Levinas on creatureliness and humility

The following is from the thesis of Francesco Marcoccio, SDB, of the ICC province, on Emmanuel Levinas. Fr Joan-Maria Vernet had mentioned something to the effect that Levinas, on being questioned about the Eucharist, had said that the entire Old Testament pointed to the Eucharist. The remark was made as an aside, off-record, during an interview. The incident had been narrated to Fr Vernet by Marcoccio, then working on his doctoral thesis on Levinas while residing at the Salesian house of Testaccio, Rome. This is what Marcoccio wrote back to me in an e-mail of 17 December 2011:

Levinas nel saggio "Un Dieu Homme?" giunge a formulare la tesi che l'Eucaristia è il modello dell'essere ostaggio per l'altro secondo la sua prospettiva. Ti allego una parte della mia tesi che rende ragione del percorso. Purtroppo non ritrovo la citazione esatta, se la troverò te la invio volentieri.

Here follows the extract from his thesis. 

3.2. Creaturalità e umiltà

Dire Dio implica la riformulazione del senso della soggettività creaturale. L'uomo nel recupero della "situazione ontologica della creaturalità" si fa risposta responsabile. Nella prospettiva levinasiana la creazione, la separazione, la possibilità stessa di un'esistenza atea, l'idea di Infinito, rompono con l'autonomia superba e inglobante dell'Io che vuole sapere, comprendere e capire tutto e restituiscono all'uomo la giusta dimensione. Rivelare Dio non è più, per l'uomo, improgionarlo nelle sterili categorie onto-teo-logiche, ma rispondere "umilmente" a una convocazione etica radicata sulla chiamata all'essere. La creaturalità che istituisce la finitezza è insieme la porta d'accesso dell'infinito nel finito e all'infinito del finito; la creatura è il recinto dell'infinito che parla e insieme l'apertura, il luogo appropriato da cui si può accogliere l'infinito[1].

Lévinas afferma che la trascendenza è umiltà: già per Kierkegaard il motivo biblico dell'umiltà di Dio contiene l'idea che la trascendenza del Trascendente risiede nella persecuzione e nell'umiliazione legate alla sconfitta dove si manifesta come sua sollecitazione. L'umiltà, spogliata da ogni connotazione psicologica o morale, è una maniera originale di proximité dans le retrait, una modalità d'una apertura sottratta ad ogni presa di possesso, un modo di un Dio non contaminato dall'essere[2].

Il saggio Un Dieu Homme? offre preziose indicazioni sulla prossimità di Dio come umiltà. Lévinas alla luce dell'idea teologica dell'incarnazione si interroga sul valore filosofico di due problemi: l'umiliazione che si infligge l'Essere supremo, la discesa del Creatore al livello della creatura, l'assunzione nella Passività più passiva della passività e la modalità di produzione da parte di questa passività dell'idea di espiazione per gli altri (UDH, 69).

Queste due caratteristiche del divino mediate dalla tradizione ebraico-cristiana, che sono estranee alla filosofia di Platone, di Aristotele e di Hegel, sono valide dal punto di vista filosofico e rivelano l'ambiguità della trascendenza e il modo originale della presenza di Dio. Umiltà e povertà sono un modo (mé-ontologique) di rimanere nell'essere e non una condizione sociale (UDH, 70-71).

Lévinas, citando Is 57,15, afferma che Dio si umilia per abitare con il povero e l'oppresso; Egli è il Dio dello straniero, dell'orfano e della vedova, la sua traccia[3] si trova nel volto del prossimo, nel faccia a faccia. "Dire Dio" è praticare il diritto verso il povero e il misero, chi fa così può dire di conoscerlo veramente (Ger 22,16). La nozione di un Dio-uomo afferma in questa transustanziazione del Creatore in creatura, l'idea, filosoficamente rilevante, di sostituzione, la quale attacca il principio d'identità ed esprime il segreto della soggettività (UDH, 73-74). L'umiltà, modalità della trascendenza assume nella soggettività la caratteristica dell'ossessione, dell'accusa e della passività al di qua dell'identità. L'io è colui che è eletto per portare tutta la responsabilità del mondo e il messianismo è lo scompiglio dell'essere "perseverante nel suo essere" che comincia in me (UDH, 76).

"Dire Dio" in questo senso diviene esplicitamente "profezia", la dicibilità di Dio non è nient'altro che l'attestazione attraverso l'esperienza etica. E' il tema levinasiano della Kenosi di Dio. L'uomo ha anche la responsabilità di Dio, in forma più azzardata -afferma Baccarini- è la responsabilità di Dio. Alla parola Dio fa riscontro un ascolto esperienziale che facendosi domanda e invocazione porta al linguaggio tutta la ricchezza e l'inesuaribilità del messaggio[4].

