There’s no reason to privilege mind

Blogging by Larval Subjects is a high point of Cyberspace:

• "Graham, of course, has had a decisive impact on my thought and has led me to read figures such as Zubiri, Bhaskar, and Latour. Mel introduced me to Latour, Kittler, Ong, Bogost, and a whole host of other thinkers. Shaviro got me back into Whitehead. And so on." October 22, 2009 Speculative Realism, Armies of Objects, and the Social Sciences
• "However, if the last 300 years of philosophy have shown us anything, it has shown us that we do not have any direct or immanent or immediate access to our own minds. As Lacan liked to say, following Freud, the subject is split. This is true even in Kant, as can be seen in both the paralogisms and the the deduction where Kant distinguishes between the subject as phenomena to itself, the transcendental unity of apperception, and the subject in-itself. Similarly, phenomenology increasingly discovered just how elusive givenness is in intuition, or how there is no immediacy in consciousness.
  Yet if we follow through the implications of these points, then it would seem that there’s no reason to privilege mind (or some variant thereof) in our transcendental arguments." October 22, 2009 Transcendental Realism?
• "To be quite honest, I’m rather surprised that certain philosophers of religion and theologians haven’t exploited this point when characterizing me as the wicked, secular-humanist, materialist atheist.
  For if the ontic principle is rigorously followed through, then there’s nothing that allows me to prohibit God, and other things besides, from the order of being. A theology or philosophy of religion premised on the ontic principle might lead to some surprising results contrary to traditional theistic conceptions of God where God overdetermines everything else, but the very coordinates of my thought prevent me from excluding the divine as productive of difference... I also suspect that this is the reason that some theologians and philosophers of religion have been rather enthusiastic about object-oriented ontology and the ontic principle.
  In the end, I take it that as leaky as my ship is, this capacity to surprise is the mark of a good philosophy or ontology. Since I first formulated the ontic principle in January or February, I’ve been on a witches broom of thought, no longer knowing where I’m being led or am going. In other words, my basic ontological commitments might not only be surprising to others, but are surprising to me as I carry out their implications. I do not take this as a negative thing, but as precisely what a philosophy should do." Realism is not a Synonym for Materialism

Let's hope that the logic of Larval Subjects finally rams into Sri Aurobindo's The Life Divine. [TNM]

No one yet knows for certain what exactly Sri Aurobindo says

The judgmental spirit has overtaken us; a magisterial impulse. Everyone is on a spree to pass verdicts on anything under the sun. It seems that years of fear and suppression has found a vent as more and more of us are mustering courage to contribute to a discursive environment.

The difficulties are many. For instance, the complete works of Sri Aurobindo are yet to come out. So, no one can claim that he has gone through the Master’s entire oeuvre. In other words, no one yet knows for certain what exactly Sri Aurobindo says.

The publishing programme thus far has adopted an ivory tower approach. Evidently, complains and criticisms are surfacing. Involving informed users would go a long way in making the books blemish free in future.

Writings apart, the dynamics of interaction among the followers needs to be adequately debated upon and suitable structural apparatus put in place. Espousing a democratic and tolerant milieu for relating to The Mother & Sri Aurobindo at diverse levels is also a cardinal requisite.

Sri Aurobindian ontology and its socio-political implications is an unfolding story for which we need to be patient and polite without betting on any kind of finality. What all we have been told so far are just hints and allusions, and hence it would be foolish to make them prestige issues.

Public pronouncements by the followers, therefore, should be made after careful consideration of the matter. While commenting on socio-economic issues, responsibility should be assumed by disclosing full name, address and profession. Otherwise many a time, it looks like a childish hit-and-run tactic. [TNM-241009-Sat]

Dialogical in Sri Aurobindo and Habermas

Affirming "We are all in his debt," on Jürgen Habermas’s eightieth birthday (The philosopher-citizen 6:39 PM), Charles Taylor underscores several points:

• "Whereas for Kant the principal criterion of a rational and therefore defensible deliberation was that it was sought universalizable maxims, for Habermas the very notion of deliberation is transformed."
• "In other words, for Habermas, ethical deliberation is primarily social, dialogical; it is worked out between agents."
• "Drawing on the work of Weber, Habermas sees modernity as having brought about a transformation in our understanding of reason."
• "For Plato and much of the Western tradition, reason is a single faculty or power which can strive to define not only the True, but also the Good and the Beautiful. That is, the same reason can establish the shape of all the important dimensions of human life: establishing what really is, deciding what we ought to do, and determining what is truly beautiful. We might speak of the scientific, the moral and the aesthetic dimensions of human life. What Habermas proposes in the place of this is not, as we have seen, a restriction of reason to the scientific domain, and a relegation of morals and aesthetics to the arbitration of emotion or subjective taste. Rather it is a diversification of the very procedures of reason."

