Booklet 030711

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BlogBook
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2011
Contents
1 2011
1.1
7
February . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.1.1
1.1.2
1.1.3
Negative portrayals of non-Western Cultures like Indian: Secularization of Christianity S.N. Balagangadhara (2011-02-28 04:59) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to go about developing an alternative to the so-called social sciences? S.N.

Balagangadhara (2011-02-28 07:07) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
20
Why
Westology
ala Indology doomed to fail?
S.N. Balagangadhara
(2011-02-28 07:51) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.1.4
Denying
experience
in
intra-cultural
communication S.N.
23
Balagangadhara
(2011-02-28 08:44) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
26
Does Shivalinga mean phallus? A theoretical dispute

S.N. Balagangadhara
(2011-02-28 18:58) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
29
India and Her traditions: A Reply to Jeffrey Kripal

S.N. Balagangadhara
(2011-02-28 19:16) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
31
Denying Experience: Do Hindoos worship ? Do They do Pooja to a Phallus/Linga? S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-02-28 20:46) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
43
1.1.8
Reductive explanations in social sciences
46
1.1.9
Why Social sciences are not providing knowledge, including the likes of Wendy
Doniger and her children? (2011-02-28 22:08) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.1.5
1.1.6
1.1.7
1.2
S.N. Balagangadhara (2011-02-28 21:28)
49
March . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
51
1.2.1
Why Insider/Outsider game is sterile? S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-01 00:20) .
52
1.2.2
On explanations that make people stupid S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-01 00:57)
54
1.2.3
How to produce knowledge about people and their cultures? S.N. Balagangadhara
(2011-03-01 01:53) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
55
1.2.4
Critisim: are you a genius? (2011-03-01 02:09) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
59
1.2.5
Simulation of social and cultural changes? S.N. Balagangadhara (2011-03-01 03:10)
60
1.2.6
Whose view is better? S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-01 03:32) . . . . . . . . . .
61
1.2.7
Is Rain dance superstitious? Willem Derde (2011-03-01 04:00) . . . . . . . . . .
62
1.2.8
Multiple meanings: puja, thondam
S.N. Balagangadhara (2011-03-01 23:09) . . .
64
1.2.9
Are Muslims Mohamaddens ? S.N. Balagangadhara (2011-03-02 02:14) . . . . .
65
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1.2.10
God, Devil/Satan, and Polytheism S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-02 02:47) . . .
67
1.2.11
Puja and Worship S.N. Balagangadhara (2011-03-02 02:59) . . . . . . . . . . . .
69
1.2.12
Vacuity of Essentialism? S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-02 03:40) . . . . . . . . .
71
1.2.13
Criticism: you are Westernized ! (2011-03-02 07:11) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
73
1.2.14
Criticism: you are not studying Ancient India! (2011-03-02 07:14) . . . . . . . . .
74
1.2.15
Criticism: you are not using game theory (2011-03-02 07:17) . . . . . . . . . . . .
75
1.2.16
Criticism: one need to be Indian to study Indian culture (2011-03-02 07:20) . . .
76
1.2.17
Criticism: don t judge others! (2011-03-02 07:23) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
77
1.2.18
Criticism: you are usurping the right to speak for the community. (2011-03-02 07:47)
78
1.2.19
Criticism: you are not an authentic Indian ! (2011-03-02 07:51) . . . . . . . . . .
79
1.2.20
Is every description knowledge? (2011-03-02 08:10) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
80
1.2.21
On Lorenzen s Who invented Hinduism?
81
1.2.22
Is the distinction between secular and religious neutral? S.N. Balagangadhara

(2011-03-02 19:30) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
83
1.2.23
Criticism: you are peddling a wannabe Indianism ! (2011-03-02 19:35) . . . . . .
84
1.2.24
Knowledge and objectivity (2011-03-02 19:39) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
85
1.2.25
Criticism: What s with Behavioral Psychology? (2011-03-02 19:45) . . . . . . . .
86
1.2.26
Linga, Puja, Symbolism S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-02 20:24) . . . . . . . . .
87
1.2.27
Colonial Experience: Normative Ethics 101
88
1.2.28
On Colonial Experience and the Indian Renaissance: A prolegomenon to a

Project S.N. Balagangadhara (2011-03-02 21:43) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
91
Colonial Consciousness and the Logic of India is Corrupt S.N.Balagangadhara

(2011-03-02 22:17) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
106
1.2.30
Criticism: you are essentializing cultures! (2011-03-02 22:32) . . . . . . . . . . . .
111
1.2.31
Colonial Consciousness: Burden of Proof S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-03 00:22)
112
1.2.32
Normative Ethics: Moral Dilemmas and Imperfect World S.N.Balagangadhara

(2011-03-03 00:43) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
114
1.2.33
Is the division between the West and East Orientalist in nature? (2011-03-03 00:51)
115
1.2.34
On
1.2.29
CONTENTS
assumptions
that
make
S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-02 19:20)
actions
corrupt
S.N.Balagangadhara
(2011-03-03 01:17) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
116
1.2.35
Is Normative Ethics Richer? S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-03 01:26) . . . . . . .
117
1.2.36
Moral domain not defined by norms S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-03 01:33) . .
118
1.2.37
Is relative ethics coherent? (2011-03-03 01:40) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
119
1.2.38
Ethically Bad Action vs. Corruption S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-03 01:57) . .
120
1.2.39
Mitigating circumstances, normative ethics (2011-03-03 03:55) . . . . . . . . . . .
122
1.2.40
Logic of normative ethics: Immorality S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-03 04:16) .
123
1.2.41
Criticism: Nonsense (2011-03-03 16:46) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
124
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1.2.42
Criticism: Twisted arguments (2011-03-03 16:57) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.2.43
Mind-body
reductionism
and
Indian
traditions
125
S.N.Balagangadhara
(2011-03-03 19:33) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
126
1.2.44
The past and ways of talking about it (2011-03-03 19:42) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
128
1.2.45
Intentional operator and inconsistent reasoning (2011-03-03 20:10) . . . . . . . . .
129
1.2.46
Religious intolerance vs. civic intolerance I (2011-03-03 20:45) . . . . . . . . . . .
130
1.2.47
Is
tolerant
Christianity
contradiction
in
terms?
S.N.Balagangadhara
(2011-03-03 23:19) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
133
1.2.48
Inclusivism, exclusivism, and Ignorance of heathens (2011-03-03 23:22) . . . . . .
135
1.2.49
On Rajiv s history-centrism S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-03 23:24) . . . . . . .
136
1.2.50
The religion of secular state: deChristianized Christianity S.N.Balagangadhara

(2011-03-03 23:33) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
137
1.2.51
Secularized
Christian
Belief:
Religion
is
cultural/human
universal
(2011-03-03 23:39) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
139
Secularized Christian Theme: Moral Certainty and Proof Beyond a Reasonable

Doubt (2011-03-03 23:58) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
140
Secularized Christian theme: interests of a social institution/Christian Church

(2011-03-04 00:08) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
141
1.2.54
Christological dilemma and who is a Christian (2011-03-04 00:26) . . . . . . . .
142
1.2.55
Are Indian Christians not bound by Christian Theology? S.N.Balagangadhara

(2011-03-04 00:34) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
143
1.2.56
On Will Sweetman s Criticism S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-04 07:18) . . . . . .
144
1.2.57
Meanings and Historical Context:

the arguments from Indian scholars
S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-04 07:56) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
146
Legislations against proselytization: a weakness of Indian culture S.N. Balagangadhara (2011-03-04 23:03) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
148
1.2.59
Criticism: you are spreading hate (2011-03-04 23:15) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
150
1.2.60
How to produce knowledge about Who is a Christian S.N.Balagangadhara

(2011-03-04 23:27) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
151
1.2.61
Presumption of Knowledge S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-04 23:32) . . . . . . .
152
1.2.62
On Patrick Hogan s
Why Hindus should be grateful to Wendy
Doniger S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-05 00:04) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
153
1.2.63
Rationality and Rhetoric S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-05 00:24) . . . . . . . . .
159
1.2.64
Professional Competence (2011-03-05 00:27) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
160
1.2.65
The structure of Christianity as a religion (2011-03-05 00:55) . . . . . . . . . . . .
161
1.2.66
Atheism: a secularized theism
Jakob de Roover (2011-03-05 01:25) . . . . . . . .
162
1.2.67
Is sat being ? S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-05 03:58) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
164
1.2.68
Antiquity and religious wisdom (2011-03-05 04:08) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
165
1.2.52
1.2.53
1.2.58
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1.2.69
1.2.70
CONTENTS
Ontological and epistemological commitments of Hinduism S.N.Balagangadhara
(2011-03-05 04:37) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Hinduism
and
hipkapi:
an
Imaginary
entity
S.N.
Balagangadhara
(2011-03-05 04:46) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
168
1.2.71
Use and Mention (2011-03-05 05:04) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
170
1.2.72
Cognitive Superiority (2011-03-05 05:24) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
171
1.2.73
Commonalities/Similarities S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-05 05:37) . . . . . . .
172
1.2.74
Refutation (2011-03-05 05:43) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
173
1.2.75
Review of Argumentative Indian
174
1.2.76
Review of Staal s Rules Without Meaning S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-05 06:25)
178
1.2.77
Understanding and Imagination:

A Critical Notice of Halbfass and Inden S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-05 07:10) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
185
1.2.78
Cultural difference: temporality (2011-03-05 08:46) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
200
1.2.79
Introspection
vs.
S.N. Balagangadhara (2011-03-05 06:17) . . .
reflection
upon
experience S.N.Balagangadhara
(2011-03-05 09:05) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.2.80
Avidya,
Ajnana,
Ignorance:
learning
process
201
S.N.Balagangadhara
(2011-03-05 09:17) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
205
1.2.81
The reality of elusive man? S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-05 09:22) . . . . . . .
210
1.2.82
Colonial Consciousness as a process and as an event (2011-03-05 09:27) . . . . . .
213
1.2.83
Rituals and their meaninglessness S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-05 09:47) . . . .
217
1.2.84
Comparative Anthropology and Rhetorics in Cultures. (2011-03-05 20:27)
219
1.2.85
The Future of the Present. Thinking Through Orientalism S.N.Balagangadhara

(2011-03-05 20:40) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
239
Comparative Anthropology and Action Sciences. An Essay on Knowing to Act and

Acting to Know S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-05 20:48) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
256
Comparative Anthropology and Moral Domains. An Essay on Selfless Morality and

the Moral Self S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-05 21:48) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
274
1.2.88
Could religion be a neural disorder? (2011-03-05 22:51) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
294
1.2.89
On explanations that trivialize experiences S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-07 05:33)
295
1.2.90
Chapter-wise Questions and Answers to understand The Heathen in His Blindness:

Asia, the West and the Dynamic of Religion (2011-03-07 21:25) . . . . . . . . . .
297
1.2.86
1.2.87
166
. . . .
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1.1. February
Negative portrayals of non-Western Cultures like Indian: Secularization of Christianity S.N. Balagangadhara (2011-02-28 04:59)
I want to raise three issues: (a) how to analyze what Rajiv portrays about Wendy and her children in the
field of religious studies; (b) depending on that, what an adequate response consists of. Before we do either
(this is one of the things I have discovered through my own research during the last two decades), we need
to be clear about (c) how we should not analyze this situation. Given that all three (in their general form)
have been my obsessions, I have been reflecting on them deeply, seriously and systematically for some time
now. I would like to share some of the results of this reflection. In the first part, I will take a (rather slow)
run up to tackling the third issue first. And even here, I look at RISA lila as an exemplification of a more
general issue or as an expression of a much broader tendency.
I. How not to analyze?
Perhaps, it is best to begin in an autobiographical mode. I came to (continental) Europe some 25 years ago,
naively thinking that cultural difference is something that cosmopolitan Indians would not experience:
after all, I had studied Natural Sciences in India; knew English rather well; was more familiar with the
British and European history than I was with that of India (I once had plans to join the IAS by doing exams
on these subjects); felt right at home with the western philosophy & It took me about 4 years of living in
Europe, without relating to any Indian (or even Asian) community because I did not want to land up in an
emotional and social ghetto, to realize that I was wrong: cultural differences were no fictitious invention
of anthropologists; it involved more than being a vegetarian or being barefoot at home when the weather
was not too cold. This realization was instrumental in shaping my research project: what makes the Indian
culture different from that of the West? (I never felt anything other than an Indian amongst the Europeans.)
I began to research this issue with some vague hunches and intuitions as my reference points: there was no
literature to guide me in my endeavor. Of course, the first fields I went into were Indology and Anthropology.
Pretty soon I discovered that neither was of any use. Not only did they fail to provide me with any insights,
but they also succeeded in merely enraging me: the kind of rage you feel when you read the analyses of
Wendy Doniger or Kripal. Indology is full of insights like those you have read in Rajivs article. What has
varied over time is the intellectual jargon that clothes these analyses. Going deeper into the history of these
disciplines (with respect to India) drove home some lessons very deeply: in both form and content, there was
pretty little to differentiate between the Christian missionary reports of the 18th to 20th centuries and the
Indological tracts. And that between a Herder and a Goethe on the one hand (the German Romantics who
praised India while being derogatory about it at the same time) and a James Mill and an Abb Dubois
on the other, there was not much of a space to draw a dividing line. Researching further, I discovered that
these Indological truths were enshrined in the modern social sciences: whether you read along with a Max
Weber on The Religions of India or thought along with a Karl Marx on the Asiatic mode of production
or even disagreed with the omnipresent Oriental Despotism of a Karl Wittfogel. Modern psychoanalysis
of India, beginning with Carstairs The Twice Born through The Oceanic Feeling of Mussaief-Masson
(another Indologist using psychoanalysis to understand Indian religions), had already told our tale: Indian
culture was narcissistic (in the sense of secondary narcissism) and thus pathological in nature.
My initial reactions to these discoveries were: horror, rage and a conviction that racism is inherent in these
writings. Pretty soon, this conviction about racism of European authors gave way to doubts: Is it possible
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to convict all European authors of racism? Are we to assume that, in the last 400 years or so, all writers who
wrote on India were racists? If yes, how to understand the powerful impact these writers and their theories
have had on the Indian authors and Indian social sciences? If no, why did they say pretty similar things?
Is one to say that the respected Indian social scientists are no better than brown sahibs? Is Indian social
science merely a disguised variant of Indology? So on and so forth.
Today, many of us are familiar with Edward Said and his book Orientalism. In his wake, many buzz-words
like essentialism, Eurocentrism (though interesting, Blaut is not theoretically well-equipped), Orientalist
discourse, the us-them dichotomy etc. whiz around. I would be the last to detract from the merits of Saids
book: he was one of the earliest writers to have drawn attention to the systematic nature of the western
way of talking about the Orient. Despite this, the concept Orientalism is totally inadequate to analyze the
situation underlying RISA lila. Surely, the question is: Why is the West Orientalist? Saids plea ends up
denying any possibility of understanding cultural differences or indeed why Orientalism came into being, or
what sustains it. To say, as the post-colonials do, that the relation between power/knowledge answers this
question is to make a mystique of the dyad of Foucault as though it explains anything. If this buzzword
does anything at all, it helps us explain why the post-colonials earn a good living in the States: they talk
the talk of their employees, and walk the walk of their patrons. (This is not to deny that there are genuine
and committed people among them, or even to deny that they want to address themselves to genuine and
urgent issues. It is only to draw attention to the phenomenon of post-colonialism.)
What I am saying is that one should not think that these paintings are racist, or orientalist or a eurocentric . These words obfuscate the deeper issue, one which is more insidious than any of the above three.
It might or might not be the case that Wendy and her children are racist; ditto about their eurocentrism
or orientalism. But when you realize that they are not saying anything that has not been said in the
last three hundred years (despite their fancy jargon), the question becomes: why does the western culture
systematically portray India in these terms? To say that western culture is, in toto, racist or eurocentric is
to say pretty little: even assuming, counterfactually, that the western culture is all these things (and that all
the westerners are racist, etc), why do these attitudes persist, reproduce themselves and infect the Indians?
There is a weightier reason not to tread this path. In fact, it has been a typical characteristic of western
writings on other cultures (including India) to characterize the latter using terms that are only appropriate
to describe individual psychologies: X culture is stupid, degenerate, and irrational; Y culture is childish,
immature, intuitive, feminine, etc. To simply repeat these mantras after them is to achieve very little understanding.
Many say repeatedly that these writings deny agency to the Indian subjects. I am familiar with this phrase
through post-colonial writings. This too is a mantra; like many of them, without having the desired effect.
And why is that? It might appear to make sense if we merely restrict ourselves to Wendy and her childrens
analyses of Ganesha, Shiva or Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. However, it loses all plausibility when we realize
that, for instance, social sciences use one and the same epistemology to analyze both the west and India
and that despite this, their claims about India reproduce the Indological truths. (Those who do not believe
me are invited to dip, for example, into those multiple theories of the Indian Caste System: from the sociobiological theories of a Van den Berghe - a sociologist - through the social choice theories of an Olson jr. - an
economist-cum-political scientist. Even a book that wants to criticize the writings that deny agency to the
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Indians, Castes of Mind of Nicholas Dirks, ends up doing nothing else than deny agency to the Indians.)
Quite clearly, the problem cannot be solved by discovering some or another pet epistemology (like Ronald
Inden does, in appealing to Collingwood).
In a way, one could say, we need to do to the west what it has done to us, namely, study it anthropologically.
But how to go about doing this and not simply reproduce what generations of thinkers (from the west)
have already said about the West? It is amusing to use Freud to analyze their Freudian analyses of Indian
religions; or use Patanjalis Chakras to typify their personalities. But at the end of the day, we are still left
with the task of studying and understanding why the western culture talks about us the way it does.
In other words, it would be a conceptual blunder to look either at Wendy or her children as exponents of
racism, eurocentrism or even Orientalism alone. (They might be any or all the three. But that does not
really matter.) We need to realize that they are doing two things simultaneously: drawing upon the existing
social sciences and also contributing to their further development.
I will explain the significance of the last sentence later. For the present, let me just say this: our problems
do not either begin or end in religious studies or Indology. They are deeper. Much, much deeper. To tackle
RISA lila as a separate phenomenon, i.e., to focus either on Wendy or her parampara alone, would be to
compound tragedy with conceptual blunder. Not only that. It would prevent us from understanding RISA
lila for what it is: a phenomenon that is typical of the western culture.
II. How to analyze social sciences: Secularization
Earlier, I drew attention to the fact that Wendy and her children draw from the existing social sciences,
while contributing at the same time to their further development. In this post, I will elaborate what this
statement means, what it implies, and what it says about the western culture. Let me see how far I can
go in this post with respect to the objective without being inordinately long. However, it is only fair that I
warn you beforehand: I will only be able to isolate an important thread; within the confines of this post, I
cannot prove my claims. (To those interested in proofs, I refer them to my book.)
1. Not many would challenge the claim that Christianity has been highly influential in the development of
the western culture. We need to take this statement utterly seriously. It means that many things we take
for granted, whether in the West or in India, come from the influence that Christianity has exerted.
I claim that Christianity expands in two ways. (This is not just typical of Christianity but of all religions.
I will talk only of Christianity because I want to talk about the western culture.) Both of these have been
present ever since the inception of Christianity and have mutually reinforced each other. The first is familiar
to all of us: direct conversion. People from other cultures and religions are explicitly converted to Christianity and thus the community of Christian believers grows. This is the surface or explicit expansion of
Christianity. In India, both in the colonial and modern times, this has been a theme of intense controversy
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but, according to me, not of very great consequence when compared to the second way Christianity also
expands.
2. Funnily enough, the second way in which Christianity expands is also familiar to us: the process secularization. I claim that Christianity secularizes itself in the form of, as it were, dechristianised Christainity.
What this word means is: typically Christian doc trines spread wide and deep (beyond the confines of the
community of Christian believers) in the society dressed up in secular (that is, not in recognizably Christian) clothes. We need a very small bit of Western history here in order to understand this point better.
2.1. Usually, the enlightenment period, which is identified as the Age of Reason, is alleged to be the
apotheosis (or the high point) of the process of secularization. What people normally mean by secularization here is the following: the enlightenment thinkers are supposed to have successfully fought against
the dominance that religion (i.e. Christianity) had until then exercised over social, political, and economic
life. From then on, so goes the standard text book story, human kind began to look to reason instead of,
say, the Church in all matters social, civic, political etc. The spirit of scientific thinking, which dominated
that age, has continued to gain ascendancy. As heirs to this period, which put a definitive end to all forms
of irrational subservience, we are proud citizens of the modern day world. We are against all forms of
despotism and we are believers in democracy; we believe in the role of reason in social life; we recognize the
value of human rights; and we should understand that religion is not a matter for state intervention, but a
private and personal affair of the individual in question. This, as I say, is the standard text book story.
2.2. The problem with this story is simply this: the enlightenment thinkers have built their formidable
reputation (as opponents of all organized religion or even religion tout court) by selling ideas from Protestant Christianity as though they were neutral and rational. Take for example the claim that religion
is not a matter for state intervention and that it is a private affair of the individual in question. (Indian
secularists agitatedly jump and down to defend this idea.) Who thought, do you think, that religion was
not a private affair? The Catholic Church, of course. Even to this day, it believes that you should believe
what the Church says, and that because the Church mediates between Man and God, what you believe
in (as a Christian) is decided by the Catholic Church. The Protestants fought a battle with the Catholics
on theological grounds: they argued that being a Christian believer (or what the Christian believes in) is
matter between the Maker (i.e. God) and the Individual. It was God (i.e. the Christian God), who judged
man; and men could not judge each other in matters of Christian faith. The Church, they argued, could not
mediate between Man and God (according to their interpretation of the Bible); the Catholic Church argued
that men could not, using only their reasoning and interpretative abilities, interpret the Word of God (i.e.
the Bible). To think so is to be seduced by the Devil, and the only guarantee against the seduction by the
Devil and eternal damnation was the Church itself and its interpretation of the Bible. (There is a famous
doctrine of the Catholic Church, which says, Extra ecclesiam nulla salus: there is no salvation - i.e. being
saved from the clutches of the Devil - outside the Church.) To cut the long story short, the Protestants won
this theological battle. The enlightenment thinkers repeated this Protestant story, and this has become our
secularism.
2.3. The same story applies with respect to what is enshrined in the UN charter. The doctrine of Human
Rights (as we know them today) arose in the Middle Ages, when the Franciscans and the Dominicans fought
each other. (Both are religious orders within the Catholic Church.) All theories of human rights we know
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today were elaborated in this struggle that continued nearly for two hundred years. They were theological
debates, to understand which one needs to understand Christian theology. (Just take my word for it for
now.) When John Locke (a British philosopher) started talking about Natural Rights in the 18th century,
he was simply regurgitating a theological debate within Christianity.
2.4. I am not merely making the point that these ideas had their origin in religious contexts. My point is
much more than that: I claim that we cannot accept these theories without, at the same time, accepting
Christian theology as true. What the western thinkers have done over the centuries (the Enlightenment
period is the best known for being the high point of this process) is to dress up Christian theological ideas
(I am blurring the distinction between the divisions within Christianity) in a secular mantle. Not just this
or that isolated idea, but theological theories themselves.
2.5. I am not in the least suggesting that this is some kind of a conspiracy. I am merely explicating what
I mean when I say that Christianity spreads also through the process of secularization. What have been
secularized are whole sets of ideas about Man and Society which I call Biblical themes. They are Biblical
themes because to accept them is to accept the truth of the Bible. Most of our so-called social sciences
assume the truth of these Biblical themes.
2.6. I know this sounds unbelievable; but I have started to prove them. I have already shown, for example,
that the so-called religious studies presuppose the truth of Christian theology. That is why, when they study
the so-called religions from other cultures, their results do not fundamentally differ from a theological treatment of the same religions. In the book I am now writing on ethics, I am able to show the same: the so-called
secular ethics are secularizations of Christian ethics. That is why, according to the modern secular ethics,
we are either immoral or moral cretins. According to the Christianity, only the true religion can provide
a foundation for ethical behavior: the Heathens and the Pagans, because they worship the Devil, are either
immoral or intellectually weak. Even in psychology, the notion of the development of person (or self)
is a non-trivial secularization of the Christian notion of soul. So I can go on, but I will not. Instead of
convincing you, such a list might end up generating disbelief.
3. To begin to appreciate the plausibility (if not the truth) of my claim, ask yourselves the following question:
why are the so-called social sciences different from the natural sciences? I mean to say, why have the social
sciences not developed the way natural sciences have? There must have been many geniuses in the social
sciences; the mathematical and logical sophistication in some of the social sciences is simply mind-bending;
we have computers and we can simulate almost anything. Comparatively speaking, it is not as though the
social sciences are starved of funding or personnel. Despite all this, the social sciences are not progressing.
Why is this? (When you have, say, a problem in a love-relationship, you do not open a text book on psychology; you look for a wise friend or an understanding uncle.) There are many answers provided in the history
of philosophy and many of you may have your own favorite explanation. Here is my answer: you cannot
build a scientific theory based on theological assumptions. What you will get then is not a scientific theory,
but an embroidering of theology. I put to you that this is what has happened. Most of our so-called social
sciences are not sciences in any sense of the term: they are merely bad Christian theologies.
4. If this is true, it also helps us understand why both conversion and the notion of secularism jar Indian
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sensibilities. Somehow or the other, Nehruvian secularism always connotes a denigration of Indian traditions; if you look at the debates in the EPW and SEMINAR and journals like that, one thing is very clear:
none of the participants really understands what secularism means. In India, secularism is counter posed
to communalism; whereas the secular, in European languages, has only one contrast: the sacred. Now,
of course, I do not want to make much out of this; but I thought that it would be interesting to draw your
attention to this interesting fact.
5. To summarize what I have said so far. Christianity spreads in two ways: through conversion and through
secularization. The modern day social sciences embody the assumptions of Christian theology, albeit in a
secularized form. That is why when Wendy and her children draw upon the resources of the existing social
sciences, they are drawing upon Christian theology. In this Christian theology, we are worshippers of the
Devil. Our gods are demons (followers of the devil). As such, amongst other things, they are perverts: sexually, morally and intellectually. The worshippers of the Devil (which is what we are) are also perverts: why
otherwise would we follow the Devil or his minions? Even if Wendy and her children oppose a straightforward
Christian understanding openly (because of their genuine conviction), their conclusions are no different from
the simplistic story I have just sketched. How can they be driven to embrace Christian theology, even when
they either openly reject it or when they know nothing of it? This will be one of the questions I will take up
in my future posts, assuming that people remain interested.
6. This is the insidious process I talked about earlier: the process of secularization of Christian ideas. I
have not been able to do justice to the richness of this process: an inevitable price one pays for condensing
complex analyses into short posts. Let the simplistic presentation not lead you to think that the ideas I am
proposing are simplistic. They are not.
7. Why do we, the Indian intellectuals, not see this secularization straight away? Why is the process of
secularization not visible to the western intellectuals? These are some of the obvious questions I will tackle.
III. Why Secularization not visible to the Western intellectuals?
In a way, the answer can be provided in a single sentence: the research questions and the research framework of many-a-social science were set up explicitly by Christian theologians using the resources of Christian
theology. (I am using theology as a general term here.) Both the questions and answers have retained
their intelligibility, even though the explicit theology has faded into the background. A theological question
does not cease to be theological just because the one who answers it does not know much about theology.
The very fact that such questions make sense at all (and do not appear nonsensical) is the proof of the fact
that the questioner remains within the ambit of a religious framework. (If you have no clue about Physics,
the question when does some stellar object become a quasar? will not make much sense. To answer it, if
you can answer it at all, you need to draw upon the resources of theories in Physics.) However, this single
sentence answer fails to capture the complexity and diversity of the process. Therefore, let me just illustrate
what this process really means, or has meant. (I will be taking random examples, and of different kinds just
to indicate the depth of the process. If one intends doing more than this, one will have to write umpteen
books!)
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1. Consider, to begin with, the very notion the west or the western culture. During the first 800 years (after
the year 300 C.E. - Common Era, which replaces AD that meant the year of the Lord, Anno Domini), it was
Eastern Christianity (i.e. the Christianity of the Byzantine Empire with its centre in Constantinople) that
dominated the Christian communities. The Church in Rome was merely one of the churches within Christianity. The evangelization of Europe really begins in earnest after 900 C.E. This was a process launched
by the Church in Rome, and it occurred in areas to the west of Rome. For this reason, this Christianity
came to be called Western Christianity and the emergence of this Christendom to the west of Rome is the
emergence of the West.
2. Consider these two famous research questions about the transition in history (of both the leftist and
the rightist variety): when and how did transition from slavery to feudalism occur in Europe? This
issue was discussed by theologians and theological historians for a long time in the following form: how
did Christianity put an end to the Pagan Rome? The historians discussed precisely this issue, and in this
form, till the end of the eighteenth century as well. The division they made between epochs (a word coined
by a French Christian Priest called Bossuet during the 18th century) was the one between pre-Christian
(pagan) Rome and the post-Christian Rome. The very same issue, with the very same division has now
become a scientific question in the guise of: how did feudalism put paid to slavery? The same can be said
about another transition question that bothers Marxist historians: how did feudalism (an epoch of social
production) give way to Capitalism in the West ? Do you know what this question is a complex translation
of? Why did the Protestant reformation against the Catholic Church gain foothold?
3. Consider the emergence of the Legal System in the western culture. Its origin does not lie in the Roman
Law but in the Church. The theologians of the Roman Catholic Church turned to the Roman jurists in
their attempts to build a legal structure for the Church. (This is called the famous Gregorian reformation
of the Catholic Church.) Thus a complex system of laws and their justifications (including terms that are
fundamental to the modern jurisprudence) arose, called The Canon Law. The Civil Law (using this as
a general term) was built by the theologians by modeling it after the Canon Law. Till the 18th century,
the faculty of law was a part of the faculty of theology in the western universities and taught only by
theologians. To this day, in many universities in Europe this theological heritage is still maintained in the
way the law faculties are called: Rechtenfaculteit (Rechten is the plural of Das Recht), referring to the
two laws - the canon law and civil law.
4. Consider too, for example, one of the notions fundamental to Modern Jurisprudence: will. There have
been umpteen discussions about this notion in Philosophy, Law, Psychology, etc. Clearly, or so we think,
human beings have a will and exercise it as well. What is the origin of this picture of human beings? Till
300 B.C.E. this notion was absent in what we call the western culture today. Neither the Greek thinkers
(like Plato or Aristotle), nor the Roman jurists (who wrote their law digests) had such a notion or such a
picture of human beings. The first person to struggle with this notion and write tracts about it was Saint
Augustine, one of the most influential Fathers of the Christian Church. Why did the Christians find this
notion important? Because, they think, the universe exemplifies the Will of God and human beings should
subordinate themselves to this Will. That is to say, the human will must subordinate itself to the divine will.
What is human will then? What does this subordination consist of? These and many similar questions
arose within the ambit of Christian theology, presupposing a Christian picture of Man. (A picture that was
neither Greek nor Roman, and is definitely not Indian.) Yet, how many of us do not practice Law, read and
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write about human will and even assume as an empirical fact that it is in the nature of being human that
we have will? (This is no fact, but a Christian theological picture of man.)
5. Take, as another kind of an example, the issue of freedom. This issue is a central one in Philosophy, in
moral theories, in political theories (about Stat e and society), in legal theories, and psychological theories,
etc. If you were to blandly state this issue in a single sentence: it is a good thing that people are free and
that every one ought to be free. In ethical theories, for instance, a moral action is an action of choice,
made freely without coercion. In fact, in the absence of freedom morality is not possible. Let me just draw
a contrast between this way of thinking (which appears to be true on the basis of universal consent) and
our ideas about karma and rebirth. (You need not assume the truth of punarjanma in order to follow
my point.) If the fruits of ones action do not track (very strictly) the agent across several lives, the idea
of both Karma and rebirth become senseless. Somehow or the other, these notions are parts of our (i.e.
Indian) understanding of morality. That means to say, if there was no binding and strict determinism, ethics
is impossible. Here, then, the contrast: according to the western culture, moral action is impossible if it is
not free; according to us, without strict determinism, moral action is impossible. Yet, how many of us do
not act as though freedom is a self-explanatory concept? Do you know what the origins (it has multiple
theological loci) of this problem are? God created Man and gave him the freedom to choose between God
and the Devil. (In secularized terms, between good and evil.) The possibility of salvation (i.e. of being
saved from the clutches of the Devil) depended on this free choice. Therefore, theological issues arose:
What then does human freedom mean? Why did God give freedom to man? Are we condemned to be
free ? etc. etc. Our svatantra does not mean freedom as its contrast term paratantra indicates. Our gods
are sarva tantra svatantara, i.e. beings for whom all tantras are their own (sva). What exactly are we doing
then, when we discuss about a free society, freedom of individuals, etc, etc?
6. Instead of carrying on in this vein let me round off in a different way. Fundamental to Christianity is its
belief that there ought to be scriptural sanction for actions in the world. In other words, this religion makes
one seek scriptural foundations for ones actions (whether for sacred ones like worshipping or to secular
ones like the attitude one should take regarding strangers ). The scripture is one kind of revelation of
Gods will; the Nature also reveals Gods Will. One studies both in order to find out what God Wills so that
one may become a part of Gods purposes (for human kind) on earth. The Church, as a social organism,
confronted many social and political problems during its history. Whether it was a revolt of the peasants, or
a fight with the monarchs about the nature of political authority, these phenomena were conceptualized as
problems within theology. That is to say, both the way the Church formulated the problem and its responses
were founded on the scriptures (and the writings of t he church fathers). The problem of state and society,
the limits of political power, etc. were actual issues that the Church confronted. The way it formulated
these issues and the kind of answers it sought, etc. were theological in nature. These very same questions
and answers (and the underlying framework) have been taken over by the so-called social sciences. So, when
they further go on along this track, all they are doing is further embroider Christian theology. No matter
what they think they are doing, they are not doing science. Even when they speak of things that become
totally nonsensical, if and when explicit theology is left out, they continue to talk as though it makes sense.
For an example of this sort, take the notion of polytheism that anthropology of religion, practitioners of
religious studies, sociologists, etc. use. This notion is contradictio in terminis, that is to say, it is internally
contradictory. Polytheism refers to a doctrine that countenances multiple gods. What does it mean to
speak of multiple gods ? It is to say that there is more than one God. (There must be at least two).
However, who or what is God that there may be more than one? If, in order to answer this question, one
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refers to the meaning of this word, unsurprisingly it turns out, the dictionary meaning is also the meaning
of Christian religion. Amongst other things, God is the creator of the universe. If this is what God means,
there cannot be more than one God. (How can one make sense of the statement that there are multiple
creators, when God refers to that being which created the Universe?) How, then, can one speak of polytheism ? Only if one assumes that there is one God and some several other creatures who are other than
this God and yet claim the status of godhood. The claim of such creatures must be false: because the
very definition of God attributes this status to only one entity. Or, there must be one true God, and many
false gods, who are different from and other than the True One. This is precisely what Christian theology
says: there is but one true God, and there are many false gods (the Devil and his minions). A Polytheist,
then, worships these multiple gods (and not the True One). That is to say, a polytheist is a heathen who
worships the devil. This is what Christianity said of the Roman religions, the Greek religions, the Indian
religions, etc. How is it possible that scientific studies take over the word polytheism and blithely use it
without recognizing that it is senseless to do so without assuming the truth of Christian theology?
7. What I am saying, in other words, is that the western intellectuals are blind to secularized theology,
because that is all they know. This is their tool, and they have no other. Only when we develop alternate
manners of theorizing about Man and Society will they too be able to see the theological nature of their
thinking. Until such stage, all they can do is to ridicule the suggestion that they are merely embroidering
theology.
8. The process of secularization of Christianity is complex, rich and varied. In each of the domains I have
researched, the form of secularization of theology has been different. The routes travelled have been varied:
but the results have been the same. But this should not transform my suggestion into a mantra. We need to
plot out the rich and varied contours of the process of secularizing of Christianity. When we do so, we will
truly be initiating a revolution in human thinking: at last, one can begin to speak in terms of the sciences
of the social. Until such stage, all we have are bad Christian theologies masquerading as social sciences.
IV. What should be done?
Thus far we have seen that the western representations of India do not so much express the perfidious intentions (or subconscious desires) of the writers as much as the secularized Christian theology that guides
research. If this is true, there arise other questions that beg clarification: what, then, could we say about
the Indian writings in Indology, sociology, etc? Are the Indian writers too not influenced, whether directly
or indirectly, by the very same theories that incorporate the secularized Christian theology? If they are,
surely, there will be but a thin dividing line between the Indian representations of India and the western
ones. If they are not, how could they be impervious to and unaffected by secularized Christian theories,
while their western colleagues are? Despite the enormous importance of this theme, I shall leave it aside for
now.
In explaining the obliviousness of western thinkers to their acceptance of secularized theology, I suggested
that only when we present alternate ways of describing the world could they gain insight to the theological
nature of their endeavor. If this diagnosis stands up to scrutiny, our task is also clear: start working towards
the goal of building such theories. In the last two decades, I have come to the realization that there is far
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more to this task than is apparent at first sight. My ideas on this matter have evolved not only by studying
histories and sociologies of science (about how theories grow, get propagated and get accepted) but also
by appreciating the complexity of the task while trying to carry it out. Here, I want to share some of my
thoughts on this subject.
1. Let me begin by picking up an obvious question: Why should we be bothered to carry this task out (and
all that it entails) at all? Of course, no one is or can ever be compelled to carry this task out. Yet, there is
a partial answer that can go some way in meeting the real concern behind this problem. Because of reasons
of space, let me make talk about Indian culture as an entity and about its experiments to provide some
semblance of an answer.
2. Imagine, if you will, that Indian culture is an entity and that all Indians are its members. Imagine too
that one day, it realized that it was not sure any more about the nature of the world it inhabited: What
should it be doing? What is its place? How should it adapt? What does adaptation consist of? The only
way it can ever find answers to these questions is through experimentation: trying out this or that strategy,
growing new things as and when needed. Only its members can help of help; they are the ones to experiment
with. Let us agree not to ask further questions about how this culture came to this realization and that we
do not dispute about dating this event: Indias independence from the British. Thus, this entity, the Indian
culture, takes to massive experimentation telescoping, in this process, events of many decades elsewhere into
a single decade (and sometimes even less) in its history. Let us chronicle these experiments.
First, it takes to socialism: Nehruvian socialism, the socialism of Lohia, the socialist attempts of the
communist parties of India. Just as these experiments take-off, this culture starts exploring their limits even
before a new generation is born: the Naxalites and the ML movement in Bengal impact Indias youth in
different parts of India and both socialisms (of Lohia and of Nehru) begin to crack under the pressure of
events even as, in the late 60s, people elsewhere in the world begin to discover student power. Many activist
youth groups emerge in different parts of India, born outside the existing left, but already radicalized. Just
as these groups appeared to run out of steam, the Indian culture paused, and as though considering, plunges
into another massive experimentation: Dalit movement, secessionist movements, which pits not the bourgeoisies against the proletariat but groups against each other. Even as these impact the culture, through
reservation policies and contraction of the living space for some of Indias children, a new experimentation
begins: it is time for ratha yatra and Babri Masjid. This experimentation still continues and as it does,
this entity launches yet another with no parallels in human history: the Indian culture sends two or more
millions of its members to America. This is no exodus, much less of an exile, even if these members insist
on speaking of the Diaspora.
3. What has Indian culture found out through all these experiments? Some of Indias children still continue
with these experiments; some have ceased doing so. This means either some answers are no answers at all
or at best, partial ones. Is India socialist ? Or is she the proletariat? Or, perhaps, the landless peasant?
Is she the Dalit, or merely the woman ? Has she always been a Sikh, a Tamil or a Marathi, and never a
single entity? Is she a Hindu, a Muslim or merely secular ?
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rate identity politics of the post-colonials taught in Chicago or Columbia, but the strivings of a culture.
We, her children, express this striving as well. Whatever our individual motives, whatever our individual
biographies, today, on this thread, we too are asking the same question: what is it to be an Indian?
4. Much like her, we cannot reject the past: without it, we are not who we are any more. Nor could we
turn our back to the present: that is where we have to live. Our cultural past must be made to talk in the
language of the present: that, I have discovered, is the task for the future. At this moment, however, we
need to become aware that we are asking this question and that the answer matters to each one of us. That
is why we should be bothered about carrying out the task I spoke of.
What is involved in accomplishing this task? Here too the answer is simple: a collective effort. What does
such an effort entail? I can share the results of my reflections on my experience in pursuing this task for
nearly two decades now.
5. The first step, quite obviously, calls for spreading awareness about the nature of western representations
of India. This entails that we find (a) people willing not only to challenge the western scholars, where and
when they give talks in public forums about India etc. but also (b) speakers from the Indian community in
the US, who try actively to supplant these scholars.
This requires that such speakers are continuously fed with literature of two sorts: (a) a debunking kind; and
(b) the sort which provides new and novel conceptualizations of many aspects of the Indian culture itself.
This suggests that a serious and systematic research must be undertaken by many different people on many
different themes. My knowledge of the intellectual scene tells me that there are very few such people. So,
one has to look at recruiting younger, gifted people into doing research.
For this to happen, we need three things: (a) an intellectual visibility and respectability for this kind of
research so that fine, younger minds are attracted: (b) a reward system that makes it worthwhile for them
to pursue such a research for a decade at least; (c) a training in not only doing such research, but also help
in publishing them in highly visible journals so that they can then go on to populate chairs in the academia.
6. Parallel to doing all these, there is also the mammoth task of planting these seeds in the Indian soil
itself. In order to appreciate the complexity of this task, we need to have some answers I raised in the first
paragraph. Let us, therefore, leave this aspect of the enterprise out of this post for the moment.
7. If these things are to happen at all, it is obvious that we need an organization. Only such an entity can
formulate such long term plans, translate them into viable strategies, and pursue them systematically.
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8. Can this be done? I personally believe so. We have the kind of brains we need: people who can strategize; those can build organizations: those who can raise finances; those who can go straight to the heart
of a problem and represent it in simple terms; based on little material, those who anticipate and formulate
central questions for enquiry; and, above all, an interested and concerned audience.
9. India, today, is at a cross-road: she has been in many such cross-roads in the past, and she will be in
many more in the future. Neither is relevant to us, because we can make a difference only to this one. We
have the persons. We have the brains. We have the talents. We have the energy. We have the money. We
have the instruments, the knowledge and the abilities. We have the capacity to create the know-how as we
work on the project. What more do we need?
I think our culture is going to see a renaissance. Such a renaissance will be of importance not just to us,
Indians, but to the entire humankind. Because it is going to lay the real foundations for the sciences of the
social and thus give a surprising answer to the question, what is to be an Indian? This process is going to
take place: sooner, if we can accelerate the pace; later, if we do nothing about it. In the latter case, that
event may not happen in your lifetime or mine; but happen it shall. Of this, I am utterly convinced. It is
this conviction that has kept me going all these years; it is the same conviction that has made me want to
reach out to those of you who have followed this discussion about RISA lila.
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How to go about developing an alternative to the so-called social sciences? S.N.