---

[1]. Cf. E.BACCARINI, Dire "Tu"..., 166.

[2]. Cf. M. FAESSLER, L'intrigue du Tout-Autre. Dieu dans la pensée d'E. Lévinas, in "Etudes théol. et relig.", 4, 1980, 121; continua il nostro autore: "Par elle Il se signifie Autre-dans-le-Meme, autrement qu'etre, extravagance mé-ontologique bouleversant le présent de la coscience et l'ouvrant à une conjoncture de relation où elle ne pourra plus se derober".

[3]. Per Lévinas il concetto di traccia traduce filosoficamente il motivo biblico dell'umiltà di Dio. E' una sorta di pietra angolare: essa esige che la relazione tra il Creatore e la creatura non sia più pensato nei termini della correlazione alla luce dell'esperienza, ma come irrettitudine nello scompiglio di una significanza che non si sincronizza con il discorso che la comprende (M. FAESSLER, L'intrigue..., 121).

[4]. Cf. E. BACCARINI, Dire "Tu"...,168-169. Interessante anche quanto afferma più avanti: "nel nostro dire possiamo cogliere Dio come seconda persona solo nella dimensione ontologica della nostra creaturalità, cioè Egli è il nostro Tu come condizione di possibilità di dirci "Io". Egli è la condizione del nostro essere soggetti che ci rivolgiamo a Lui nell'invocazione. Si produce un movimento sintomatico dal parlare con gli uomini di Dio al parlare con Dio degli uomini. L'approccio dialogico si caratterizza così come percorso bidirezionale: da un lato il riconoscimento ontologico del Tu e la conseguente impossibilità dell'approccio "diretto" e dall'altro proprio l'irrettitudine di questo approccio rende necessario l'incontro con i tu nel contatto comunicativo, che tuttavia ormai non è più soltanto linguistico, ma operativamente etico" (Ibidem, 173).

Molecular striving

'Molecular striving': irritating phrase of McShane that keeps cropping up regularly, not least in the strange biography I am reviewing: Lambert and McShane, Bernard Lonergan: His Life and Leading Ideas.

'Molecular striving' is rooted in Lonergan's idea of the way each lower level in our beings is sublated by the higher: the chemical, for example, making systematic what was merely coincident on the lower, physical level; and the botanical making systematic what was merely coincident on the chemical level; and so on.

Phil's insistence is one implication of this: that every higher science has to master the lower aggregates it systematizes, down to the lowest level. No theology, therefore, without biology and botany and chemistry and physics.... Perhaps this insistence takes its stand on Lonergan's at a question session in the 1970 Boston Workshop, "Theology as Public Discourse": How much physics should a theologian know? And Lonergan's answer, vigorous and spontaneous: Well, he should be able to ready Lindsay and Margenau. (Lambert and McShane, 192)

The unpacking of that comment would call for a scholarly thesis. Phil is perhaps the only one at present insisting again and again on it, on what Lonergan once called the 'existential gap', the failure to properly appreciate the world of theory. Phil talks about a failure on Lonergan's part to identity a 'theoretical conversion.' Perhaps he is right.

But, but, but: there is a point to the molecular striving. Even my effort to read, to do philosophy or theology, is conditioned in a very real way by what is going on at each lower level. The connectedness between thought and sexuality, for example, has often been noted. Or perhaps I should say: between sexuality and anything, any superstructure. 

Malkovsky on De Smet

"The subtleties of De Smet's interpretation of Samkara are at times nearly as challenging as those of the great acarya himself." B.J. Malkovsky, "Introduction," The Role of Divine Grace in the Soteriology of Samkaracarya (Leiden, etc.: Brill, 2001) xvi.

"It is a tribute to the high regard that De Smet enjoyed in India that in the planning stage of the volume [New Perspectives in Advaita Vedanta] on well-known Hindu philosopher suggested to me that all the essays ought perhaps to deal with the contribution of De Smet himself to Advaita studies." Malkovsky xvi n 5.

Phenomenology of the eye

I've heard of a phenomenology of the smile, but has someone, anyone, worked out a phenomenology of the eye? I was staring at the curtain in my office, and suddenly one of the designs began looking like an eye. I found myself wondering: what is it that is so fascinating about the eye? Why are we so drawn to the eyes? The eyes are points in the human body that are actually some sort of opening. There is a mysterious depth to them: the white cornea, within which the darker iris, and at the centre the aperture, the pupil that actually lets in light on to the retina.... But none of this really accounts for the way the eye pulls, the way it is, in many ways, the centre of a person, and certainly of a person's face... (though sometimes I find myself looking at the mouth). The way the eyes register and express a whole range of emotions. The dull eye of one who is bored, the vacant eye of one who does not understand, or is perhaps, temporarily or more permanently, absent; the bright eyes of one who understands, who catches the point; the scornful eye, the disdainful look; the penetrating eye that sees through you; the compassionate eye, the angry eye, the eye lit up with passion; the interested eye, the bored eye...