Sri Aurobindo too expounded on a similar need for diversification and self-enlargement in the last issue of Arya (January 1921) as below:

• "The German thinker’s idea that there is a categorical imperative laid upon man to seek after the right and good, an insistent law of right conduct, but no categorical imperative of the Oversoul compelling him to seek after the beautiful or the true, after a law of right beauty and harmony and right knowledge, is a singular misprision. It is a false deduction born of too much preoccupation with the transitional movement of man's mind and, there too, only with one side of its complex phenomena. The Indian thinkers had a wiser sight who, while conceding right ethical being and conduct as a first need, still considered knowledge to be the greater ultimate demand, the indispensable condition, and much nearer to a full seeing came that larger experience of theirs that either through an urge towards absolute knowledge or a pure impersonality of the will or an ecstasy of divine love and absolute delight, — and even through an absorbing concentration of the psychical and the vital and physical being, — the soul turns towards the Supreme and that on each part of our self and nature and consciousness there can come a call and irresistible attraction of the Divine. Indeed, an uplift of all these, an imperative of the Divine upon all the ways of our being, is the impetus of self-enlargement to a complete, an integralising possession of God, freedom and immortality, and that therefore is the highest law of our nature." (Page-214, The Higher Lines Of Truth Part II, The Problem of Rebirth)

It is interesting to note that the Arya began with an invocation to the Kantian categories of God, freedom and immortality in the opening paragraph of The Life Divine, and the scrutiny was on even in the last issue and remained inconclusive. [TNM-201009]

The Mother & Sri Aurobindo are not accorded the central role

[Sri Aurobindo does concur with the monotheistic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam that the Divine is ultimately single and unitary, and that It represents itself in humans as immortal souls. However, he prefers the Hindu metaphysic of polymorphous monotheism, according to which the one God can differentiate itself into in a plethora of attenuated forms, vehicles, creations, forces, and beings. So, in summary, Sri Aurobindo believes that God made all, all is God, God is in all and also beyond all, the All is all growing, God is growing in all, and we are all growing into God. Towards a spiritual psychology Bridging psychodynamic psychotherapy with integral yoga
Michael Miovic Consciousness and Its Transformation Cornelissen, Matthijs (Ed.) (2001)]

[Sri Aurobindo calls the soul the “psychic being”, coining his term from the Greek root psyche, and defines it as the true and eternal entity within us that is part of the Divine and persists after the body dies. Sri Aurobindo concurs with the monotheistic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam that God (the Divine) is ultimately the sole reality and supreme being. However, he prefers the Hindu metaphysic of polymorphous monotheism, which generously allows the one God to differentiate into the multitudinous forms, beings, and forces of the spiritual and material worlds. This kind of God is simultaneously transcendent, immanent in all creation, and personally present for the individual according to the needs of his/her character and culture. Sri Aurobindo does accept the Hindu notion of reincarnation, but places a new emphasis on the evolutionary aim of the Divine plan. That is, he believes that the purpose of reincarnation is not to prepare the soul to transcend the cycle of karma (as in the classical definition of nirvana), but to increase the soul’s capacity to perfect life in the world. Indeed, he argues that this evolution of consciousness is the spiritual force driving the evolution of biological forms that are increasingly able to express it (e.g., the evolution of the mammalian brain culminating in the human brain). TOWARDS A SPIRITUAL PSYCHOLOGY: Bridging Psychotherapy with the Yoga Psychology of Sri Aurobindo
Michael Miovic, M.D. A Journal of Integral studies - February 2005]

In such an ontological frame, The Mother & Sri Aurobindo are not accorded the central role. [TNM]

Spend some time in the Aurobindian archive

[For The Turnstiles By DGA - My position is that Aurobindo is a writer of significance, a major cultural figure, who is sadly under-read by those who are not his disciples.... If one is concerned that Aurobindo is not represented properly or fairly or in a balanced way in academic discourse (I am such a one), spend some time in the Aurobindian archive, develop a worthwhile question, do your research, and publish your findings. For The Turnstiles]

Thank you, Anderson. [TNM]

Religion, language and region

[Guard against politics of religion, language and region: Sonia
Times of India - Vishwas Kothari - ‎KOLHAPUR: In a veiled reference to rival Shiv Sena-BJP alliance, Congress president Sonia Gandhi said here that people need to ask those who play politics of votes in the name of religion, language and region, as to what work they did for Maharashtra ...]