Balagangadhara (2011-02-28 07:07)
I would like you to consider the following four kinds of answers, each pitched at a different level of generality
and at a different level of description. One could provide more, but these four should be enough to give a
taste of the kind of wine you might care to drink.
1. Suppose that one were to ask you: how to go about doing science (in general) or, say, doing physics ?
What kind of an answer could you possibly give? If you do not want to be unkind, you will probably give
answers that will not be satisfying to the questioner. Like what? May be you will say: one needs to read,
think about a problem, provide a solution and critically evaluate the hypothetical answer and so on. If the
questioner presses his point and asks: yes, but how does one go about doing any of these, what will your
answer be? The only reasonable answer you can give him is to point him in the direction of a model: go,
read that book on physics, you will perhaps say, and then you have an idea of what I am talking about.
2. This is also my second answer to your question. I have provided precisely such a model in my book
The Heathen in his blindness: Asia, the West and the dynamic of religion. Developing an alternative to
the existing social sciences is not the idle dream of a vain intellectual; there exists a model that has already
begun the process. Therefore, from now on, the discussion is not any more about whether and how such
attempts are necessary or desirable but one of evaluating the said model and, if found to be a beginning,
continuing to build more such or similar models.
3. In what way, you may ask, will such an attempt be different than the existing social sciences? Instead of
drawing your attention once again to answer (2) and say go and find out how it is different, I would like to
take another route. I will treat your difficulty as a philosophical problem. As you say, the facts and the
data are the same; so how do we build new standards/baseline? Of course, the history of sciences (the
natural sciences, that is) gives us any number of illustrations of what the question entails. Let me use the
simplest one: people saw, and continue to see, the setting and rising of the sun; its movements across the
horizon. These are the facts and data that all of us have. For a long period of time, some thought what
they saw was how the world was. Then came some other people who said the following: this is indeed what
we see, we are compelled to see it this way because the reality is exactly its opposite. That is, they explained
not only what we saw, told us why our perception was wrong but, more importantly, told us too why we
had to perceive it the way we do. (This was the novelty of the heliocentric theory. Aristarchus, I think
his name was, had long, long ago developed the heliocentric theory as a possible model without, however,
doing what Galileos explanation could, i.e. explain the necessity of this perception.) The facts and data
were the same for both the geo- and helio-centric theories. The difference lay in their theories and, you
will admit, what a difference it made! In this sense, the difference between the current and the new social
sciences will be of the same kind. Believe me, when I tell you this in all seriousness, there is and there will
be a world of a difference between what is and what is going to be. Of course, this is not yet enough for you
to know the quality of the wine. Let me pour you a small glass, so that you may taste it for yourself.
4. Since this wine is coming from my cellar, you are beholden to listen to me about how I acquired it. Such
tales are not only a part of the ritual of tasting good wines but they also add to the taste of the wine.
Nowhere is this analogy more apt than with respect to what i am now going to say. For a couple of years
now, I am irresistibly pulled in the direction of aadhyaatma. More often than not and with increasing
frequency, I contemplate on going on what we call vaanaprastha. I would have done it by now, were it not
for the fact that I still have to do certain things as a gruhastha; but the pull is increasing. (No doubt, it
has to do with my age and my cultural education; I am glad of them both, but this explanation does not
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lessen the force of the pull.) In any case, I have slowly started revisiting (in a manner that is different from
the way I visit other books and articles, and I find myself spending more and more time doing so) some of
the texts and some of the authors from the Indian traditions. Here are just two examples of the results of
this revisiting.
4.1. Most of us know the following verses from the gita that begins with yadaa yadaa hi dharmasya and
ends with sambhavaami yuge yuge. Permit me to give a rough translation of these four lines for the sake
of this discussion: whenever dharma begins to wane and adharma waxes, which happens in each yuga; to
protect the good and punish the wicked, and to re-establish dharma, iI fashion myself. you also know how
most have been taught to interpret these verses: krishnas avataara occurs in each yuga and that it has
either already taken place in our yuga, or that it will still happen again, etc. However, if you read it again
with the eyes of a twenty first-century human being, here is what is striking and, if true, breath-taking.
These verses are telling us the following (I am going to reformulate the substance of these verses in my terminology and not just provide an interpretation): there is an assumption that there is a process of learning
to be moral and that this is a learning process in society. It is inevitable, this is the second assumption,
any social learning process can and does undergo degeneration. From this it follows, this is what the verses
now describe, that: when such a degeneration of the learning process occurs, at some critical phase in the
degeneration at the level of society, other mechanisms in society are going to kick in and regenerate this
learning process (i.e. the process of learning to be moral). This is a breath-taking claim about the nature of
moral learning in India (let us keep it confined to India at the moment). Of course, they (the writer/writers
of gita) formulate this insight using the images familiar to them about Krishna and his avataaras. But
that need not detain us. But what should, is their insight into the nature of society. Where and how did
they discover these things? How did they discuss these things? What kind of a research did they do so
that they came to have this extraordinary insight? This insight, even if it proves to be wrong, is light years
ahead of any extant psychological or sociological theory about moral learning and moral development that
you care to mention. So, just these two verses are formulating a scientific hypothesis in the best sense of the
term about the nature of moral learning. Believe me, I am dumb struck. The western culture has not even
suspected the existence of what these verses take for granted (for example, the two assumptions I have just
identified). How and why did the Indians think of these things those many thousands of years ago?
4.2. A second example of a different kind, which is equally random. You know that Indians are alleged
to believe in the doctrine of punarjanma (rebirth). You know too that either it causes embarrassment
to the scientifically minded Indians or generates indifference in them. You also know, I suppose, that this
doctrine plays an important role in the Hindu traditions, the Buddhist and the Jain traditions. So,
how to understand this doctrine ? (I will not talk here about the modern Indian philosophy because I find
that the worst place to begin understanding anything Indian is the modern Indian philosophy. But this
is an irrelevant pot-shot.) To understand this, i first need to set the problem up. Some Indian traditions
claim that there is a difference between aatma gyana (or aatma vidya) and brahma gyana (or brahma
vidya): the first precedes the second and the second follows the first. Despite this, the transition is neither
smooth nor self-evident. So, what is the difficulty here? If you look at Shankaracharya (say his aatmabodha,
for example), you can see what kind of a difficulty he is talking about. It is what we call the problem of
induction, i.e. how could we make a universal statement on the basis of any number finite singular observations? (By observing that 10 Mexicans have a sombrero on, how justified are we in making the statement
all Mexicans wear sombreros ?) It transpires that the transition from aatmagyana to brahmagyana (at an
experiential level and not as an abstract philosophical problem) involves such a difficulty: to go from the
particular aatman to the universal brahman. (This is not esoteric, but experiential.) Here is what Shankara
says: one must use yukti (tricks). He also gives an example of such a yukti: neti neti (not thus, not
thus). In our modern day terminology, it merely means that one needs to use some cognitive strategies (i.e.
heuristics, algorithms, rules of thumb, however you may want to call them) and neti, neti is one such. You
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know what is another such cognitive strategy? Exactly: the doctrine of punarjanma. (I will not go into
how this strategy works, etc. on this thread.) What does this mean? The doctrine of punarjanma is not
a doctrine: it is not a description of the world at all, but a cognitive strategy! If it is that, then we can
understand why the buddhists speak of punarjanma even when they deny the existence of aatman and
not face cognitive embarrassment. Not only that: if it is a cognitive strategy, it must be a recognizable part
of the Buddhist meditation. If anyone has followed Buddhist meditation, you will know that this doctrine
is used as a visualization technique in the process of generating certain kinds of emotions. Why is it that
generations of Indian and western scholars insist talking about the doctrine of punarjanma and fail to see
for what it is? You see, my research programme generates these kinds of reformulations of the ancient
Indian traditions. (As far as I know, I am the only one who is making such extraordinary claims.) Tell
me, would these constitute some indications of what it means to take steps in the process of building an
alternate social science? Of course, this is just a sip of the wine: to prove that it is not sour, or is not over
the hill. It has yet to reach its prime, and we have many more tons of grapes to harvest yet. But is it worth
the effort? Is it promising? What do you think?
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Why
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Westology
ala Indology doomed to fail?
S.N. Balagangadhara
(2011-02-28 07:51)
1.1. The inherent logic of such an enterprise forces one, as it were, to build alternate theories to the existing,
western theories. Instead of explaining this statement in the abstract, let me take a concrete example to
illustrate what I mean.
1.2. In the University of Chicago, there is a certain Richard Shweder. He practices Cultural Psychology, and
is (was?) professor of Human Development. He is rather well-known for his cross-cultural studies: he and
his students have published many works comparing psychological developments across the two cultures that
India and America are. (In fact, he received a medal from the American Association of the Advancement of
Science, if I remember properly, for one of his articles: Does the concept of the Person vary cross-culturally?
This was a study about the concept of self in the USA and Orissa, India.) A few years ago, he published a
study on the nature of moral development and the growth of moral awareness cross-culturally: again, India
and the USA were the two compared cultures.
1.3. To study this, Shweder and his co-workers developed a questionnaire supposed to test the presence of
several moral notions among their subjects. (This article is called Culture and Moral Development, by
Richard Shweder, Manamohan Mahapatra and Joan G. Miller. A convenient reprint is to be found in Cultural Psychology: Essays on Comparative Human Development, Eds., James Stigler, Richard Shweder and
Gibert Herdt, Cambridge University Press, 1990, Pp.130-204. I will cite from this work.) The interviewees
are both children and adults. From the list of the cases that Shweder uses, here are the first five - in order
of perceived seriousness of breach, as judged by Hindu Brahman eight-to ten-year-olds:
1. The day after his fathers death, the eldest son had a haircut and ate chicken.
2. One of your family members eats beef regularly.
3. One of your family members eats a dog regularly for dinner.
4. A widow in your community eats fish two or three times a week.
5. Six months after the death of her husband, the widow wore jewellery and bright-colored clothes (Ibid.
p.165).
It is important to note that, in India, while there was a consensus between the children and the adults
regarding the first two cases (p.184), there was a lack of consensus only among children regarding the last
three cases. Keeping in mind that they are ordered in terms of the perceived seriousness of the breach, we
further come across (ibid., P.165):
8. After defecation (making a bowel movement) a woman did not change her clothes before cooking.
13.In a family, a twenty-five-year-old son addresses his father by his first name.
And, as the fifteenth, a poor man went to the hospital after being seriously hurt in an accident. At the
hospital they refused to treat him because he could not afford to pay (ibid).
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1.4. We can, I suppose, grant the truth of these statements. We can grant too that many Indians (both
children and adults) would probably consider such actions not just as paap but as mahapaap. If not sins,
they are at least some kind of ethical transgressions and not mere breaches of social etiquette. As the
sequence of questions in the interview makes it clear, the respondents were asked to motivate (or clarify)
their stance. A fragment from such interviews, applied to a hypothetical
Brahmin adult should make the point clear.
1. Is the widows behavior wrong? (Yes, Widows should not eat fish )
How serious is the violation? (A very serious violation)
Is it a sin? (Yes. Its a great sin.) (p.168)
Let us consider a similar fragment from a hypothetical American adult.
1. Is the widows behavior wrong? (No. She can eat fish if she wants to.)
How serious is the violation? (Its not a violation.)
Is it a sin? (No.) (ibid.)
1.5. If Shweder is right in identifying our paap either as sin or as immoral, one conclusion is inescapable:
we Indians must be absolute cretins really. I mean, we seem to think that what the widow eats, what she
wears, etc. are ethically more important than whether a poor man gets treated in a hospital or not. However
did our culture manage to survive for a couple of thousand years, when it is governed by such idiotic norms ?
As though to rub salt in the wound, Shweder assures us that the situation is really not all that pathetic. In
fact, he says, one could actually provide reasoned defense of family life and social practice, albeit in the
form of an ideal argument structure. How does it look? The body is a temple with a spirit dwelling in it.
Therefore the sanctity of the temple must be preserved. Therefore impure things must be kept out of and
away from the body (p. 198). It is important to note that this reasoned defense occurs only to Shweders
mind: no child argues the way Shweder does.
2. During the colonial period, we were described as immoral people. This is one end of the spectrum. At
the other end, we have liberals like Shweder, who make us into a bunch of moral cretins. So, it appears, we
have two choices: either we are immoral or we are moral idiots. Not much of a choice, is it?
3. Why does this situation come about? This is not a translation problem (how should we translate paap
into English?), but an empirical and theoretical problem: what is it about the western ethical tradition that
makes the Indian culture either immoral or morally senile?
4. To answer this question, we need to develop a theory of ethics, which does two things simultaneously:
(a) show how and why there is an ethical domain in the Indian culture and in what ways it differs from the
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Western ethical domain; and (b) what are the constraints on the western ethical tradition that it is forced
to describe us the way it has.
5. This means such a theory of ethics will be a direct competitor to the Western thinking on ethics. That
is to say, our westology will not remain a mere westology but will be forced to provide an alternative and
competing way of looking at the ethical phenomenon itself.
6. This is what I discovered when I started working my project out. My theory of religion is an alternate to
the current theories of religion: it shows not merely that the western intellectuals are wrong but also explains
why they had to be necessarily wrong. Idem for my current work in ethics.
7. It is here that one experiences the humiliation of racism. It is almost inconceivable to the western
intellectuals, at least this has been my experience, that an Indian could stand up and prove that three
hundred years of western scholarship has been wrong. You are never forgiven for this insult; I mean, it is
simply not on. If you reproduce the post-colonial verbiage, you will be rewarded with a professorship in
Columbia, Chicago or California. But, beware, if you say, let us compete on equal terms scientifically; may
the best theory carry the day; and that happens to be your theory!
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Denying experience in intra-cultural communication S.N. Balagangadhara