And are we talking only about the human eye? What about animal eyes? Is there something analogous there? Perhaps there is....

Panikkar and Heidegger

It seems to me that Panikkar is drawing heavily from Heidegger, especially from his critique of Being as presence, his attack on Substance, and his critique of onto-theology; but Panikkar himself seems to opt for a more 'clearly' 'theistic' - or 'religious' - position than Heidegger himself.

Still reading Panikkar ...

Some days ago I was bored reading Panikkar. Today I find I am irritated. He jumps about, he is not serious. Or is it that he is - too profound? Or perhaps I am not in the mood to jump into the deep waters he is indicating - God and Being, God and Being and Person, and all that. Ground trod by, opened up by, people like Heidegger and Whitehead, to name just two. Heidegger who questioned the whole of the Western tradition's identification of Being and God, God and Being. Whitehead who questioned the primacy of substance, working out, I think, alternative categories, and certainly an alternative metaphysics.

But my impression reading Panikkar is that his objections, his problems w.r.t. evil, for example, are too - flippant, can easily be answered. He has made a straw man, a paper man, and he proceeds happily to demolish it. 

Panikkar and onto-theology

I am surprised. Panikkar is smack into the middle of Heidegger ground: I think he is spinning out, in his own way, Heidegger's proscriptions of onto-theology. He does make reference to Heidegger from time to time.

There is also, interestingly, his first published effort on F.H. Jacobi. Jacobi also, if I understand rightly, made a disjunction between reason and faith: hence his leap of faith. According to De Smet, it was Jacobi's restriction of 'person' to the human being that led to the great translators of Sanskrit texts rendering nirguna as impersonal and saguna as personal.

So a nest of problems here: voluntarism; the disjunction between God, reason, Being; Duns Scotus; Heidegger (with his Scotist influences); Lonergan; Benedict XVI; Islam (with its tendency towards voluntarism); Hauerwas's proscriptions of Duns Scotus and postmodernism. 

Sankara's Taittiriya Upanisad Bhasya

Part 1: Siksavalli
TU 1 (Invocation)
SB: From which is born all this transient world...
Aum! sam no mitrah sam varunah....
1.2.1
1.3.1-4
1.4.1-3
1.5.1-3
1.6.1-2
1.7.1
1.8.1
1.9.1
1.10.1
1.11.1-4
1.12.1

Part 2: Brahmananda Valli
2.1.1-11
Aum saha nav avatu...
2.1.1: satyam jnanam anantam brahma / blue lotus
2.2.1
2.3.1
2.4.1
2.5.1
2.6.1
2.7.1
2.8.1-5
2.9.1

Part 3: Bhrguvalli
3.1.1
3.2.1
3.3.1
3.4.1
3.5.1
3.6.1
3.7.1
3.8.1
3.9.1
3.10.1-6

A possible paper: the authenticity of the Mandukya Up. Bh.

More correctly: a paper using Lonergan's method to reflect on the authenticity of the Mand. Up. Bh. attributed to Sankara. 

Reading Panikkar...

I have begun reading Panikkar, beginning from The Silence of God. I can't help noting that I am bored.... Which was not the case years ago, when I first began reading Panikkar, during my theology days. At that time, it was an experience of excitement and light upon light. What is the difference? The reasons could be many. But one that rises to the surface of my mind is: now I have waded through Lonergan. And I find - or I come away with the impression - that Panikkar is brilliant, but often just that: brilliant. For one who has passed through Lonergan, too many questions arise upon reading Panikkar. And he is (too) clever by far...

Might this irritate some lover of Panikkar? Maybe. But: this is my experience. And: I have come to no firm conclusion so far. So: no offence indicated. Just process.

But I do not (as of now) exclude the possibility of coming to some conclusion.

I am particularly intrigued by Panikkar's constant calling into question, in this book, the equation between Being and Thinking. Have to penetrate this. An old old conundrum. 

Som Raj Gupta's bhasya on the Sankara-bhasyas

The Word Speaks to the Faustian Man - a series of volumes 'by' Som Raj Gupta, published by Motilal Banarsidass. Going by the title, no one would imagine that this is a major contemporary translation of most of Sankara's works. In fact, a bhasya on the bhasyas: Gupta provides the original texts (Upanisads, Gita or Brahma-sutras as the case may be), Sankara's commentaries, and then his own commentary. I came to know about this work only because of a brief notice by De Smet of vol. 1. Reading closely, I realized that there were several volumes to follow. Luckily MLBD had copies, so now Divyadaan library has vols. 1-5, with vol. 5 in two parts. Unfortunately one has to dig beyond the title page to find out just what the particular volume is dealing with. So this might be helpful:

1: Isa, Kena, Katha and Prasna Upanisads.
2: Mundaka and Mandukya Upanisads.
3: Taittiriya and Aitereya Upanisads.
4: Chandogya Upanisad
5-1: Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, chs. 1 and 2.
5-2: Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, chs. 3-6

Projected:
6: Bhagavadgita
7 (parts 1, 2, 3): Brahmasutras.