What is politics then? one wonders. [TNM]

How to choose a leader

[AMBANI DISPUTE: The finance minister advised the feuding Ambani brothers to reflect on the impact their quarrel is having on the corporate sector, days before they face off in the Supreme Court in a dispute over the sharing of gas from the KG Basin. An old friend of the Ambani family, Mr Mukherjee reminded Mukesh and Anil that their dispute “is not merely an individual matter” and hoped that "good sense would prevail on the two brothers.” Economy to pick up pace from 2nd half: Pranab Mukherjee
Economic Times - Andy Mukherjee]

['Loyalist' Venkaiah thickens Advani quit plot
Calcutta Telegraph - New Delhi, Oct. 8: LK Advani “loyalist” M. Venkaiah Naidu has indicated that Advani will quit as leader of the Opposition at a time of his choosing,]

Not only the Ambani brothers, leadership struggle is currently an integral part of every political party. Even our professedly Hindu parties have no clue as to how to choose a leader in consonance with traditional wisdom. [TNM]

How in heavens to do you translate 'daiya!'?

[Google Reader (14): We might run our governments in English and write our balance sheets in Roman, but we sing, cry, laugh and love in Hindi, Urdu, Marathi, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Kashmiri, Tamil or any of the innumerable mother tongues with which our nation is blessed. A paean to India's melody queen
from M.J. Akbar - Author and Veteran Journalist by M J Akbar Appeared in Times of India - October 4, 2009]

Blessed or cursed? [TNM]

Socratic nook

[Google Reader (51): Comments from Larval Subjects . by larvalsubjects
In light of recent events, and after lots of reflection and a good deal of regret, I have decided to follow the advice of a number of you and turn off the comments section on Larval Subjects.]

As one of the most invigorating spaces, this would be shortlived, one wishes. [TNM]

Buddha disinformation

from Tusar N. Mohapatra tusarnmohapatra@gmail.com to Jagannath Chatterjee
date3 October 2009 10:18
subject Re: [DevComm] Orissa is the birthplace of Lord Buddha.

The popular notion of Buddha, like many relics of the past, is a myth. Emotional bonding with a certain legend is a childlike quality and hence harmless, but to prop it with rational seeming proofs is a political misadventure likely to spread disinformation.

Reading the works of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo can teach us many things. Rectitude in thought is one of them. [TNM]

Karlekar's own clan is no less responsible

[The Pioneer > Online Edition : >> A nation in amnesia: OPED Thursday, October 1, 2009 Email Print
A nation in amnesia
Hiranmay Karlekar
Why pundits ignore Sri Aurobindo’s vision
Prof Sachidananda Mohanty says in his well-written and painstakingly-researched work, Sri Aurobindo: A Contemporary Reader (Routledge), “I have often wondered why university intellectuals are reluctant to engage with Sri Aurobindo.” ... However carefully nuanced Marx’s critique, his rejection of religion was total; so was that by Marxist intellectuals, whose influence grew in a great measure because of the support of the entire global and Indian Communist movements behind them. On the other hand, the Vedantic tradition no longer had a charismatic leader like Swami Vivekanand and Sri Aurobindo or a stalwart literary and mystical figure like Rabindranath Tagore. Finally, given the growing complexity of modern societies and the increasing importance social, political, administrative and economic activity, subjects related to these commanded precedence in the universities. Growing specialisation in the academic world left one with little time for anything-including one’s own spiritual heritage and its exponents — outside one’s own discipline. This is an absolute shame. Sri Aurobindo’s universal and cosmic vision has much to offer to a troubled world.]