(2011-02-28 08:44)
1. Let us begin with one of the minimal conditions for inter-cultural (verbal) communication. And that is:
people should be able to have conversations with each other. It is legitimate to claim that one does not need
to know what a conversation is in order to have a conversation. Therefore, whatever else we may want to
say, it would be very difficult to maintain that there is no conversation in other cultures. Equally difficult
would it be to hold that some cultures are inferior to others regarding their practice of conversational activity.
In other words, our intuitions do not allow us to assert either a factual or a normative claim, which would
either deny the existence of conversation in other cultures or suggest that members from some cultures are
incompetent conversationalists.
2. The western culture has produced several theories about and several theorists of conversation. These
theories are the results of research into the nature of conversation. Such theories shed light on the nature
and properties of conversation. Some of the famous maxims of conversation are known (and practiced?) by
many of us. Strange though this suggestion might sound, we have learnt such maxims in the West after
we left India. As examples, consider the following two maxims: Be relevant (or be to the point) and Be
brief. [Some of us are probably under the impression that these maxims of conversation are efficient or
business-like and that they help us get on with our lives better. I will come back to this point later.]
3. Whatever these theories do or do not, they should at least help us affirm the points made in the first
paragraph. In order to see how our theories of conversation help us relate to them, let me introduce the
following scenarios set in the Asian continent. (All of them true, all narrated to me by the Europeans and a
few any numbers of times. That is why I have structured the scenarios the way I have.).
3.1. As a white man and foreigner, you are a teacher in an English class in China. All of a sudden, one fine
day, the Chinese director of the school drops in during the afternoon and requests to speak to you. After
nearly a quarter of an hour, during which time the director has praised your work and qualities sky high,
and just when you thought that he was coming to the real point of his visit he politely takes leave. You
know that what he said was not what he came to say; nevertheless, you also realize that something has
been said. (This is the experience of an American, who suffered a nervous breakdown after living for about
two years in China under these conditions.)
3.2. As a white man and foreigner, you are travelling somewhere in Asia (say, Thailand). Intending to take
the public transport, you go to a bus stop and enquire a native passer-by when the next bus is due. The
native consults his wristwatch, assures you that you could expect it any minute and moves along. An hour
and a half later, while still waiting for the same bus, you spy the same native returning from his errand.
Furious, you collar him and ask him the same question. Though a bit surprised at your rage, when the native
gives the same answer, you realize that you have been had: that guy had no more clue about the bus timings
than you had!
3.3. As a white man and foreigner, you are travelling on a train in India. Seated next to you is a Brahmin,
eager to strike up a conversation and impress you with his learning. Your sensibility is shocked by the poverty
in India, and by the existence of untouchability in that culture. Outraged and incensed by the indifference
that Indians show to poverty and suffering around them, you quiz this Brahmin about why he is unmoved.
The Brahmin assures you with great solemnity that most of the beggars you have seen are really no beggars
at all, but, to the contrary, rather wealthy. Many, in fact, are wealthier than either of you. In support of this
fact, the Brahmin tells you a tale (an anecdote) about some beggars who turned about to be the greedy rich
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in disguise! Regarding the lot of those beggars who are not cheaters, he merely shrugs his shoulders and says
that it is their karma. You are utterly shocked by both the flimsiness of his explanation and by the total
lack of humanity in that Brahmin. Both of you know that the anecdote was a figment of his imagination.
Each of the three scenarios is a part of our folklore: almost each traveler and tourist who has been to Asia
will have some such tale to tell.
4. There will not be much of a controversy, if we identify all three as conversations. That is to say, two or
more people are involved; there was some kind of a question and answer, some exchange of information in
some context or the other. We do not suppose that one needs to be knowledgeable about conversation theory
in order to identify that a conversation has taken place. And yet, were we to look at some of the existing
theories about what conversation is, we are led to some nontrivial and startling conclusions: it would appear
either that there has been no conversation at all or that in each of them some or other maxim has been
violated.
5. In and of itself, this piece of knowledge is not startling. But it does become so when we take into account
that these types of conversation are not exceptions but standards, and that they all are examples from nonwestern cultures!
In the first case, for example, the Chinese director was neither brief nor relevant; in the second, the native
was violating the cooperation principle and was lying; in the third the same holds true as well.
6. Our theories of conversation, then, generate the conclusions that other cultures either do not know how
to have a conversation or that they always violate the norms of conversation or, even more crudely put, most
of the time only westerners are competent conversationalists. This is a logical possibility, to be sure; but
there is something utterly implausible about such conclusions. Our conversational theories generate such
conclusions because of some assumptions they make. Let me try and identify just three of them.
7. The first assumption: Common to all (or nearly all) theories of conversation is the assumption that
conversational relations (like, say, that of relevance) hold between beliefs. (I do not mean religious beliefs,
but beliefs of any kind.) That is to say, the semantic relations between propositions constitute the main
area of inquiry. (Some statement A is relevant to some statement B: therefore, relevance has to do with the
meaning of the statements A and B.)
The second assumption: Theories of conversation do not refer to the fact that it is people who indulge in
conversation; yet, one intuitively thinks that it is human beings who indulge in conversations. These two
ideas are not (necessarily) opposed to each other. That is, the distance between the theories and our intuitions is bridged (often) by a metaphysical assumption, which is highly culture specific: only human beings
have beliefs. Or, at least: human beings embody beliefs.
The third assumption: With respect to this property of embodying beliefs, there is a third assumption about
the nature of persons. This says that humans are equal with respect to this property.
8. The first assumption allows you to discover relations between beliefs; the second and the third assumptions enable you to develop a general theory of what it is to have a conversation. If this caricature is even
approximately true, we can raise the question now: What if there exist cultures and societies, where none of
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the above assumptions are true? That is, what if there are cultures and societies, which do not make this kind
of a distinction between human beings and the rest of nature; to whom the observational term, viz., human
beings turns out to be a very theoretical term? Clearly, in such cases, our theories of conversation break
down. By the same token, they cease being universal in the sense of being theories of human communication.
9. What I would like to propose is that this is indeed the case: in each of the scenarios sketched above,
what we see is the breakdown of our theories of conversation. In these cultures, the kind of conversation
held depends on exactly who the participants are; the relevant answer to a question depends upon just
who is asking the question and who is doing the answering. What is a relevant answer to a question in one
conversation need not be a relevant answer to the same question in another conversation.
10. The above considerations are enough for me to raise two general points: one about us and the other about
inter-cultural communication. Let me begin with the first. Why do we Indians, so proudly at times, accept
ideas from conversation theories (even if we do not know where they come from) with so little reflection? In
fact, I have had people preaching to me that we Indians are a garrulous lot and that we better learn from
the western culture the virtues of being relevant, brief and to the point. Why so little understanding of the
issues involved? Why the urge not to think our own experiences through and look at our own inheritance
and culture? I do not want to praise the Indian culture as the best form of life; but I do want to say that
it is our form of life and just as valid as any other form of life. Let us learn all we want to and can from
the West: I have learnt a great deal already and continue to do so. But that is possible only if we do not
denigrate either of the two cultures. (This is a huge issue, and I hope to return to this someday.) Personally,
I am only glad that I have learnt to know them both so intimately.
11. If we continue along the lines of the thoughts sketched above, we see that the theorists of inter-cultural
communication have not even begun to suspect the kind of problems involved in thinking about the theme.
No wonder the problems of inter-cultural communication, instead of going away, return with a vengeance.
Because, as the earlier points will have hinted at, the entire discussion is not about inter-cultural communication at all but about intra-cultural communication. Better put, the whole issue is about the monologue
the western culture has within itself and other cultures have to merely play their scripted role. How should
different cultures speak both to the West and to each other within the framework of the western culture?
Obviously, this is not merely a cultural, political or an economic question but one that arises within the
theories of conversation!
12. In other words, the denial of our experience takes place in more forms and fashions than we understand.
While we protest about it in one area, we acquiesce to it in another. This is something we need to keep
in mind. Besides, what is wordiness between Indians; there is no need to be either brief or to the point!
Right?
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Does Shivalinga mean phallus? A theoretical dispute
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S.N. Balagangadhara
(2011-02-28 18:58)
Question: In the context of puja, does Shivalinga denote or connote anything other than Shiva, in particular
phallus? A Wendy says Yes, a Balu says No. For some person, not on this board, there is not a dialog;
it is a reading of Wendy, a reading of Balu - how to decide between the two answers, which one represents
the truth about Hindus?
Depending on the patience of the visitor, a number of answers are possible including an identification of the
nature of the dispute.
1. In the context of the Catholic mass, do the bread and the wine mean or refer to anything other than
the flesh and blood of Christ? The Catholics say yes (this is their doctrine of transubstantiation), the
Protestant says no. How to decide between the two answers and which one represents the truth about the
Catholics? Or does one want to say, which one represents the truth about Christianity? Or does one want
to say, which one represents the truth about the world? Notice that, in each case, the dispute is not about
the meaning (connotation) or the reference (denotation) of the word bread and wine: it is a theological
dispute that appears to be about the meaning and reference of words. So, how to decide between the answer
in this case? Depends on your theology.
2. In the context of Christian worship, does the word The Bible connote or denote anything other than
the word of God, in particular a book? One says yes, the believer says no. Is this about the meaning or
reference of the word The Bible ? In English, the word The Bible does not mean a book. It is a name.
What does it name? A book. Any book? No. All books? No. Only books? No, because it could be a
scroll too. So, some books, some scrolls and even some recitations could all be called The Bible. Let us go
further. Could one use the word The Bible to name any of the above in different languages? Well, yes. So,
what does the word The Bible name? Something that is the same irrespective of the language, or the form
this something assumes. The Bible names this. So, what is the dispute about? The one who says that
The Bible denotes or connotes a book is fixated on the physical shape of some book he saw somewhere
and somewhen without even thinking his own claim through. So, one does not even have to refer to what
the believers believe in order to show this. How to decide between the answers in this case? Depends on
your understanding of what language is with respect to its use sociologically.
3. In the context of physics, does the word mass denote or connote an invariant or a variable? A Newtonian
says an invariant; an Einsteinian says a variable. For someone who does not know Physics, there is no
dialogue. A reading of a Newton and a reading of Einstein. How to decide between the two readings, which
one represents the truth about the physicists? I am sure we can elaborate on these ourselves. What is the
dispute about? The truth of the reading has to do not with the community of physicists, not what any
group says at any given moment of time, but with what a scientific theory is and how one chooses between
competing theories.
These three examples are enough to illustrate the following: what appears as a dispute about the meaning
and reference of words can be about things that have absolutely nothing to do with either the denotation or
the connotation of the words. This is the first thing one will have to tell someone who is not on the board.
Having said this, we can now focus on what the dispute is between a Wendy and a Balu.
4. In the context of puja, does Shivalinga denote or connote anything other than Shiva, in particular phallus? Does ShivaLinga mean phallus? No, of course not. (Linga might, but not Shivalinga. But I will
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come to this.) Does the word mean the phallus of Shiva ? Yes it does. In what way, precisely? The only
way of answering this question is to circumscribe the reference first. Let us assume the existence of an entity
named Shiva. Let us assume too that he has a phallus. Then Shiva Linga names the phallus of Shiva.
However, if it refers to such a unique entity as the phallus of Shiva there can be only one such. (Shiva
does not have infinite number of phalluses; and Shiva is an entity different from Durga, Ganesha and, say,
a mortal called Balu.) So, do we do puja to this unique entity? That cannot be the case: there are finitely
many shiva lingas in India and outside. So, what we do puja to is not a unique entity which is the phallus
of Shiva but a form (or representation) of this unique entity.
What kind of a form is this? It cannot connote or denote the material of which the phallus is made of.
Whatever be the material out of which the phallus of Shiva is constructed, it cannot be simultaneously
constructed out of stone, aluminum, marble and so on. So, it will have to be the shape of the phallus of
Shiva. Therefore, if something is to be a Shiva linga at all, it must have a shape of the phallus of Shiva
and that shape must be invariant across Shiva lingas.
The very same devotees of Shiva, however, do puja to Jyothirlinga and Aatmalinga too. They are Shiva
Lingas as well. Either one denies, pace the above argument, that these two are Shiva Lingas at all, or one
has to say that these Lingas have the same shape as the phallus of Shiva. Neither of these two possibilities
is true. The first is empirically false (both synchronically and diachronically); the second is to literally see
phallus where there is none, in light.
The only possible conclusion: Shivalinga cannot possibly refer to the shape of the phallus of Shiva. It
is a form, which has little to do with the shape of Shivas Penis. Thus, for the lack of an alternative (at
this stage of the discussion), we have to settle for the following: ShivaLinga is the form in which we do
Puja to Shiva. Apparently, this mind-numbing (linguistic and philosophical) tour merely tells us what our
grandmothers told us in all their simplicity: we do puja to Shiva in the form of Linga.
Of course, one can go further in such a discussion along any number of other lines. It is not my intent and,
I presume, neither yours to do so. Hopefully, this goes some way to clarifying the question you raised. The
issues and the disputes are not so arbitrary any more than they are merely questions of alternate readings
or etymological fights. Other substantial issues are involved and it is not an undecidable !
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India and Her traditions: A Reply to Jeffrey Kripal
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S.N. Balagangadhara
(2011-02-28 19:16)
Before addressing this writing to Jeffrey Kripal, I would like to very clearly stipulate some of my basic stances
so that the discussion does not get derailed into these issues.
1. Even though the communication will be directed to the person of Jeffrey Kripal, it is not ad hominem
but issue-oriented. However, I will eschew making some kinds of qualifications academics are prone to
make, so that any intelligent, but layperson can not only follow the discussion but also evaluate what
is being said.
2. I do not subscribe to the identity politics popular in the US universities, any more than I belong to
the community of writers who call themselves post-colonial or as defenders of the sub-altern studies.
I find such writings intellectually both puerile and pernicious.
3. In no form or fashion do I want to claim that the location of a person is relevant to evaluating what
he says. Caste, creed, ethnic origins, cultural location, skin-colour, passport, etc. are no more relevant
to this debate than the fact that the Jewishness of Albert Einstein is relevant to evaluating his
theory of general (or special) relativity. That is to say, if we can do physics, Mathematics, Biology,
etc.; if we can write in illuminating ways about St. Augustine or Martin Luther; I do not see why
someone from another culture (whether Western, African, or American Indian) cannot do the same
about Shankaracharya or Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.
4. The above stance is not a mere moral one, as far as I am concerned. This is an integral part of what
it is to contribute to human knowledge. In so far as possessing a white skin does not make one into
a scientific researcher only by virtue of this fact alone, the same does not disqualify one from being a
researcher either. It is strictly irrelevant. However, this does not mean that it is irrelevant to producing
that knowledge. In more ways than one, ones context is important and, perhaps, in this column I
can talk about the ways in which it is the case. But this concerns the production of knowledge not its
evaluation.
1. Therefore, I will be interrogating Jeffrey Kripal with respect to one single question: has he produced
knowledge or not? I do not believe he has; I believe his stance prevents him from recognizing it; I do
not believe he knows either of these two. I will try to provide arguments in defence of these charges.
This is my brief.
Dear Jeffrey Kripal,
Many voices will have joined in this debate by the time I get to publish this. Mine is one such. In the course
of the communication, it is possible that I raise my voice now and then to make some point or another. Let
this only draw your attention to the fact that we are disputing some issues not as disembodied minds but as
human beings. Menschliches, Allzumenschliches (Human, All-too-Human), as Nietzsche put it so beautifully
while titling one of his contributions thus.
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Your first book raises many issues; your other book even more. As does Rajiv Malhotras article. So does
your response. I want to take up many of them; but my wordiness (as some people so kindly characterize
my style) will no doubt prevent me from doing all I want to. But the issue I want to tackle requires this
writing style. So, please indulge me. In order to set the problem up, I will begin by sketching some relevant
anecdotes.
1. As is the case with most Indians, I learnt English through an Indian language. I was taught that puja
was worship, devas meant gods (with this capitalisation) and so on. It was not clear what exactly God
was even though I was taught that you write God with a big G as we used to say. I guess I assumed that
God referred to the entity you chose: mine, for instance was Ishwara. Somehow, I fell in love with this
erotic ascetic (as Wendy Doniger titled her book on Shiva): with his abode in the cemeteries, with his
tendency to be easily provoked to anger; his veebhoothi and his snake and, of course, his children Ganesha
and Skanda. No doubt, it has something to do with my name and my short temper (as we say in India)
too. One day, I must have been around 14 then, I discovered that Linga meant phallus (a penis as it was
explained to me) and that it was a symbol of male fertility. So, when my sisters and mother went to do
puja in the nearby temple of Mallikarjuna (another name for Shiva), they actually went to worship a male
penis. I was terribly, terribly embarrassed by this explanation, felt it was wrong too, but did not know what
to say about it. I still remember running to the temple to see whether the Shiva linga looked like a penis.
I must confess that it did not. However, my insistence on this fact generated a jeering laughter from the
person who had broken this news to me: How many have you seen? That is what the penis will look like
when you grow old. My sense of wrongness persisted, the embarrassment never left me, especially when
Europeans asked me what Shiva linga stood for. But I did not know what to say.
2. Fast forward. Nearly a decade later. I am 24 and on my first trip to Europe. I knew about homosexuality
abstractly (i.e. it never occurred to me to visualise it concretely), and had no problems with it (as I used
to put it in those days). However, I was quite unprepared for the sight of males French kissing each other
openly and therefore was incredulously fascinated by the scene when I first came across it in Amsterdam.
Anyway, I went back to India having learnt about some of the outward signs of manifesting homosexual
affection.
As you will no doubt know, it is a common practice for friends to walk the streets in India, holding hands
and moving them breezily. It is equally common to put your arm across the shoulders of your friend and
walk or cycle. In India, I had a friend who had this habit of clasping your hands and walk along with you.
After my return from Europe, I could not reciprocate any more: I knew what it meant. Even though I had
no problem doing the same before I went to Europe, after my return, I could not. It was embarrassing; but
I could not share this feeling with my friend who had never been to Europe. I could not tell him to stop
doing it either because it would have affected our friendship. So, I tried not to walk next to him when we
were together in a group. When two of us were alone and on the streets, I solved the problem by constantly
holding a lighted cigarette in the hand he would want to clasp. Instinctively, as it happened many-a-times,
he would move to the other side; then, so would my cigarette.
3. Fast forward again. Nearly a quarter century later. Today, I am able to reflect about what embarrassments like the above signified. Now I have begun to fashion the intellectual and conceptual tools needed to
interrogate these experiences: not mine alone but those of a culture. What was the nature of wrongness and
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embarrassment I felt when I discovered that linga meant penis? Why did I feel embarrassed to hold my
friends hand? What sense of wrongness prevented me from telling him what embarrassed me about this
simple act of affection between friends? And so on and so forth.
4. Many readers of the debate that has ensued after Rajiv Malhotras article are expressing this sense of
wrongness as well. Probably, most of them do not belong to the Hindu right or to the Hindutva movement. Nor are they expressing an ironed out, prudish neo-Vedantic strain, as you put it. Something else is
involved. Before interrogating this experience, let me tell you what happened recently. I asked my brother
(in India) to read the Sulekha column and tell me of his responses. Unprepared for what he was going to
encounter, he had the article and the responses printed out and read them through. The other day, I rang
up to ask him what he made of all this. He told me that he could not sleep the whole night after reading
Rajiv Malhotras article. He just sat the night through he said, much to his wifes worry who told him that
he was foolish to read all kinds of stuff and upset himself. Why do they write about us like this, he asked,
what injustice (Anyaaya) have we done to the Americans that they write about our devas this way? He
feels enraged, ashamed, humiliated and wounded, without knowing what to do about any of these feelings. I
feel like scratching my body incessantly (a typical Indian expression of helplessness), he said, they should
not have written this way. It is wrong. It is a paapa (Ganesha is his favorite God. His home is full of
pictures of all kinds of Ganeshas: the baby Ganseha, the crawling Ganesha, the dancing Ganesha and, of
course, any number of seated ones.) Why do my brother and many others like him on this board experience
feelings like injustice, humiliation, moral wrong and so on? If they are shocked and indignant, which
they undoubtedly are, what kind of a shock and indignation is it?
5. Surely, Jeffrey Kripal, this is the first thing you have to explore when you want to understand a culture
different from your own. You say, in your defense, that you have assembled a thick file of correspondence
(both positive and negative) from Indians and that you are sensitive to their feelings. This is not an issue
about your sensitivity or mine, my friend, but about cultural sensibilities. What kind of shock and sense of
wrongness does one feel to see Ramakrishna portrayed as a sort of pedophile? (Of course, you do not quite
say it in these terms; we will have time to look at your nuances later.) You have the answers ready: I
know them, so do the readers. Instead of discussing them in the abstract, let us try and interrogate these
experiences themselves, and do an exercise in cultural hermeneutics as it were.
6. Here is the first striking thing: these purported explanations trivialize experiences. When I found out
that my mother, my sisters, all women and all men, were merely worshipping the male penis it told me the
following: (a) that what I was doing was, in fact, worshipping the penis; (b) that I was a fool to think that
I was doing something else other than this. That is to say, not only did it make all hitherto acts of worship
look foolish, it also insisted that I was being doubly foolish for not knowing this. [Ibid. with respect to
claiming that Ganeshas love of sweets expresses his appetite for oral sex or that his trunk is a limp penis.
How foolish it must seem to cook all those many, many sweet dishes during Ganesha Chaturthi !]
7. By virtue of this, it transformed my experience. What does the transformation consist of? Such purported explanations re-describe experiences by twisting or distorting them. Before I went to Europe, holding
hands was not experienced by me as an expression of homosexuality but now it gets distorted to become
one after my encounter with the European culture. Same thing with respect to the re-description of linga as
penis.
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Of course, it is the case that scientific theories correct experiences too: we see a stick appearing bent when
immersed in water and see the movement of the sun across the horizon. Our scientific theories tell us that
neither is true. In such cases, it is important to note that these theories preserve our experiences the way
they are: in fact, the scientific theories explain to us the necessity of such appearances. They do not distort
them, much less deny them.
8. That is what these purported explanations do: deny our experiences. Our worship of the linga is in reality
not a worship of Shiva at all, but a subconscious acknowledgement of some repressed notion of fertility
(or whatever else). Whatever we experience is not the said object at all but something else.
9. What happens when your experience is denied by being distorted and trivialized? If you accept this
story of penis, both erect and limp, can you feel the same sense of reverence (or call it what you want) that
you did once, remember it too, without feeling a perfect ass? You cannot. You cannot have access to such
an experience any more. That is, these purported explanations deny access to our own experiences.
10. Here lies the root of the sense of wrongness that my brother and many others feel. Who or what is
denying access to our own experience? It is not a theory, but a theorizing of someone elses experience.
Because this point can be easily misunderstood, let me unravel this just a bit.
Much before Freud wrote whatever he did, we had people from other religions coming to India to say the
same thing: first from Islam and then from Christianity. They told us (not only them, many Indians in their
wake told us that as well!) that we were worshipping the cow, the monkey, the penis, the stone idol and the
naked fakir. This is how these people experienced us and our activities. Their theologies had prepared them
for such an experience much before they came to our part of the world. Of course, they saw only what they
expected to see.
The descriptions the missionaries provided, the reports of Christian merchants, the interpretations of the
Muslim kings, the developments within Christian theology, etc. were the facts that Freud sought to understand. (To the extent he believed that he was laying the foundation of a scientific theory, to that extent
these were the facts he was accounting for.) What did he theorize then? He theorized upon the European
experience of other cultures and upon a theological elaboration of these experiences.
Consequently, who or what is denying the access to our experience? The experience of another culture. (Or,
the theorizing of such an experience. Though important in its own right, we can safely drop this distinction.
Taking it into consideration would make the analysis complex without adding anything of substance.) This
lies at the root of the feeling of wrongness: our experiences are being trivialized, denied, distorted and made
inaccessible by someone elses experience of the world. Hence the feeling of moral or ethical wrongness,
because such a situation is neither justified nor justifiable. One is made to think that, apparently, there is
only one way of experiencing the world: the western way.
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11. Thus some among us protest: this situation is morally wrong. What injustice have we done that you
speak of us this way? It is a paapa, as my brother put it. Like Rajiv Malhotra, there are others who argue
this point of view eloquently and with repeated insistence. But such men and women are easily branded: as
the RSS, as the Hindutva and, of course, the ever-present threat of being damned as a Hindu fundamentalist. Others, much like the 14-year-old boy that I once was, fall silent because another kind of wrongness is
involved as well: the cognitive wrongness.
12. Scientific theories, in so far as they explain our experiences, do so without denying or trivializing the
latter. But the explanations of the sort you give, and those I heard, do not explain; they merely trivialize,
distort and deny what we experience. They do not shed any light on our experiences, but render them
opaque and inaccessible. Galileo did not deny that we see the movement of the sun on the horizon or that
we see it rise and set. None would have taken him seriously, then or later, if he had done either. Instead,
he explained the necessity of this perception, while explaining that the world is not structured this way. To
be sure he challenged; but to whom or to what did he address it to? To a set of beliefs about the world
and to the authority that defended those beliefs. He did not tell you or me that we hallucinate every time
we see the movement of the Sun; he claimed that the geocentric theory was false. This is not what you are
doing, Jeffey Kripal. You are telling us we have a false experience and not that we have a false theory about
mysticism. How do you accomplish this? By trivializing and denying our experience. And this makes most
of us fall silent, making us dumb. The way a boy of 14 could not think of anything to say when he heard
that the Shiva linga was the male penis. Not because it struck a chord in him, but because he did not know
how to counter it. He fell silent because he did not know how to express the sense of cognitive wrongness he
felt, a situation that many among of us find ourselves in.
Today, more than three decades later, that boy has grown up. He has studied books, thought about questions
and analyzed the relevant experiences. Today, he is able to say what is cognitively wrong: such explanations
do the opposite of what scientific theories do. He now knows that these explanations do nothing of the
sort they claim; they are merely a way of structuring the experience of a people from another culture. He
knows that these pseudo-explanations, that is what they are, sound fancy; knows too that many from his
culture parrot this exotic product. But since when, he asks himself, are scientific truths decided by means
of majority votes? Thus he claims that the first charge is true Jeffrey Kripal: your story is wrong not only
morally but also cognitively. That is, you have not produced knowledge. You could not have produced it
because you have not explained the experience but, instead, provided a trivialized and distorted description
of such an experience. You are not even close to capturing (let alone explaining) the Indian mysticism or
its cultural forms. In fact, he says, you are blind even to seeing it.
13. What an extraordinary thing to say! You have written a book about the mysticism of Ramakrishna and,
yet, here I am, suggesting that you are not even able to see it. So, a bit of explanation is in order. It is
tricky, so let us take it by stages.
13.1. Let us step back from the psychoanalytical explanations and ask ourselves the following question: which
problem was Freud trying to solve? Of course, there were many: he wanted to investigate into the nature of
hysteria; he wanted to figure out the story behind incest fantasies; he wanted to understand the slips of the
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tongue, etc. I do not mean any of these. What is the underlying problem behind these issues? Philosophers
of science identify such problems as the problem-situation. What then was Freuds problem-situation? Both
the nature of the psychoanalytic practice and the structure (and content) of the psychoanalytical explanations give us ample clues in the direction of an answer. In its blandest form, it is this: Is ones experience
in the world (especially about oneself and the others) veridical (i.e. true)? If we keep in mind what I have
said hitherto and what you implicitly assume, it can be put even more provocatively: Is the experience of
an individual directly accessible to the individual whose experience it is?
13.2. Freuds answer is known: no, he said, one can access ones own experience only through the mediation
of another, in casu, the psychoanalyst. This is not the only reason why Freuds story appears unbelievable.
There is something else of importance as well.
I am sure you will admit that not only the notion of experience but also its existence is of crucial importance
to us human beings. We think that experience is valuable and important; it is both the source of and the precondition for most learning. Given its centrality to human existence, one would naturally expect the western
tradition to be bothered about figuring out what this experience is all about. Yet, amazingly enough as it
turns out, such is not the case. Despite books and articles in many, many disciplines bearing the title, the
nature of experience is hardly studied. More often than not, it is reduced to thoughts, feelings, perception
(or even sensation) and action. None of these, either severally or jointly exhausts experience because one
could experience any or all of them as well. (One can experience thoughts, feelings, etc.) Thus, what is
experience ? An important question, but very ill understood.
Such being the case, Freuds observation and his sensing of the problem-situation is very sensitive indeed.
Of course, he hypothesized that the individual experience is not directly accessible to the said individual, and
postulated many mechanisms to account for this non-accessibility. We need take no sides on the validity
or otherwise of his individual hypotheses here, even though I will return to this issue in another way at the
end of this column.
13.3. There is, however, another culture in the world, which has made this problem-situation an absolutely
central focus of its enquiry. All the Indian traditions, without any major exception as far as I know, have
made experience and its interrogation central to their enquiry. Naturally, they too discovered that experience
is not veridical; there are things that prevent us from accessing these experiences. Different traditions
called them differently: Maaya, Avidya and Agyana, are the best-known categories in this context. They
thought each of these categories was an instance of paapa and, in fact, removing this has been their central
goal: Gyaanoodaya or the arising of knowledge (again, it is called differently by different traditions). The
hindrances to knowledge were either illusions (of sorts) or ignorance (of sorts). One could eliminate them,
they said, and developed any number of practical ways of doing so. (The plurality of the Indian traditions
is partly a plurality of the ways of removing the veil of ignorance.)
Though ill understood by most Indologists and philosophers, these notions are crucial. Ignorance is not
mere absence of information; it is accorded a positive role, and seen as a positive force that actively hinders
the emergence of knowledge. Maaya is not mere illusion; the world exists and impinges upon us too much
to make the facile claim of the sort that Patrick Hogan makes in his article on Sulekha. In any case, these
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traditions believed too that some kind of mediation would be helpful in accessing ones own experience.
They called such a mediator Guru and suggested that, in most cases, one needed a Guru to achieve enlightenment.
13.4. In other words, Jeffrey Kripal, there exist two rival or competing practical traditions that address
themselves to the same (or very, very similar) problem-situation. By virtue of this, they become rival or
competing research traditions that provide different answers to the same problem-situation.
13.5. Why did you not look at the Indian traditions this way to understand Kalis Child? [Why do you speak
as though the tantric emphasis on sex antedates Freuds claims? You say that Tantrism spoke about sex
even before Freud, as though you want to compliment the Indian culture for its acuity. Actually, it does not
sound complimentary but patronizing.] The Indian traditions challenge Freuds theories. Why did you not
look at the issue in this manner?
It is not as though you are ignorant of the Indian traditions. Even if you are, your mentor Wendy Doniger
is supposed to be the expert on Hinduism. Why did it not occur either to her or to you that the theories
you used were already facing challenges from within the Indian traditions? Here is my simple answer: you
have been blinded to the existence of Indian traditions as alternatives to Freud.
13.6. This is not all. You do something more in your blindness. You use Freudian explanation to characterize
a rival research tradition. Such a move can only yield a caricatured, distorted version of the competitor.
When I was young, I remember one of my uncles making fun of my exposition of the Darwinian evolutionary theory with the following riposte: You might be proud to accept that your ancestors are monkeys. I,
however, am not. I felt like a fool again, because I did not know how to respond to my uncle. As I read the
research and the controversies later, I discovered that this is one of the most standard ways of ridiculing the
evolutionary theory. Who does the ridiculing? Those who belong to the rival research traditions, of course!
By caricaturing Galileos theory, Aristotelians ridiculed it; this is how modern medicine looks at Paracelsus
or the medical practices in the Europe of the Middle Ages and so on. That is what you do as well. To use
the stories of the Viennese master to understand Kalis child is like using creationism to portray Darwins
theory. You are blind to this distortion as well. So, how could you describe Ramakrishna, when you cannot
see him? You cannot; the second charge is obviously not so farfetched after all.
14. This blindness inherent in your venture must render us blind too whether the us is a Sudhir Kakar or
a Sumit Sarkar. It does. But in a different way and for a different reason. I suppose you have no problem
in accepting the suggestion that theories about cultural worlds have their roots in the experiences of such
worlds. These theories describe experiences; they reflect on experiences; they problematize such experiences
and think through them. In other words, if I want to theorize about the Indian culture, I need to have access
to an experience of the Indian culture (whether directly or indirectly). These explanations deny the access
by acting as a filter between our own experiences and us.
In one sense, all theories act as some kind of a filter: they select some salient aspect of the experience and
focus upon it. In the case we are talking about, the situation is not the same. These purported explanac
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tions act as a distorting glass. I knew I had such experiences; I saw that others apparently continued to
have the experiences I had before (I continued to see adult male friends holding hands, I continued to see
people going to do puja to the Shiva Linga, etc); I knew too that I had these but was unable to access them
because of these explanations. That is, these explanations came actively between my own experiences and
me, and actively prevented me from describing or reflecting on my own experiences. Did I really see the
homosexuality of my friend when he held my hands? No. Did I really see the penis when I looked at the
Lingam? No, I did not. Our experiences of the world and the explanations that are used are at loggerheads
with each other: without speaking about experience, one cannot say what the Indian experience consists
of; the (Freudian) stories we reproduce tell us that there is no Indian experience to talk of.
This is the lot and daily life of cultures and peoples colonized by the western culture. The colonization, as
many have pointed out, was not merely a process of occupying lands and extracting revenues. It is not a
question of us aping the western countries and trying to be like them. It is not even about colonizing the
imaginations of a people by making them dream that they too will become modern, developed and sophisticated. It goes deeper than any of these. It is about denying the peoples and cultures their own experiences;
of rendering them aliens to themselves; of actively preventing any description of their own experiences except
in terms defined by the colonizers. This is the truth about what the Kakars and the Sarkars of my world
sell, no matter how they package it, no matter how they market it.
Of course, there is a very substantial issue here: why do we, Indians, continue to be colonized when the real
event ended more than fifty years ago? I will negatively address myself to this issue shortly only to say
what the answer cannot be. In this process, I can answer some possible objections, and bring the case to a
conclusion.
15. The third charge is that your stance prevents you knowing you are blind. That is to say, why are you
blind? Better said, what makes you blind? The answer to this has layers too, and let me peel just a few of
them. To do that, I shall have to engage you in your own territory, on your own turf. That is, I want to talk
to you about your understanding of your own culture and religion. (Is this not what cultural hermeneutics
all about?) Let me, therefore, play the ventriloquist and displace your voice to ask myself a few questions:
Is the alienation from our own experience (that I spoke of) any different from what any believer undergoes
in the west, when he discovers that God is dead? Is my experience any different from a westerner losing his
belief about God and the mystic? Are our travails anything other than the story of modernity as it plays
out in India?
16. Yes, to all three questions. Let me get again into an autobiographical mode to talk about some of them.
I did not quite tell you what happened during those decades to me when we fast forwarded. Let us rewind
a bit and see what happened to the lad between his 18th and 30th year. You see, he wanted to change the
world and became a radical. He left home before he was even twenty, lived in the slums, worked in the
quarry, went to the villages and even became a Marxist for a period of time. From an orthodox Brahmin,
he had metamorphosed into a fire-breathing atheist: India was backward, the caste system was a curse,
the Indian traditions were outdated, the gods (though he still wrote it with a small g !) did not exist
(except that they once walked the lands of Europe!). A run-of-the-mill progressive, in other words. In short,
the revolution could not come soon enough for him. However, what brought him to Marxism also brought
him out of it: the inability of these stories to make sense of his experience. So, he came to Europe, not in
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search of the Holy Grail (how could he? He was born a Brahmin after all!) but to study the root-cause of
the problems in Marxist theory. You see, in those days it was difficult for us to find books of Hegel, Fichte,
Schelling and many other German philosophers in the public libraries. Even as I began to solve my problems
with Marx, a new issue was beginning to force itself on me: I had dimly begun to realize that I was an
Indian, and that I lived as such in a culture I hardly understood.
17. This realization turned my world upside down; in doing so, however, it helped me regain access to my
own experiences. The world that got turned upside down was the one I thought I lived in all the time. I had
thought until then that I knew the western culture like the back of my hand: it was a shock to discover just
how far I was from knowing either. I could hold forth on the notions of civil society, ought in ethics, the
histories of renaissance and enlightenment and, why, I could even eat meat and drink wine. None of these, I
discovered, meant anything: I was and remained an Indian, even if I once thought I was modern. Thus, I
reflected on my experiences (fed by reading and yet more reading) until I could begin to grasp the outlines
of the question, what is to be an Indian? Seventeen years ago, I formulated these reflections as a research
project, titling it after a poem from T.S. Eliot that goes like this: ...We shall not cease from exploration,
and the end of our exploring shall be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. I had
indeed arrived where I had started from: India, Bangalore, a Brahmin family. I began to know the place
too for the first time, because, at last, I could begin to access my own cultural experiences in the way they
need to be accessed. However, the job is not complete and the process not yet over. During all these years,
I have been constructing the tools required to gain access to our experiences because I realized too that my
individual biography was but the Indian history writ small.
18. That is why I can now say that discovering lingam was called penis did not rob me of my world the
same way atheism robs a believer of his world in the western culture. It could not. There are so many
reasons why these two processes are not even remotely similar that I cannot hope to mention any of them
in the course of this column. Instead, let me recount a story taken from the Chandogya Upanishad.
It appears Prajapathi said that he who has found the Self (Atman) and understands it obtains all worlds
and all desires. The Devas and the Asuras both heard these words, and said: Well, let us search for that
Self by which, if one has searched it out, all worlds and all desires are obtained. Thus saying Indra from
the Devas, Virochana from the Asuras, and both without having communicated with each other, approached
Prajapathi& They dwelt there as pupils for thirty-two years. Then Prajapathi asked them: For what purpose have you both dwelt here? They both replied: A saying of yours is being repeated & Now we have
both dwelt here because we wish for that Self. He makes them both look in a pan of water and asks them
what they see. They see their own bodies reflected. He makes them dress up and look again into the water
pan asks them what they see. They said: Just as we are, well adorned, with our best clothes and clean,
thus we are both there, Sir, well adorned, with our best clothes and clean. Prajapathi said: That is the
Self, this is the immortal, the fearless, this is the Brahman. They both went away satisfied in their hearts.
Prajapathi reflects on their absence of critical thought and thinks that whichever of the two follows this line
of thought will perish. The story continues: Now Virochana, satisfied in his heart, went to the Asuras and
preached that doctrine to them, that the self (the body) alone is to be worshipped, that the self (the body)
alone is to be served, and that he who worships the self and serves the self, gains both worlds, this and the
next.[i] The Story further continues about what Indra did, but that is not relevant to me now. What are
the three obvious points in the story:
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18.1. Both the Ausuras and the Devas seek enlightenment. Quite obviously, as this story makes clear, this
state does not consist of believing in some deva or the other for the simple reason that they, the devas,
thirst after enlightenment too! Further, to reach this state, as it becomes evident when we follow the story
further, no grace of any kind of God is required: one needs to think through. (The Indian traditions
speak of any number of other ways too, but that need not detain us here.) From this it follows that ones
enlightenment is the result of ones own effort. It is a deserved reward that is in proportion to the effort
you put in. Between you and the enlightenment, which is the ultimate goal in life, no one or no thing can
counteract your efforts.
18.2. Virochanas insight that the body requires worshipping because it is the Self is a wrong answer because
it is superficial. The answer, however, is not false. As the story evolves further, the reader appreciates that
the Asuras answer is superficial because Indra is provided with a deeper answer. Some answer is superficial
only relative to a deeper one but that does not make the former into a false answer. Virochanas insight
appears as materialistic and as atheistic as they come: yet, the story seems to condone it as a possible
answer (though wrong and superficial) to seek enlightenment. (This answer will not help and that is why
it is wrong.) The discovery that all there is to life is the life one has, or the body one has, does not rob an
Indian of anything. Very sharply put: in the Indian traditions, atheism (of a particular sort, see below)
can also be a way of reaching enlightenment. (We are not yet talking about Buddhism !) This claim is not
even remotely similar to the shock of discovering (in the western culture) that God is dead.
18.3. What kind of atheism am I talking about? Not Western atheism because that makes no sense to the
Indian traditions because of two things: (a) As the story above suggests, the road to enlightenment does
not go through Jerusalem. That is, Prajapthi does not tell Indra that he should believe in God in order to
be enlightened. (b) Consequently, Indian traditions are not theistic (poly-, heno- or mono- or whatever) the
way Judaism, Christianity and Islam are. Consequently, western forms of atheism do not have the western
kind of a theistic doctrine to oppose, when they come to India.
You might object that the distinction drawn I have drawn above between the wrong answer and the false
one is a quibble about the meaning of words. It is not: there is a cognitive issue involved here. When one
has a false answer, one can know that it is false and, perhaps, even localise its falsity. To reject a false
answer, one does not need the presence of an alternative answer. This is not the case with a wrong answer.
One might feel that something is wrong without being able to say what is wrong or even reject the wrong
answer. (Look at what I have been saying throughout this communication.) One needs the presence of an
alternative and a better answer in order to say what was wrong with the wrong answer and reject it.
18.4. The contrast between our Asuras and the Devil in the Bible cannot be greater. Even though, in the
classical but simple interpretation, the Devil himself is a fallen angel, he does not believe in God, but merely
acknowledges His existence. As the Gospel puts it, Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well:
the devils also believe, and tremble (James 2: 26; my emphasis.) The Devil makes us deny the true God,
says the religion that Christianity is. God reveals Himself to save us from the clutches of the Devil, it
assures us further. To become an atheist in the West is to lose faith in this revelation. Where is this
atheism and where our traditions? Where is the Devil, and where our Asuras?
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19. Thus, our Asuras are not like the Devil or his minions in the Bible. Not only do they seek enlightenment,
as the above story makes it clear, but some of them are also the greatest of the bhaktas of our devatas. The
reason why Rama was born, they say, was to kill Ravana a supreme Bhakta. He deserved not to die in
any way other than by being slain by Vishnu himself. To this day, we celebrate the greatest king (an asura)
we ever had, and the greatest bhakta who ever lives: Lord Bali (an immortal) on whose head Trivikrama
(Vaamana, as he is also called) placed his third foot. Each year, it appears, he ascends from the bottom
of the earth to find out how his subjects are faring: the streets are lit as our houses with their doors open,
so that he may come in and feel welcomed. We call this the festival of lights, the Deepavali. You know all
this. Why do I tell it to you then? It is to say that our atheisms, our asuras, the immorality of our
devas do not rob us of our traditions the way atheism does rob a believer in the West. Devatas may die, be
born again, punished, or even remain immortal: our traditions do not suffer from any of these but live on
precisely because of these. Consequently, today, without rejecting any piece of knowledge I have ever learnt,
I can access my traditions and my experience in a very profound way. That is why, Jeffrey Kripal, you would
be wrong to say that what I felt when I was fourteen is what the believer feels when he loses his faith in the
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This is another process altogether.
When people protest against your portrayal of Ramakrishna, the majority of the Indians are not saying what
you think they are. The language they use may sound familiar to your ears; what they say might remind
you of your own experience. To see and understand us this way, however, is to understand very little about
what makes us into different cultures or even what is interesting about this.
20. During the last two decades, I did not merely build the tools to recover my own experiences. I discovered
that I could not do this without understanding the western culture either. My attempts at understanding
one could not be begun without trying to understand the other. To know my mother better, it appears, I
need to know my mother-in-law as well. So, let us look at how you have been treating the latter because
we know what you have done with the former. How has psychoanalysis, sociology, psychology, anthropology,
or whatever else described what religion is? That is to say, what do they assume when they try to explain
religion, if they explain it at all? They assume that religion is a human product, if not a human invention.
But Jeffrey Kripal, this assumption denies them their study object: A Christian believer sees the Bible as
the word of God and not just as a book. You cannot explain this belief by appealing to any sets of natural
causes unless you begin with the assumption that the believer is wrong about his own experience. Of course,
you cannot countenance God in your research; however, if you do not, you are not studying religion as the
believer experiences it, but its caricatured representation. In other words, your Freud cannot explain religion. He explains it as merely a human product, an assumption for which he has no grounds. To formulate
simply: atheism is a philosophical option, but this option will deny you from doing science. Doing theism,
however, will give you theology but not science. To a Christian, the existence or non-existence of Jesus is
of great importance, but the answer to the question about the historical Jesus will not tell you anything
about his Christ-Nature. If he is not the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth is merely a man, not even the Son of
Man. But then, of course, you cannot assume that Jesus is Christ and write a scientific tract about it either.
Underlying this dilemma is a whole host of other problems. (To write further on this requires a book. I have
written one such, which you might care to read.) Therefore, it appears, by assuming the stance that you do
towards the study of religion, you do unto your fellow-men what you do unto us as well. You caricature
the experience of the believer in your culture; you caricature the experiences of our entire culture. It is this
that blinds you to what you are doing.
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21. That means, your descriptions of our experiences are doubly caricatured. Firstly, you tell us that what
we see is not what we see: the linga is not the linga but a penis. As I said earlier, this is what religions
like Christianity and Islam had told us. You tell me they are right. This way, you impose your cultural
experience upon us and deny our experiences. Secondly, you tell us that, even here, what we do is something
else: it transpires that we are not worshipping penis or falling in love with Shiva. We do not worship at
all (one can only worship either God or the Devil) and Shiva is but an erotic ascetic. The aspect has two
tails that sting: why does the imagination of the Indian culture express itself in such grotesque forms as
the penis, the monkey, the stone idol with four arms, and an elephant-headed human? Why is the western
imagination confined to more decent things like visualizing God as the father ? Enter Wendy Doniger and
her children, who answer these questions in ways known to us all. Is there any wonder people are furious?
Are you really that amazed?
22. Let me bring the case to a conclusion: what are you trying to understand when you use your hermeneutic to understand Ramakrishna? How you see him? How your culture sees him? Or how we see him? What
are you theorizing about? Your experience, your cultures experience, or ours? You insist that how your
culture experiences the world is also the only possible experience of the world. (Not explicitly, of course.
But, as I have argued, that is what you do.) You want to tell us what Ramakrishnas mysticism is all
about because this is the only way your theories allow you to see it. Your theories, your explanations, your
assumptions deny us what you would not, as a person, dream of denying to us: that we too have an experience, another one perhaps, but one that is as valid and legitimate as any human experience can be.
You end your article with these words: I at least am ready to laugh again, to exchange gifts, to argue, to
apologize, to weep. I always have been. I believe you. But do you know, people from other cultures do so
too? We too laugh, exchange gifts, argue, apologize and weep? You know that we do it; you assume you
know what they are because that is what you do too. But do you know how we do any or all of these things?
Does it occur to you that we might do them differently? Do you, Jeffrey Kripal, know how we cry or even
why? I wonder.
Friendly greetings
Balu
[i] The translation is taken from Mller. The Upanishads. In two parts. Reprint edition. New York:
Dover Publications, 1962: Part I: Pp.134-137
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Denying Experience: Do Hindoos worship ? Do They do Pooja to a Phallus/Linga? S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-02-28 20:46)
Someone, lets say her name is Wendy Doniger, comes along and sniggers when you worship the lingam, you
worship a phallus. I do not identify Wendys statement as an ad hoc explanation. I say that it trivializes
what I am doing by providing a distorted description of what I do. Here is what I say: I am doing Puja to
Shiva. No discussion about Lingam or its many meanings. This is a wrong way of conducting a discussion.
She cannot, therefore, argue that I am giving an ad hoc explanation because I am not giving an explanation of what I am doing but merely describing it.
Let us sketch some scenarios in order to see what conversational moves are there in such a discussion.
(1) She sees me doing something and asks me what I am doing.
(2) I say I am doing Puja to Shiva. From here on, two possible threads of discussion open up. The first
thread goes like this.
(3) Either she asks why I do it: I say, it is our tradition, or that I am a Bhakta of Shiva, or because my
mother said I should, or whatever else happens to be the case. Or she asks me why Shiva has the form he
has: either I tell her the story from the Puranas, or provide her a sthala purana (i.e. a story about that
particular temple) or I say, this is how we do it.
(4) Let us say, she pursues the story from the Puranas and asks me So, you are worshipping the Lingam of
Shiva. I say, yes, indeed, this is Shiva Lingam.
(5) Being persistent, she goes further: do you know what Lingam means? and I reply well, yes, I do know
some of its meanings as we use it in our language.
(6) Suppose she isolates one meaning, say, phallus and asks me: So, you say you are worshipping Shivas
Lingam. I reply, unperturbed, yes, but I said so already: this is Shivas Lingam. That is why we call it
Shivalingam and not, say, KuberaLingam. In this thread, where I am using Indian words, she cannot even
come close to saying what she wants to.
Suppose at step three, we switch to speaking in English.
(3) She asks what puja is and what lingam means. Here is what I would say today: Puja is best understood as a ritual; as far as Lingam is concerned, I suggest you see it as the form in which this ritual is
performed to Shiva. Again here, two possible threads open up: the first where she contests my translation
and the other where she accepts it.
Let us pursue the second thread to begin with.
(4) Why has Shiva taken this form? Because I am not trying to be polemical, I tell her our stories from
the Puranas and say it is one of the stories from our tradition. And I add, to perform puja to Shiva means
to perform the ritual to this form. Because my description has the form of a definition (Shiva puja=ritual
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to this form) no sensible discussion about it is possible.

