practical consequences (understood in a broad sense), that the book deserves special attention. To be sure, although a significant amount of literature has been published on the Korean Sudden/Gradual Debate (Kang 1992; Park 1983, 1992, 2009 etc.), the bulk of it tends to treat the dispute as a doctrinal matter chiefly...

«МЕТАМОРФОЗЫ ЗЕРКАЛА» В СРАВНИТЕЛЬНОЙ ФЕНОМЕНОЛОГИИ ОЧИЩЕНИЯ УМА

Article is devoted the comparative analysis of phenomenological experience of «pure consciousness» in various traditions, as sacral, and деsаcranunted. Various updatings of symbolics of a mirror in which result similar receptions «mind clarifications» in phenomenological experience of different traditions are compared. Specificity of experience of Orthodoxy in its relation to mirror symbolics is considered.

Кант, неокантианство и представители феноменологии о рефлексии и редукции

The article is devoted to comparison of Kant methodology and the phenomenology, which provide insight into the area of pure consciousness. Divergences in levels of its understanding are marked, disagreements concerning values of reflection and reduction between Kant and Neo-Kantian philosophers and representatives of phenomenology come to light. The analysis of basic concept of phenomenology, «intentionality», is carried out by means of Kant aprioristic forms.

Through with the looking glass: Escape responses to implicit mirror exposure

Based on the assumption that confrontation with one's physical reflection can be aversive, we explored the appeal of possible "escape routes" when incidentally exposed to one's mirror image. Compared to their no-exposure peers, individuals who felt less chronically "trapped" in their bodies showed increased interest in flow experiences and decreased interest in experiences involving low-level thinking or a subjective sense of meaning when exposed to their reflection. Mirror exposure also increased overall interest in "pure consciousness events," wherein the transcendence of space and time figures centrally. The aversive effects of even implicit confrontation with one's reflection therefore seem more diverse than anticipated based on existing frameworks such as Objective Self-Awareness theory, so additional theoretical development seems warranted.

Consciousness in Indian Philosophy: The Advaita Doctrine of 'Awareness Only' (review)

Reviewed by: Consciousness in Indian Philosophy: The Advaita Doctrine of 'Awareness Only' Alan Preti Consciousness in Indian Philosophy: The Advaita Doctrine of 'Awareness Only'. By Sthaneshwar Timalsina. New York: Routledge, 2008. Pp. 179. In the Indian tradition, the identification of pure consciousness as an independent monistic principle identical with Being can be traced, as is well known, to the earliest Upaniṣadic speculations. The general picture to emerge from these reflections on the nature of subjective experience and external reality, although far from systematic, described consciousness as the ultimate subject of all mental states, itself ever precluded from becoming an object; as a universal type, it transcends the psychophysical complex constituting the empirical individual and the three associated levels of waking, dream, and deep-sleep consciousness common to all. Ubiquitous, pure consciousness is the foundation for the knowledge relation between subject and object: the field, if you will, upon which the relation between mind and world plays itself out. The mind (and the world revealed to it), while not entirely fictitious, is nevertheless an obstacle to the realization that at bottom the individualized consciousness (ātman) is nothing but the universal consciousness (Brahman). The realization of the ātman-Brahman identity is the summum bonum of existence, signifying final emancipation from the mundane world and the beginningless cycle of death and rebirth. This characterization served as the point of departure for the developed accounts of the nature and function of consciousness found in classical Advaita and its sub-schools, as well as in competing systems of thought. The developed accounts themselves resulted from debate, both internal and with other schools, on a constellation of related epistemological issues. The disputations arose as philosophers sought to [End Page 730] defend their particular interpretation of the Upaniṣadic pronouncements; in so doing, the accounts of mind and world grew in detail and sophistication. Answers to questions concerning the sources of knowledge (e.g., what are the causes of veridical cognition?), perception (what is directly perceived in an act of cognition?), truth and error (how are veridical and non-veridical cognitions distinguished?), consciousness in general (is consciousness intentional or non-intentional; is consciousness a substance, quality, or an act?), et cetera, ultimately led to the crystallization of a remarkable variety of views on the nature of consciousness among Indian philosophers. Sthaneshwar Timalsina's Consciousness in Indian Philosophy: The Advaita Doctrine of 'Awareness Only' is one of the more recent contributions to a growing body of specialized scholarship addressing themes in classical Indian thought as divorced from their soteriological context. The book is the latest in Routledge's Hindu Studies Series, whose aim, in collaboration with the Oxford Center for Hindu Studies, is to foster research that focuses on "Hindu theological, philosophical and ethical projects aimed at bringing Hindu traditions into dialogue with contemporary trends in scholarship and contemporary society" (—from the front matter). Specifically, Timalsina's interest is in providing an account of the central Advaitic doctrine of cinmātra, or 'awareness only'—the view that identifies pure consciousness or awareness, free of any kind of modality or qualification, with ultimate reality. The account is not a philosophical reconstruction, nor does Timalsina seek to defend the awareness-only thesis of consciousness against opposing views; the work is essentially an analytical-philological exploration of the development of the doctrine at the hands of its many proponents from classical through later Advaita. While the thesis that accords ontological primacy to pure consciousness can be approached from a variety of angles—careful exegesis of important Upaniṣadic passages, reflection on Advaita as a method for realizing Brahman, or epistemological analysis—Timalsina's efforts are directed toward the latter, the study consisting of an examination of the broad array of arguments advanced by exponents of classical Advaitic thought regarding the nature, function, and scope of knowledge, and their bearing on nondualism. One of Timalsina's aims is to call attention to the diversity of the approaches adopted by the various thinkers in the tradition; Advaita, he reminds us, is not a homogeneous system, but is best understood as "multiple threads that all coexist within the overarching philosophy of nonduality" (Introduction, p. xv). The extent to which Advaitins differed, either in...