Of the above, De Smet would reject the authenticity only of the Mandukya Up. Bh. But it is certainly useful to have the text so readily available.

Is Gupta going to do also the Upadesasahasri? 

Anvaya-vyatireka in Sankara

• Halbfass, Wilhelm. "Human Reason and Vedic Revelation in Advaita Vedanta." Tradition and Reflection: Explorations in Indian Thought. [Albany: SUNY, 1991.] Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1992 162-182. In the Preface the author notes that this article, which is ch. 5 in the book, is an enlarged and thoroughly revised version of the third of the four Studies in Kumarila and Sankara. [vii-viii.]
• Mayeda, Sengaku. “An Introduction to the Life and Thought of Śaṅkara.” Śaṅkara’s Upadeśasāhasrī. Vol. 2: Introduction and English Translation. Tr. and ed. Sengaku Mayeda. Tokyo: The Hokuseido Press, 1973. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2006. 1-97, at 46-68. Cites De Smet 66n14, 66n17, 67n28, 

The Mandukya Upanisad and the Gaudapada-Karika

[Much of the matter here is from Mayeda 1967-68.] 

GK: Gaudapadiyakarika.

GKBh: Sankara's Gaudapadiyabhasya.

MU: Mandukyopanisad.

MUBh: Sankara's Mandukyopanisadbhasya.

MU consists of only 12 prose sentences. [Mayeda 1967-68 73.]

In MS as well as printed editions, the MU is interspersed among the 29 stanzas of the first prakarana of the GK, which comprises 4 prakaranas explaining the MU. [Mayeda 1967-68 73.]

GK is also called Agamasastra, or Mandukyakarika. [Mayeda 1967-68 73-74.]

GKBh is also called Agamasastra-vivarana, Gaudapadiya-gamasastra-bhasya, and Gaudapadiya-gamasastra-vivarana. [Mayeda 1967-68 74n2.]

GKBh: oldest extant work before Sankara (AD 700-750), and stands in the line of Advaita philosophy. [Mayeda 1967-68 74.]

Tradition: that Sankara, commenting on both texts (MU and GK) wrote both the MUBh and GKBh. [Mayeda 1967-68 74.]

It is generally taken for granted that the GKBh and the MUBh are commented by a single hand. Mayeda finds no evidence for questioning this. [Mayeda 1967-68 75n1.]