(5) She can come up with another definition, but then, I say yes, but that is not my definition and the
discussion is over. On this thread, where we are discussing in English, she cannot say what she wants to
either.
Let us now suppose she contests my translation given in step (3). How is she going to do it?
(4) But you are wrong. Puja is worship and lingam means penis. Therefore, you are worshipping a
penis when you say that you are doing puja to the Shiva Lingam. Here is what I would say today: You
see, the English word worship comes basically from Christian theology where one worships either the God
or the Devil and nothing else. Under no interpretation of such a theology could one consider Shiva as God,
leaving us with only one possibility that Shiva is either the Devil or his minion. Is this what you want say:
that we are worshipping Devil or his minions? In that case, Wendy, we are not discussing a translation
issue but a Christian theological one. Again, two threads open up: either she denies it or asks for further
explication. Let us take up her denial first.
(5) No, that is not what worship means. It means reverence. I am not a Christian, I was born a Jew;
I know nothing of Christian theology even though I was married to one for some time. I would say the
following today: Wendy, I would be willing to accept your definition of worship. But if I do so, I must do
violence to other people and cultures: the Jewish, the Christian and the Muslim. From your definition, it
would follow that they are not worshipping God at all! And further, they cannot. In all these cultures, one
can show reverence to the elderly, the king, knowledge, the powerful, etc. To say that they show reverence
to God in the same way is to transform all of them into idolaters, which, according to their theologies, is the
greatest sin! I am sorry, but your translation of puja is not a mere linguistic issue. Again, the discussion
shifts to another level. She cannot pursue this line of enquiry either.
Let us say she asks for explication, the other thread in step (4). How can the discussion proceed?
(5) Here let me bend the stick in favour of Wendy. But every Sanskrit-English dictionary, and every Indian
teacher in Sanskrit who knows English, translates puja as worship. Are you saying their knowledge of
either languages is deficient and you are the only one who knows how to translate Puja correctly? Being a
reasonable person, I would not get offended by her rhetorical attempts to make me appear ridiculous. I would
say the following: You see, Wendy, we all learnt English through Indian languages and were taught that
Puja means worship. We give the meaning of Puja to the English word worship. The first generations
of translators decided to translate puja as worship because they were convinced that we are idolaters
and worshipped the Devil and his minions. So, you see, we have to discuss the historical issues involving
colonialism and what it means to a culture like ours in order to satisfactorily resolve the issues of translation.
That is all I am saying. Shall we do so? Have your read The Heathen& ?
Thus I can go on sketching several other scenarios of the possible conversational moves open to Wendy in
conducting such a conversation. In none of them can she induce the cognitive wrongness that was induced in
me when I was a boy of 14. She simply does not have the cognitive ability to come up with an explanation
that can trivialize my experience any more. Let me just pen a few reflections about this state of affairs,
because it is very important to realize what has happened consistently throughout these conversations.
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(A) The first thing to notice is that, in all these scenarios, I am defining the terms of the debate. She is
unable to do this with respect to what I am doing.
(B) I am able to do it because I am knowledgeable about the western culture. That is, I am not ignorant of
the western culture the way I was when I was 14 or 24. Therefore, I am able to tell her that she does not
understand her own culture as well as I understand hers.
(C) My principle of charity forbids me from transforming any culture, whether hers or mine, into a bunch of
idiots. My conversational move in (5) makes me defend the Jewish, Islamic, and Christian cultures because
of this principle. Of course, the same principle makes me defend Indian traditions as reasonable ones too.
(D) I am not making use of any fancy defensive explanation - some or another kind of symbolic explanation - (or even any explanation) that many Indians come up with to defend their own traditions. Such
explanations arise out of ignorance: both of their own traditions and, above all, of the western culture.
They have very little understanding of the subjects they talk about, but the conviction they know what is
there to know is matched by none. Most English-speaking Indian intellectuals are a pompous and empty lot:
they talk and argue for the sake of doing so, and believe that knowledge is a matter of providing citations
and references to books. (I will be writing the article I promised you, as an answer to your question, where I
will take up this issue in some detail.) But they have no depth of understanding regarding either their own
traditions or those of the West. They are like the JNU intellectuals: empty, sanctimonious, convinced of
their own intelligence, but full of hot air.
(E) To understand my mother, I needed to understand my mother-in-law. What you see in my imaginary
conversation with Wendy is an exemplification of this realization. There will be no Indian Renaissance without breeding a new set of intellectuals. The current lot is not even worth the paper on which they write
and produce so much nonsense. This might sound a harsh judgment. Undoubtedly, there are some fine
individuals among them; I know a few of them personally myself. But this is how I look at the issue.
S. N. Balagangadhara
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Reductive explanations in social sciences
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1. To begin with, there is the feeling that scientific explanations, with their emphasis on rationality and
objectivity, are reductive in nature. Wherein lies the root of this feeling? Let us say that some physical
theory describes the motion of a snow flake gently floating down to earth or a rose petal lazily spinning in
the air. Or that some branch of human genetics computes the probability of a particular human child being
born with absolutely dark eyes or ones that are brilliantly blue. Is either of these two explanations reductive
in nature? Not quite: their mathematical calculations tell us very little about the laziness of the petal or
about the brilliance of blue eyes, it is true, but it is not their job to do so. If you want to relish descriptions
of an autumn evening or a spring morning, you do not open Feynmans Lectures on Physics, do you? You
go elsewhere. In other words, the theories in the natural sciences are not reductive in the sense that they
do not reduce the beauty of a particular sunset to the motion of earth around the Sun even if they explain
sunrise and sunset.
2. The current crop of the so-called social sciences does precisely the above. While ostensibly about human
beings, their psychologies, their societies and their cultures, the tales they tell shine forth in the splendor of
a monochromatic dullness. (Most of us know something or the other about explanations from these so-called
social sciences, so I will not try to give examples.) Why? Here is the first possible reason: they have to give
reductive explanations because they are scientific and objective. Without reducing human beings into
objects, one cannot do science and the existing social sciences merely follow the scientific method. This
reason does two things simultaneously: (a) it explains the fate that has befallen the social sciences and
humanities; (b) it justifies the poverty of these theories by blaming it on the nature of human beings and
the nature of science. We have silly sociological theories and stupid psychological ones, because it is in the
nature of human beings to defy being objectified; science cannot work any other way. As I say, this is but
one way of looking at the so-called social sciences today. Needless to say, this is the dominant mode as well.
3. There is also another way, my way, of looking at the issue. This is how western culture has been studying human beings, their societies, and their cultures all this while. There is nothing remotely scientific
about either this venture or its results. The justification they provide (see 2b above) is an expression of an
empty pretentiousness: because we have not been able to study human societies and cultures differently,
the intellectuals from the western culture pontificate, no one else can. The limits of our culture are also
the epistemological limits of human beings. Surely, they say, if we have not succeeded, that is because no
one can! Why do I say that this is the way of the western culture ? What has this culture to do with the
monochromatic formalism I spoke of earlier?
4. When Christianity met (or meets) other religions (especially the heathen religions like Hinduism,
Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism and so on), there is only one way it can describe them: these religions
do not worship God but the Devil. We are the heathens and the pagans, and the differences (subtle or
gross), if any, between these religions are at best those that exist within the heathen religions. Of course,
there are rays of light to be found in the heathen religions too: but that is accounted for by the fact that
these religions are the corruptions and degenerations of the primal religion that God (of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob) gave to Man. (The same story is told by Judaism and Islam as well, but I will not talk about
either of them now.) Over the last two thousand years, Christianity has worked out immensely sophisticated
notions of Man, society, and so on. These notions have become a part of our daily language-use: whether
you speak English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, or whichever other European language. That is not
all.
5. These Christian ideas about Man and his psychology, society and culture, have become the presuppositions for what we call social sciences and the humanities today. (In my book, I describe this process which
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I call the secularization of Christianity in detail.) They are so deep and so pervasive within the western
culture that they sit limits to the western imagination itself: it is not simply possible for this culture even
to imagine that other ways of thinking and going-about the world are possible. The so-called social sciences
today, endlessly embroider this theology: all peoples and cultures (except themselves) are heathens. If this is
all they tell, it is, one must admit, pretty boring. Indeed so: everyone and everything (excepting the western
culture) are the same, and the most interesting things are to be found in the western culture. Whether
you speak of politics (from dictatorships to democracy), knowledge (science), settling human disputes
(Law), welfare of people (from slavery to capitalism), or whatever takes your fancy, it transpires that
the western culture has them all. What they do not have at the moment, they say, is what they have lost
(i.e. had them once). All other cultures end up becoming pale or erring variants of the western culture, in
exactly the same way our religions are pale and erring variants of Christianity.
6. Of course, it does not stop there. Why has the western culture reduced the other cultures to a pale and
erring variant of itself? That is because, it is so: it is epistemologically impossible that human cultures are
different in any way other than how the western culture has described them! It calls this reduction science:
objective, value free, and what not. Philosophers and social scientists endlessly assure us that it cannot
be any other way. This is not science but bad, baaaaad Christian theology. It has become secularized,
become established in the universities with professorial chairs, grants, and doctorates and what-have-you,
but it remains as dully monochromatic as its religious original: Who is Ganesha? The minion of the Devil.
Who is Saraswathi? The minion of the Devil. Who is Krishna? The minion of the Devil. Who is Sharada?
The minion of the Devil. What do we do? We worship idols, whether made of stone or clay. We are mentally
deficient: that is the reason why we worship cycles, cars, the pen (Aayudhapuja), the cow and the crow, the
naked fakir and the stone penis. Not only are the Indians guilty as charged: all heathen cultures are that as
well. The Egyptians, the Mayans, the Africans, the Thais, the Japanese & The list extends to all cultures
and all peoples who are not Jewish and Muslim. (These two are deficient in their worship; they might be
heretics but not heathens.) If this is the litany, you can have only one reaction: Ho Hum! (A huge Yawn!)
7. The varieties and differences in human cultures get reduced to the same: they are all versions of worshipping the Devil. The so-called social sciences are on this track. This is not a simple expression of racism,
western superiority or Orientalism (even if they are all that). Rather, it has to do with what western culture
is, what its social sciences are, and what the relation is between these two and the religion that Christianity
is.
8. In other words, this is how I explain the reduction that the co-called social sciences indulge in: the
reduction occurs not because they are objective and scientific explanations, but because they are secularized
theological claims. Until recently, I was in the strict minority of one in the republic of learning but I do not
believe that you need to win two-thirds of the vote to decide about the truth or falsity of scientific theories.
So I soldier on, certain that I have good arguments and an exciting research programme; where possible, I
try to show that my story is more interesting than any other that exists in the market-place. In the long
run, I know that this story will win out; until such stage, there are the words: Karmanyeevadhikaaraste,
Maa Phaleshu Kadaachana.
9. From all of these, it follows that I am not trying to compare our culture with the western one any more
than I want to compare, say, Hinduism with Christianity. But what I do want to do is to understand both:
our culture and the western one, our traditions and the western Christianity. It is not enough, if it is a
true understanding that I merely think I am right. You and the others must not only understand what I
say, but you must also be sure that it is not merely my personal prejudices that get bundled together as an
explanation. In other words, you should be able to test my theory in any number of ways: from checking it
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against your own experiences to drawing conclusions from my arguments that I am not even aware. That is
what knowledge and objectivity all about: am I ranting and raving, or am I saying something worth thinking
about and exploring further?
10. As an unrepentant heathen, I do not believe in the truth claims of Christianity that it is the true
religion. As a member of the Indian culture, I do believe that alternative (more realistic, more factual and
more productive) heuristics exist in our culture that will help human cultures to understand each other. As
an intellectual, I believe that developing them is my priority. As a scientist, I believe that if what I say is
knowledge, it will also be like what scientific knowledge is: tentative, hypothetical, and testable (in a broad
sense). And, finally, as a human being, I do not believe that knowledge reduces the complexity of the world
but teaches us instead to truly appreciate how marvelous we and our worlds, both natural and cultural,
really are.
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Why Social sciences are not providing knowledge, including the likes of Wendy
Doniger and her children? (2011-02-28 22:08)
1. The general pattern that has come to the fore is that Wendy and her children (including Jeffrey Kripal)
systematically portray the Indian traditions in an unfavorable light, even when compared to how religions
like Christianity, Islam and Judaism are portrayed. This claim is made in several articles, independent of
whether these religions and the Indian traditions are true or false, whether they are irrational or rational,
and so on. The discussion is not about the truth-claims of these religions and traditions but about their
depictions.
2. Because this is a systematic phenomenon, the obvious question is about the why. One of the possible
explanations is that these portrayals are Orientalist, racist and Eurocentric in nature. My point is that
this explanation is not adequate because it ends up transforming all writers, who provide such descriptions
into racist, Eurocentric, Orientalist as the case may be. These writers include not just the western scholars but many, if not most, Indian ones as well.
3. I account for this state of affairs by suggesting that the modern social sciences are secularized Christian
theologies. One cannot draw on this fund of knowledge and contribute further to it without, in some sense,
becoming theologians as well. In several posts, I have provided some considerations to make this extravagant claim appear less counter-intuitive. Before my argument can become plausible, I need to solve many
cognitive problems; before it becomes worthy of further research along the lines I suggest, some alternative
conceptualizations have to be provided. In my book on religion I believe to have done both.
4. If what I claim is true, one has to show that the same holds good for Kripal as well. That is to say,
one has to show that he cannot possibly have produced knowledge about Ramakrishna Paramahamsa or his
mysticism. Again, one possible way of doing it is to challenge the truth-claims of psychoanalysis. (That is,
one can try to show why this discipline is not a science.) But this would not be sufficient for my purposes.
I need to show that he could not have produced knowledge and that his stance prevents him from even
recognizing this fact. I do this by showing that his object of study is not the experience he claims he is
studying: his explanations trivialize and distort the Indian cultural experience, which is his object of study.
5. There is something more that requires doing. If social sciences cannot produce knowledge, this must be
true whether they study the western culture or non-western cultures. I suggest that it is true by showing (or
suggesting, if you find that I have not shown it adequately in my reply to Jeffrey Kripal) that attempting
to explain the origin of religion by appealing to a set of natural causes distorts his object of study. As I
put it, atheism is a philosophical option, but if one embraces it to study the origin and nature of religion,
one cannot do science. To become a theist and study religion is to do theology and not science. In other
words, I point out that he faces a dilemma and that, by virtue of this, he could not be contributing to human
knowledge by doing what he does.
6. Of course, this unsatisfactory state of affairs about the nature of social sciences has not gone unnoticed
in the western intellectual history. Even though, as far as I know, no intellectual has argued (or seen) this
case in its generality, many people have responded to many aspects of this situation in many different ways
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over a period of time. Ludwig Wittgenstein, the Austrian philosopher, is one such. He was dissatisfied with
the nature of philosophical enquiries in the western culture and tried to arrive at some understanding of the
nature of philosophical problems and their purported solutions. His writings are not systematic elaborations
in the form of a theory; he formulates some of his startling insights in at times condensed, at times cryptic
manner.
7. Sir James Frazer wrote a multi-volume work called The Golden Bough, an anthropological compendium
of stories-cum-explanations about certain kinds of practices in cultures. Wittgenstein wrote down some of his
remarks, which were published (posthumously, if my memory serves me right) as Remarks on that book.
(I am not sure whether he read all the volumes, or read only the abridged edition of Frazers book.) In
any case, he does not find the Frazers explanations satisfactory because they transform all non-western
cultures into idiotic ones (my term, not his). Amongst other things, he considers Frazers discussion of the
rain dance in that set of Remarks.
8. Wittgenstein notices that Frazer tries to explain the practice of rain dancing by attributing some sets
of beliefs to the people whose practice it is. The attribution of such beliefs, says Wittgenstein, explains
human practices only by trivializing them (my words, not his). That is to say, they explain the practice
of rain dancing as an expression of some sets of beliefs. He calls such an attempt a sickness (his favorite
metaphor). He points out too that this explanation is not satisfactory because it cannot explain why these
people perform the rain dance only during the rainy season. (Of course, one can give any number of silly
explanations, including the explanation that the performers are conditioned to perform the rain dance
during the rainy season. What Wittgenstein was talking about was a non ad hoc explanation.)
9. Willem brings out another kind of objection. Willem is not implying that irrigation is unknown to the
native American Indians in his analysis of the conversational fragment he cites. He is saying just the opposite. He is saying something like the following: one could suggest that rain dances are performed because the
performers need rain water for their crops. (And, of course, they believe that their jumping up and down
in some manner will cause the rains to come. This is what Frazers explanation amounted to.) So, if these
people are taught about irrigation, then they will become rational (or scientific as the case may be) and
get an insight into the superstitious nature of their practices. Willem is drawing attention to the fact that
this argument is wrong. The rain doctor knows about irrigation and says that this has nothing to do with
the rain dance. In other words, one should not further explain the rain dance by speaking about the need
for rain water either.
10. The general point about the example of the rain dance is this then. Here too is a practice distorted
by the kind of explanation that is provided. It is important to understand what is being said and what is
not. Neither Wittgenstein nor Willem is arguing that some practice in a culture is beyond criticism just
because it is a practice in that culture. They both are saying something like this: make sure that your
explanation of a practice does not distort the practice; do not confuse a distorted description of a practice
with its explanation.
11. In other words, this rain dance example is a further illustration of the fact that social sciences (in the
case of Frazer, the discipline in question is anthropology) are unable to provide knowledge. (This is an
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illustration, not a proof for the claim.) They seem to think that a distorted description is an explanation
and in the process of providing such a description, they transform human practices into pieces of stupidity.
Again, this does not mean that there are no stupid practices in human cultures. This is not the issue. The
issue is: is it plausible to accept that all the practices of entire cultures are pieces of stupidity? Wittgenstein
did not think so: it will never be plausible to say that mankind does all that out of sheer stupidity. I agree
with him.
This post is written by S.N. Balagangadhara
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Why Insider/Outsider game is sterile? S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-01 00:20)
1. The first point is the difficulty involved in specifying what the real meaning of an experience consists
of. Asking an insider would not help us here: the insider may or may not know what the real meaning of
his/her own experience is or even how to go about putting it in words.
2. Assuming that the first problem somehow gets solved, the second problem lies in the multiplicities of such
meanings: if people differ on what any particular experience means to them (for instance, what doing Puja
to Ganesha means to my brother does not mean the same to my sister), which should we choose and for
what reason? This problem is virtually unsolvable, especially when you take the interpretations of the past
into consideration as well.
3. This is not an insider/outsider issue. If we emphasize the real meaning of lived experience, it confronts
the insiders as well as the outsiders because neither will have a privileged access to the meanings of other
lived experiences. (I might assume that I have a privileged access to my brothers experience. But this is
a just an assumption. By the same token, Jeffrey Kripal might argue that he has spoken to thousands of
people and that, therefore, assumes he has a more privileged access than I have. Both our assumptions are
just that; unjustified assumptions. In my view, they are also unjustifiable.)
4. If we have to get out of this quandary, we need to do something radical with respect to what counts as
knowledge and what does not in the field of social sciences. My response has so far been to accept the
best criteria of rationality and scientificity that the study of the history and philosophy of (natural) sciences
has brought forth. Not only do I believe that it is possible to build theories in the field of humanities that
answer these criteria; in fact, I claim I already have. In my book, I have developed hypotheses about religion
that can be tested the way you test any hypothesis in, say, physics. (Of course, I also have an explanation
why it had not happened so far. But that is another issue.)
5. In the book I am now currently writing on ethics (it develops an understanding of the Indian ethics
and contrasts that with the western normative ethics), the same attitude is present. As far as I can see, my
theory about ethics can be tested in exactly the same way as well.
6. With respect to what stories are to a culture. This is a question of having some kind of a theory about
cultural differences, the ways in which, say, the Indian culture differs from the western one. Accounting
these differences will include, inter alia, such issues as the role of stories in that culture. One of the crucial
tests for evaluating your claims about any culture, including the Indian culture, is the extent to which your
theory makes sense of the experiences of the Indians without denying, distorting, or transforming those experiences. To come back to my favorite example: such theories about the Indian culture must do what Galileos
theory did. Not tell us we are hallucinating or wrong about our experiences (as though the experiences could
be false!), but show us why we experience the world the way we do.
7. Such a stance places a high demand on an intellectual: not everyone who writes about some culture
or another is capable of producing knowledge. Stands to reason. Not everyone who studies physics is
capable of doing research in physics either. The exact same thing is applicable to the humanities and the
social sciences. Wendy and her children, in this sense, are not producing knowledge just by reading some
books, going to India on extended holidays, and picking up some random nonsense and say that it is an
interpretation of Indian culture. There is a difference between being erudite (or appearing to be one) and
producing knowledge. My quarrel with Jeffrey Kripal is whether he has produced knowledge. I have argued
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he has not and that he cannot. It is up to him to show that contrary is the case. As you no doubt know, he
has not.
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On explanations that make people stupid
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I do not believe that any cultural practice (i.e. a practice that has survived and been transmitted through
successive generations) should be explained by attributing beliefs to its practitioners in such a way that the
beliefs make the practitioners come out stupid. Why do I say this? There are primarily two reasons: our
ignorance and the principle of charity. Let me explain.
(a) Our ignorance. We know very little about how cultures come into being, how they reproduce themselves
and how they disappear. Until such a stage, where we are able to discuss each cultural practice (like rain
dance, for example) individually, we should avoid making a virtue of our ignorance. One could come up with
any number of explanations today to explain a cultural practice like rain dance. Without exception, they
would all be ad hoc in nature and, as such, the opposite of what a scientific explanation is. Therefore, my
criticism of such explanations is to show their ad hoc character and, where possible, identify what makes
them ad hoc. The purpose? To move forward in order to develop a science of cultures and cultural differences.
(b) The principle of charity. While both intelligence and stupidity are not exclusive prerogatives of any
one particular set of people belonging to any one culture, explanations that attribute causal beliefs to the
practitioners of, say, the rain dance do make an entire culture appear stupid. How? Assume for a moment we
attribute to the people who perform the rain dance the following belief: they believe that their dance causes
the rains to come. Precisely because of our ignorance about the dynamics of cultures, we are forced to make
this attribution more general and say that such is their notion of causal forces that they believe in the causal
efficacy of their rain dance. (We have no way, at the moment, to limit our attribution only to performing the
rain dance.) Then the question becomes: are they not aware of the operation of causal forces? Do they not
know that the boats are caused by their work on wood? Are they not aware that rains come when they do
not dance and, therefore, that there are (at least) other causes? Do they have the concept of cause at all? So
on and so forth. Because the practice is transmitted over generations, and it is considered important by that
culture, we will be forced by the logic of our argument to extend the same attribution to the culture as a
whole. Consequently, the entire culture is made to appear stupid. They may not have our (current) natural
sciences, but my principle of charity tells me not to assume their stupidity because of this. In other words,
I assume they are as reasonable as any other group of human beings. If it was as simple as believing in the
causal efficacy of their dance, surely, I believe, many intelligent people in their culture would have questioned
it, ridiculed it, and so on. My principle of charity tells me that if it has survived, then that is not because
they have no notion of cause and causal forces. (Besides, I think such a group would not survive as a group
for any period of time.) This is the principle of charity: assume that the other person (group, culture) is at
least as reasonable as you (your group, your culture) and try to understand them thus. Consequently, my
objections rest on at least on these two grounds.
(c) How defensible is this position? How scientific is this? This is a philosophical assumption in whose
favor I have some evidence. It is, however, important to note that this assumption functions as a heuristic
of research and not as a premise in my arguments. Consequently, if my research forces me to say that some
culture X or Y is stupid, I would do so. But that result must be scientifically demonstrable.
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How to produce knowledge about people and their cultures? S.N. Balagangadhara (2011-03-01 01:53)
1. Let us begin in a very intuitive way and ask ourselves this question: where do we encounter cultural
differences ? In human contacts, of course. What kind of human contacts? In inter-individual contacts.
That is, we see (or sense, or intuit or whatever) cultural differences in our contacts with individual human
beings. You do not meet the western culture but individual Americans, Germans, French, etc. Neither
do these individuals meet the Indian culture: they meet individual Indians (or, even better, a Madrasi
Brahmin, a Gujerati Baniya - even these are general categories but I use them just to get the point across.)
And yet, we appear to see cultural differences in these contacts. How to make sense of this experience? Let
us first see what is partially involved to truly appreciate the complexity of our perception.
1.1. Each individual human being is a complex combination of at least four aspects. There is his biological (or
genetic) inheritance; there is his social inheritance (whether he is from the Middle Ages or from a capitalist
society); there is his psychological makeup (let us say his personality); and there is his cultural upbringing
(whether he is a Madhva Brahmin or a Lingayat, say). When we meet individuals, in many different ways we
notice these differences: the biological, the psychological and, after some time perhaps, the social and the
cultural. Let us bracket the biological away so that the situation becomes deliciously complex. Let us agree
to use the following words (they are just words for now) in order to go ahead and raise the problem. Let us
call the social aspects of a person the sociality of the person; the psychological aspects the personality of
the person; and the cultural aspects the culturality of the person. Thus we meet individual human beings
and see the differences between ourselves and the other human beings. What kinds of differences do we see?
1.2. Let us say you come across someone like the following: a Belgian who is living in America driving a
Japanese Car. He is married to an African, loves Chinese music and is crazy about Indian food. He prefers
jeans, wears a tie, is a bit short-tempered and has a terrific sense of humor. Each week he goes to the
Unitarian Church, calls himself an atheist and a behaviorist, and is a nuclear scientist. And so on and so
forth. Let us say, you are just his opposite in many things, and yet you become friends (so that you get to
know each other well). In other words, you notice many differences (more than you can say) between yourself
and this person.
1.3. From among all these differences, which express his sociality, which his culturality and which his personality? And for what reasons are they that? Notice that you cannot solve these questions by giving
definitions of what culture etc. mean to you. Every one of us has the same freedom to define the terms
any which way we want and your definition is my counter example. Nor can you undertake some kind of a
statistical survey to answer them because it is not evident what you are looking for. Does the above person
belong to one culture, many cultures, or to none? Are his personal traits personal, social, cultural or
biological? The answer that it is both nature and nurture is not adequate in our case. We need to know
what nature is and nurture has at least three aspects in this case: his personality, his sociality and his
culturality.
1.4. Put even more sharply, but in general terms: what makes some difference, any difference, into a cultural
difference as against, say, social or psychological difference? (Somehow, in our contacts with individual human beings, we must have answered this question, even if none of us know what that answer is. Otherwise,
we could not see cultural differences.) Normally, one would expect Anthropology to have answered this
question. But you are going to come out bitterly disappointed if you were to seek the answer either in their
ethnographic texts or in their theoretical treatises. They do not even ask this question, let alone solve it.
Their ethnography presupposes cultural differences without saying what they are; their theoretical tracts still
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have not progressed beyond disputes about definitions of culture and silly theories about human culture.
1.5. My research project, which I call comparative science of cultures (actually it sounds better in Dutch
and German than it does in English) begins with this question: what makes some difference, any difference,
into a cultural difference? I discovered that to answer this one has to develop a theory of cultural differences
and my study of the western culture and the Indian one (sliced along several different themes) begins the
process of developing precisely such a theory. The iti, iti answer (that I have now) can be given in a single
sentence, but one cannot understand it without understanding the theory I am building. (Cultural difference
is the how of using the mechanisms of socialization.)
2. What I have discovered during the last two decades is this then: to say what is cultural experience
requires taking recourse to a theory about cultural differences. That is to say, it is one thing to experience
cultural differences, but it is a task of an entirely different magnitude to say what this experience consists of
or what makes it cultural. I am developing conceptual tools to access my own experiences and interrogate
them. That is, to speak of our experiences as cultural experiences we need theories that enable us to make
this distinction (between cultural and non-cultural say) and explain cultural differences. Otherwise, we
can just keep talking any nonsense that comes to our head and insist that such an experience is cultural.
(Many, many discussions are ample illustrations of this tendency. Everyone is an expert on saying what
a cultural practice is, why it is/could be a superstitious practice and such like without even having the
faintest idea of what is being talked about!)
3. It varies from individual to individual and that is true with respect to all cultures and not just the Indian
one. The insider/outsider distinction is empty when it comes to saying what cultural differences are: it is
the task for building a scientific theory about specific cultural differences, and to build such a theory the
passport of a person is strictly irrelevant. So, can we extract abiding universals ? No, we cannot and that
in two senses. (a) Any theory we build will be hypothetical (the way scientific theories are), and not abiding
in any sense of the word. (Besides, cultures themselves are dynamic entities: they evolve and change, do
they not?) (b) We will not be extracting some universal facts that require accounting. (Philosophically
speaking, developing a scientific theory in our case is not the task of inducing some general patterns from
trillions and trillions of facts. It would be impossible. I will simply state this baldly.)
4. If that is the case, how do we go about identifying the problems requiring solutions? We must be truly
thankful that Kripal and his forefathers exist! They give us one objective aspect of the problem. Instead of
talking about it in the abstract, let me give an example.
4.1. We notice that, in the hands of Kripal, Ramakrishna Paramahamsas mysticism becomes an expression
of homo-eroticism. Most of us do get upset and express this as well. One reaction: an unscientific response is
to do what some members on Sulekha site did. Convinced of their own intelligence and of our utter stupidity
they come up with some third-rate atheism as though they have re-discovered the wheel all on their own.
That is, they do not even sense the problem. Second response: not being geniuses like them, you and I sense
something has gone wrong somewhere. This is the first step. What has gone wrong ? We start reading
around, say, the articles from Rajiv Malhotra and Sankrant Sanu. What do we find out? This way of talking
does not appear to be confined to Kripal alone. Therefore, there is a reasonable suspicion that it might
not merely be an expression of an individual idiosyncrasy of Jeffrey Kripal. This is the second step. Let us
say, we assume that it is the syndrome of Wendys children. So, we read a bit more, from different people,
from different periods of time (say the travellers reports about India). They say the same things, but use
a different imagery and a different jargon. This is the third step. We see that it is not merely a question
of Kripals idiosyncrasy or merely a question of Wendys child syndrome (even if they are both) but that it
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encompasses peoples reports from the western culture as well. This is the fourth step. May be, it has to do
with the western culture. At this moment, we merely have an intuitive idea of what western culture is.
So, we read a bit more: say, what the Islamic rulers and writers said about our traditions. We see that they
said more or less the same things. This is the fifth step. So, it could be all of the above and yet might have
something to do with what religion is. (After all, both Christianity and Islam are religions.) Then, because
we are Indians, we read and reflect about what we said about Christianity and Islam. We do not appear to
have said similar things at all. This is the sixth step. Two possibilities open up: either our religions are
special; or, they might not be religions at all. Then you start reading about religion and thinking again
& This process continues until you are able to formulate a tractable problem and come up with a testable
hypothesis.
4.2. We are not inducing anything by first collecting trillions upon trillions of facts. We are doing research
that is hypothesis driven, and which is being tested at every step. But what was the starting point? The
feeling that something is wrong (cognitively wrong, that is) with Kripals description of Ramakrishna
Paramahamsa. Of course, my description above is cooked up in the sense that our research is never that
simple or that straightforwardly progressive and cumulative. There will be false starts, blind alleys, inabilities to see the obvious at times, etc. But that is a process of all scientific enquiries.
4.3. To discover that stories like Kripal trivialize and distort our experience (however simple that formulation might sound) required scientific research that has stretched for nearly two decades now. This is not
the beginning point, but one of the results of research. However, this is merely autobiographical. Today,
the results of my research can become the starting points for a new, the younger generation of intellectuals.
This is what scientific research enables. On this, I pin my hopes.
5. It is true I emphasize that the majority of the social sciences take a particular experience of the world for
granted and assume as universally true the assumptions that structure such an experience. Not only do I
identify these premises as Christian theological in nature, but also criticize them. Of course, I do not stop
at just criticizing them but go further in an attempt to provide an alternative theory. What does this imply
with respect to the limitations of my own theory? The answer has to do with two things.
5.1. What exactly is the nature of my criticism? Firstly, I criticize these theories for not being scientific.
That in two senses: (a) I say they are secularized Christian theologies. (b) And that they are not scientific
because they are not cognizant of this. Secondly, now comes the important question: could they have been
any different? According to my story, they could not have been. I can put this answer in another way:
the western intellectuals were constrained by their culture (the nature of religion and its relation to the
western culture) to theorize how they did. In other words, I do not call it their failure, even though it is a
cognitive failure, when looked at as an issue of producing knowledge (i.e. as an epistemological issue). If one
were to pose the issue abstractly, i.e. without taking the real and historical dynamics of producing scientific
knowledge, then exactly the same criticism (i.e. the constraints of the culture) would have been applicable
to whoever theorized first. If Indian culture had developed the social sciences first, it would also have been
hampered by its cultural constraints.
5.2. However, this cognitive failure of the western culture provides an extremely important reference point
(or provides one set of problems) thanks to which I can escape the constraints of my culture and become
subservient only to the dynamics of producing scientific theories. That is to say, the development and replacement of my theories will be subject to the dynamics that govern any scientific theory, and only to that.
Let me make this abstract answer concrete by taking two examples of my theory production: one from the
book you are reading and the other from my forthcoming book.
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My theory of religion answers two questions simultaneously: what is the nature of religion? Why did the
western intellectuals see religion in every culture? The answer to one is also the answer to the other. No
ad hoc assumptions intervene in the process of answering the first question and deriving the answers to the
second. In other words, the cognitive failure of the western culture is a problem I have to solve and the solution to this problem has to be derived (in some appropriate sense) from my theory about that phenomenon
which they failed to understand. (This must be done without adding ad hoc assumptions.)
The western ethical traditions transform us either into immoral peoples or moral cretins. To show that
we are neither, I need to develop a theory of ethics that (a) shows that there are ethical traditions in the
Indian culture; (b) explains the western theories of ethics and the corresponding perception. That is to
say, my theory of ethics will include the western theories as its limiting case. Under specific assumptions,
I must show how you can go from a theory of ethics I develop (which, I claim, is the Indian ethics) to the
western ethics. [To use a historical example: Einsteins theory enables one to derive the Newtonian theory
as its limiting case and under specific assumptions. In my book on ethics, I have done this. Currently, I am
beginning on the final version of this book; so, this is what I think I have been able to do. I will have to wait
and see whether it lives through the final version.]
6. In other words, my story (though drawn from my culture) has to account for sets of theories that are
constrained by the western culture. It is not simply a story about how we experience the world. It not only
does more; it is forced to do more if it aspires to be scientific. Such a scientific story, then, can be developed
by any one from any culture (see my declaration at the beginning of the target article); if it is replaced, it
will be because the better theory will do the job better. In other words, my story will become subordinated
to the dynamics of scientific growth and progress of science. That is why, as I see it, the Indian Renaissance
is of significance and importance not just to us but to the human community and human knowledge.
7. A question: So shouldnt social science (in this instance, a science of culture) seek to explain what we
observe or perceive of different societies (in this instance cultures)?
The question, when it comes to culture, is whose perception and how do we define that perception? What
we observe of the physical world is pretty much the same irrespective of our own culture, but when we make
observations about societies (and cultures), what we observe, how we perceive seems to differ from observer
to observer, and more widely between outsiders and insiders. So whose observations are the social scientists
supposed to explain? And how do they define what that perception is? Do they have to take the perceivers
word for it? Or better put, dont they have to take the perceivers word for it? Let me now see which
questions I have answered, and which I have not.
7.1. The first question. Yes, the science of culture should indeed explain what we perceive. We also seem to
perceive cultural differences even where we cannot (without such a science) say what we perceive.
7.2. Let me state one general point. Even though the natural world is invariant, the way we experience
this world is, somehow and to some extent, dependent upon the theories we use to say what we experience.
(There is a huge debate about this issue, and it is not yet settled one way or another. We do not, as yet, even
have a decent theory of perception. Research, for example, in Computer Vision is trying to simulate some
aspects of perception of objects and motion etc). This is true for our cultural world too: we can say what
we see depending upon what theories we bring to bear on what we see and say. Dependent to what extent?
This is not a philosophical question, but one for scientific research. The theories about cultural differences
have the onus of answering this question partially as well.
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Critisim: are you a genius? (2011-03-01 02:09)
It appears that Sir Isaac Newton was frequently complimented for being the greatest genius the world had
ever known. One of his replies is alleged to have been the following: Even a pygmy sees further than the
giants if he stands upon their shoulders. And I, Sir, stand upon the shoulders of giants. The extraordinary
humility apart, there is something very important to what Newton is saying: his theory would not have
been there, if the theories of Copernicus and Galileo were not there before him. It is, of course, a historical
accident that certain people preceded Newton. This allowed Newton, however, to write his Principia.
In a way, this is all I am saying. Thanks to the writings that exist today, I can build my theory. The errors
and mistakes (or however one characterizes them) provide me with the problem-situation. Why certain errors
are systematically committed? This is one question. The second question is with respect to the nature of
the phenomenon they studied where these errors exist. All I am doing is developing a hypothesis that links
these two together: for instance, I say, it is in the nature of religion (this is one aspect) that it makes those
who have it want to see religion in all cultures (this is the second aspect). Taken together, the hypothesis
not only tells us what religion is, but also explains the errors of the previous generations.
Perhaps, another example would explain why there is nothing extraordinary to what I am doing. If there is
a systematic error committed by people in identifying a certain color under artificial light, your hypothesis
will explain both why people commit the error and, at the same time, why some color appears differently
under artificial light.
Of course, in my case, cultures and their descriptions are involved and not color perception in natural and
artificial light. But that has to do with the nature of the domain that is being investigated. For the rest,
they are symmetric as far as their cognitive structure is concerned.
In other words, I am saying that my Indianness is no barrier to building a theory about cultural differences
because I have the work of previous generations to lean on. Without them, I could not have done what I
have done so far. I can only be grateful to them for this.
Will my theory be challenged? I hope so. Otherwise, there is no hope of scientific progress. Where would
science be, if there was no criticism and disputation? But the thing to note is this: my theory can be
challenged, improved, rejected, modified, etc. thesame way you do any or all of these things in the natural
sciences. The same, however, cannot at all be said of the competitor theories, whether of a Wendy, of a
Kripal, of a John Hicks, or of a Ninian Smart. There is no way you can empirically test any of their theories.
Once this is understood, what does it matter who is first or the last? What matters is the growth of human
knowledge and the growth in understanding that ensues.
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Simulation of social and cultural changes? S.N. Balagangadhara (2011-03-01 03:10)
A question: Is it desirable to have a model that can simulate social and cultural changes? I cannot see what
good reason there is not to find it desirable. It would be eminently desirable. It will take some time though
before we get there, but we will surely get there. Thanks to computers, we have a possibility of talking
realistically about simulation. However, we have to still go a very long way before we are able to do so. We
need to build some theories about social and cultural change and evolution; we need to develop suitable algorithms for simulating these changes; we need to develop more and different kinds of logics (non-monotonic
ones) than exist today; we need to simulate some relevant aspects of human reasoning process & It is only
now that we are beginning to simulate the evolutionary process and have developed some kinds of algorithms
to do so. We need to overlay this with developments (hardly understood today) about social dynamics and
cultural dynamics. And then study what could happen. So, it is definitely going to take some time. In all
probability, we will first start simulating some fragments of social or cultural reality first (after all, this is
what modeling means).
(a) It has always been my dream (and some kind of vague conviction that it can be done) to simulate the
growth of the Indian caste system: I think a fundamental aspect of the caste structure is recursive in
nature. The only thing (!) one has to do is to isolate the principles (probably they will be four or five at the
most) and use something like the genetic algorithm to simulate its growth, disintegration and recombination.
(This is probably the only way to check the truth of any theory about the nature of the caste system.)
(b) I think some aspects of the western culture are susceptible to a simulation as well. I think that the
dynamics of its norms and this cultures basic strategies of social co-operation can be simulated. The empirical history would be the check for the accuracy of such a simulation.
(c) If both (a) and (b) can be done, then we can simulate an aspect of colonialism as an interaction between
(a) and (b). Again, we have the colonial history functioning as a check about what is simulated.
In all probability, simulation is how we can test the truth of theories about the social and cultural world.
That we have not been able to do this so far has more to do with the state of our knowledge than with the
nature of cultural and social realities.
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Whose view is better?
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Every one of us believes our own viewpoint to be the best one: such is human nature. This is not quite
how I would put it. Let me, therefore say what I think with respect to this issue.
Whenever I formulate a theory, I believe that my description is true. If I thought that it was false, I would
not write what I write. This is a belief about the status of my description and its relationship to the part of
reality I describe. Let us call this the object-level belief.
Relative to this, I also have a meta-level belief about my own theories. Do I believe that my theory is the
truth? No, I do not. As a student of the history of the natural sciences, I know that there has no single
theory that can claim this status. A better theory has come along and displaced the older theory. This has
been the story of scientific progress. I believe that I am doing science. Therefore, I believe that, one day, a
better theory will come and displace my own. According to the best criteria of rationality and scientificity
we have today, I do think that my theory is better than any others that exist currently in the market place.
That is why I defend my theory. It is also my hope that another, better theory will come into being in the
near future. If it does happen, I will have succeeded in my aim: because of my theory, a better theory comes
into being. That means to say, my labor has been scientific in nature and has contributed to the furthering
of human knowledge. That is all what I want: to contribute to human knowledge. However, one needs to
remember that my theory can only be displaced by a theory that is better than mine.
In other words, both the object-level belief about my theory (that my description is a true description) and
a meta-level belief about the same (that my description is hypothetical and tentative) are present in me in
so far as it is a scientific endeavor, which is human. I want to believe I am both: scientific and human.
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Is Rain dance superstitious? Willem Derde (2011-03-01 04:00)
Some consider it to be a superstitious practice, the implication being that it is irrational to believe that
dancing causes the rain to fall: no reasonable people on earth can buy the story that dancing actually causes
rain to fall. I am not willing to buy it. However, it is a fact that in some cultures people do perform
rain dances. However, to explain the rain dance by attributing a causative story is to trivialize such an
experience: you are transforming the members of that group into a bunch of idiots.
In an attempt to shed some light on this matter, I would like to refer to a debate between the famous Dr.
Livingstone and a Tswana Rain Doctor. The discussion, of course, is about the rain dance:
Medical Doctor [i.e. Livingstone]: So you really believe that you can command the clouds? I think that can
be done by God alone.
Rain Doctor: We both believe the very same thing. It is God that makes the rain, but I pray to him by
means of these medicines, and, the rain coming, of course it is then mine.
&
Medical Doctor: I only think you are mistaken in saying that you have medicines which can influence the
rain at all.
Rain Doctor: Thats just the way people speak when they talk on a subject of which they have no knowledge.
When first we opened our eyes, we found our forefathers making rain, and we follow in their footsteps. You,
who send to Kuruman for corn, and irrigate your garden, may do without rain, we cannot manage in that
way. (Cited in J. & J. Comaroff: Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa, The University of Chicago Press, 1991, p. 210-211)
I would like to invite the reader to take these sentences at face value. It is clear that the rain doctor agrees
with Livingstone that he does not command the clouds. Only when he performs the ritual and the rain
comes only then does he consider the rain his. In other words, the rain doctor does not claim a causal
relationship. He only says that he considers the rain his, when he has done the performance and if it then
starts to rain. But this is not how Dr. Livingstone understands the matter. The medical doctor insists
that there can be no medicines which can influence the rain to fall. That neither of the two understand each
other becomes clear when we look at the response of the rain doctor. He gets irritated and refers to what
his forefathers did. Livingstone is looking for an answer to the question how it is possible that the dance
cause rains to come and wants an explanation. As far as the rain dancer is concerned, the discussion is not
even about creating water. Consequently, irrigation is not an alternative as far as he is concerned. For him,
the discussion is about continuing what has always been done in his culture. Hence his claim When first we
opened our eyes, we found our forefathers making rain, and we follow in their footsteps. In other words, it
is about what his people do; for Livingstone the discussion is about what the Tswana people believe.
It is here that Wittgensteins observations become relevant, indeed. He says: The very idea of wanting to
explain a practice & seems wrong to me. What kind of explanation was he thinking of? The one Frazer
provided of course. What did Frazer provide? Stories, beliefs, worldviews, etc. which were believed to
explain the practice, that is, cause of these practices, so to speak. What else did Wittgenstein say? All that
Frazer does is to make the practices plausible to people who think as he does. I invite you to consider
the possibility that Wittgenstein was not just thinking about other individuals. In fact, research reveals
that what Frazer did, was the dominant way of doing in the West. In other words, one could paraphrase
Wittgensteins remark thus: All that Frazer does is to make practices plausible to people in the West. In
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other words, Wittgenstein is making an observation about the culture of the West. What does his insight
boil down to? That people in the West search for beliefs, of which the practices are an expression, to make
sense of practices. Livingstone asked the rain doctor why he believed that dancing caused rain. It is very
remarkable that in the final analysis all these practices are presented as, so to speak, pieces of stupidity.
But it will never be plausible to say that mankind does all that out of sheer stupidity. (From Remarks on
Frazers Golden Bough).
I will not go into the issue of stupidity again, but I will focus on the other things instead. As far as Wittgenstein is concerned, the problem - i.e. the distortion of other cultures - is caused by a desire to explain a
practice. Trying to explain a practice by referring to a theory or belief, is the only way for us (the Westerners) to make the others plausible, i.e. to make sense of them. In other words, for us Westerners, for
some actions to be coherent, a story, a belief, a theory, or worldview is needed which lends coherence to the
actions. That actions can derive their consistency from actions themselves is an option which is clouded by
the constraints of the Western culture.
What if there are cultures where beliefs have nothing do to with how people go about in the world (i.e., they
are not constitutive of this going about in the world)? If they do exist, it must be obvious that they must
possess other kinds of knowledge, i.e. kinds of knowledge that differ from what we are familiar with. Does
it make sense to think so? I believe it does. Balu has offered an intriguing and convincing beginning in his
book, where he explores and makes sense of this idea. The gist of his arguments cannot be summarized here.
Other cultures do possess knowledge. And, yes, current social sciences do block access to that knowledge.
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Multiple meanings: puja, thondam S.N. Balagangadhara (2011-03-01 23:09)
About the multiple meanings for the Puja of Ganesha. Of course, there is no one meaning to this act either
now, or before, or in the future, as far as Indians (and the Westerners) are concerned. But that is not being
disputed. The dispute arises when some meaning is alleged to portray the experience of a culture, when all
it does is distort and deny the experience it is said to portray. However, there is an interesting question here,
which is best illustrated using a contrast. In the Catholic Mass, there are limits on what it could be said to
mean to a believer. These limits are set by the Catholic theology and belief. (For instance, to a believer, it
cannot mean celebrating the Devil.) The puja of Ganesha does not set any such limits to the person who
does this puja. (But if someone comes and tells me that I cook sweets on Ganesha Chaturthi because it
expresses my subconscious desire for Oral Sex, I am justified in challenging this claim as an explanation
of my cooking the sweets.) Here is the question: what is puja in the Indian traditions, if it does not have a
particular meaning, and there are no limits on what it means? One thing is already clear: it cannot mean
worship ! These are the kind of questions I would like to ask; not what interpretation one gives to some
action or the other. The answer I give should be capable of being tested in the Indian culture. Then, I will
have begun producing an objective theory.
If you were to ask 100 knowledgeable Indians about the thondam of Ganesha, you are probably likely to
get 50 different answers, all of which are satisfactory in some sense or the other. From this situation, you
can go one of the two ways. One is what appears to us as the more familiar way: which of the 50 answers
is the right one? The second is to ask ourselves the questions: why do all these answers appear acceptable?
What does this tell about what a question is and what answers are in the Indian traditions? In other words,
we take the facts that our cultures present us with as problems that require solutions.
Why do we want to do this? It is because how we understand our culture is thickly overlaid with what other
cultures have told us about ourselves. Consequently, we misunderstand ourselves. We need to do research
and yet more research in order to understand ourselves and the others.
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Are Muslims Mohamaddens ? S.N. Balagangadhara (2011-03-02 02:14)
Let me begin by Mujeebs objection to calling the Islamic people Mohamaddens. Mujibs objection was
that the Muslims do not worship Mohammed, and Naseem spoke of it as an insulting appellation. They
are right, of course, but they did not appear to get the authentic problem posed by a Raghavan and a
Seshadri: surely Mohammedens are those who follow the doctrines (or teachings) of Mohammed. Marxists,
Buddhists, and even Christians were called in to bolster the applicability of such a language-use. Despite
the acrimonious sphere among the participants, there is a very, very deep reason why neither understands
the others question.
1. The following sets of ideascommon to the Abrahamic Religions, viz., the Judaic religion, Christianity
and Islamare crucial. (a) There is only one God; but (b) there is also the False God, viz., the Devil. (c)
Human beings, on their own, aided only by human reason, will never discover the true God. (d) That is
because the False God seduces mankind into worshipping him. The devil is not just the prince of darkness
but also the ruler of earth and following him and his minions (whose numbers are legion) will lead you to
eternal damnation. (e) you can only know true God and how to worship Him, only when He reveals Himself
and tells you this.
2. As a consequence, the teachings of, say Mohammed, or the Gospels of Christianity are not their (i.e. individual) teachings, discoveries, or inventions. Religion, according to them, is not man-made but God-given.
No, it is the revelation of God through Jesus, say the Christians; through Mohammed the Last in the line
of prophets, say the Muslims. Therefore, neither a devout Christian nor a devout Muslim believes that he
is following the doctrines of Jesus or Mohammed. These doctrines are revelations of God, albeit through
people like Jesus and Mohammed.
3. The Christians follow Christ, to be sure, but Christ is not the faimly name of Jesus of Nazareth. Christ
comes from Christos, which means the messiah, the anointed one, the promised one and such like. According to the Old Testament Bible, God had a covenant with the people of Israel that He will send someone
to save them, and this promised one is the Christ. The discussion between the people of the Judaic faith
and the Christians revolves precisely around this issue: Is Jesus of Nazareth the Christ, or was he a false
messiah? The Christians believe that the Christ came down 2000 years ago, where the Judaic people are
still waiting for him.
4. Even though Jesus and Mohammed have a very special place in Christianity and Islam respectively,
neither Christ nor Mohammed are worshipped there. In their faith, one can worship only God (because this
is what God has said), or one can worship the false God (the Devil). In such a case, one is indulging in false
worship.
5. They see our puja as worship. The only thing that we could possibly worship is the Devil and His
minions. Idolatry is the surface manifestation of Devils worship that is so according to all these three
religions.
There is Only one God, it is true, but there are false gods as well (according to their theology). Consequently,
the question if there is but one God, what matters how you call HIM/HER/IT, or even how you worship?
is inadmissible because it is blasphemous. Remember, according to them, God also tells how He should be
worshipped, what worshipping Him is, etc.
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6. To call Muslims the followers of Mohammed is to call their beliefs and practices man-made. To do this
is to effectively deny that they are a religion (as they understand it). The Christians (and the Orientalists
that Mujeeb refers to) called them (derogatorily) Mohammadens precisely because they believed that God
had reveled himself in Christ and that Mohammed founded a new religion (or a vague, confused sect).
There is no way a devout Christian could accept that Mohammed is the last prophet of God and still remain
Christian, any more than some one from the Judaic faith could accept that Jesus was the Christ and not
become a Christian.
7. This means many things. All those devas (often translated as Hindu gods) belong to the subset of the
Devil and his minions. This devil is not the Asuras, or the Nagas, or any other entities or beings we know
(or heard of.) For all them belong to that set of: devil and his minions.
8. It follows too that the Ancient Greeks, Romans, the entire Asian, African continent worshipped the Devil.
Apart from those converted into these three religions (Judaism did it in the first century C.E), the rest of
the mankind is doing just one thing: worshipping the devil or his representations.
9. You cannot compare a Buddha, or a Digambara or even a Shankara to either Mohammed or Jesus. People
in Christianity or Islam are not saved because they have been good men, great teachers, ethically extremely
great, or whatever. Salvation in these religions is totally contingent upon accepting Allah and His prophet,
or seeing in Jesus Gods plan for the rest of mankind. Buddha is not a great saint: to the Protestants and
Muslims he is also a minion of the Devil.
Why this long note? Not to provide a short course in theology, but to draw your attention to something else
that is far more alluring, important, and worthwhile than having altercations with a Mujeeb or a Naseem.
And that is to start reflecting on our experiences, our traditions, our ways of living. Much the same way the
Orientalists built an image of the Muslims, they have built even stronger images of ourselves, our so-called
hindu religion, etc. These images were not built to flatter us (they were not
even reasonably accurate descriptions of our part of the world), but to denigrate us. Question is: why should
we reproduce their trash (about both ourselves and others) today? Are we not mature or intelligent enough
to reflect about our experiences in the world, our traditions, etc. and see what we have and we do not? And
who we are and who we are not?
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God, Devil/Satan, and Polytheism S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-02 02:47)
It is true that the modern Jewish thought, which is more influenced by the Rabbinic than by apocalyptic
or Qumranic literature, places less emphasis on the Devil. Rabbinic Judaism was less interested in building
a demonology than others. It is one thing to say this, but quite another to say that the Judaic tradition
knows of the Devil only in terms of the psychological inclinations in man. (It is equivalent to suggesting
that there is no demonology in Judaic thought, a preposterous suggestion on any count.) Belial, Mastema,
Azazel, Satanail, Sammael, Semyzza, or Satan do not name either psychological or spiritual inclinations,
surely. (Think further of what Behemoth, Leviathan, etc. are). The Satan in the Book of Job is already an
emissary of God (though not yet the personification of evil), and not a mere inclination. The Testaments of
the Twelve Patriarchs name Belial or Satan as Chief of evil angels commanding the spirits of wrath, hatred,
etc. and as lord of war, fornication, bloodshed, destruction, etc. He tempts and seduces humankind to error.
By saying this, I do not suggest that the Devil made his appearance in the Judaic literature in one fell
swoop, equipped with horns, tail, hoof, and a fork. (It took time, suffering, exile, and such like before the
notion of Devil finally crystallized.) But I do want to maintain that appear he did, and has remained there
ever since.
The most modern-day Roman Catholics have difficulties in consigning a Buddha or a Confucius to Hell and
call them minions of the Devil. This is true. My point is not about the sensibilities of any particular group
in todays world but about a structure of thought, which still has an enormous impact on these sensibilities
as well.
To get a flavor of this impact, consider the notion of polytheism. (For the moment, let us keep etymologies
of theos and such like outside the purview of our discussion.) In both commonsense and scholarly parlance
it is supposed to connote multiplicity of gods, which contrasted to monotheism that is alleged to connote
a single entity God. (Look at the way the words are capitalized as well.) Ask yourself this simple question:
who or what can the word god refers to? Within the (simplified) framework sketched in my earlier post,
this notion makes perfect theological sense. The plurality of gods can only refer to entities other than God:
the false gods and the True one. If you take away this theological framework, the notion of polytheism is
strictly senseless and becomes a contradiction-in-terms: If god is that being which created the world, the
Lord of the Universe (say), how can there be a plurality of such entities? If such a multiplicity exists, none of
them is god. If none is god there can be no multiplicity of gods either. Therefore, polytheism is possible
if and only if polytheism is impossible.
Here is why this arcane discussion becomes relevant to us. How many of us have not been taught (and still
teach) that Hinduism is a polytheistic religion? To the European Christians, and their liberal secular
counterparts, who continue write books and treatises about Hindu Polytheism, such appellations make
perfect sense. They have not really left their theological framework behind. But to us, people from another
culture, this should not make sense. In fact, I suggest it does not. But we continue to act as though the
notion of polytheism makes linguistic sense (when it is perfect semantic nonsense). Why do we do this?
Partly, but only partly, because that is how we have learnt English: we were taught that deva was god,
puja is worship and so on. Who coined these terms? Well, people with a theologically inspired framework.
To them, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism were not only religions but also pagan or heathen religions,
whose practitioners worshipped the Devil and his minions.
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Consider some questions, which ask the Hindus whether they worship lingam, stones, monkeys, rats, and
such like. It is important to realize that worship is a theological conceptnothing like our notion of puja.
You can worship only God in exactly the same sense in which you can only eat what is food to you. It
is possible that you worship the false god (an image is how this false god deceives you into worshipping
him), while under the impression you worship God. This God is not any Tom, Dick, or Harry, but The
Perfect Being, The Creator, The Lord of the Universe. Again, ask yourself this simple question: which idiot
ever thought that some particular rat, or cow, or crow, or lingum is The Perfect Being, The Creator, The
Lord of the Universe ? Idiots exist everywhere, but should whole cultures and peoples (from Asia to Africa)
comprise only of idiots, such a group could never survive. Whatever the future might bring, India is a culture
and has survived for a couple of thousand years. Are we to assume that Indians do not know they have
physiological fathers and mothers, and they were all brought into being by a crow, a rat, or a lingum made
out of stone?
In other words, we really need to re-think what we have been taught about who we are and what we do. Our
question (in this context and as an example) should not be what puja means, or how it should be translated
into English, but what is it we Indians do, when we do Puja.
This applies not merely to the endless diatribes about Hinduism and Buddhism, but to many more things,
things that we have imbibed along with our mothers milk. A long, arduous job, but worth every inch of
the way. It appears to me that those of us, who are living elsewhere, in another culture and at other times
than our forefathers, can at least attempt to undertake the job of critically reflecting on our own experiences
instead of reproducing barren third-rate ideas borrowed from
second-hand sources from elsewhere.
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Puja and Worship S.N. Balagangadhara (2011-03-02 02:59)
X says: if pujya means worthy of worship, wouldnt puja mean worship?