Comparison of coherence, amplitude, and eLORETA patterns during Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi practice

This random-assignment study compared coherence, amplitude, and eLORETA patterns during practice of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) and the TM-Sidhi programs. The TM technique involves systematic transcending of contents of experience to a state of pure consciousness. The TM-Sidhi program involves sanyama—the simultaneous experience of dhārānā (fixity), dhyāna (transcending) and samādhi (pure consciousness). Thirty-two channel EEG was recorded from experienced TM subjects randomly assigned to two consecutive 10-min TM sessions or to a 10-min TM session followed by 10-min TM-Sidhi practice. Compared to TM practice, TM-Sidhi practice was characterized by higher frontal alpha1 and beta1 amplitudes, and eLORETA-identified sources of alpha1 EEG in right-hemisphere object recognition areas including the right parahippocampus gyrus, right fusiform gyrus, lingual gyrus, and inferior and medial temporal cortices. These cortical areas are involved in specific/holistic representation of words. The observed brain patterns support the descriptions of sanyama as including both specificity (sutras or verses), as suggested by higher frontal beta1 EEG amplitude and by eLORETA sources in right-hemisphere object-recognition areas, and holistic experience (pure consciousness) as suggested by higher frontal alpha1 EEG amplitude. These EEG patterns fit the complex description of sanyama.

Nibbanic (or Pure) Consciousness and Beyond

Pike’s phenomenology of mystical experiences articulates sharply where theological content may enter the structure of Christian mystics’ experiences (as characterized in their own words). Here we look to Buddhist (and other) accounts of “pure” or “nibbanic” consciousness attained in experiences of deep meditation. A contemporary “modal” model of inner awareness is considered whereby a form of pure consciousness underlies and embraces further content in various forms of consciousness, including mystical experiences in different traditions and experiences of “full union” (with God).

Communicating hope with one breath

The central thesis of this article was that the phenomenon of hope involves states and stages of consciousness development, which can be enhanced through breath control, meditation, prayer and related practices that have formed the essence of various spiritual healing traditions for millennia. In particular, it was argued that breath control can provide a vital foundation for consciousness transformation and the development of hope. Whilst breath control alone may lead to a state of pure, transcendent and/or cosmic consciousness, the practical theological implications are that its effect of enhancing states and stages of consciousness may be anchored and amplified. This process can take place through further contemplative and intercessory meditation, prayer and related behaviour and will differ between people, groups, contexts, religious and/or spiritual traditions. A particular method of breath control called One Breath, which is associated with pure consciousness and the experience of hope was described. Such an experience typically leads to further spiritual practice, healing and transformation. It was concluded that such ongoing spiritual practice is crucial for improving consciousness development, healing and hope for individuals, societies, planet Earth and the cosmos.