• Bhattacharya, V. "Mandukya Upanisad and the Gaudapada Karika." Indian Historical Quarterly 1 (1925) 119-125, 295-302. [For latter pagination, see http://faculty.washington.edu/kpotter/xtxt2.htm as of 5 Apr 2011.]
• Bhattacharya, V. The Agamasastra of Gaudapada. Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1952. 46-52. Questions authenticity of MUBh and GKBh (xxxiii n3).
• Karmarkar, R.D. Gaudapada-Karika. Poona: Government Oriental Series, Class B, No. 9, 1953) xxxi-xxxiii.
• Nakamura, H. Vedanta Tetsugaku no Hatten (= The Development of the Vedanta Philosophy) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1955) 557-565. 527-534: Questions authenticity of MUBh and GKBh.
• Jacobi, H. "On Mayavada." Journal of the American Oriental Society 33 (1913) 51-54. [For pagination, see http://faculty.washington.edu/kpotter/xtxt2.htm as of 5 Apr 2011.] 52, n. 2: suspicion of the identity of the commentator of the GK with the author of the BSBh. [Mayeda 1967-68 74.]
• Chintamani, T.R. "Sankara - The Commentator on the Mandukya Karikas." Proceedings of the Third Oriental Conference (Madras, 1924) 419-21: objects to Jacobi. [Mayeda 1967-68 74n3.] [Till Mayeda,] Chintamani was the only scholar so far to defend the tradition [of Sankara authorship of the MUBh and GKBh], but he could not show any strong positive evidence. [Mayeda 1967-68 74n4.]
• Bhattacharya, V. "Sankara's Commentaries on the Upanisads." Sir Asutosh Mookerjee Silver Jubilee Volume, vol. 3, pt. 2 (Calcutta, 1925) 103-10: Questions the authenticity of the MUBh and the GKBh. [Mayeda 1967-68 74n4.] 104: From the fact that Sankara nowhere quotes the MU, even where it could have served his purpose, e.g. in commenting on the Chand. Up. 2, 23, 3, Bhattacharya infers that the MU itself was not written before or even in the time of Sankara. This theory is rejected by Nakamura, see Vedanta Tetsugaku... 536-539. [Mayeda 1967-68 81n2.]
• Bhattacharya, V. "The Gaudapada-Karika on the Mandukya Upanisad." Proceedings of the Second Oriental Conference (1922) 439-462. [for pagination, see http://faculty.washington.edu/kpotter/xtxt2.htm as of 5 apr 2011] 441n1, 442, 444n4, 454n1: questions authenticity of MUBh and GKBh. [Mayeda 1967-68 74n4.]
• Belvalkar, S.K. Shree Gopal Basu Mallik Lectures on Vedanta Philosophy, pt. 1 (Poona, 1929) 218: Questions authenticity of MUBh and GKBh.
• Devaraja, N.K. An Introduction to Sankara's Theory of Knowledge (Varanasi, 1962) 38-42. Questions authenticity of MUBh and GKBh. 
• Venkatasubbiah, A. "The Mandukyopanisad and Gaudapada," Indian Antiquary 62 (1933) pt. DCCLXXII, 185-186: Sankara does not quote the MK at all nor even refer to it in the BSBh nd other works. [Mayeda 1967-68 81.]
• Nikhilanananda. The Mandukyopanisad with Gaudapada's Karika and Sankara's Commentary. (Mysore: Sri Ramakrishna Asrama, 1955) 217-219 and 219n1. [Mayeda 1967-68 84n3.]
• Mayeda, Sengaku. "On the Author of the Mandukyopanisad and the Gaudapadiya-Bhasya." The Adyar Library Bulletin 31-32 (1967-68) 73-94. 94: concludes that the GKBh including the MUBh is one of Sankara's genuine works. 
• Vetter, T. "Die Gaudapadiya-Karikas: Zur Entstehung und zur Bedeutung von (a)dvaita." Wiener Zeitschrift fur die Kunde Sudasiens 22 (1978) 95-131. [Halbfass 1991/1992 186n41.] 
• Vetter, T. Studien zur Lehre und Entwicklung Sankaras. Vienna, 1979. [Halbfass 1991/1992 139.] Like Hacker, he sees the MUBh and GKBh as the earliest document of Sankara's transition [from Yoga] to Advaita Vedanta (Halbfass 1991/1992 139).
• Vetter, T. "Erfahrung des Unerfahrbren bei Sankara." Transcendenzerfahrung, Vollzughorizont des Heils. Ed. G. Oberhammer. Vienna, 1978. 45-59. [Halbfass 1991/1992 139, 186n40.]

De Smet on person

Michael Comans criticizes De Smet's suggestion that the para Brahman is equivalent to the personal God of Christianity. See The Early Method of Advaita Vedanta (Delhi: MLBD 2000) 225-231. Note that his maximum court of appeal w.r.t. an interpretation of Aquinas seems to be Copleston. Should be interesting to study this better. De Smet comes to Sankara trained by people like Scheuer (who De Smet himself calls "a prince among metaphysicians and a mystic", see "Surrounded by Excellence"), Marechal (in his mind the greatest of contemporary Thomists, again De Smet, see Understanding Sankara 132 tentative), and having taught a course in Metaphysics as well as Natural Theology for many years.
The bibliography lists: the dissertation, the article on Suresvara (1961), the Religious Hinduism article (1968, 1997), "Sankara and Aquinas on Creation" (1970), and the 1974 article "Towards an Indian View of the Person."

In general, see also:

• Paul Hacker, [Essay on the Person in Indian Thought] Kleine Schriften, herausgegeben von Lambert Schmithausen. Glasenapp-Stiftung: Band 15 (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1978) 270-292. [De Smet is aware of this: see his review of Hacker.]
• Paul Hacker, "The Idea of the Person in the Thinking of the Vedanta Philosophers." Philology and Confrontation: Paul Hacker on Traditional and Modern Vedanta. Ed. Wilhelm Halbfass. Albany: SUNY, 1995. 153-176. [Very likely a translation of the previous item.]

Important observations by De Smet in his review of Doctrine de la non-dualite,  see Understanding Sankara 443 (tentative). The author has not assimilated Krempel's masterly study of relation especially in Aquinas. Like many contemporary Christian writers, he includes 'relation' within the very definition of person without wondering why Aquinas did not do that. He explains: specific definitions of the term, when applied e.g. to the Trinity, have to include it for special reasons. but relation is not a definiens of person in general, which only connotes 'capacity for interpersonal relationships.' (ibid.)   

