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I would like to begin by thanking Professor Barlingay and Professor Karad as well as all those whose vision, inititaive and hard work have made
it possible for this huge conference to take place.
The question of the meeting of thought-traditions has great contemporary relevance and deserves special attention in the context of this conference.
Today when world-philosophers meet, it is indeed desirable that this question is on their agenda. I would like to take this opportunity to express some of my concerns about this important theme and how it is
actually being dealt with in the university educational offerings where philosophy is treated as an academic discipline. While restricting my comments only to the meeting of Indian and Western thought-traditions, I
will employ the word 'philosopher' not in any exalted sense of the term but more along the line like when we say that "to a large extent today philosophers are university professors" - as is the case for
many of us present here.
Situating the enquiry in a larger setting, it may be observed that if the present set of circumstances brought about by the technological civilization
has helped the catchy phrase of 'global village' to appear in all sorts of discourse, it has also made us aware of the cultural distances that divide us. This is, therefore, an opportune moment to ask what role
philosophers play in this plural world and in what way are they actually contributing to the bridge-building task?
A closer look at the contemporary practice of teaching and 'doing' philosophy, as it is said, discloses that only a small number of philosophers - and
this I am afraid holds true especially of the West - have taken the pains to look elsewhere for conceptual resources outside of their cultural horizon which is useful for appreciating other alternative modes of
thinking as well as for a further enrichment of their own. This also accounts for the indifference toward Eastern projects of thinking in the departments of philosophy in the West. Generally, departments of
religious studies, language studies or area studies try to some extent to take over certain aspects of such concerns. On several occasions, at meetings that took place in the Western cultural soil, I have observed
that to continue with this old practice is to perpetuate the image of a 'mythical, mysterious, non-rational East.'
The lack of familiarity with the Indian thought-traditions has mislead many and this can be seen clearly in the conceptual constructions about the
'otherness' of the Indian thought-traditions in the West. Major Western philosophers , such as Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger have contributed to this negative image by denying that there is any such project of
thinking in the East like that of the Greek 'philosophia'.
As you may know, Hegel said that the Indians did not "raise their intuitions to the level of concepts". Husserl thought that among the
Indians and the Chinese were not to be found those who through "interpersonally-bound communal work, strive for and bring about theoria and nothing but theoria." Heidegger exclaimed that the phrase
"Western- European philosophy" was nothing but a "tautology", since philosophy was in essence Greek.
However, despite such doubts and scorns, the long story of the Indian intellectual adventure became available in course of time bearing such headings
as 'History of Indian Philosophy', written both by Western and Indian scholars in Western languages and a relatively new field called 'comparative philosophy' became visible. As time went on, scholars from both
sides carried on the daring adventure, some of which focused on themes that lie at the precarious boundaries of intellectual traditions and questioned their relevance both for theory and practice.
It is perhaps time to ask what does the cumulative experience of comparative philosophy portray - which story of enthusiasm and dismay that seem to be
the lot especially of any relatively new field that seeks to create an intellectual space for dealing with certain issues and concerns hitherto ignored. It can be seen that there are many who not only have
misgivings about it but who also question the raison d'etre of such a project. One wonders what could be said to be the objective of such an endeavour: Is it to compare and construct? In that case does it amount to,
as some have remarked, first decontextualize only in order to recontextualize? Or, is comparing essentially a task of finding affinities and differences, based more often than not, on a hasty discernment of parallel
thinking or a lack of it?
There are serious questions about the adequacies of representations of thought-traditions in the context of the comparative enterprise. Here the
philosophers' struggle is such that he or she cannot simply continue to build on the foundations that the predecessors thought to have been firmly established. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to encounter readings
where the huge complexes of cultures such as the East and the West are described as being so utterly dissimilar that it begins to echo the well-known tune that the "twain shall never meet". Sometimes, the
literature recapitulates monotonous readings of similarities and differences that are banal.
It seems to me that the focus of the endeavour needs to be on how to generate a creative discourse, by doing away with stereotypes about cultures in
general and philosophical traditions in particular. A scholar who is deeply committed to more than one tradition. of thinking, who knows about the gropings, the conflicts, the divergent directions and the multiple
levels of thinking that are at work in each of these, has to learn to exercise caution in order to avoid the existing cliches. To give an example from my own research, while attempting to situate the various Indian
views of time in an intercultural context, I had to grapple with the cliche that the Indian conception of time is 'cyclic' as opposed to the Judaeo-Christian understanding of 'linear' time. A misuse of these
metaphorical designations of cultural experiences of time has been a serious obstacle for encounter of world-religions, especially since these have gotten associated with the ideas of history, progress and
salvation. This is one instance of many actual and possible comparative projects that may enable us to identify a long-cherished cliche and then dismantle it, thereby removing a barrier of cross-cultural and
inter-religious communication.
However, given the present cumulative experience with regard to this endeavour, I would like to add here that the idea of comparison 'calls for a
construal which is more intricate than a simple search for generalities conceived in terms of resemblances and differences in order to make the cross-cultural encounter of thought- traditions to be a meaningful,
enriching endeavour.‘ However varied this construal may turn out to be, it needs to be focused on 'the idea of comparison as an interpretive technique' that allows a scholar to decipher and deepen his or her reading
of two or more sets of ideas that would be seen as an advancement of self-understanding as well as that of understanding the other.
The question may be raised: Can a philosopher of another cultural tradition help one to understand aspects of one's own tradition in any genuine sense?
If we can answer the question in the affirmative, I believe that this would indicate that the idea of comparison needs to be conceived in a broad sense so that it can encompass, among others, the sense of a
constructive and productive technique that help us obtain access to more than a single tradition. From which tradition a scholar would derive such a technique, however, is not something that can be rigidly
prescribed.