Pujya means deserving of puja. If puja translated as worship, quite obviously one translates pujya
as you do.
You see, what is at stake is not a mere translation problem. It has to do with how the Indian culture (and
not merely this one culture, I might add) has been, and continues to be, represented not just by Western
intellectuals but also by the Indian intellectuals themselves. Let me give you an example, which should give
you a sense of the nature of the problem.
Nietzsche, the philosopher not exactly known for his Christian sympathies, referring to Sir John Lubbock
an English historian from the 19th century writes (Human, All too Human, #3, 111) about the Origin
of the Religious Cult thus:
In India (according to Lubbock) a carpenter is accustomed to make sacrifices to his hammer, his axe and
other tools; a Brahman treats the crayon with which he writes, a soldier the weapon he employs in the field,
a mason his trowel, a laborer his plough in the same way.
One presumes that Lubbock is talking about Aayudha Puja here. I have claimed that the word worship
is theological. Why?
1. Because, amongst other things, what worship is, how and what one worships, and in what forms one
worships etc. etc. cannot be the invention of busy human minds as one of the early Church Fathers put
it in his battle against the Pagans in Rome but one requiring revelation.
2. One can only worship God. If you belong to one of the Abrahamic religions, you know who that God
is: He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Any other worship is worshipping the false God. And
the true God, you know this as well, is The Lord, The Master of the Universe, The Creator, and so on.
3. The meaning of worship, in English because we are talking about the use and meaning of the word from
this language, is wholly indebted to the above theological explications given to it.
4. If puja is worship, and the Indians do Aayudha Puja (which they do), you have only two possible (and
please, do not bring in symbolic worship into the discussion!) explanations: (a) they are worshipping the
Devil and his minions; Or (b) they are absolute and total cretins.
5. Why the latter option as well? If an Indian does puja to his bicycle on the Aayudha Puja day, are we
to attribute to him the belief that he thinks that his bicycle is The Lord, The Master of the Universe, The
Creator ? If he does, then he is an absolute idiot. If he does not, what exactly does he do when he does
puja ?
I have problems with descriptions that transform entire continents and peoples (over thousands of years) into
idiots and cretins. Well, the translation of puja as worship (and not just that one word alone, obviously)
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does precisely that. There is no way, on heaven or on earth, that cultures could survive for thousands of
years comprising
only of those suffering from Downs Syndrome. From this it follows that the translation of puja as worship
is totally wrong, unless, of course, one does accept that the Indian (in fact, all non-Christian, non-Judaic,
non-Muslim peoples) indeed worship the devil.
I do not know about you, but I find it preposterous even to entertain either of the alternatives.
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Vacuity of Essentialism? S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-02 03:40)
I have had difficulties in understanding the use and meaning of some words, especially essentialism and its
cognates. Here are some uses of essentialism I am familiar with.
1. One uses essences to designate some basic or fundamental or determining properties of an object,
as in: Water is essentially H2O. Here the claim is that some liquid is water if and only if it has
the chemical structure of containing two molecules of Hydrogen and one molecule of Oxygen for every
single molecule of the liquid in question.
2. One uses essences in order to understand counterfactual sentences involving proper nouns, as in: If I
were George Bush, I would not have gone to war with Iraq. This sentence is a counterfactual because it
begins by assuming a non-fact (I am Balu and not George Bush); picks out a state of affairs where this
is true (a possible world where Balu IS George Bush) and makes a (true or false) statement about
this (I might or might not have gone to war with Iraq). Many historical claims (and many scientific
laws) have the form of counterfactual statements. Here essence is predicated to Balu (something like
baluhood) so that Balu remains Balu even if he were to become George Bush in some possible world.
3. One uses essences to solve the problem of providing references to proper names, as in Socrates was
not a teacher of Plato. In many cases, we identify Socrates as that person who has the property of
being a teacher of Plato. If it transpires that such is not the case, we will still not be in doubt about
the identity of Socrates because, much like the previous case, it speaks about some essential property
of Socrates by virtue of which he remains the same person even when he does not have some or another
accidental or contingent property.
4. One uses essences while solving the puzzle of identity, as in This is me, a photograph taken when I
was three years old. Here, me, when I was three years old, me in America during the 1990 AAR
conference etc. become spatio-temporal slices of an I. The I has indefinitely many spatio-temporal
slices and these are all slices of one and the same I. The idea is that one does not become someone
else other than who one is because of the spatio-temporal career of oneself.
Even though there are many discussions about each of these uses, there is nothing wrong or illegitimate about
using the word essence or indeed to talk in an essentializing way. Quite obviously, the subaltern historiographers could not mean essentialism in any of the above senses, because they suggest that essentialism
is something to avoid. I know of one such use of the word in Saids Orientalism, where he suggests that
to correlate climatic conditions with the psychology or culture of a people (something that often happened
in the eighteenth nineteenth centuries) is to commit the sin of essentialism. Clearly, this is not the kind of
essentialism that is at issue here.
So, when someone says that one should not treat religion in an essentializing way or that religion & need
not be essentializing or wants to account for religion in a nonessentializing way and so on, I am totally
lost. Could someone please explain what essentialism is and why it is wrong to speak of essences? In the
absence of some such expos and defence (neither of which is present in the subaltern studies), I am afraid,
all this talk of essentialism would become jargon and humbug, and merely a stick to beat the others with.
1. Essentialism is a philosophical theory about the furniture of the world. In so far as one uses essentialism as a term, one uses it the way it is embedded in some theory or another. To rip it out of
its contexts, give it arbitrary meanings, and use it as a catch-all term is intellectually unacceptable.
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Surely, that is the problem with the post-colonial and subaltern writers. Not one of them has ever
identified the philosophical theory of essentialism they disagree with; most do not appear to know
whether nominalism, realism, or constructivism forms its contrast set.
2. It is not even clear whether the essentialism they oppose has to do with language or the world. A
statement that is trivially true when taken to be about the world is semantic nonsense, if used as a
claim about language use. Consider the following example: There exists no religion but only many
religions. (I am sure we can think of many such examples.) If the claim is about the world, then it is
trivially true: no scholar has ever claimed that there is an entity in the world called religion that exists
alongside such phenomena as Christianity, Islam, Judaism and so on. However, this statement becomes
semantic nonsense if one suggests that the use of the category of religion, therefore, is essentialistic.
If Christianity, Judaism, Islam etc. are religions, they are that is only because they belong to
the category of religion. (In simpler terms, each of them belongs to the set religion.) The same
consideration applies to the plural forms of these religions. One hears it often said that there is no
Christianity but only Christianities or that there is no Islam but only Islams and such like. While
trivially true, one does not seem to realize that this is possible only because of the set Christianity
and the set Islam.
3. Consider the opposite case where theses about language are confused with theses about the world.
No intellectual worthy of his/her name (this applies even to the extreme forms of idealism of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) has ever claimed that meanings are not socially constructed.
I mean to say, no one has ever suggested that human languages are not human constructs or that
the meanings of the words in these languages are not socially constructed. No biologist has ever
identified a gene in us that provides us with the meaning of the English word, say, essentialism, nor
do the biologists waste their time in pursuing such silly tasks. [Every building, every institution, every
literary product, every artifact, etc that human beings have produced has been a human construction.
Not even the most rabid sociobiologist (in its zenith) has claimed to the contrary.] From this, of course,
it does not follow that the world is a human construct or that the existence of things in the world are
dependent on their meanings for us human beings. Such a thesis is trivially false.
4. Spivaks strategic essentialism is an excellent illustration of how not to talk about things you do not
understand. Even a vague familiarity with the history of philosophy teaches one that there could be
a strategic or tactical use of some or another theory of essentialism without subscribing to that
ontology. In fact, instrumentalism (a philosophical school that claims that scientific concepts do not
refer but they are merely useful devices in prediction and control) has a celebrated career in the history
of philosophy. By speaking about strategic essentialism as some kind of a philosophical theory that
Guha invents (?), Spivak is not even reinventing the wheel; she merely wants us to discard it altogether
without telling us why except hinting that it is a sin.
What is the essentialism that the subaltern historiographers and postcolonial writers oppose? What is wrong
with that variety of essentialism?
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Criticism: you are Westernized ! (2011-03-02 07:11)
About the possibility that I was already westernized by the time I became a teenager. Even this question
is wrongly posed. I am not claiming that there is some authentic Indian culture, which lives somewhere or
lived some when in India. Such a culture, even if it exists or existed, does not concern me. I am interested
in the Indian culture as it exists today: including the aftermath of the Islamic and the British colonization.
I am child of this culture, and this is the one I am trying to understand. The Indian Diaspora in the US is
as much Indian as some peasant living somewhere in a far-off village in India; they both belong to the Indian
culture. Neither this peasant nor the Indians in the US is more Indian than the other. My problem is not:
who is the authentic Indian or what is the authentic Indian culture? My question is about the 21st century
India, and its present culture, which has absorbed many things, adapted many things from other cultures
in many different ways. It is this set of Indian traditions that interests me. Was I westernized by the time
I was a teenager? Who knows, or even who cares? What would it mean to say that I was authentically
Indian or that I was quasi-westernized ? Surely, the issue is not about some kind of purity here. What else
is it? Consequently, when I speak of my past, I speak of the past of those who were brought up like me. If we
were all partly westernized, then the culture I am talking about is this partly westernized Indian culture.
An age long gone by, if it ever existed, does not give me sleepless nights; what does is what is happening
now. Thus, when I say I want to understand Indian culture, I am not harking back to some golden age, my
friend, but India as I know it today. To understand this India, I need to understand how her traditions are
lived today, not what they perhaps meant one thousand years ago.
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Criticism: you are not studying Ancient India! (2011-03-02 07:14)
I do not see why I have to study the history of the last 4000 years to understand modern India. To the
extent past becomes relevant (my research into some particular question will tell me whether the past is
relevant, if so which part of the past is relevant, and how far I need to go in understanding the issue I want
to understand), only to that extent do I need to study the past. The general statement we are what we are
because of the past is true. But this is also a general statement. How far into my past do you need to go
in order to understand my present? That depends on which part of the present you want to understand and
what this understanding means in the context of your research. The same applies to a study of cultures
and societies.
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Criticism: you are not using game theory (2011-03-02 07:17)
Is the model of games useful in understanding evolution of some aspect of society? If you use games in a
very, very general sense (viz. there are players, strategies, end-results, and such like), then it might. There is
a flourishing branch of mathematics called Game theory that has been used to study many things in nature
and society: from the evolution of rules and norms to seeing evolution itself in Game-theoretic terms. I need
to warn you that its notion of games is a technical one and involves two or more players, who follow certain
strategies for winning to which a certain pay-off is coupled. While it has uncovered certain interesting
dilemmas in societies, I do not find it as fruitful as its practitioners claim.
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Criticism: one need to be Indian to study Indian culture (2011-03-02 07:20)
In a way, and in some sense, I do agree with you that ones acquaintance with a culture is useful in writing
about that culture. It is not sufficient, of course (think of the nonsense written by most anthropologists
during the last 100 years on other cultures); nor are there any compelling reasons to believe that it is a sine
qua non to understanding cultures. However, I am not challenging the claim that the context of the person
might be relevant to producing knowledge.
Of course, there is a difference between being born in some culture and trying to understand the same while
coming from another. But that does not mean that one cannot understand a culture unless one is born into
it. It is like saying that the only way to understand neurosis is by being a neurotic oneself. Obviously, I
cannot buy it: why can I not understand Christianity without being a Christian? If I cannot, even a process
such as religious conversion would be impossible. History would be impossible too, as well as the possibility
of social sciences. One needs to give extremely good reasons why one cannot understand a culture without
being born in it.
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Criticism: don t judge others! (2011-03-02 07:23)
You ask us not to judge. It is not clear what the force of judgment is to which you object. When I listen
to someone (today) insisting that the earth is flat or that the Sun revolves round the earth, I judge that this
person (in all probability) does not have much of an idea about the physical theories. Because I am not sure,
I try to find out what his arguments are. If they do not cognitively satisfy me, I judge that he is wrong. I
do not see what is wrong with this kind of judgment. Equally, I do judge that Hitler is an immoral human
being. I do not see what is wrong with this kind of moral judgment either. You might want to say that one
ought not to judge the worth of a person. Frankly, I do not understand what such a sentiment wants to
say. I cannot judge whether the life of some X or Y is worth living, simply because I have no way of judging
it either way. Nor can I say anything about the worth of human existence. (From which perspective? The
cosmic perspective?) If some person were to ask me whether it makes any difference to the Cosmos whether
the human race exists or not, I would not know how to go about answering this question. Consequently, any
answer will do as far as I am concerned.
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Criticism:
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you are usurping the right to speak for the community.
(2011-03-02 07:47)
Let me lay this fear to rest: I am not speaking for the community. To the question, Who speaks for the
Indian traditions? my reply is simple: anyone, everyone, whoever feels like. (Of course, I do not consider
the question very sensible, but that is a side-issue for the moment.)
Having said this much, let me also say that my discussion with Jeffrey Kripal is not about the moral right
to speak in the name of the community but whether such speeches constitute knowledge. In other words,
I evaluate what someone says about the Indian traditions for its veracity and it is here that I find Kripal
falling way short.
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Criticism: you are not an authentic Indian ! (2011-03-02 07:51)
About who the authentic Hind or the authentic Indian is. The greatest strength of our culture lies in the
fact that this is a non-question as far as our traditions are concerned. Even though I have now spent nearly
as many years outside India as I have spent inside, I do not feel an outsider. Nor am I considered as one
by the members my family, for instance, most of whom have never left India in their lives.
This is not just a question of my family alone. Outside of Bangalore, there is a swamiji with an ashram and
all that. People from different parts of India come to have his darshan and he gives upadesha almost every
day. Most people do not know his name, and he is simply called the Belgian Swamiji. He is from Belgium,
came to India about two decades ago, and set up his ashram there. The Indians, who come to visit him do
not consider him any less of a swamiji because he is a Belgian, and me any more of an Indian because
of my looks. It does not make any sense, in such a context, to ask the questions: who is the authentic
Indian? Me or the Belgian swamiji ? Both of us are Indians; both to ourselves (I suppose) as well as to the
others. It is this strength that we should not sacrifice, when we challenge people from other cultures when
they study us and write their tracts.
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Is every description knowledge? (2011-03-02 08:10)
Let us call the descriptions of what you see facts. Are your facts a contribution to human knowledge?
In one sense they are; the way any description of anything by anybody is a fact and thus knowledge.
One needs, and one has, a way of not wanting to call every piece of fact as knowledge. Hence, we can
reformulate the issue: does it contribute towards building a scientific theory of cultural differences? Do your
observations in some African country tell us what makes their drinking habits and body decorations into a
cultural difference? And how these and other differences allow us to say what the African culture is? In
other words, not every fact, because it is a fact about people from another culture, is interesting from the
point of view of building a scientific theory.
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On
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Lorenzen s
Who
invented
Hinduism?
S.N.Balagangadhara
(2011-03-02 19:20)
Summary: Lorenzen doesnt only cite Jesuits and Muslims, but also Hindus themselves. His main argument is that Hinduism isnt an invention by anyone in particular. It grew out of a need to establish an
identity vis--vis foreigners (mlecchas). In other words, an identity by contrast with the others.
There is a world of difference between what one wants to argue and what one, in fact, argues. The above
(accurate) summary literally begs all the questions the article intends to solve.
1. The assumption is that the self builds its identity by contrasting itself with the other. There are four
possible sources for this assumption.
1a. This is our (whose?) commonsense. Of course, just because some people believe this claim to be true
does not make it true. Not long ago, it was a part of the commonsense that Earth was flat.
1b. This is a theory in individual psychology. Even if we assume that this is true of individuals, its extension
to a people (or a collective) requires empirical proof. It is not possible to argue for its truth on logical
grounds. Such a move commits the fallacy of composition: from the claim that none of my bodily parts
weighs more than 10 kilos, I cannot argue that my body, as a whole, does not weigh more than 10 kilos.
1c. This is a theory in social psychology. It is not. As of 2004, we do not have any theory in social psychology
that tells us how all human groups build a social identity for themselves.
1d. It is a philosophical claim. It indeed is. Unfortunately, this is a claim advanced by certain strains in
Western philosophy. It is unfortunate not because it is Western, but because the self-other dialectic is not
the only way to build the identity of the self. Contrasting itself with the other is one way of building an
identity for the self. There are other ways, where the self does not even enter the picture. To the readers
on this list, the so-called mahavakyas are very familiar: Tat tvam asi, thou art that, i.e., the self is the
other of the other. That is to say, there is the other, and everything else (including the self) is the other of
the other. The self is undefined, whereas both the other and the other to the other are defined. In other
words, the other and the other to the other dialectic replace the self and the other dialectic.
Lorenzens claim requires proof of its truth. He has not provided it.
2. Even if the Indians wanted to build an identity for themselves by contrasting themselves with the mlechhas, it is not at all obvious why they would do so by calling Hinduism a religion. In fact, it is much more
plausible for them to say that Christians and Muslims are different jatis. (Anyone with any degree of
familiarity with India would know why such would be the case.) No Indian ever considered Hinduism a jati.
So, we need more compelling proof and argument than Lorenzen has provided to believe that the Indians,
by contrasting themselves with Muslims and Christians, invented Hinduism as a religion.
3. Even worse, it is not at all obvious what Lorenzen is trying to disprove. The import, meaning and
the reference of his title is very unclear. What is he asking? Who invented the word Hinduism ? Who
invented Hinduism as a label? Who invented Hinduism as a name for a set of phenomena? Who invented
the phenomenon of Hinduism? Who invented Hinduism as a religion? Who invented the religion that
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Hinduism is? The questions are endless. His article does not even distinguish between these questions.
Consequently, what exactly is he trying to prove with his arguments ?
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Is the distinction between secular and religious neutral? S.N. Balagangadhara