Halbfass and Hacker

• Halbfass, Wilhelm. Studies in Kumarila and Sankara. Reinbeck: Verlag fur Orientalistische Fachpublikationen, 1983.
• Halbfass, Wilhelm. Tradition and Reflection; Explorations in Indian Thought. New York: SUNY, 1991. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1992. [DD: 170 HAL.W 36126]
• Halbfass, Wilhelm. "Introduction: An Uncommon Orientalist: Paul Hacker's Passage to India." Philology and Confrontation: Paul Hacker on Traditional and Modern Vedanta. Ed. Paul Halbfass. Albany: SUNY, 1995. See http://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/53259.pdf as of 1 April 2011.
• Franco, Eli and Karen Preizendanz, ed. Beyond Orientalism: The Work of Wilhelm Halbfass and Its Impact on Indian and Cross-Cultural Studies. Amsterdam / Atlanta: Rodopi, 1997. 
• Halbfass, Wilhelm, ed. Philology and Confrontation: Paul Hacker on Traditional and Modern Vedanta. Albany: SUNY, 1995. 

Sankara as srutivadin

• Rambachan, Anantanand. "Sankara's rationale for sruti as the definite source of brahma-jnana:  refutation of some contemporary views." Philosophy East and West 36 (1986) 25-40. [See Clooney, Theology After Vedanta (1993) 254.]
• Halbfass, Wilhelm. Studies in Kumarila and Sankara. In his review, De Smet is happy to note that the second study here confirms his own thesis about Sankara as srutivadin. [Understanding Sankara 434 tentative.]
• Halbfass, Wilhelm. "Human Reason and Vedic Revelation in Advaita Vedanta." Tradition and Reflection: Explorations in Indian Thought. [Albany: SUNY, 1991.] Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1992 162-182. In the Preface the author notes that this article, which is ch. 5 in the book, is an enlarged and thoroughly revised version of the third of the four Studies in Kumarila and Sankara. [vii-viii.] There is no mention of De Smet in the notes or Index. In 204n208 Halbfass gives a list of studies that he found after completing the original version of this chapter (1982) dealing with reason and revelation in Sankara, but says they do not modify his thesis. 

Nature-grace and natural-supernatural

Sean Doyle, in Synthesizing the Vedanta: The Theology of Pierre Johanns, S.J. (2006) speaks interchangeably of the nature-grace distinction and the natural-supernatural distinction.

This needs to be explored, but I think the two are not coincident. Grace may be operative in both natural and supernatural religions, for example. The natural-supernatural distinction is based on proportion: truths that are proportionate to human nature are called natural truths; truths that are beyond the proportion of human nature are called supernatural truths. This distinction was drawn by Thomas. And Thomas admitted clearly the possibility of God revealing not only supernatural but also natural truths.

Vatican II clearly admits the possibility of grace operative in non-Christian religions and even among atheists. But that hardly does away with the natural-supernatural distinction.

Still, a certain amount of confusion followed after Vatican II. Having accepted the operation of grace beyond the boundaries of the Church, theologians did away also with the natural-supernatural distinction. I am not sure that this follows. And I am not sure whether maintaining such a distinction is politically incorrect. 

The self and the good

In the opening chapter of Sources of the Self, Charles Taylor notes that it is not possible to get clear about the 'modern identity' - about the human agent, person, or self - "without some further understanding of how our pictures of the good have evolved. Selfhood and the good, or in another way selfhood and morality, turn out to be inextricably intertwined themes." (Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996] 3)

But there is another obstacle to this task:

Much contemporary moral philosophy, particularly but not only in the English-speaking world, has given such a narrow focus to morality that some of the crucial connections I want to draw here are incomprehensible in its terms. This moral philosophy has tended to focus on what it is right to do rather than on what it is good to be, on defining the content of obligation rather than the nature of the good life; and it has no conceptual place left for a notion of the good as the object of our love and allegiance.... (3)

As I begin to teach Moral Theology to the FMA novices here in Nashik, relying on notes that I had made 20 years ago, I realize how very true this is: the whole approach of my notes - derived from theology classes at Kristu Jyoti College? - is a focus on the moral act rather than on the nature of the good life.... And that was the focus also of Azzopardi's Ethics in JDV...

So is Taylor making common cause with MacIntyre, at least on this point?

And what might be the position of Giuseppe Abba, a much neglected figure in contemporary virtue ethics, not even finding mention in the current article on the topic in the Wikipedia?

Hauerwas and MacIntyre

Stanley Hauerwas seems to have learnt from MacIntyre on virtue ethics: see "Virtue Ethics," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_ethics as of 1 March 2011.

A good author for an MPh dissertation - he happens to be a theologian, though. 

Thomas' virtue ethics

Thomas' virtue ethics: just a glimpse from Ashley's notes, but quite wonderful.

Morality begins in love, works through desire, and is completed in joy.

Interestingly, Thomas gives a central place to the passions and affections in his account of the moral life. Passions empower moral growth and transformation. Becoming good is a matter of learning to love the right things in the right way.