Searching for the Absent God: Susan Taubes's Negative Theology

Abstract “I love you dear child and it is very hard to be reduced to a reines Bewusstsein [pure consciousness].”1 Susan Taubes wrote this sentence in Paris on February 18, 1952, to her husband Jacob Taubes in Jerusalem. Following ten months together with him in the holy city, she had been living for six weeks in one of the most prominent centers of secular modernism. From now on she would live alone. Her arrival in Paris formed the sequel to an extensive correspondence allowing the pair to keep in touch in the first three years of marriage (1949–52), despite geographical distance…

The Problem of Transcendental Intersubjectivity in Husserl

The central significance of intersubjectivity was already made clear by Husserl in the first volume of Ideen 1 on the occasion of an analysis of the natural attitude. The objective, spatio-temporal reality of a surrounding world (Umwelt), accepted not only by me but also by other ego-subjects (Ich-Subjekte), is taken for granted without question as an element of the general thesis (Generalthese) of the natural attitude. It is part of this general thesis that other ego-subjects are apprehended as fellow-men (Nebenmenschen) who have consciousness of the objective world as I do in spite of differences in perspectives and in degrees of clarity. It is also taken for granted that we can communicate with one another (Par. 29). How, in the frame of the natural attitude, is mutual understanding (Einverstandnis) in principle possible? The answer given by Husserl in Ideen I (Par. 53), on the occasion of the preparatory analyses of pure consciousness, refers to the experience of a Unking of consciousness and body (Leib) to form a natural, empirical unity by means of which consciousness is located in the space and time of nature, and which, in acts of “empathy,” makes possible reciprocal understanding between animate subjects belonging to one world.

Phenomenology of Consciousness in Ādi Śamkara and Edmund Husserl

The philosophical investigation of consciousness has a long-standing history in both Indian and Western thought. The conceptual models and analyses that have emerged in one cultural framework may be profitably reviewed in the light of another. In this context, a study of the notion of consciousness in the transcendental phenomenology of Edmund Husserl is not only important as a focus on a remarkable achievement in the context of Western thought, but is also useful for an appreciation of the concern with this question in the Indian philosophical tradition, and especially in the tradition of Advaita Vedānta of Ādi Śamkara. The starting point for this paper is the belief that phenomenology has a recognizably common face for both these traditions.This paper investigates the possibility of a parallel notion of consciousness in the transcendental phenomenology of Husserl and the Advaita Vedānta of Śamkara, with particular emphasis on Husserl’s ‘Transcendental I’ and Śamkara’s ‘Witness Consciousness’ (Sākshi Caitanya). In the process, it explores the phenomenological relevance of the concept of consciousness in Indian philosophy, with special reference to the concept of pure consciousness as one of the essential criteria for any sound theory of knowledge. It more importantly highlights the Advaitic understanding of pure consciousness as one of the major contributions to the field of comparative philosophy that forms a vantage point for cross-cultural comparison. While pointing to significant differences in their respective approaches to understanding the nature of consciousness, the exploration finally unveils the common thesis for both Śamkara and Husserl that ‘pure consciousness’ is essentially foundational, evidencing and absolute for any epistemic act.

Embodiment and schizophrenia

The essential feature of schizophrenic existence is its being disembodied. This is the feature that unifies the varied dimensions of that existence. The disembodiment of the self, of the self-object relation and of interpersonal relationships all lead to a kind of world in which the schizophrenic person lives and behaves like a soulless body or a disembodied spirit.

Czy Roman Ingarden był fenomenologiem?

Roman Ingarden used to say that he is not sure whether he was a phenomenologist. This does not seem to be just coquetry. Transcendental phenomenology in its official Husserlian version did not achieve adequacy of describing our primary experience in its fullness because it began as a sort of science, in the attitude of an 'uninvolved observer'. Yet phenomenology postulated a separate methodology, different from that of science, a methodology understood as building up a new conceptual apparatus based on a full analysis of primary experience – and the phenomenologists did achieve a great progress in this direction – the direction of transcending the limits of some sort of analytic philosophy of 'pure consciousness' based on traditional concepts which phenomenology could seem to be at the beginning. Husserl oscillated between the 'dogmatic' and 'critical' motive discerned in his thought by Ernst Tugendhat: between accepting consciousness as a sphere of absolute insights and seeing such insights as an asymptotic limit of investigation. A similar duality exists also in Ingarden's thought. This duality could have been a motive of Ingarden's doubts.

Vidyā and Avidyā: Simultaneous and Coterminous? -- A Holographic Model to Illuminate the Advaita Debate

The Advaita Vedānta notion of ātman/Brahman presents serious philosophical challenge to this school—namely, it demands that they explain how all (reality) can be undivided, unchanging, and pure consciousness, yet appear to be everything but nondual, unchanging, and pure consciousness. The Advaita answer is avidyā, ajñāna (ignorance). This answer tells us that Brahman does not really change; it is only ignorance that makes it appear to change. This answer has engendered as many questions as it has resolved, and it is possible that they can be boiled down to the following: how can vidyā and avidyā be simultaneous and coterminous? After reviewing the Advaita responses to the debates regarding avidyā which arose within Advaita and between Advaitins and their opponents, traditional Advaita path will be followed by offering an analogy to illuminate this quandary. The strength of this contemporary analogy, based on holography, lies in its ability to illuminate the nature of Brahman as being without parts, without duality, without change; yet holography presents us with images that appear to change and be with parts.