Karlekar's own clan is no less responsible for neglect of Sri Aurobindo. [TNM]

Vacuum packed ontology

[Google Reader (10): For Graham all objects are vacuum packed and withdraw from one another. Dark matter and energy are perfect examples of this thesis. We only encounter it, in my formulation, through the differences it produces in other things. Yet here we have the interesting epistemological question of why we should affirm its existence at all. It quite literally is a ghost. Perhaps the physicist readers of this blog can help me out here. Dark matter is certainly very strange stuff. Dark Matter and Energy
from Larval Subjects . by larvalsubjects]

[In a letter appearing in Sunday’s Washington Times, protectionist William Hawkins accuses Adam Smith of being “dreadfully wrong” to insist that the ultimate goal of economic activity is consumption rather than production. Alas, the dreadfully wrong one is Hawkins. He confuses means with ends... Adam Smith correctly understood that the desire to consume is what justifies production, and not vice-versa. Protectionists are Profoundly Confused
from Cafe Hayek by Don Boudreaux]

Enhanced consumption of ontology justifies production of more vacuum packed books and blogs. [TNM]

Hoooles

[Of all Harman’s ideas, the manner in which objects withdraw from one another is particularly interesting in this regard. Does one need to theorise the gap/space between objects - if such there is - in terms of a boundary (e.g. chora/chasm)? But, more significantly, for me at least, how does this relate to Harman’s other intriguing boundary concept: the “firewall”, the demarcation point between objects, as well the term for the internal boundaries between objects and their parts. If I am to write something about Harman’s OOO in the near future, it is the firewall that has me suitably “fired up”, that and the theorisation of the nature of the gaps between objects (again, if such there are). Chasm, Chora and Firewall: On the Boundaries Between Objects from Pagan Metaphysics by Paul Reid-Bowen] [aggregator]

More holes likely to surface once the honeymoon evaporates and hegemony subsides. [TNM]

Politics of caste, gender & religion

[The politics of immigrant identity negotiation is rather starkly framed in the title of a paper by Arvind Rajagopal: “Better Hindu Than Black?” By choosing actively to identify in terms of religion, rather than allowing themselves to be categorized simply in terms of the more limited logic of ascribed American racial identities, Hindus from India and Muslims from West Africa, for example, can improve their chances of achieving recognition as full members of the polity. Multi-religious denominationalism and American identity
from The Immanent Frame by Richard Amesbury. In the emerging dispensation, Taylor predicts, “it will be less and less common for people to be drawn into or kept within a faith by some strong political or group identity, or by the sense that they are sustaining a socially essential ethic.”]

[Gender, Migration, and the Public Sphere, 1850–2005
Edited by Marlou Schrover, Eileen Yeo
The decision to emigrate has historically held differing promises and costs for women and for men. Exploring theories of difference in labor market participation, network formation and the immigrant organising process, on belonging and diaspora, and a theory of ‘vulnerability,’ A Global History of Gender and Migration looks critically at two centuries of the migration experience from the perspectives of women and men separately and together. ISBN: 9780415801720 Published September 15 2009 by Routledge.]

[R. Jagannathan, in DNA, suggests that the reason may be caste. Centuries of caste-based protection has made Indians reluctant to change; afraid to abandon the old even after it has outlived its utility. Therefore, he says, we are afraid of the outcome of democracy.
“Caste is like the shell of the tortoise. When faced with predators, the tortoise withdraws into its shell. Caste was the protective shelter under which the Indic peoples withdrew when confronted with the radical new ideologies of Christianity and Islam. So successful has caste been as protector, that even the others have adopted it. Caste now permeates Indian Islam and Christianity, not to speak of Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism. Put another way, caste is a force independent of Hinduism.”
Read the full article: BJP’s succession blues. ‘Caste is what has made Indians fearful of change’
from churumuri by churumuri]

A definitive account of human emotions is hard to establish, and hence we have to make do with whatever appears as rigorous and scholarly. [TNM]

The task is to recreate the spirit of 1907 in 2009

[Behind every successful Jinnah there is a Gandhi – 3
Radha Rajan 18 Sep 2009
Aurobindo had summed up succinctly the political objectives that Gokhale, Naoroji, Surendranath Bannerjea and the dominant Parsees in India and London had set for the INC – greater participation in government but within the Empire; that is, while the English educated Indians would become ministers in the Viceroy’s Council or the Governor’s Council, the nation would remain enslaved under British colonial rule... Astonishing how Aurobindo’s discerning analysis of and scathing attack against the leaders of the INC in 1907 was just as true in 1919. Little had changed in the INC’s objectives and even less had changed in the character of its leaders.]