Thomas' ethic is an ethic not of duty, or of law, but of virtue. His primary concern is not just good decisions, but good persons. Virtues are moral skills that make both actions and persons good. They are transforming activities [are virtues activities? are they not rather habits?] that sculpt us into people capable of finding bliss in God.

But Thomas also holds that virtues make us good, but not good enough. What make us 'good enough' are the gifts of the Spirit. The moral life begins with a gift and ends with a gift: it begins with the gift of God's love poured into our hearts, and ends with God's love completing our virtue with a goodness that we could never achieve by ourselves, but only receive.

I found interesting Thomas' distinction between affective (concupiscible) emotions and spirited (irascible) emotions. The affective emotions are love, desire, joy. These are  basic. The spirited emotions are hatred, aversion, sadness. They enable us to be resolute in our pursuit of the good when we face difficulty or are getting discouraged.

If the vibrant language is Ashley's, I think we have a very good article here...

Charles Taylor

Among Taylor's influences: Hegel, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty. ["Charles Taylor (philosopher), Wikipedia, 26 Feb 2011.]

Taylor is part of the neo-Aristotelian revival, arising out of the perceived failure of ethical thought in the post-Enlightenment world. [He is therefore far from being 'modernist.'] His specific approach to neo-Aristotelianism is marked by a firm and constant rejection of what he calls 'naturalism' - 'that the nature of which he is a part is to be understood according to the canons which emerged in the seventeenth-century revolution in natural science' (Philosophy and the Human Sciences). [Dene Baker, "Philosopher of the Month: May 2003: Charles Taylor" at http://www.philosophers.co.uk/cafe/phil_may2003.htm, on 26 Feb 2011.]


In taking on naturalism, Taylor challenges 'the modern malaise' - an excessive centering on the self that flattens and narrows our lives, making them poorer in meaning and less concerned with others and with society (The Ethics of Authenticity). [His earliest writings seem to be leftist; his political affiliation was to a left-leaning, social democratic party.] [Baker]


He is associated - together with people like Alaisdair MacIntyre, Michael Walzer, Michael Sandel, and Gad Barzilai - with a communitarian critique of liberal theory's understanding of the self. Communitarians emphasize the importance of social institutions in the development of individual meaning and identity. [Wikipedia.] In his 1991 Massey lecture, "The Malaise of Modernity," he argued that political theorists from Locke and Hobbes to Rawls and Dworkin have neglected the way in which individuals arises within contexts supplied by society. 


The self is essentially defined by the framework of goods that define the good life in the Aristotelian sense. These moral frameworks are presided over by hypergoods - 'goods which not only are incomparably more important than others but provide the standpoint from which these must be weighed, judged, decided about'. (Sources of the Self) [Baker]


Taylor is described as a 'post-analytic' philosopher - someone who retains the clarity of the analytic tradition but goes beyond the analytic-continental divide. His efforts at 'philosophical archaeology' in Sources of the Self is a good witness to his desire to go beyond the ahistorical tendency of the analytic tradition (he studied in Oxford under Isaiah Berlin and G.E.M. Anscombe). [Baker]


While rejecting the tendency of certain forms of political liberalism to promote homogeneity, he upholds multiculturalism, but also argues that not all cultures are - or perhaps not everything in a culture is - intrinsically valuable, and that we must work towards a fusion of horizons. [Baker]

Sean Doyle's Synthesizing the Vedanta: The Theology of Pierre Johanns, S.J.

Yesterday I received for review from Peter Lang, Sean Doyle's Synthesizing the Vedanta: The Theology of Pierre Johanns, S.J. (2006).

This is a truly welcome book, because up to now Johanns has not received the attention he deserves - even though there have been a few small attempts here and there, as for example the two articles and one book by Mattam.

Johanns was one of the leading lights of the so-called 'Calcutta School' of Catholic, mostly Jesuit, Indologists. The School took its inspiration from Brahmabandhab Upadhyay. William Wallace, SJ, convert from Anglicanism, was impressed by Upadhyay's attempt to Indianize Christianity, and urged his Belgian Jesuit province to set aside gifted men for the study of the Hindu texts. Among the results of this vision were stalwarts like Johanns and Georges Dandoy, co-founders of the innovative monthly The Light of the East.

Johanns' articles on the Vedanta, originally published in The Light of the East, were published in book form by UTC, Bangalore, edited by Theo de Greef, under the inspiration and advice of the later Richard De Smet.

Doyle, who is himself a Protestant and has lived in the US and the UK, helpfully fills in Johanns' background, enabling the contemporary reader to understand just why Johanns was such a great pioneer in the field of the dialogue between Hinduism and Christianity. The one false note is when Doyle keeps calling Johanns a neo-Thomist - unaware that this term is reserved for the likes of Maritain and Gilson. Johanns is better classed as a Transcendental Thomist, or perhaps a Marechalian Thomist. He was certainly influenced by Pierre Scheuer, who De Smet has called a prince among metaphysicians.