Indian and Cross-Cultural Philosophy in the Works of Ramakrishna Puligandla

The breadth of the works of Ramakrishna Puligandla in Indian, Western, and crosscultural philosophy over the past four decades has been truly remarkable. Puligandla shifted from teaching physics to philosophy at the University of Toledo in the mid1960s, and he has published writings on topics ranging from B. F. Skinner, Albert Camus, and quantum theory to Vedanta and Madhyamika from the mid-1970s until today, more than twelve years after his retirement. Given the unwavering focus of his philosophical convictions, however, this great range exhibits a diversity that is only apparent, for the thread of Puligandla's thought is woven out of the fundamental Advaita thesis that pure consciousness is the nondual and thus all-encompassing ground of existence. This thesis of the transcendental unity of being informed the basis of his critique of Skinnerian behaviorism, his rejection of the Copenhagen Interpretation, his explication of how mind-body dualism is resolved by seeing into the mechanics of adhydsa, and his attempts at rapprochement between Sanikara and Nagarjuna. In his most recent writing, Puligandla has attempted both to make Advaita Vedanta accessible to the general reader and, in yet another step in his philosophical journey, to uncover how classical Madhyamika, Daoist, Zen, and modern German phenomenological thinkers have pointed the way to showing how enlightenment may be approached through the nonconceptual engagement of language. In Breaking Barriers: Essays on Asian and Comparative Philosophy in Honor of Ramakrishna Puligandla, a Festschrift celebrating his achievements, Frank J. Hoffman and Godabarisha Mishra have collected twenty-four essays under four major themes: Advaita, Buddhism, the intersection between Indian philosophy and contemporary physics and Asian-Western comparative thought. Hoffman and Mishra have gone a long way in this volume toward gauging the reception of Puligandla's work by scholars in all these areas by including both positive and critical appraisals. In Mishra's own submission, a defense is given of the phenomenological similarities between two methods of inquiry into consciousness, namely Husserlian eidetic

Martin Heidegger and Rudolf Carnap

It would be too simple to assert that the root of the Continental/Analytic grew out from the dispute between Heidegger and Carnap. There are other, earlier candidates for this divide through which significant topoi separated off into differing currents of philosophy.1 Roberta Lanfredini2 describes one of the conflicts between the two fathers of phenomenology and logical positivism,, Husserl and Schlick, respectively, in this case, over the significance of for the constitution of knowledge. Schlick, prefiguring the language of Russell, Carnap, and Ayer, advocated the elimination of these aspects from the domain of rigorous, scientific knowledge. Husserl, for his part, sought to found the qualitative aspect of the lifeworld in a phenomenology of pure consciousness. Yet, as we can gather from Heidegger (Husserl's dissident student) in one of his many Marburg lecture courses, History of the Concept of Time (1925), Husserl (along with the Neo-Kantians) tacitly upholds the ontology of Descartes and his mythology of consciousness.3 That of which Husserl and Schlick are in agreement is an isomorphism between the structure of experience and the logical form of knowledge,4 even if they disagree on the details of the project. In light of the tentativeness of both sides of this dispute, it would be difficult to fathom any ultimate ontological difference between the positions of Schlick and Husserl. When the latter identifies being, via his eidetic reduction, with pure consciousness (and denies the necessity of the world for its existence), he reveals his phenomenology, as Heidegger insists, as empty, formal, and thus, as un-phenomenological. Adjacent to Schlick's non-subjective, logico-linguistic exclusion of quality, it is not surprising that this particular dispute is little known. At the end of the day, nothing was at stake.5 That which distinguishes the clash between Heidegger and Carnap from that between Schlick and Husserl however is that the question of the task of philosophy itself is raised and this immediately raises the question of truth and of its possible modes of disclosure. is truth, how is it constituted and how is it to be expressed? Are there differing senses of truth which induce specific ways of expression, and are these variegated senses still philosophy? Must these senses stand or fall on whether they find expression in a world of mere logic and empiricism (scientific fact) or are there other modalities of expression for differing topologies of truth? This controversy follows the Davos Disputation between Heidegger and Cassirer, and it never generated the interest or the intensity to really constitute a significant dispute.6 Indeed, the only real party in the disagreement was Carnap, as he was merely reacting to Heidegger's Inaugural Address at Freiburg (and his apparent dislike for Heidegger during his Marburg years). Heidegger, for his part, as Gottfried Gabriel notes, gave a few-sentence response to Carnap, re-affirming his desire for a criteria of rigor that would allow for the disclosure of differing topographies of phenomena (a la qualitative aspects). questions posed to Carnap, as the latter sought to bar him from philosophy, are: Why is there something rather than nothingand how is it with the nothing? And how is such a truth encountered and expressed? In the following, in light of our guiding questions of the task of philosophy and of the way by which differing senses of truth can find expression, I will explore in detail each of the texts in this dispute. After an initial reading of Gabriel's work on this topic, I will explore Heidegger's foray into the metaphysical question of the Nothing in What is Metaphysics?7 I will then turn to Carnap's criticism of the Address in The Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Language.81 will consider the question of the force and relevance of this essay as to its pretensions to exclude Heidegger from the domain of meaningfulness, and indeed, from philosophy itself. …