[Even as Radhaji is throwing more and more light on facts and events of the freedom movement which have not been revealed so far, she is also revealing to Hindus the brilliant political writings of Sri Aurobindo. Mrs. Radha Rajan's excerpts from Sri Aurobindo's writings linking them with her expose of Gandhi and the Congress has been an eye-opener. It has also been a very sad experience. I don't know if this is what Radhaji is intending but she is slowly and with measured steps pointing her finger at the Hindu leadership then and now for failing to understand our adversaries. Radhaji is right but she must be making several enemies with her brilliant insight and perspective.
Raghuraman Srinivas 18 Sep 2009]

The task is to recreate the spirit of 1907 in 2009. No amount of harking to history can help us unless we come together under a political party to carry forward those ideals and dreams. There is no short cut. [TNM]

A new world order as postulated by Sri Aurobindo

[ET Columnists, Writers, Debates Opinion - Economic Times: "Rise of authoritarian capitalism
A fusion of autocratic politics & state-guided capitalism has emerged as leading challenge to international spread of democratic values."]

[Why anarchists prefer herbal tea Another category of corporate crime is the sort in which corporate managements cheat their shareholders. Enron and Satyam are prime examples. Unethical gains made from access to privileged information within companies represent another sort of misbehaviour in which the company acts as the setting rather than the agent of crime.
Stock price manipulation, bribing government officials to corner a chunk of the government's budget or open up environmentally fragile areas, colluding with managers of financial institutions to finance cost-inflated projects, all these are actions that people associate with corporate crime.... Continue reading...]

A new world order as postulated by Sri Aurobindo is the answer. [TNM]

Nothing to put under the surface

[just wondering from Object-Oriented Philosophy by doctorzamalek
Why is the phrase “turtles all the way down” always taken as a game-ending slam dunk, even when the alternative adopted is “the final turtle at the bottom of the world”?
If you don’t want an infinite regress of entities, the choices are:
(a) a finite regress to some ultimate constituent of the cosmos
(b) no regress at all, with everything remaining on the surface of human access and nothing hiding beneath]

The taunt on Eastern ontology notwithstanding, the phrase "human access" needs to be defined adequately, given its range from microchip to LHC, from cyberspace to speed of light. [TNM]

Lehman & languages

[Sudeshna Sen: Age of innocence Lehman Brothers collapse anniversary overshadows the big one - 9/11.]

[Hindi Diwas: Experts emphasis on use devnagari lipi‎ - New Delhi: Nation is celebrating Hindi Diwas today in the glory of national language. The day is celebrated every year on September 14.]

[Bar makes out a case against Queen's English, wants Hindi‎ - NEW DELHI: Hindi may be the national language, but the judiciary still swears by the Queen's English. Now, language is the bone of contention between ...Times of India - 7 related articles »]

The day may not be far off when globalization finds a solution to the languages problem. [TNM]

Competence, not cacophony

[On the one hand, I am not the sole creator of Larval Subjects. There are all the programmers, the people that maintain the internet, the telephone lines and satellites that allow for this form of communication, the people that comment, the design work that Mel did, and so on. On the other hand, Larval Subjects enjoys all sorts of adventures of which I am scarcely aware. There are all the differences it provokes in others, whether they be rage, admiration, perplexity, new projects, rejoinders, and so on. Only a small portion of that traffic ever responds. The blog gets linked to by other blogs without me knowing it. It gets, if my tracker is to be believed, forwarded in email. And so on. These are adventures of Larval Subjects, not Levi. Moreover, it is not at all an unusual event for me to be utterly baffled and surprised by something I wrote a while back. I am as much an interpreter of what I write as anyone else. And this because anything I write is an independent object. Such is the essence of what Lacan and Freud taught us about the essence of that strange object known as speech and writing.
Yet what is more interesting than the ontological status of my blog is the question of the ontological status of blog collectives. We can ask, at what point do objects shift from being networks of relations among objects, to objects in their own right? We talk, for example, of the “theory blogosphere”. Is that an object? A network? Both? There is a sort of entity here but it is closer to a cloud or a mist than a rock. How do we describe this difference ontologically? And what is the process by which something passes from being a collective to an object? When are Objects
from Larval Subjects by larvalsubjects]