Let me refer to an example from my own work in this connection. Like some others, I think that a phenomenological reading of Advaita Vedanta can yield interesting results. Being involved with various theories of I-consciousness, I find that if constitutive phenomenology can be said to be aiming at a systematic exploration of consciousness, giving rise to a fullfledged phenomenological egology, a similar sort of a concern may be said to be an integral part of Advaita Vedanta. A genuine philosophical appreciation of Advaitic mode of exploring consciousness entails a radical modification, so to speak, of the metaphysics of the naive standpoint. It does not side with the Indian realism of Nyaya or Mimamsa in maintaining that objects are entirely independent of consciousness and that consciousness, being formless (Nirakara), only reveals what is given to it; nor does it side with the stand of Indian idealism such as that of the Yogacara Buddhism where consciousness is seen as projecting its own forms, the so-called object being reducible to the latter.
What I have found valuable is the self-awareness of the transcendental constitutive philosophy as a philosophy of consciousness that can neither be
described as a genre of 'descriptive psychology' nor a 'metaphysics of consciousness'. It sharpens my appreciation of the fine distinction that is there between the philosophy of consciousness that developed in the
frame of Advaita Vedanta and that of other traditional systems of Indian philosophy.
In other words, an approach or a method from a non-Indian tradition may be found useful for a fresh reading of Indian thought, and adopting such a
strategy for a reinterpretation might also confirm that while a genuine involvement with the sources of Indian thought - its concerns, its analytical tools - are essential for creative advancement of that tradition,
it is not necessary to close off the the possibilities of interpretation beyond the traditions already achieved selfunderstanding. A similar change of attitude from the quarters of Western philosophers may very well
turn out to be more rewarding than it has been hitherto recognized.
If this involves a question of 'faith', all that it demands from us is the acknowledgement that the geographical demarcation of human thinking that has
lead to such nomenclatures in the context of philosophy - as American pragmatism, German idealism, French existentialism or Indian Vedanta - does by no means indicate that only a native can have access to these
thinking projects and that others can, at best, contemplate from outside. As a matter of fact, we have at our disposal works of such scholars who have been recognized as significant interpreters of a given tradition
to which they had no prima facie claim - the sort that is generally granted to those who are considered as insiders to a tradition, almost as a birth right.
This is why I think that it is regrettable, given the present-day organization of the educational program, that philosophers like Shankara, Nagarjuna,
Diganaga and Uddyotakara - to mention a few names at random from the Indian thought-traditions, are not taught in the same department where Hegel, Husserl or Hume etc. are venerated. This could, undoubtedly, help
correct some of the assymetries in cross-cultural philosophical exchanges and create a new intellectual space where philosophers could get a more concrete grasp of where the themes and concerns of various
thought-traditions overlap and where they do not. This could also give the students of philosophy an opportunity to find out exactly how different the Indian 'Darshana' tradition is as a thinking project from that
of the Greak 'Philosophia'. This process may also lead to a further deepening of the question whether we need a plural understanding of what the philosophical enterprise is all about. In any case, it is hoped that
it will become evident and no amount of apriori argument can decide such a question as where there is philosophy and where it is nonexistent.
I am therefore inclined to think that until such changes are introduced in educational offerings, we can at best grant that comparative philosophy as a
project needs to turn back upon itself and be self-critical, nevertheless as a project it seems to be indispensable. Without it, how do we identify traditional mistakes that blocks inter-cultural conversation? Who
can do that job but those who know more than one tradition? It is indeed difficult to ignore the fact that imagined differences often provide the stuff of which cliches about the 'otherness' of the others are born.
While engaging in any aspect of a study involving plurality of cultures, we need to question the 'hard sense of the metaphor of boundary' that divides one from the other. The hard sense of the metaphor of boundary
implies the sense of barrier - where crossing is trespassing; while the soft sense of that metaphor only acknowledges that there is a border, a separating line that points to their respective distinctness and which
by no means hinder the possibility of communication. Thus, those who engage themselves in such cross-cultural projects as often is the case in the field of comparative philosophy, at least show that there is a
genuine philosophical need which refuses to limit itself within a single culture - thereby decrying an ethnocentric view of philosophy. It is undeniably a step toward bringing thought-traditions together and a move
forward to a veritable inter-cultural understanding.
While dealing with these issues, one must at the outset keep in mind that the state of an academic discipline such as philosophy - no matter in which
cultural soil - is by no means free from the influence of the factors that condition its over-all cultural history. Reading in this vein, cross-cultural studies can perhaps be seen as adding a new chapter to the
global history of ideas where intellectual forces are geared to uncover the overlapping contents without underplaying the deviations, the divergences. It is through this process that we can perhaps forge a
partnership that does not get thwarted by the talk of radical difference or by the thought of dissolution of identity of a given tradition. A continued effort to focus on the shared as well as diverse concerns of
various intellectual traditions alone can foster a sense of a community of philosophers in the global context. This, I believe to be one important way that philosophers can help build bridges between cultures that
are lacking at present.
References:
1. cf. my paper in Religion and Time, edited by Balslev and Mohanty, E. J. Brill, The Netherlands, 1993.
2. For more on this, see my Analysis of I-consciousness in Transcendental Phenomenology and Indian Philosophy in Phenomenology and Indian Philosophy,
ed. by D.P. Chattopadhyaya, Embree, and Mohanty, New Delhi, 1992.
3. For discussion of various aspects of cross-cultural studies, see Cross-cultural Conversation, ed. by Anindita N. Balslev, Cultural Criticism Series,
AAR Scholars Press, USA, 1996.
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