Dallmayr on Ramanujan
This is an old article (1994), but I think it makes some useful points about the kind of comparative studies that I’m interested in, particularly Indian-Western philosophies. In "Western Thought and Indian Thought," Fred Dallmayr writes about A.K. Ramanujan’s analysis of these thought-systems. Basically, the point is this: some of the generalizations made about Western and Indian philosophy can be challenged. That’s an oversimplification, so here are the specifics:
1. Pretty much everyone agrees that cultures are complex, and in doing comparative work, we need to avoid the spectre of "essentialism" and a-historical descriptions.
2. For Indian philosophy in particular, there are two competing essentialist descriptions–one that claims Vedic teachings are entirely dissimilar from Western philosophy (being intuitive and mystical), another that claims Indian philosophy is "Philosophy" just as Western philosophy is (because there is some kind of a-historical thing that is Philosophy).
3. There is a reverse "Orientalist" tendency of the first claim above, in number 2, not seeing that Western thought is indebted to mystical and non-materialist strands.
Ramanujan’s Structure
Finding a way to compare the two philosophies, given that they are complex, not entirely internally coherent, and historically grounded, is difficult. A.K. Ramanujan uses the idea of "context-free" and "context-sensitive", borrowed from grammatical rules. Some grammatical rules are universal (context-free), others are guided by context (context-sensitive). This, he claims, is a way to look at Indian philosophy: it is context-sensitive. For support, he cites Manu’s laws (based on caste and socioeconomic location), the epic tales which contextualize individual narratives into a larger one, and more. Western context-free thought aims to understand humans without regard to their socioeconomic place, gender, etc., and scientific inquiry is investigating universal laws, says Ramanujan.
Dallmayr understands context-free and context-sensitive in continental terms: rational discourse and lifeworld, respectively. He thinks there is something to be said for the argument, but has two major qualms: first, Ramanujan is unfair to Western context-free thought, emphasizing the negative repercussions and ignoring the connection between political freedom and context-freedom (Manu’s laws, for example, were undone by the modernist Indian Constitution–which may have been a blow to ‘tradition’ but was probably welcomed by the marginalized).
More importantly (for me, at least), Dallmayr questions some of Ramanujan’s conclusions about Indian philosophy. Ramanujan argues that "where context-sensitivity rules and binds, the dream is to be free of context", and thus that the ideas of moksha present an escape. Dallmayr sees a self-contradiction here: how does Ramanujan avoid Indian philosophy then being Western (context-free)? But further, he thinks that moksha in Indian thought is non context-freedom, but recontextualization.
For example:
"At least in the formulation of Nagarjuna and the Madhyamika school, sunya is basically just a manner of approaching brahman through via negativa, by saying "not this, not that (neti neti). In this sense, sunya is not simply nothing or an empty void, but a way of talking about ontological being or reality…a background which can never be fully conceptualized or rendered present to mind." Similarly, the concept of dependent origination.
So, while Western thought can be seen as decontextualization, as against Indian recontextualization, Dallmayr also argues that there are competing ideas within the West, as evidenced by phenomenologists, Derrida, Wittgenstein, and others. Ultimately, Dallmayr sees a larger recontextualization beginning in the interchange between East and West–one which will challenge both "sides" of the dialog.
So What?
That’s all very nice, I suppose, and interesting academically, but what is the take home? At least for what I’m looking at now, I am hoping to take Dallmayr’s cautions and his starting thoughts about Indian recontextualization (and the larger East-West recontextualization) as I look at Engaged Buddhism. There is no question, for most scholars, that this phenomenon is emerging from East-West encounters. The question is whether it is a Buddhist movement, or a Western one. I’m looking for a test case, looking at the ethical aims of Engaged Buddhism in terms of the (a) Buddhist understanding of the self. How does the ethic arise from metaphysical and epistemological assumptions? How is the ethic appropriated by Western authors? (I’ll be using Sharon Welch here.) Are these social/ethical aims entirely inconsistent with classical "Western" liberalism? (I’ll be touching upon Nussbaum, I hope.)
Image: The Primordial Buddha, photo by me, taken at the Chicago Art Institute, 2007.
Dallmayr article from Philosophy East & West, Vol. 44, No 3, July 1994, pages 527-542.