[Speculative Realism Wiki via Larval Subjects by larvalsubjects on 9/7/09 Speculative Realism has truly been the first philosophical movement that’s unfolded on the internet...
SR has been, perhaps, the first philosophical movement to take new media seriously, given the claims that certain variants of SR make on behalf of objects, it is important not to treat one set of objects as being more real than others. One of the most attractive features of the SR movement is the manner in which it has been a “grass roots” movement that has circumvented traditional power structures presided over by the academy. That could, of course, mean that it is a movement dominated by a bunch of cranks– certainly few of us are at marquis institutions –but I prefer to think of it more as a contemporary, digital version of the French Salons or the Greek Agora. 11:31 AM]

[Thursday, July 23, 2009 Interview with Levi R. Bryant Many of you will also know Levi from his excellent blog Larval Subjects.
However, it could be said that the more recent shifts in my thought have very much been a product of my experience with blogging. Blogging is genuinely a new form of writing, thinking, and intellectual engagement when done properly. This point and blogging’s difference can be illustrated in terms of evolutionary theory.
One of the primary ways in which speciation takes place is through geographical isolation. Two populations of a single species come to be reproductively isolated for some reason or other and as time passes their phenotypes diverge and the respective populations become homogenous. It is really no different in traditional academia. You talk to people who share the same interests as you, you attend conferences devoted to your particular issue or thinker, you publish in journals devoted to your privileged thinker, and you read texts on your privileged thinker or problem. These are all forms of geographical isolation that lead to “academic speciations”.
This sort of isolation isn’t operative in the world of blogging. While you certainly encounter specialists in your particular area, you also encounter thinkers from entirely different disciplines, practices, and orientations and you have to find a way to engage with them that doesn’t assume the daunting scholarly apparatus of your particular thought-framework. You encounter all sorts of characters like satirists and trolls, but also housewives, people in business, activists, artists, politicians and all the rest... Posted by Paul Ennis. Labels: Interview, levi r. bryant, phenomenology, philosophy, speculative realism]

[Larval Subjects July 28, 2009 Design Ontology Posted by larvalsubjects
My philosophical thought has changed fundamentally since I began blogging, as can be observed from the nature of my style when I wrote primarily on online discussion lists and in the early years of this blog. Part of this has been the evolution of my thought. Another part of this has been the nature of the medium itself. Discussion lists, for example, are organized around “master-thinkers”, so they tend towards scholarly discussion of the intricacies of that thinker or questions about where something might be found in the thinkers body of work.
Writing articles for journals tends to be a largely solitary exercise that involves careful engagement with scholarship and composition. Blogging, by contrast, involves a cacophony of voices, each with their own interests and backgrounds, hyperlinked cross-blog discussions, multiple forms of media, and so on. The medium in all these cases plays a formative role in the formation of content. 1:31 PM 11:42 AM]

It is competence, and not cacophony, that the blogosphere hoists like everywhere else. [TNM]

The Valley of the False Glimmer

[on Ivakhiv’s posts Adrian Ivakhiv has posted reviews of Tool-Being and Prince of Networks.
from Object-Oriented Philosophy by doctorzamalek
Ivakhiv’s point about the river needing the valley to be what it is cuts no ice with me, beautiful though the image may be. The true statement here would be that the “river valley” couldn’t be what it is without the river and the valley. The valley can bring out new flavors in a river just as a friendship, marriage, or job can bring out new flavors in individual people. But that doesn’t mean that people and things only are what they are by virtue of the specific relations in which they are now involved. I’m never even sure why this idea sounds liberating to anyone. Only because something in me is not fully expressed by anything that happens can anything new ever happen to me.]

[(title unknown)
via enowning by enowning on 9/3/09 Simon Critchely explains Meillassoux.
For the English-speaking reader, the force of Meillassoux's polemic against correlationism requires some explanation... But what exactly is the problem with correlationism? Well, it is twofold. First, by denying thought any rational access to primary qualities or things in themselves, correlationism allows that space to be filled by any number of irrational discourses, such as religion. In a powerful critique of the theological turn in French phenomenology, for example in the work of Jean-Luc Marion, Meillassoux shows how the flip side of correlationism is fideism, that is, the rather vague discourse on the numinous that one finds in many followers of Heidegger, but also - it should be added - in Wittgenstein's curious remarks about the mystical towards the end of the Tractatus. Such is what Meillassoux calls "the religionizing of reason".]