(2011-03-02 19:30)
The question appears to be: need one accept certain premises of Christianity (whether Protestant or Catholic
varieties) in order that the dominant understanding of, say, the secular state and the caste to make sense?
That those to whom such accounts make sense do not explicitly subscribe to the premises of a specific religious appears to throw doubt on our claims.
Consider the very distinction between the religious and the secular. Historically, Christianity has drawn
this line. (Theologians have spent much ink over the last two thousand years drawing, defending, and elaborating upon this distinction.) It is also the case that political thinkers in the West, some of whom were
militantly atheistic, have made this distinction into a cornerstone of their theories. Further, many Indian
thinkers, most of whom know very little of Christian theologies, base their arguments on these and allied
distinctions. The existence of the last two groups appears to tell us that even when one rejects some or
all religions, even when one is utterly oblivious to the histories and theologies of the Christianities, this
distinction does make sense.
There are two possible explanations for this state of affairs. (One could come up with many more but, for
the sake of clarity, I will focus upon the two opposing extremes.) One is to argue that for this distinction to
make sense no particular background political theory (or any particular set of theologies) is required. Such a
distinction, in that case, is a neutral distinction: it is neutral with respect to theologies and political theories.
Of course, no distinction like the above, strictly speaking, is neutral. It is rooted in some or another theory,
in some or another set of assumptions. (This is the insight we have due to the unflagging labors of the
historians and philosophers of sciences and languages.) This claim is familiar to most students of religion.
Suppose that there exists a theory, which argues the following: the distinction between the secular and the
religious is drawn within a religion, by a religion and that it is a religious distinction. What is called the
secular is religion secularized or is religion in a different set of clothes. That is, it suggests that religions
spread in two ways: through the process of conversion and the through the process of winning adherents to
its doctrines but by formulating the latter in a neutral way. Consequently, this theory suggests that the
process of conversion and the process of secularization are two faces of the same coin: the spread of a religion.
In such a case, the unfamiliarity of people with some or another set of identifiable theological doctrines is not
an argument against the claim that these distinctions are theological or religious in nature. The acceptance
of theological or religious claims by people who are atheistic and ignorant of religious niceties, in such case,
indexes the extent to which a religion has spread in society.
I have built the barebones of such a theory and such an argument. Consequently, if one wants to challenge
this, one has to come up with an alternate theory of religion, which does all the work my theory does and
something more besides. (Again, this is an insight from the philosophies of the sciences.) A mere reference
to the fact that atheistic people or people ignorant of religious matters accept the distinction between the
secular and the religious is neither evidence nor a relevant argument.
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Criticism: you are peddling a wannabe Indianism ! (2011-03-02 19:35)
Is there a wannabe Indianism in our attempts to understand our tradition? I am not sure: maybe there is,
maybe there is not. Of course, the question is why is this relevant? Whatever the motives or the contexts of
any individual writer why should that be an argument for either accepting or rejecting or even putting his
opinions on hold? The way I see it, the nature of the phenomenon is of another level altogether: I think that
the intellectuals from India will increasingly be confronted with the question of what it is to be an Indian.
There are many reasons for it: the political, the social, the economic as well as cultural. In fact, I think
that this is not merely an Indian phenomenon but an Asian one. Today, the centre of gravity (in economic,
geo-political terms) is slowly shifting towards Asia, a non-white, non-Christian culture. That is why you and
I (and many others like us) are discussing these issues passionately. To us, these issues are not abstract;
it is very much a part of our daily life (in the appropriate sense of the term). When I was started working
on these issues some two decades ago, I could count the number of interested people on the fingers of my
one hand. Today, two decades later, look at what is happening: we are discussing, with a passion born out
of our daily experiences, what appears from the outside as esoteric issues. But it is not esoteric to us, is
it? I think the scale, depth, and the intensity of these discussions (both in India and outside) transcend any
wannabe Indian motive.
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Knowledge and objectivity (2011-03-02 19:39)
Assuming that our theories in Physics are not false, would there be gravitational force in the Cosmos (or
on our planet) whether or not there was a theory about it? This is the question about the truth and
objectivity of our theories. If we say yes, I do not see how one can say the opposite, then the truth or
falsity of, say, Aristotelian theory is not dependent on the consumer of that theory. Of course, once upon a
time, people believed it was true but this belief does not make Aristotles theory true. (In Western Europe,
people once believed that witches not only exist, but that they also had sexual intercourse with the Devil.
There were eye witnesses, who provided graphic descriptions of the sexual organ and sexual prowess of the
Devil. We would be hard put to call it true today in Europe or in India around the same time, irrespective
of what these people thought then.) That human beings believe different stories to be true, which later turn
out to be false, does not make truth relative to an audience. What it does is to make the belief-in-thetruth-of-a-theory relative to the consumer. This is the issue about the objectivity of theories. That is:
could we have theories about human beings and cultures that are objective in this sense? I think so. That
is why the discussion with Wendy and her children: they are not producing knowledge.
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Criticism: What s with Behavioral Psychology? (2011-03-02 19:45)
I do not want to indulge in a discussion about Behavioral Psychology either on this forum or on any other
forum. It is to waste of time I do not have. Let me very briefly state where I stand with respect to that discipline. In its early days, it was useful in providing some insights into animal behavior. I share the dominant
consensus regarding its status today: it is obsolete. It does not quite have the status of phlogiston theory
but it is pretty close to the latter. I have suffered through many writings of Skinner and his disciples, but I
have neither the time nor the interest to discuss their theories now. This means, I am going to skip over
issues involving shaping, conditioning and such like.
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Linga, Puja, Symbolism S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-02 20:24)
Symbolic interpretation of lingam from a netizen: In ancient India, there was a fertility cult; our ancestors
knew that it was a fertility cult; Lingam was a symbol for the phallus then; it continues to be one even when
many millions are ignorant of this now; and that the Modern Indians attitude to sex is inhibiting because
of which they do not see the symbolism.
To keep the contrast between us stark, here is what I say: Lingam is not a symbol of anything or anybody.
Lingam is how Shivas puja is done (as against, say, how we do puja to Vishnu) by the Indians. You tell me
that this factual claim is wrong and that by saying what I have just said, I project my present to explain
the past. Very well.
In the first place, I want to draw your attention to the issue that I am not providing any interpretation,
whereas you are. You are the one who tells me that I doing something other than doing puja to Shiva, viz.,
I am doing puja to a symbol that, in its turn, belongs to a fertility cult. Therefore, I am justified in asking
you why you think so. Why did our ancestors take to doing puja to a symbol instead of saying straightaway
that they do puja to the penis, irrespective of whose penis it is? It could not be because they were prudish
or repressed. If women did move about bare-breasted then, and we gave the world the Kama Sutra, surely
they would not have been inhibited in saying that they worshipped penis? Why did they have to invent
a symbolism for the penis, deny that it was merely a penis and cook up the utterly fantastic story that it
was the Shiva linga? If the modern day Indians were to cook this story up, one could understand it within
your framework. Yet you say, most Indians do not even know they are worshipping a symbol, whereas or
ancestors did. Well, you need to make this plausible to me and to the others: why ever did our ancestors
take to symbolisms, cook up fantastic camouflaging stories that hide the true meaning, instead of simply
saying what I say? Why this devious route and not a direct insistence that one worships penis irrespective
of its form or size?
Until you come with a satisfying story that explains the deviousness of our ancestors, I think I am justified
in saying this: we do what our ancestors did too, i.e. do puja to Shiva in the form of the lingam. Because
this simple story does not satisfy you and you need the complicated talk of fertility cults and symbolisms, I
am justified in my skepticism until that stage when you come up with a satisfactory story. At this moment,
no one has; I do not believe you will either. But I am and remain open. (You will, of course, understand
that I am adopting a scientific and rational attitude here: when two explanations of the same phenomenon
exist, one chooses the simpler to the more complicated. They call this the Occams razor argument.)
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Experience:
Normative
Ethics
101 S.N.Balagangadhara
(2011-03-02 21:32)
1. What is western normative ethics? It is a structure or style of thinking about ethics. What is its structure?
It makes use of norms. What are norms? Rules or principles which have a characteristic structure that use
certain concepts like the moral ought and moral ought not. That is, some actions ought to be performed
(i.e. they are obligatory); some actions ought not to be performed (i.e. they are forbidden) and some actions
are neither of the two (i.e. they are permitted). What is important to note is that these norms (i.e. for
example, some action is obligatory) hold irrespective of time, place, condition or the person. [For instance,
the norm that one ought not to torture people because of their religious or political beliefs is indifferent to
place, person, time, or culture. No human being ought ever torture another human being just because the
latter subscribes to some or another political or religious belief.] In other words, norms are supposed to hold
universally. From what I have said above, it logically follows that violation (or transgressing) some moral
norm or the other is immoral (or unethical) and following some moral norm is moral (or ethical).
2. One of the important consequences of 1 is that all norms are universal in scope: that is, it is linguistically
and logically impossiible to have a particular norm or a context-dependent norm. Let me just illustrate with
an example. Let us consider the norm that Balu ought to reply to the posts here. This appears as a
particular (or context-dependent) norm. As soon as we ask why we see that the chain of arguments leads
us very quickly to a universal norm from which this particular norm is derived. Because authors ought to
reply to their readers, where it is possible to do so or some such thing. (I have skipped the scenario because
constructing any such scenario is easy.) This norm applies to all authors (in a position to reply to their
readers) independent of their place, time, country or culture. This is what is meant by the universal nature
of the norms. The particular norm is justified only because of the universal norm. If and only if the universal
norm is justifiable is its derivation also justifiable.
3. When I speak of western normative ethics, this is all I have in mind. In one sense, the confusion in the
discussion is indicative of our lack of understanding: most of us do not understand this type of ethics. (We
do not, that is, have the foggiest of what we are talking about, when we indulge in normative discussions.) At
the same time, because the above ideas sound and look very familiar we think we know what we are talking
about and, in fact, will go to absurd lengths to show that we know what we are talking about! An ignorance
of the issue coupled to the conviction of knowledge of the same issue is the trajectory of discussions with
Indians on ethics. It is extremely difficult to make them understand what norms are; it is equally difficult
to make them understand what norms are not. (I shall shortly say why.) Let me begin by rephrasing what
I have said in my earlier posts.
4. According to 1, a municipal office or a building contractor is immoral because they violate a moral norm.
(One shall not take bribes or whatever else takes your fancy.) According to western normative ethics, one
can be immoral, if and only if one violates some or another moral principle. [What, in this case, that principle
is, is totally irrelevant to my discussion. The only requirement that this norm should be universalizable: it
must apply at all people in the relevant situation - i.e. all clerks in the world, past, present and future
irrespective of time, place, people, culture, etc.] Otherwise, not.
5. Not only is the phenomenon that we call corruption in India immoral but so is the caste system: the
latter, because, let us say, it violates the norm that all human beings ought to be treated equal. Therefore, it
is simple to condemn both corruption and the caste system as immoral because their existence and practice
violate some or another moral norm.
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6. If you are with me so far (despite the drastically simplified presentation), I can now answer the following
question: where is the colonial awareness in accepting this ethics? Let me begin with the following claims:
this mode of ethical reasoning is absent in our culture. Even worse (or better!), we cannot formulate norms in
the Indian (not just Indian, but let me leave that aside) languages! And further, we cannot even understand
the western ethics because we are mapping this onto our Indian (non-normative) ethics. Do not expect me
to argue for the truth of any of these claims: they will get taken care of (to some extent) in my book. Even
one book is not sufficient to do this.
6.1. Let me begin with an example and an anecdote. The example first. In Indian languages, I claim, there
is no equivalent of the moral ought. That is, we cannot say one ought not kill, one ought to respect
their parents, the way one can do these in the European languages. In our languages, these sentences have
the same structure as one should not stand up and drink water, you should come home today and such
like. How can we know whether the should and should not (or must and must not) do not have the
same logical and semantic properties in our languages that the moral ought and ought not have in the
European languages? Simple. There exist systems of Deontic Logics (anyone with some understanding of
the mathematical model theory can follow them) that very precisely delineate the property and behavior of
the moral concepts like forbidden, obligatory. That is, we can show that the Indian equivalents do not
exhibit this logical and semantic behavior.
6.2. One of the reasons that cultures like India were called immoral by the Western thinkers lies here: there
is nothing resembling a universal moral norm in our traditions. In the lens of the western culture, it appeared
(logically) that all actions are permitted within the Indian culture. Hence the appellation immoral. This
is also the reason why people like Shweder and others transform us into moral imbeciles. (We have not even
learnt to formulate the moral norms.)
6.3. However, this does not mean (that is where I would like to go) that the Indian cultures are immoral (or
that we are moral imbeciles). I would like to show that non-normative ethics exist (i.e. ethics that works
without using or needing norms to make ethical judgments) and that India is one such culture.
6.4. Let me take, as an example, one of the many frustrating discussions I have had with Indians on this
subject. All of them have taken objection to my claim in 6.1 and want to show that we too have the moral
ought. In one such discussion in JNU, here is how one person tried to refute me: the Hindi word tha is
the moral ought in Hindi. (He had, most probably, a sentence like Aap aiyse nahin karne tha in mind.)
I drew his attention to the fact that tha was the past tense for hai and that it was not the equivalent of
moral ought at all.
6.5. Why did he think that this was a counter-example? He confused the ethical force in the above sentence
with the structure of the sentence. He thought that I was denying that Indians had ethics, because, he felt,
denying a normative language is to deny the possibility of doing ethics in the Indian languages. He was
convinced, and probably still is, that he understands what western ethics is because he does ethics in his
native language; because he learnt an English language through the medium of his own native language, he
has understood the meaning of moral vocabulary in the English language.
6.6. Most (if not all) Indian readers are in this boat. They think they know what moral language in English
means because they think they can use it. Actually, they do not understand it: they are talking Indian
while trying to be an angreji.
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7. We have a colonial experience not only when we think that devas are gods, puja is worship etc. We
exhibit exactly the same experience when we say that corruption is rampant in India or that the caste
system is immoral. Each and every time we criticise the immorality of the Indians, we exhibit this colonization. The tragedy is that we genuinely believe that we are modern, progressive, and reform-minded when we
do these things. My hope in writing [1]this article was to force an induced break in this experience. Would
this all-too-brief-an-explanation, together with the article bring this about? I await your verdict. Only one
request: please, please think about these issues and the article seriously.
1.
http://xyz4000.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/
on-colonial-experience-and-the-indian-renaissance-a-prolegomenon-to-a-project%e2%80%94s-n-balagangadhara/
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On Colonial Experience and the Indian Renaissance: A prolegomenon to a