In his opinion, Johanns' work has still to be surpassed, in the sense that no Christian has yet given as much attention to the three major strands of Vedanta - Sankara's advaita, Ramanuja's visistadvaita, and Vallabha's suddhadvaita - as Johanns has done. (Strangely, Johanns does not seem to have given as much attention to Madhva's dvaita, which people often assume to be the closest to Christianity.) In fact, according to J. Patmury whom Doyle quotes, Johanns work on Vallabha has still to be surpassed among Christian scholars.

We have to be grateful to Doyle for his path-breaking work on Johanns, marked by competence, thoroughness, openness and fairness. I think we should look forward now to similar work on the other members of the Calcutta School - beginning with Dandoy and De Smet. De Smet has produced a significant body of work on Sankara. Last year, 2010, Motilal Banarsidass brought out a collection of his essays on the personhood of Brahman (Brahman and Person: Essays by Richard De Smet, ed. Ivo Coelho). Currently I am working on a similar collection of his essays on Sankara. Since 2009, Divyadaan: Journal of Philosophy and Education has been serializing De Smet's cyclostyled notes for students, Guidelines in Indian Philosophy; hopefully these too will be made available in book form. Negotiations are on with George McLean, who holds the rights, for the publication of De Smet's doctoral thesis, The Theological Method of Samkara.

The happening of a work of art

"It is precisely in great art - and only such art is under consideration here - that the artist remains inconsequential as compared with the work, almost like a passageway that destroys itself in the creative process for the work to emerge." (Heidegger, "The Origin of the Work of Art," Cooper 237)

See Bhagavan Shree Rajneesh / Osho in The Messiah commenting on something similar: some works simply emerge from the artist - like Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet (and, I would add, Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things which, she says, just rolled off her typewriter with hardly any corrections). Osho also says that usually this happens once - perhaps the first time. The subsequent works betray effort, and never measure up to the first. This happened in the case of Gibran as well as Roy.

Note also that Heidegger - like Hegel - refuses to have anything to do with aesthetics as concerned with beauty. 

De Smet, one of India's great advaitins

George McLean, in an email to me of 7 April 2010 (spellings corrected): 

“What excited me about Fr. De Smet's original work was that it enabled the richness of Shankara and the Hindu tradition of the interior path to the divine to be re-related to the material world from which it has been separated.

Father De Smet pioneered this re-relation by opening the connection which the advaitin scholarship had severed in the interpretation of Shankara.

I see this as the key to the present need not to abandon the sacred but to show it to be the real foundation of the sense of the material life, and hence for us of the scientific world in which we now live.

I saw with my own eyes the excitement this caused at a meeting at the University of Madras when two key people jumped up at the end of his talk, which summarized the first part of his dissertation, to say that this was the way Hindu philosophy needed to be done and that he was one of the greatest advaitins in India, indeed in the whole world.” 

Girard: metaphysics or phenomenology?

A question about Girard: is he doing metaphysics or phenomenology? If he is doing metaphysics (people talks about Girard's 'anthropology', for example), is he placing violence and its roots in mimetic desire in the very nature of being human? And what might that mean?

When we do metaphysics, are we discussing 'pure human nature' or 'human beings as they actually are'? The latter would mean that the data would include grace and redemption, if these obtain.

Might it not Lonergan's method of approximation be useful here? First approximation: the pure line of progress ('human nature'); second approximation: distortion by sin, mimetic desire, violence; third approximation: human beings as they actually are - including the factor of redemption.

Even so: would Girard place mimetic desire in the first approximation or in the second? But perhaps this is a question that might not arise on his approach.

De Smet on Sankara's acosmism

My impression is that, while De Smet in 1953 defended the thesis that Sankara was a srutivadin, and while he discovered in him a theory of analogy (laksana) that corresponded closely to the intrinsic analogy of Aquinas, he had not as yet come clearly to the affirmation that Sankara was not an acosmist. This needs to be confirmed by a reading of the text of his dissertation.

By 1964/68 (his article for Religious Hinduism) - and perhaps already in 1958 (the first edition of this article) - he is certainly maintaining that Sankara is not an acosmist. The notes (Guidelines in Indian Philosophy), which bear a 1968 date on the front page, also bear this out quite abundantly.

It might be another interesting study to find out the position of the Calcutta School of Catholic Indologists on the matter. What did Johanns and Dandoy think? Pessein? Etc.

Lonergan economics bibliography

Paul Hoyt-O'Connor, Bernard Lonergan's Macroeconomic Dynamics. Edwin Mellen Press, 2004.