[Today I just read something apropos of our discussion. Slavoj Zizek writes in The Parallax View: ‘“anti-philosophy” – it is not surprising that Kierkegaard laid out its most concise formula: “The fact of the matter is that we must acknowledge that in the last resort there is no theory.” In all great “anti-philosophers,” from Kierkegaard and Nietzsche to the late work of Wittgenstein, the most radical authentic core of being human is perceived as a concrete practico-ethical engagement and/or choice which precedes (and grounds) every “theory,” every theoretical account of itself, and is, in this radical sense of the term, contingent (“irrational”) – it was Kant who laid the foundation for “anti-philosophy” when he asserted the primacy of practical over theoretical reason; Fichte simply spelled out its consequences when he wrote, apropos of the ultimate choice between Spinozism and the philosophy of subjective freedom: “What philosophy one chooses depends on what kind of man one is.” Thus Kant and Fichte – unexpectedly – would have agreed with Kierkegaard: in the last resort there is not theory, just a fundamental practice-ethical decision about what kind of life one wants to commit oneself to.’So Zizek's suggesting the arational basis of the origins of our worldview.
Posted by Jeff Meyerhoff at 3:40 PM Thursday, September 03, 2009
Arational Origin of Worldviews]

[The present yuga-dharma naturally has its own hegemony dictating “Standards of Validity of Truth/Reality/Objectivity” But, these are decidedly inadequate. It is not the question of assuring an equality on a given single plane of consciousness, but an issue of comparing the most difficult incomparables, residing on the two different planes of a hierarchy of cosmic structure of say the seven levels of consciousness. There are no verification standards available. In this predicament, we have to turn, may be reluctantly or skeptically, to those Visionaries, who were born in the human race and favoured us with their wisdom of realization. Mahayogi Aurobindo observers in his "Essays on the Gita", - “The unconscious or half conscious wresting of fact and word and idea to suit a preconceived notion or the doctrine or principle of one's preference is recognized by Indian logicians as one of the most fruitful sources of fallacy; and it is perhaps the one which it is most difficult for even the most conscientious thinker to avoid”. Re: Objectivity by Lorraine Datson & Peter Galison (Book Review by Norberto Serpente) sane yeshwant Wed 09 Sep 2009 07:52 PM PDT (Yeshwant Sane) e-mail: saneyr@mtnl.net.in 10-9-2009]

SR/OOO is poised dangerously to foist yet another fallacy in philosophy. A thorough reading of The Life Divine by Sri Aurobindo can redeem the situation. [TNM]

Ontology as self-realization

[What strikes me after reading this post (and the one on the Alethetics of Rhetoric) is that what is revealed in an ontology might be more powerful by far than a moral theory, by providing a vista for self-realization rather than a didactic formula. Asher Kay]

[Latour contends that discussions about value are really discussions about matters of concern where the appearance of new actors, human or nonhuman, generate perplexity. Co(m)-plications
from Larval Subjects . Latour emphasizes the manner in which the appearance of new actors co(m)-plicates and per-plicates relations among entities in an existing network. In the former approach, for example, we get Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action, predelineating or pre-sup-posing norms governing discourse that must be there at the outset for discourse to take place. In the latter approach, by contrast, the moment of “matters of concern” or co(m)-plication is the appearance of a new actor such as massive cultivation of bovine livestock that require the clearing of rain forests and that significantly increase contributions to greenhouse gas emissions.]

[Re: On Universalism: In Debate with Alain Badiou by Etienne Balibar
by Debashish on Sat 22 Aug 2009 09:08 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link
There is much in this profound meditation on universalism that applies at all levels of engagement with that term, whether theoretical, political or spiritual. But I would like to draw attention particularly to the last paragraph, where Balibar is laying out the responsibility that comes with the territory... Integrality is a nuance on universalism which pushes its borders into the Transcendental and Absolute.]

[The word integral means for this paradigm recognizing the value of all of the stages... each emergence is absorbed in the next. It doesn’t just go away. So, the real trick for the integral paradigm is to realize, really and substantially, that the powers and potentials and forms of expression of each of the levels are ever-present. They are always there, and all are valuable. There is a way of looking at the developmental paradigm that is hierarchic. Spiral Dynamics - a philosophical perspective Tue, 02/03/2009 — Rod Hemsell]