Project S.N. Balagangadhara (2011-03-02 21:43)
One of the striking things about the British colonial rule is its success in developing certain ways of talking
about the Indian culture and society. The British criticised the Indian religions, the Indian caste system,
the Indian education system, practices like sati and untouchability, and so on and so forth. They redrew
the outlines of Indian intellectual history as indigenous responses to some of the ills they saw in the Indian
society and culture: for example, Buddhism, as it emerged out of their reconstruction, was a revolt against
Brahmanism and the caste system[i]. Many Indian intellectuals emphasized British criticism by making
truths in the latter their own: the Arya Samaj, the Brahmo Samaj, many Hindu reform movements, and
so on exemplify this trend. I say truths and place it in scare quotes because the unbroken line of continuity
between the colonial period and the one following the Indian independence raises two kinds of questions. The
first is this: would there have been such a line of continuity if there was no truth to the British portrayal
of our history, traditions, and culture? This question uses the fact of continuity to suggest that the British
descriptions could be true. That is, our current experience of our culture and society appears to lend
truth-value to the colonial descriptions of India. The second question transforms our current experience
itself into a problem: does such a line of continuity indicate that our experiences themselves are still colonial
in nature? This question throws doubts upon the facticity of the British descriptions of India, and suggests
that they could be untrue. In the process, it also challenges us to look more closely and investigate our
own experiences today. That is, the second question withholds assent to the truth both of the colonial
descriptions of India and of some of the claims we make about our experiences of our culture and society
today. To some extent, and only to some extent, the so-called post-colonial writings can be seen as attempts
to make sense of the second question. Even though I do not fancy the label of being a post-colonial myself,
I perceive a shared sense of a quest with them. There is something deeply, deeply wrong with the line of
continuity that exists between the colonial period and todays India, and the challenge is to say what it is.
Participants in the Debate
Something more requires to be said about this line of continuity and I will do so by identifying the broad
responses to the colonial descriptions of India. Let me begin with the event that colonialism is. To most of
us, including the colonizers, this event appears to have taken the status of a historical proof of the cognitive
superiority of one culture against the other. That is, for some reason or the other, we look at colonization
as though it was a contest between twotheories much like, say, the contest between the Aristotelian theory
and that of Galileo. Our colonization by the British is seen to express the weakness of our culture and, by
the same token, their superiority.
Many explanations of this weakness float around. (a) India was never a nation before the British made us
into one; (b) the weakness of the Mogul rule at that stage; (c) the caste-ridden, divisive society that India
was; (d) the absence of a centralized state and the presence of multiple small kingdoms, (e) because of which
the policy of the British to divide and rule was successful. There are many more than these five, but this
list should suffice. How could a few thousand conquer a nation of millions, if we were not weak? This is
how Gandhi formulated the problem, as did the Indian Independence Movement. Our nationalist thought
has crystallized around the certainty that colonization expressed our weakness and the British strength (even
if the latter was confined to exploiting this weakness).
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However, the above perception does not emerge from a scientific study of either colonialism or imperialism
but from the rhetorical force of another question: if colonization is not an expression of our weakness, what
else is it? An expression of our strength ? Even though every historian can routinely assure us that higher
civilizations can be conquered and overrun by barbarians, the so-called scientific studies into our history do
not appear to have moved away from this rhetorical question. On the contrary. Such studies try to provide
insights into our weakness, and tell us what the latter were. Simply put: the consensus (more or less) of all
and sundry is that colonialism expressed the weaknesses of the colonized and the strengths of the colonizer.
The industrial revolution in the West that antedates colonialism and the origin of the natural sciences that
predates colonialism have somehow become telescoped in the popular consciousness into one state of affairs:
the scientific, technological and the military might of the western culture. In short, colonialism expresses the
civilizational superiority of the West. And, of course, the obverse of this conviction is: in many ways (in all
ways?) we are inferior to the western culture. (The we picks out the Indian culture here.) This conviction
expresses itself in a variety of forms: from the rigidly nationalistic framework to its diametrically opposed
stance. Provocatively put: colonialism is seen as a contest between two theories; one has won out proving
the other as false (or pass) thereby.
The above stance (conviction, attitude, call it what you will) generates two antithetical intellectual movements. (It is a kind of a pendulum swing during the course of the last two hundred years we are not rid
of yet.) The first is a fiercely nationalistic mode. It claims that the Indian culture had everything: from
quantum physics to psychoneuroimmunology, and from the rockets to the nuclear bombs. It further claims
that there is nothing wrong either with the caste system or with the Indian religions. The second is its
antithesis: it brands any attempt to interrogate the Indian traditions and the Indian culture in order to
recover and understand our current experiences as obscurantist if not downright fascist. It believes that
the current state of our society clearly shows the need for: abolishing the caste system because it is the
cause of social injustice; reforming the Indian religions so that they become more responsive to the needs
of the modern day world; establishing more firmly a secular state that guarantees the upholding of the
liberal values, etc. Between these two extremes, there are a number of opinions (of various shades) that
tell us that we should absorb the best from both cultures. However, these shades have been cognitively
uninteresting so far.
There is, however, a third participant in this debate today. Standing outside the spectrum defined by these
two antithetical movements, this voice suggests that both the responses are fundamentally colonial in nature.
It suggests further that both ways of talking are obfuscating the nature of our experiences. It says that the
Indians today have difficulties in accessing their own experiences, and that their learnt ways of talking about
their culture and society are responsible for this state of affairs. It tries to argue that one needs to break out
of the centuries of descriptive straightjacket that confines our thoughts and distorts our experiences. It is, I
believe, a voice of the future which pleads the case for an Indian Renaissance. I hope to make plausible why
this voice is believable and is worthy of credence.
The Structure of the Article
On its own, this article cannot realize the hope I have just spoken of. It requires more than even a couple of
books to go some way in achieving the objective. Consequently, I will be taking but a step in that direction.
And I intend doing it by using an unorthodox literary strategy in a debate that actually involves multiple
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voices. The strategy is the following: I will deny voice to myself. Or, better put, I will play the ventriloquist:
my voice will be lent to one of the strongest opponents in this debate. Who is this opponent and why this
strategy?
By way of an answer, let me begin by gendering this voice: it is a he. He is a reasonable person but one
who is logically very consistent. He shares the popular perceptions about the two banes of modern India,
namely corruption and caste. Being a reasonable man, he wants a transparent government free of corruption
and a just society that is rid of the socially unjust caste system. As a consistent person though, he follows
his thoughts through to their logical conclusions and talks about the nature of Indian ethics as well. This
reasonable and logical person is my opponent to whom I will lend my voice throughout this column and my
own, at best, will be heard as interjections.
The readers of this column, I presume, share these popular perceptions as well. Whatever ones sex, my portrayal of the commonsense perception should facilitate the reader in identifying oneself with this reasonable
person. How far one goes along with this man depends on how consistent one wishes to be. For my part,
I shall strive to make him maximally consistent. Consequently, the challenge the reader faces will be the
following: would one like to be consistent and follow my opponent all the way through, or is one willing to
interrogate afresh the commonsense perceptions of our society today? This strategy, if you like, is a variant
of the famous reductio et absurdum. It is aimed at inducing what once was called cognitive dissonance.
The ensuing discussion on the forum will make clear the degree of its success.
The Social Ethics of Corruption
1. According to Transparency Internationals Corruption Perceptions Index 2002[ii], India ranks behind
Columbia, Argentina, and Honduras and occupies the 73rd place in the list of corrupt countries. In India,
the newspapers are full of stories about corruption and everybody knows somebody who is on the take. It
is almost axiomatic that every politician is corrupt. The same applies to almost everyone in the government
services from the high-ranking officer to the lowest of the doormen. All state-owned enterprises (from
electricity to the telephone) appear to suffer the same fate. Banking and Insurance sectors owned by the
state seem to join the queue as well. If we simply add the numbers up, my guess is that we are talking about
80-100 million corrupt people (10 % of the Indian population).
Of course, this is what is visible in the media. Very little is written about the business-to-business corruption, where an entire hierarchy demands suitable homage from their suppliers, mostly small-scale businesses
themselves. If you include greasing palms to get seats in fully booked theatres, private hospitals, or on
trains and private airlines, or gain entry into the educational institutions to this list, we are probably talking
about 150 million or more. Should the black market be drawn into the picture as well & it is anybodys
guess. (In all probability, we are now talking about 20 % or more of the Indian population.) In short,
corruption is as ubiquitous as the air we breathe in India and that, in most big cities, is much polluted. The
media does not stop clamouring, the citizens do not stop complaining, and there is still no solution in sight.
Commissions set up to punish the corrupt end up becoming corrupt themselves.
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Because the distance between common sense and scholarship on this issue is virtually zero, let me cite a
netizen talking about it.[iii]
Corruption is destroying the innards of our country (Vinay Sharma)
Customs officers raided, 29 lakhs recovered from a single officer! If youve been reading the newspapers
about a month back, this was the hottest news item then. It is downright mind boggling, not in the least
because you assumed customs too be a squeaky clean department but by the sheer amount of money a low
level government officer can make in the right jobs. According to sources in the customs clearing business,
the amount of speed money earned by an appraiser is nothing less than Rs.20,000 a day, and what the Asst.
Collector takes home is almost Rs. 30,000 a day. Rs. 30,000 a day adds up to, hold your breath, a cool
Rs. 1.2 crore per year, tax free!. No wonder a job as an Assistant Collector of Customs is hotter than a job
as a Country Head of a high flying MNC. Not that the Assistant Collector of Customs gets to keep it all,
part of it must be shared with equally corrupt seniors and powerbrokers who ensure you get the right job in
the first place through their contacts in the Ministry. Nowadays you come across young men whose prime
ambition in life is to take up a government job. This desire is not fuelled by an urge to do something for
the country and its people but to fill ones own pockets by harassing common people. These people form
the first link in a vicious circle that includes government officials at all levels, powerbrokers, members of
the legislature and parliament and even ministers. These are a few cogs turning the wheels of the parallel
economy. Add to them the unscrupulous businessmen and the process of defrauding the nation is complete.
At this junction let me clarify that there are exceptions to this rule albeit rare. Once in a while you come
across a officer who is twiddling his thumbs being given a posting where he can do no harm, no harm to the
vested interests of the honourable politicians and their flunkies. As far as the businessmen are concerned
there are many who may have resisted succumbing to the unjustified demands of these so called officers
and have suffered, their good being held up on flimsy grounds, official clearances not being given, the list is
endless. The Indian Government has vested so much power in the officers that they can hold you to ransom
and you are absolutely helpless. If you decide to approach the courts, be prepared for a wait of at least a
decade or so by which time your business is all but closed and your family is out on the streets. The same
story is repeated across all government departments. The government has now established the post of the
Chief Vigilance Commissioner, the person responsible for tacking the menace of corruption in the country.
The recent raid on the Customs officers in Mumbai is courtesy the CVC. The appointment of the CVC is a
step in the right direction but when you see the sheer number of government departments and the number
of government employees across India, you realise the enormity of the task. In my opinion much stronger
measures are called for to stop the menace of corruption from destroying the innards of the country. These
strong measures have to be taken us, the common people of the country. Can we demand for special courts
for speedy trial of corruption cases, can we demand for tougher laws against corruption that lead to life
imprisonment for corrupt officers and politicians. Of course no politician in his right mind would pass such
a law would he? Should we boycott people known to be corrupt and if so are we prepared to bell the cat?
Is there any resort for the common people of this country?
The author is a concerned common citizen of India
2. Our concerned common citizen, even if he requires an Internet connection to publish his WebPages, tells
us exactly what you hear on the streets, at the press club in Delhi, in the villages about the local Tahasildars
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office. Amazingly, the way one talks about fighting it is also identical: Punish the corrupt severely, but
then who should do so? Quis Custodiet ipsos Custodes? What we need is a strong entity (an individual
or a government) that threatens, andpunishes the errant and then they will learn. The they, of course,
are the corrupt as I say, about 20 % or more of the population.
2.1. What is one saying when one says this? The logic of the word corruption tells us that either something
or someone is corrupt it is either a corruption of norms, or of values, or of principles, or of individuals &
If we take our contemporary usage, corruption indicates a loss of integrity whether of individuals or of
your database. The same usage also tells us that corruption is rampant in India; that corruption is a social
phenomenon; that corruption is wide-spread in India etc.
2.2. If it is our experience that corruption has known a phenomenal growth since Independence, it can only
mean that the social fabric or the social structure enables such a rapid growth. Our soil, so to speak, must
be very conducive to the growth of a cancer that eats into the innards of our country. Indian society hosts
this cancer, and its immunological mechanisms must be pretty ineffective in fighting against it. If the people
of India constitute the cells of the country and if corruption is the disease, the only possible immunological
mechanisms are the social and moral principles, of course. If Indians can so quickly, so easily and so massively
be corrupted, what does it say about their morals? They should be pretty well non-existent, I would say. Or
such is their morality that it encourages one to be immoral. When is a person a fool not to take bribes? In
a situation where everyone else is corrupt. It is a successful social strategy: because everyone else is corrupt,
it pays to be corrupt oneself. That is, in todays India, it is rational to be immoral.
2.3. How does one learn to be corrupt? In social groups, of course. If being on the take is a successful
social strategy, then it follows that the social group from which an individual learns this must itself embody
this strategy. That is, the social group must itself be corrupt. However, because corruption cuts across
all empirical groupings in the Indian society, it follows that the social group in question must refer to the
society at large. Such must be the nature of this society that the individual learns to be immoral in his
going-about with his fellow human beings. In some appropriate sense of the term, the social structure must
itself be corrupt.
Caste
the Ethical Corruption
3. If much of the western description makes the caste system synonymous with India, caste also appears as
ubiquitous to the Indians as the very air they breathe. From politicians to political pundits, from the pimps
to the Prime Minister all of us seem to belong to the caste system. Most intellectuals, from the extreme
right to the extreme left, have firm opinions on the subject. Quite a few theories float around as purported
explanations of the caste system. Some see a deformed class-relation in it, others a fossilised coalition of
associations. Some see hygienic principles operative in the caste system, yet others some transaction rules.
Some call it racial segregation, whereas others see in it the propensity of human beings to maximise fitness
through extended nepotism.
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Whatever ones thoughts on the subject, most intellectuals appear to agree that the caste system is an obsolete form of social organisation. Its obsolescence is indexed by the hindrance it offers to everything that
is desirable: progress, economic development, social equality, and justice & Without exaggeration, it could
be said to be the bane of our society and culture. The caste system epitomises everything that is bad and
backward.
4. Why does it so stubbornly refuse to disappear? How to eradicate this impediment to progress? The
existing answer, in both theory and practice, is surprisingly simple: the caste system persists because of
prejudice and that is what one should remove. What kind of prejudice? Let us run through some of them
quickly: the prejudice of untouchability; the prejudice that the accident of birth condemns one to servitude;
the prejudice that the Brahmins belong to a superior caste because of Karma. & Not only is this a
well-known list, so also are the anecdotes that accompany it: horror stories of discrimination against the
Harijans by the upper-caste groups, denial of basic human rights to some people, refusal to allow entry into
temples or to partake food and water, etc. As this anecdotal discourse progresses, it transpires that the caste
system is virtually synonymous with untouchability, moral discrimination, the denial of human rights, and
so on. That is, these (and allied) prejudices are instilled in people from their birth, and the caste system is
kept alive through practising these prejudices. Very simply put: caste system is a set of immoral practices.
4.1. Let us get some grip on the extent of the immorality of the caste system by comparing it to other
large-scale (immoral) phenomena we know. For example, discrimination against the minorities in the US is
not a social organisation, even though it is a social phenomenon. The apartheid regime was both the policy
of a government and a regime imposed on society, but it was not a social structure. Fascism was a political
movement (and a state form) and was unstable. Caste system is, in some sense, all of these but is also much
more. It has survived onslaughts from Buddhism, Bhakti movements, colonialism, the Indian reformers,
the current Indian legislation, and the western theorists. Clearly, we have a unique, sui generisphenomenon
on our hands. It is more evil than colonialism and the concentration camps, more widespread than ethnic
discrimination, and has a longer history than slavery.
4.2. However, when we say that the caste system is a set of immoral practices, we are actually saying at
least two things: that these practices are immoral and that they are (logically or mathematically) ordered.
(Actually we are saying more, but that does not concern us in here.) While one might be willing to grant
that the practices (like the ones indicated above) are immoral, it might not be obvious why the caste system
becomes an immoral system. The answer is simple: caste is an ordered and structured system. Any social
organisation, if anything is a social organisation then the caste system is, is ordered and structured. The
immorality of this social organisation consists in the fact that it imposes immoral obligations in an ordered
and systematic way. That is to say, caste system is an immoral social order in this double way: not only does
the practice of caste discrimination violate certain moral norms but, as a social order, it makes immorality
obligatory.
4.3. Let us now shift our attention to those belonging to the system. When is someone, anyone, immoral?
Only when one willingly chooses to act in an immoral way. That is, the action has to be voluntary and must
be the result of a choice in the presence of relevant alternatives. The caste system might impose immoral
obligations, but each individual can choose not to follow them. Buddhism to the Bhakti movements illustrate
this. From this, it follows that those who are within the caste system and remain within it are immoral
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(in a systematic way). Under this condition, except for the individual heroes who have opted out, all other
Indians become immoral. (After all, there is caste division among the Christians, Harijans, and the schedules
of the Indian constitution.)
One could weaken this conclusion by arguing that:
(a) Not all obligations imposed by the caste system are immoral. Quite obviously, it makes no difference
whether someone commits one immoral act systematically, or two or three.
(b) The ideology of the caste system hides the immoral nature of its obligations. If you and I see through
this cloak, as did the movements from Buddhism through Bhakti, those who do not see through the cloak
must be intellectually weak. That is, they are immoral because of their intellectual deficiency.
(c) The caste system is sold as the natural law (karma, for example) and those who accept it believe in
rebirth and its rewards, moksha and such like. From this, it follows that all these doctrines justify immorality
and are, therefore, immoral as well. In so far as these doctrines have to do with our culture (or religions),
it follows too that our culture and its religions are fundamentally immoral as well.
4.4. I do not want to go into all possible (and encountered) arguments. So, let me sum up. The caste
system is the embodiment of ethical corruption. Such a stance requires that Indians are either immoral or
cretins, and suggests that Indian culture and religions are immoral as well. The way the masses talk
about corruption mimics the way the intelligentsia talks about caste and corruption: Indians are immoral
and corrupt. Not merely that. In so far as corruption and caste are successful and rational strategies of
social survival, the norms that generate such strategies must themselves be immoral. The conclusion is
inescapable: Indian ethics must itself be immoral.
The Corrupt Ethics
5. In this part, I shall leave both the intelligentsia and the masses behind me, and focus instead on the
intellectuals. To see what they say about the nature of Indian ethics, I need texts. Instead of picking up
the Gita (or some such text), I want to focus on an unlikely candidate: The Kamasutra of Vatsyayana, with
fourth century BCE as its likely date of composition. Considered a tract on erotic love, this compendium
has a chapter titled, Reflections on Intermediaries who assist the lover in his enterprises. What kind of
enterprises is being talked about? At least one among them includes relating to those that belong to another (p.77). The author(s) want to find out whether there are good reasons for sleeping with other mens
wives. Consider some of the good reasons for committing adultery that the Kamasutra gives us. (Actually,
Vatsyayana often cites authorities, adds his own comments, etc. I shall ignore all these nuances and speak
of what the Kamasutra says from now on.)
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1. If the woman who loves me has a rich and powerful husband who is in touch with my enemy, she will
arrange for her husband to injure him (p.78). This is considered as a good reason for committing adultery.
2. If I am penniless, without any means of livelihood, and thanks to this woman, I can become rich easily,
I will make love to her (ibid) is an acceptable reason to seduce another mans wife as well.
What do you think of the two reasons provided in the next paragraph?
3. If a girl I desire is a dependent of hers, it is by establishing relations with her that I shall obtain the
girl or, alternately, without sleeping with her, I shall never manage to obtain the young girl, difficult to
approach, rich and beautiful, whom I would like to marry. (p. 80)
If all of the above constitute good reasons for committing adultery, how about this gem of an argument?
4. Once she has fallen in love with me, she may murder her husband and, having taken possession of his
goods, we shall live together in luxury. The authors commentary explains: united by the affection born of
their relations, they league together to kill her husband, attacking him treacherously with a stick. Having
accomplished his, they seize his goods. Either she or I kill the rest of the family. We can then benefit
from everything we have been able to seize and live on the proceeds of what we have thus realized, without
anything appearing illegal. (p. 79)
Apparently, the main worry is whether or not their acts appear illegal and not whether such actions are
moral.
Be it as that may, reasons such as these are considered good enough to commit adultery. They are good,
in the sense that they are serious and not frivolous, and hence, one assumes, morally acceptable. In fact,
one is warned: However, unless one has serious reasons for doing so, it is better to avoid taking the risk of
seducing other mens wives for mere amorous dalliances. (P. 80; my emphases.)
5.1. You are British and have been educated in the proper schools. You come to India in the 19th century
and encounter this text. How would you react? It makes perfect sense to you that such books are not only
written, but are also considered classic texts. Why? Because of what you see around you. And what do
you see? Here is a random example:
& (C)ould I transplant my reader & to the purely native circle by which I am surrounded & and could he
understand the bold and fluent hindostanee which the Hindoo soldier speaks, he would soon distinguish the
sources of oriental licentiousness, and how unprincipled is the Hindoo in conduct and character. In nothing
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is the general want of principle more evident, than in the total disregard to truth which they show; no rank
or order among them can be exempted from the implication. The religious teachers set the example, and
they are scrupulously followed by all classes. Perjury and fraud are as common as is a suit of law; with
protestations of equal sincerity will a witness stand forth who knows the falsehood of his testimony, and he
who is ignorant of what he professes to testify. No oath can secure the truth; the water of the Ganges, as
they cannot wash away the filth of lying and deceit, so they cannot preserve the court of law from being
the scene of gross and impious contradiction. No task is so difficult as is he who would elicit truth from the
mouth of a witness. Venality and corruption are universal; they are remarkable, too, for their ingratitude.
(Massie, Vol. 1, 1840: 466-467.)
The modern-day intellectual might feel like protesting: Kamasutra is hardly an authoritative ethical treatise.
How many have read it in any case? Besides, one could say, its popularity is more due to the British than
to its intrinsic merits. A well-taken objection. Let us redress the situation.
5.2. Enter Richard Shweder. A professor in Chicago, he is out to trace the evolution of morality crossculturally. In the course of conducting a cross-cultural research into the growth of moral awareness, Shweder
and his co-workers (Shweder, et.al., 1987) developed a questionnaire supposed to test the presence of several
moral notions among their subjects. The contrasting cultures are the Indian and the American; the interviewees are both children and adults. From the list of the cases that Shweder uses, here are the first five
in order of perceived seriousness of breach, as judged by Hindu Brahman eight-year-olds:
P.40).
regarding the first two cases (p.63), there was a lack of consensus only among children regarding the last
three cases. Keeping in mind that they are ordered in terms of the perceived seriousness of the breach, we
further come across (ibid., P.40):
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13. In a family, a twenty-five-year-old son addresses his father by his first name.
And, as the fifteenth,
a poor man went to the hospital after being seriously hurt in an accident. At the hospital they refused to
treat him because he could not afford to pay (ibid).
5.3. We can, I suppose grant the veracity (or the factual truth) of these statements. We can grant too that
many Indians (both children and adults) would probably consider such actions not just as paap but as
mahapaap. As the sequence of questions in the interview makes it clear, the respondents were asked to
motivate (or clarify) their stance. A fragment from such interviews, applied to a hypothetical Brahmin adult
should make the point clear.
1. Is the widows behavior wrong? (Yes, Widows should not eat fish &)
2. How serious is the violation? (A very serious violation&)
3. Is it a sin? (Yes. Its a great sin.) & (p.43)
Let us consider a similar fragment from a hypothetical American adult.
1. Is the widows behavior wrong? (No. She can eat fish if she wants to.)
2. How serious is the violation? (Its not a violation.)
3. Is it a sin? (No.) & (p.44)
5.4. Needless to say, the America children do not think like their Indian counterparts. They find that what
the widow eats and how she dresses do not belong to the ethical domain. Neither do they find anything
objectionable to the father being addressed by his first name. And, of course, they find it highly morally
objectionable that the treatment in the hospital should be based on the wealth of the person.
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5.5. Well, we must be absolute cretins really. I mean, we seem to think that what the widow eats, what she
wears, etc., are ethically more important than whether a poor man gets treated in a hospital or not. How
did our culture ever manage to survive a couple of thousand years, when governed by such idiotic norms ?
As though to rub salt in the wound, Shweder assures us that it is really not all that pathetic. In fact, he
says, he could actually provide reasoned defense of family life and social practice, albeit in the form of an
ideal argument structure. How does it look?
The body is a temple with a spirit dwelling in it. Therefore the sanctity of the temple must be preserved.
Therefore impure things must be kept out of and away from the body. (pp. 76-77.)
Gee, thanks. You had us worried there for a moment, you know: we really thought that we were a bunch of
cretins.
6. Too soon to feel relieved, I think. At least that is how it appears, if we follow Van Den Bossche and Mortier
(1997), in their expos of a Jain text. (The Vajjalaggam, VL for short.) Composed anywhere between 750
and 1337 CE, the author of this text is a Jain poet a certain Jayavallabha by name. The text itself, Van
Den Bossche and Mortier tell us, belongs to the Subhashita literature and thus could be called an ethical
text and is a challenge of sorts:
One problem with the study of Indian ethics is that the ancient Indians themselves did not make a clear-cut
distinction between the moral and other spheres. They did not have a word for our term ethics at all. (p.
85).
It is important to note that Ancient Greek, for example, introduced not only the word ethica. The same
culture also gave us many substantial treatises on that subject, the most well-known of which is Aristotles
Ethica Nicomachea. If the Indian text, composed around 650- 1200 years ago, does not even have a word for
that phenomenon called ethics, how could it be an ethical tract at all? It cannot. Hence the reason why
the authors discover that the
text does not contain one single general rule stated in the prescriptive mode. General rule of conduct may
easily be derived from various statements, but it is significant that the rules are not formulated as such. &
The statements are written in the evaluative rather than the normative mode (p.95).
That is to say, in this particular text there are no normative rules to be found. This cannot be construed
as a deficiency of this text alone, because, as noted already, the Sanskrit language in which this text is
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written does not have a word even for the domain, namely, the ethical. Consequently, they study it as a
socio-ethical document, which gives a mosaic-like picture of feelings, attitudes and thoughts of different
authors of ancient India. (p. 87, my italics.)
How can one speak about ancient India, when one is talking about a text composed during the middle
ages ? Here, antiquity does not have a particular time-frame as its reference. Instead, it is civilizational:
compared to the ancient Greeks (of about 2500 years ago), the Indian civilization of about 700 years ago is
more ancient (i.e. more primitive). Of course, this is not made explicit but it is the only possible interpretation, especially in light of their conclusions.
6.1. Here is their eloquent conclusion about the state of affairs:
Although VL exemplifies reflective ethical thinking, it contains no explicit propositions that argue for or
against one type of virtue theory or another and it even sometimes lacks the terms necessary to formulate
them. In this respect, the writings of the Greek and Roman virtue theorists are undoubtedly more reflective
than what is found in the VL. Yet, this is a difference of degree, not of kind. The writings of the Greeks and
the Romans in turn contain little reasoning about ethical language when compared to modern and contemporary moral philosophy. (Pp.96-97)
6.2. At the risk of emphasizing the obvious, some remarks are in order here. Firstly, even though VL embodies ethical thinking, it does not argue for any kind of ethical theory. In fact, it lacks the words necessary to
conduct an ethical discussion. This absence of the terminology to talk about ethics differentiates the Indian
traditions from the Greek culture. That is to say, there is a difference in kind between the Greek ethics and
the Indian ethics: one had the words to talk about it, whereas the other does not. Secondly, this difference
has some significance regarding the reflective thinking that VL is supposed to exemplify. How is it possible
to reason and think about ethics, when you do not even have the words in which to do so? Obviously, you
cannot. That is, there is a second kind of difference too, a consequence of the first: the Indian culture did
not have the ability to reason and think about ethics. (That is why VL provides a mosaic-like picture of
feelings, attitudes and thoughts.) Thirdly, if this is the difference that separates Indians from their Greek
(or Roman) counterparts, even though coming after the Greeks by almost by a thousand years, the Indian
thinkers are at the lower rung of the moral ladder: the Indians (of about a thousand years ago), followed by
the Greeks (more than two thousand five hundred years ago), and then the contemporary moral philosophy.
There is, however, a degree of difference between the Greeks and the contemporary moral philosophy: the
latter is more reflective than the former. The Indians had little ideas about how to think about ethics and
how to develop theories and arguments about them. How could they? Not only did the Indian culture not
have the terms in which to think about ethics but their intellectuals did not also feel the need to create such
terms (as late as the thirteenth or fourteenth century).
This is being written in 1997 in a journal on Asian Philosophy. Any further commentary, I take it, is superfluous.
7. I can now be short, if not sweet. From the point of view of contemporary virtue ethics, we are basically
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intellectual imbeciles. In the hands of Van Den Bossche and Mortier, a Subhashitatext becomes a socioethical document that belongs to Ancient India (even if it is composed after 750 CE). Shweder has no clue
what paap is or about the practices that embed it, but simply transforms us into moral cretins. If, on the
other hand, you are schooled in normative ethics, I challenge you not to call the Kamasutra immoral.
Intellectually weak, morally moronic and, therefore, absolutely immoral. As we well know, these have been
the Orientalist descriptions of India for the last couple of hundred years. However, they also appear as parts
of our daily experience: whether of the caste system or of corruption. When the intellectuals pontificates or
the intelligentsia moralizes, it is the voice that changes and not the message: we are cretins, imbeciles and
immoral.
Reclaiming my Voice
Let me now cease being the ventriloquist and speak in my own voice. The above three examples suggest what
I mean by colonial experience. The criticism of the kind we read in Sulekha and elsewhere, whether on caste
or on corruption, are moral in nature. Without exception, they make use of the western normative ethics for
their moral criticisms. But to do so necessarily involves making factual claims about the absence of ethical
thinking in the Indian traditions. One cannot escape this necessity by any kind of protest because the kind
of necessity involved is logical in nature. Anyone who formulates moral criticisms of caste and corruption is
logically compelled to deny the presence of morality in the Indian traditions.
This is what the British said about us. This is what we believe to be true. This is how we experience
ourselves and our culture.
Let me repeat what I said in my earlier column: colonialism is not merely a process of occupying lands and
extracting revenues. It is not a question of encouraging us to ape the western countries in trying to be like
them. It is not even about colonizing the imaginations of a people by making them dream that they too
will become modern, developed and sophisticated. It goes deeper than any of these. It is about denying
the colonized peoples and cultures their own experiences; of making them aliens to themselves; of actively
preventing any description of their own experiences except in terms defined by the colonizers.
The European culture mapped on to itself aspects from the Indian culture so as to understand the latter.
These mappings, in the form of explanations, have taken the status of frameworks to us. Liberalism, Marxism, secularism, etc. have become our mantras: we chant these without understanding them in the hope
that if we do so long enough and sufficiently loud, the fruits will be ours to enjoy. However, in this process,
we have assumed (without quite realizing what we are doing) that the European cultural experience is the
scientific framework for us to understand our own culture. However, this very assumption prevents us from
accessing our own culture and experience. We are busy denying our experiences while futilely busy trying to
make alien experiences our own.
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The Indian Renaissance
Today, when we read about the lynching of five people in India, we need to ask ourselves what we see,
what we experience and how we describe them. Do we see an injustice or even a paapa, or do we see the
caste system and its injustice ? Do we experience a social injustice when some person is not admitted to a
temple? If it is, do we see the same when the same thing happens in a mosque or a synagogue? When we
condemn a particular discrimination as immoral using the western ethical terminology, do we understand
what it means? Or are we merely assuming we know? When a Pinky and Rajesh commit suicide near the
railway tracks, what do we see or experience? And what do we say? Is there a tragedy involving svavarna
and Harijan, or something analogous to what happened with Romeo and Juliet? Is what we see determined
by what is said? Or do we simply not say what we see and not see what we say? It is in the process of
answering these kinds of questions that we will pave the way for the Indian Renaissance.
REFERENCES
[i]See Almond (1988) for the historical contexts of this reconstruction and my 1994 for the more ambitious
project of locating it within the context that the western culture is.
[ii] [1]http://www.transparency.org/cpi/2002/cpi2002.en.html
[iii][2]http://www.creativecyberia.com/epinions/e-pinions2.h tm. This website seems to have gone defunct

