Self & Other in Indian Thought

Catalog description

Taught by GTU. "Who am I?" "Should I care?" The orthodox literature of India (across theology, philosophy, ethics to anthropology) record a variety of competing ideas about the self, its nature, and the related question of personal identity as also how one cares for one's self. Tradition has grappled with these issues against much adverse criticism from alternative views , e.g. by materialists, Jains and Buddhist in the attempt to forge a coherent view of the self and a consequent morality. Earlier, there was some ambivalence in the Vedic canons and subsequent systems where the possibility of universal 'non-being' as becoming threatened the supposed stability of purusha (personhood, including devas or 'light-beings'). So what would sustain right action, good and virtuous life? Would the lure of rituals and divine rewards suffice? Not until the emergence of the conception of Atman - as Transcendental Self - with the Upanishad (Vedanta) that a stable unitary metaphysics with correlate ethics is settled upon. But this view generates problem for the mundane experiential self, its consciousness and individual identity: who or what is the "I" in our waking life, in dreams; and what of the ethical responsibilities of the self on the ground, to the other selves or beings? The course draws on hermeneutics of texts, from ancient, classical, epic-medieval to modern and critical Indian discourses on self, no-self, selflessness, personal identity, intrinsic and contingent self, self as Divine, Atman as nondual Brahman, or as related to other ontologies (e.g. panentheism, dualism, naturalism), and the moral implications thereto. The horizons of the self as a moral, aesthetic and spiritual or yogic being in relation to the community and the world is engagingly examined. There will be comparative attention paid to Western and interreligious history of ideas and also to contemporary psychology and postsecular theories.