[It is the search for a substantive rather than procedural democracy that protects citizens from majoritarian arrogance and ensures justice in a subcontinent where people have multiple identities.
Majoritarianism, whether in secular or saffron garb, continues to be a potential threat to Indian democracy. Regional rights were once thought to be a counterpoise to the anti-democratic tendencies of an over-centralised state. Regional parties run by petty and insecure dictators are proving to be as ruthless as the all-India partiepression of internal dissent. In such a scenario freedom of speech and expression remains the best guarantee of the future of Indian democracy.
Why Jinnah matters SUGATA BOSE Tuesday , Aug 25, 2009
The writer is the Gardiner Professor of History at Harvard University express@expressindia.com]

[Hell hath no fury like a Shourie unplugged Economic Times - ‎25 Aug 2009‎
NEW DELHI: BJP on Monday experienced fresh convulsions when another leader, Mr Arun Shourie, threw a barrage of punches at the leadership's face. ... Throwing a virtual challenge to the party leadership to act against him for his utterances, he said: “So, you want to be Humpty Dumpty and make words mean what you say and act, then I presume you already have in your mind to act against me or anybody, so act.” Treading cautiously after the criticism over the summary expulsion of Jaswant Singh, the BJP today sought a "clarification" from senior leader Arun Shourie]

Sri Aurobindo explained that evolution is not linear but spiral. Hence, a moral theory smoldered in the fire of politics cleanses the most and paves the way for the next level. [TNM]

Savitri Era Party needs 500 honest persons to serve the country

In a large and diverse democracy like India politics is bound to be a complex affair. But transparency and swift communication can make it much simpler for Savitri Era Party. Sincerity of purpose coupled with courage of conviction can easily persuade people for favoring the Party. Allegiance to The Mother & Sri Aurobindo will no doubt give it an edge. Futuristic outlook, further, would make it a darling of the young and the marginalized.

Savitri Era Party needs just 500 honest persons to serve the country. One in each constituency, and then we are not too far off from where one scents power. [TNM]

Can anyone ban a citizen's thinking

[M Alan Kazlev has left a new comment on your post "The Mother & Sri Aurobindo have already accomplish...": Personally I feel that the Heehs biography, despite its shortcomings, does contain much of value. Savitri Era August 16, 2009]

[JD(U) chief says he disapproves ban on Jaswant's book Press Trust of India - ‎ STAFF WRITER 16:29 HRS IST
New Delhi, Aug 24 (PTI) JD(U) President Sharad Yadav told reporters here. When asked to comment on the ban imposed by Gujarat government on Jaswant Singh's book 'Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence', Yadav said, "I don't want to talk about any individual state government. In a democracy, there should not be a ban on any kind of writing, speech and expression. I don't approve of the ban."When pressed further to comment on whether he approves the content of Singh's book, Yadav said, "who am I to make judgements.]

[As he put it in perspective — the contents of the book were merely his views that were formed after reading certain documents of the pre- and post-partition era. Singh's assertions make a lot of practical, and importantly, legal sense. Can anyone ban a citizen's thinking as long as he expresses them in exercise of his right to freedom of expression guaranteed under Article 19 of the Constitution? Jaswant an outcast for BJP, but his book must not be
Times of India - 24 August 2009, Dhananjay Mahapatra‎‎]

Tusar N. Mohapatra, Ghaziabad, says: An Indian reprint of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo by Peter Heehs published originally by Columbia University Press has been prevented by instituting court cases against the author in Orissa, thus compromising right to freedom of expression. [TNM] 24 Aug, 2009 l 0245hrs IST

The Mother & Sri Aurobindo are the anchoring principle of Savitri Era Party

There have been inquiries from several quarters as regards the manifesto of the Savitri Era Party. It is a valid query, yet just a habit. No political party runs by a pre-determined manifesto for ever. It is the people who unite voluntarily under the umbrella of a party identify the programme and policies on an ongoing basis. A manifesto is framed at the time of elections keeping in mind local conditions and concerns.

The Mother & Sri Aurobindo, however, are the first and foremost anchoring principle of the Savitri Era Party. The diverse facets of their hoary legacy needs to be engaged with, interpreted, and interrogated in the arena of lived reality at various scales of collective existence. Compartmentalizing different spheres of social life has cost us dearly and hence Savitri Era Party would seek an integral approach in polity as well as in governance.

Economics is a key issue, but is said to be on autopilot in India that is likely to run through the next decade. So, till that time we may rest on our oars while turning our attention to clear the cobwebs of superstition, obscurantism, and statusquoism pervading the social sector and nurture a psychological propeller in favor of freedom and world union. [TNM]