The Pratyabhijña School and Adhyavasayapeksapramanyavadin on Cognition and Language

Following Bhartrhari who claims that any knowledge is intertwined with the word, Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta maintain that light (prakasa) or knowledge (jnana), the essence of the Lord, consists in reflective awareness (vimarsa), which is essentially associated with verbalization (abhilapa). According to Abhinavagupta, this view that any knowledge is intertwined with the word is accepted by Dharmottara, an adhyavasayapeksapramanyavadin or one who holds that direct perception, followed by determination (adhyavasaya), becomes a valid means of knowledge (pramana); the determination consists in verbalization. For the Pratyabhijna school, to be a conceptual cognition means to be a reflective awareness, without which light would be no different from an unconscious reflector of images such as a crystal (IPK 1.5.11); direct perception as conceived by the Buddhist epistemologists, which is distinguished from a conceptual cognition, cannot be a cognition. But a difficulty arises. If it were the case that reflective awareness is interpenetrated with the word, the Pratyabhijna school would have to accept that even the Lord, which is pure consciousness, is connected with conceptual construction (vikalpa), which is impure. This difficulty is cleared up as follows. The reflective awareness ‘I’ of the Lord does not consist in conceptual construction even if it is associated with the word, since the word is the supreme word (pares vac). Moreover, the Lord cannot not be connected with conceptual construction. For, in conceptual construction, there are always what is to be determined (niscetavya), and what is to be excluded (apohitavya); and the Lord, which is not limited by anything, cannot have its counterentity (pratiyogin).

Shiva: supreme God of all in Saivism

Siva is the supreme God of Hinduism today. His abode is called Kailasa. His holy mount is Nandi, the Bull. Siva is usually represented by the Siva linga, depicted as a clay mound with three horizontal stripes on it, or visualized as a flaming pillar. In anthropomorphized images, he is generally represented to be immersed in deep meditation on Mount Kailash (in south of Tibet, near Mansarovar Lake) Himalaya, his traditional abode. He is both static and dynamic and is both creator and destroyer. He is the oldest and the youngest; he is the eternal youth as well as the infant. He is the source of fertility in all living beings. He has gentle as well as fierce forms. Shiva is the greatest of renouncers as well as the ideal lover. He destroys evil and protects good. He bestows prosperity on worshipers although he is austere. He is omnipresent and resides in everyone as pure consciousness. Ganga, the holiest of the holy rivers, flows from the matted hair of Shiva. Shiva allowed an outlet to the great river to traverse the earth and bring purifying water to human beings. The flowing water is one of the five elements, which compose the whole Universe and from which earth arises. The origin of the Ganga from the head of Lord Shiva seems to be related to the flow of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) arising from the ventricles flowing in the direction of gravity towards the spinal column. Ganga circulates in the matted hairs of Lord Siva and then flows to the earth and finally drains to the great ocean [1]. In the same way as CSF circulates into the ventricle and finally drains into the venous sinuses. As CSF preserves the normal homeostasis of the structure of the brain so as Ganga preserves the normal environmental balance of the earth around it. We presumed that that representation of the flow of CSF in the literature of ancient Hinduism shows their knowledge about brain and the dynamics of CSF. Moreover, the flowing nature of holy Gange represents continuous formation of CSF by the brain. The third eye of Shiva on his forehead is the eye of wisdom. It is the eye that looks beyond the obvious. The third eye of Shiva is also popularly associated with its untamed energy, which destroys the evil doers and sins. He governs time, i.e., the day and night cycle. The pineal body of brain is also termed as the third eye and is associated with the circadian rhythm of the body.