in the meanwhile.
Almond, Philip, 1988 The British Discovery of Buddhism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Balagangadhara, S.N.,1994 The Heathen in His Blindness&: Asia, the West and the Dynamic of Religion.
Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Massie, J. W. 1840 Continental India, 2 Volumes. Delhi: B. R. Publishing Company, 1985
Shweder, Richard A., Mahapatra, Manamohan, and Miller, Joan, G. 1987 Culture and Moral Development.
In Jerome Kagan, and Sharon Lamb, (Eds.), The Emergence of Morality in Young Children. Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press.
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Van Den Bossche, Frank and Mortier, Freddy 1997 The Vajjalaggam: a study in virtue theory. Asian
Philosophy, 7(2), 85-108.
Vatsyayana The Complete Kamasutra. Translated by Alain Danilou. Vermont: Park Street Press, 1994
1. http://www.transparency.org/cpi/2002/cpi2002.en.html
2. http://www.creativecyberia.com/epinions/e-pinions2.htm
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Colonial
Corrupt
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Consciousness
and
the
Logic
of
India
is
(A) Consider the following sequence of sentences:

1. All Indians are perfectly and fully moral.
2. All westerners are perfectly fully moral.
3. All Indians are immoral.
4. All westerners are immoral.
For sentences (1) and (2), all it takes is one instance of immorality to be proven wrong. Our proverbial
municipal clerk would be immoral, and it would disprove the sentence (1). The same example could also
confirm sentence (3); an instance of a moral act would also be a counter-example.
Now, when the municipal clerk is brought out as an instance, what exactly is its status? Is it intended as an
example of (3) or as a counter example to (1)? Probably neither, because no one believes either (1) or (3).
Consequently, it can illustrate another claim:
5. Some Indians are immoral.
This is undisputed; and we all take (5) to be true. In fact, we all believe
6. Some westerners are immoral.
Or, more generically,
7. There are immoral people in both the west and India.
So, the municipal clerk (and something analogous in the west) would be seen as a confirmation of the sentence
(7). Since nobody is disputing this, and yet there is a dispute about the municipal clerk, the sentence (7) is
not at issue either.
(B) Let us see whether the issue is about corruption. To begin with, let us simply say that immorality=corruption. But this time, let us begin with the following sentence:
8. Some Indians are corrupt.
No argument from any one. (To me, this is true as much as the claim: some westerners are corrupt, some
Africans are corrupt, some Asians are corrupt and some American-Indians are corrupt.) The dispute about
the municipal clerk cannot be with respect to the above either. How about
9. All Indians are corrupt.
Most of us disagree with this; most of us do not believe it to be true either. Therefore, the municipal clerk
example is not seen by any of us as an example of sentence (9).
So, if the example of the municipal clerk, or the building contractor, is not an example of either (8) or (9),
what else is it an example of or counter example to? Logically, there is only one option left:
10. No Indian is corrupt.
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But every one of us, including me, believe sentence (8) to be true. From this it follows that (10) is false. To
make it clear, I do not subscribe to sentence (10) at all.
So, we are left with a problem. If there is consensus among us about which of the above sentences are true,
and which are false, why are we still disputing? Why do people feel obliged to come with instances like the
municipal clerk or the building contractor? What is it an example of, what is it a counter-example to? What
precisely are we disputing?
(C) There is also another common agreement because of the definitional equivalence. All acts of corruption
and ethics are individual acts, i.e., individuals are either corrupt (immoral) or not corrupt (moral). So, we
cannot be disagreeing about this either. So, why do people feel the urge to come with some or another
instance, some argument or the other, and have a dispute with me? Where do we disagree?
(D) The next step is to break the definitional equivalence. Two of the issues about which there could be a
dispute (of the possible four):
11. Some corrupt acts are moral.
12. Some non-corrupt acts are not immoral.
About the sentence (11). If you use your Indian psychology, you can think of any number of such situations.
Imagine that the clerk is looking after abandoned children of prostitutes, helping in their education, keeping
them away from the streets and crime. Imagine further too that he asks bribe only from those he thinks
are capable of paying them and this money goes entirely to feed these children. Is your Indian psychology
willing to call this clerk corrupt? Or even unethical?
But whatever it may be, the clerk and the building contractor could not be about this: I kept insisting that
one is not defending that corruption is either morally good or bad, and that one needed to understand what
it was before making a moral judgment either way.
So, what have we been discussing all along, and where is the dispute to be located?
(E) Here is my hypothesis. The discussion has been about the sentence corruption is a social phenomenon
and what we understand this sentence means. We are at loggerheads about the scope of this sentence. I
believe you do not quite appreciate the consequences of your interpretation. Let me approach my hypothesis
by steps as well.
(F) Consider the following sentences:
13 There are more corrupt Indians than there are corrupt westerners.
14 There are more corrupt persons in India than elsewhere.
15 In terms of the percentage of corrupt to non-corrupt people, India ranks 73rd in the list of nations.
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These are some possible ways of interpreting the claim that India is a corrupt nation. None of these are
acceptable because no research has been done by anyone, anywhere in the world, at anytime that can provide
us with any semblance of evidence that can justify such a statement.
Quite obviously, that claim that India is a corrupt nation (or that corruption is rampant in India) cannot
refer to statements like above. Let us bring in the organization to which the municipal clerk belongs, in order
to see whether it makes sense.
16 The Indian bureaucracy is corrupt.
17 In 72 other nations, bureaucracy is less corrupt.
18 The bureaucracy in some countries is more corrupt than bureaucracy elsewhere.
19 The manner in which the bureaucracy, the police, the justice system is corrupt in India is different from
the way similar organisations are corrupt in the USA.
The sentence is (16) is true, but no implications follow from this. May be, that is because all bureaucracies
are corrupt: because of Nehruvian Socialism in India, Fascism in Germany, Democracy in the US, etc. etc.
In other words, the claim could be about the organization that the bureaucracy is. But, of course, it is not:
no one means that only the Indian bureaucracy is corrupt, when they say that India is corrupt. Besides,
no one has done a comparative research. So, we have no clue about what 17 through 19 say or do not say.
Our dispute on this board, consequently, cannot be about any of the above sentences.
Suppose we add government to this list. Consider the following:
20 The Indian bureaucracy and the Indian government are corrupt.
21 The existence of corrupt organizations makes a culture or a nation corrupt.
22 If the society feeds corruption, such a society is corrupt.
Now, I have a feeling we are getting somewhere in the process of making sense of the statement that India is
a corrupt country. But, let us take small steps here. Regarding (21) and (22) the following could be said: the
existence of organized crime in all societies would make all societies corrupt. But no one says that America
is a corrupt nation because the organized crime exists and grows in America. So, let us leave aside these two
sentences for the time being and focus on (20).
23 The present incumbents in bureaucracy and government are corrupt.
This is not what is meant when one says that India is a corrupt country or that corruption is eating into the
innards of the country. What one means is something stronger, more like,
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24 The Indian regime is corrupt: not merely the present incumbents but the Indian system of bureaucracy
and politics.
But (24) does not imply that the rule of law and democracy are corrupt. These institutions are not corrupt.
25 The way the Indians use these modern institutions is corrupt. Or, The Indian way is corrupt.
What is this Indian way? Some kinds of examples.
26 Such is the nature of corruption in India that anyone who has to do business in India is forced to play
the same game.
27 One cannot do business in India without paying bribes.
In other words, such is the Indian way that even those who want to play fair and square are forced into
playing the game of corruption. These business people themselves get corrupted because, much like the
building contractor, they are forced to pay bribes in order to stay alive.
28 This means, that such is the pattern of interactions within the Indian society that anyone who wants to
interact with them is forced to become corrupt himself. Or, pithily formulated,
29 One is taught to relate in a corrupt way to other people.
Both (29) and (30) imply the following:
30 One is not only corrupt; one corrupts the other as well. That is, their (i.e. the Indian) way of interacting
breeds corruption.
From this, it is a childs play (almost) to go to the following conclusions:
31 Corruption continues to grow in India because more and more people are taught to become corrupt.
32 That is, more of more aspects of cultural life come under the scope of corruption.
33 The process of learning to be corrupt is part of the Indian culture and society.
34 A society or a culture teaches its members some ways of interacting with each other. If these ways are
themselves corrupt, the society or nation is corrupt.
In other words, the commonsense claims (and the scholarly treatises) about corruption in India involve the
above statements. This is what I think most of you are defending without knowing it (or even explicitly
rejecting it). Why do I say so?
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(G) Because, now the examples of the clerk and the contractor begin to make sense. They are examples of
the fact that India is corrupt. It does not mean the sentence (8) [i.e., some Indians are corrupt] but sentences
30 through 35. You feel that I am saying something else, something different from the commonsense claims
you are putting forward. Therefore, you keep coming with examples and arguments that make no sense,
have no point or purpose, at first sight. But they do make sense. If you realize that a simple statement like
that of the Transparency International has its own logic and takes you irresistibly towards one goal, you will
also realize that your examples and arguments have but one purpose: to show that India is corrupt in the
sense we have just seen.
(H) When immorality increases in the West, people do not say the west is an immoral culture because it
encourages immorality. They bemoan this fact and say that the fundamental western values (or Christian
values) need to be revived. When immorality (say corruption) increases in India, people do not say the same
and call for a revival of Indian values. No, they say that the Indian culture and society are corrupt. Why?
Because the values that the Indian society embody are not considered moral.
(I) In other words, the discussions on this board illustrate the colonial consciousness I refer to in the article.
Even when we want to, it is not that simple to break out of this consciousness. Even when we talk about our
own experiences in India, we remain within the ambit of colonized consciousness. Because, Colonialism,
as I have repeated a number of times already, is about denying the colonized peoples and cultures their
own experiences; of making them aliens to themselves; of actively preventing any description of their own
experiences except in terms defined by the colonizers.
(J) I am, of course, aware that I have sketched out but a path in the above paragraphs. This is not the only
path, but one I found to be the simplest to show the logic involved in the statement that India is corrupt.
I say your discussions suggest that you are merely following the logic of this statement. By saying this, I
might alienate some of you. If that comes to pass, so be it. As I have said in another post, I can only help
you think, I cannot convert you. You need to put in the effort and all I can provide are some tips.
Notes:
I do wish sometimes that people read this post carefully before expressing agreements or disagreements. Just
before the sentence (8), I postulated a definitional equivalence between immorality and corruption. In that
case, some Indians are immoral becomes equivalent to some Indians are corrupt. As such, there can be
no scare quotes in sentence (8). On the other hand, the scare quotes will reappear when one suggests that
Indians are corrupt in the sense in which one proclaims that India is a corrupt nation. Because, here the
notion of corruption carries the meaning I have dealt with in sentence (31) to (34).
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Criticism: you are essentializing cultures! (2011-03-02 22:32)
The first question: By saying that there exist Western and Indian cultures arent you somehow essentializing cultures into monoliths?
I do not see how. When we talk of the human species (in the singular), or about life (again in the singular)
while doing evolutionary biology, we do not presuppose or imply that either of the two is a monolithic entity,
do we? In fact, diversity is a presupposition for any kind of knowledge and this is my presupposition as well.
I presuppose (and my theory requires) diversity in both the Indian and the western culture. Without it, one
cannot test the theories.
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Colonial Consciousness: Burden of Proof S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-03 00:22)
1. The first thing that is really striking involves what I will call the burden of proof. That is, I am being
asked to prove that my assertions about corruption are true. In one sense, it appears an entirely reasonable
demand to make: after all, one should not entertain gratuitous claims. But what seems to have escaped the
attention of many is this: what precisely do I have to prove? Who has the burden of proof?
1.1. Let us strip the issue to its barest form. I am supposed to prove that we Indians are not corrupt,
immoral and/or moral imbeciles. Without proof, is it difficult to accept these claims? But who has proved
that we are any or all of these things? Not the western theorists, surely. Not any Indian either. All that
exist are bare-bone assertions that some moral principles are violated in a systematic fashion in India. So,
what exactly do I have to prove?
1.2. It could be said that people will accept my theories only if I can prove them. But I am not presenting
a theory of corruption or caste, surely. I am merely extending an invitation to start looking at things in
a way that enables research. There are some things I have a partial insight about; I can share them with
you. There are some things I have some hunches about; I can try and communicate them as clearly as I
can. Where and when I have a theory about some things, I can present them to the scientific public in a
form that is adequate. [I am doing research on caste, but it is nowhere near complete. I do have a theory of
non-normative ethics, and I am writing a book about it. I have written a book on religion and it is up to
the scientific public to judge its adequacy.] On those issues where I have hunches, insights and intuitions I
can only go some distance.
1.3. But then, it is not as though the western theorists have a well-worked theory about these issues either.
No theorist has ever shown either why some ethical principles (whatever they are) ought not to be violated;
what happens to a culture when such a thing happens; why it is not morally good (whatever that means)
that these principles are violated. Which theorist has done (or ever did) a research on the Indian ethics
that proves that we are immoral? No one. Yet, we do not ask proof of this; but, I have to prove we are
not immoral. Which theory explains corruption in India, let alone the actions of a municipal clerk? None.
Yet, I have to prove that this clerk is not corrupt. This is strange: there is no burden of proof imposed on
those who call India a corrupt nation, but one has to prove that India is not corrupt. If I say that America
is corrupt, I have to prove it and no silly anecdote will do in its stead; but if I come with silly examples of
India, it suffices. Have we reflected on this strange cognitive asymmetry in imposing the burden of proof?
2. When for more than 200 years, the West went around trumpeting the evils of the caste system, we
meekly accepted it without asking for proof. We inanely repeat the demand that the Harijans be allowed
into the temples, without even knowing why or whether this demand entails abolishing the evil that the caste
system is supposed to be or where this demand originated from or even what it signifies. Even to this day,
when the Hindu reform groups go around peddling silly stories about the evil that the caste system is, we
do not lay the burden of proof of them. But when someone asks what that system is, and whether we could
have moral opinions on a subject we know very little about, the burden is on him to prove his claims. One
has to prove that we Indians are ignorant of the Indian caste system; but, I suppose, if one says it is evil
then the person demonstrates his knowledge.
3. Many are telling me what I have to show, or prove if I want to be believed. Friends, I cannot (at
this moment) prove that Indian culture is not immoral, or that we are not moral imbeciles. Nor am I am
asking you to believe that Indians are not immoral. You can believe what you feel like: if like some, you are
ashamed of our barbarism, so be it. I am not going to (nor am I able to) prove to you that we are civilized
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or that we are cultured. I believe that the burden of proof lies on those who make such implausible claims
about non-western cultures. I cannot hope to convince you by providing proofs: I have no such proofs. All
I can do is draw your attention to the fact that those who call us barbaric have even less to go on than
I have. If people are already convinced about corruption in India, there is nothing I can do to dispel this
conviction except draw attention to the fact that it does not rest on any kind of a proof either. All it draws
upon is some moral principle and some subjective feeling induced by some anecdote or the other. I ask for
research into corruption because, I say, we do not understand it. But if your conviction tells you that you
are against such a research, there is pretty little I can do about it.
4. The only thing I can do is help you think about the possible reasons why we show the kind of resistance
we exhibit. I have some ideas about why our intellectuals have not done the kind of research they should
have done. I can share these ideas with you: not to convince you but to help you reflect. I do that because
I feel that you might be open to thinking about our culture and our traditions in a different way than our
earlier generations. I might be wrong in assuming this, but that is irrelevant. However, what I cannot do
is prove to you that you need to think differently. I can give my reasons why I think a Renaissance is due.
It is beyond my ability (any human beings ability, for that matter) to demonstrate and prove that such an
event is due.
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Normative Ethics: Moral Dilemmas and Imperfect World S.N.Balagangadhara

(2011-03-03 00:43)
Let us say that X does something which Y considers corrupt. To keep it simple, let us say that Y
expresses the aforementioned judgment. In order to express it, or persuade others about the validity of this
moral judgment, Y will have to do something like this:
1. Y defines corruption: All actions which exhibit
properties are corrupt
2. Ys ethical principle (itself justified): All actions which satisfy
(the principle) are moral.
3. Y infers: Because all corrupt actions violate principle (2), all corrupt actions are immoral.
4. Y describes:
action of X shows
properties.
5. Y infers: By definition, therefore, Xs action is corrupt.

6. Y argues: All corrupt actions are immoral. (Reiteration 3)
Xs action is corrupt. (Reiteration 5)
7. Y infers: Therefore, Xs action is immoral
The goal of Western ethical philosophers is to construct a theory, which allows us to justify moral judgments
or moral actions and choices in the above, albeit simplified, manner.
One can say that the context helps you decide which principle has to be modified, which to discard. Within
the western normative ethics, the context is irrelevant to the process of deliberation. Maximally, what
contexts do is create the so-called ethical dilemmas, i.e. situations where the moral principles conflict.
So-called, because most ethical philosophers do not believe that ethical principles could, in principle, be in
conflict. They ascribe the empirical conflict either to the insufficient information the agent has, or to the
moral imperfection of the actual world, or to the absence of a good theory of ethics which creates a hierarchy
of norms, or whatever else. That is because, within the western normative ethics, it is not possible for an
ethical principle to impose an immoral obligation. If it does so, such a principle has to be immoral. (In
a situation involving a moral dilemma, following any one ethical principle entails violating the other moral
principle. In this sense, the first imposes an immoral obligation to violate the second.)
One of the most popular ways to account for a moral dilemma has been to speak of two kinds of obligations:
a prima facie obligation and an actual obligation. Prima facie obligations refer to situations involving moral
conflict (i.e. a moral dilemma). They say that this is merely an apparent conflict (i.e. a prima facie conflict)
and not real at all. In a morally perfect world, they say, there could be no conflict of moral principles. So,
all you have to do is accept that ours is a morally imperfect world, where it appears as though we have
conflicting obligations when there could be no such conflicts between moral obligations. In simple terms:
they say moral dilemmas tell us that we live in a morally imperfect world but nothing about the nature of
moral principles. Moral principles could never in conflict. In other words, moral dilemmas are a curse on
humankind; they show us that we are imperfect creatures.
If these ideas do not resonate with your understanding of morality, it shows that you do not know what
ought means (philosophically speaking).
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Is the division between the West and East Orientalist in nature? (2011-03-03 00:51)
Is the division between the West and East Orientalist in nature? Well, that is what Edward Said says in his
Orientalism; that is what many writers in his wake say too. I beg to disagree. Let me make but three points.
One: that there is an Indian culture and a western culture has been established in my book. (Of course,
it is also an experiential given.) Consequently, I have just presumed this distinction here. Second: some
distinction does not become Orientalist just because the Orientalist thinkers use the distinction. Thirdly:
that there exist empirical distinctions of culture etc. is not denied by Edward Said but only that speaking
about these distinctions leads to violence. A rather funny stance, to say the least.
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assumptions
that
make
actions
corrupt
S.N.Balagangadhara
(2011-03-03 01:17)
The first thing to note is that there is no distance between how we use corruption in our daily language and
the way it is used in political and sociological theories of corruption. You see, the problem we (Indians) face
is the asymmetry in the way the word is used while talking about us and the way it is used when talking
about India. I want to signal this by putting up the red flag: I want to suggest the reader not to assume the
truth of these descriptions.
If we restrict ourselves to the recent past, then Gunnar Myrdals The Asian Drama can be used as a reference
point for a way of talking that signals the current use of the term. He claimed that corruption (among other
things) stood in the way of economic development of these countries. Since then, it has entered the popular
discourse to such an extent that corruption is almost seen as a typical problem of developing countries today.
Consider the fact that you complain that one has to pay bribe to get a duplicate of ones birth-certificate
from the municipal office. Why do you complain? Is it because you have to pay money? If you had to pay
for any and every such duplicate by law, would you call it corruption as well? (In Belgium, one has to pay
for these things over and besides the taxes one pays for organizing public services.) I presume not. Then
why do you complain? Because, I suggest, you assume that (a) the clerk is not doing you any personal favor;
(b) he is paid by the tax-payers money to provide you the service free of charge; (c) he is violating some
or another moral precept by charging for what ought to really be free; and such like. If this is the case, it
is these assumptions that are responsible for transforming his action into corruption. These are (a) moral
assumptions about some or another set moral codes; (b) moral assumptions about the role and function of
public offices; (c) moral assumptions about the duties that such a function imposes on the incumbent; and
so on. All of these belong to what I have been calling the western normative ethics. In other words, your
complaint is a moral one, and it is that thanks to the western normative vocabulary that is available to you
through the use of English and the western education.
Let us assume, for a moment, that this clerks function was privatized. (After all, why should I or someone
else pay for this clerk so that you may get your duplicates?) That is, only those who make use of his office
pay for the services they receive. Assume that the clerk charges you a fixed rate by keeping in mind he has
to live too and not everybody in the community wants duplicate birth-certificates every day. (To keep the
discussion simple, let us assume that the amount is fixed by him.) Would you call this corruption as well? I
suppose not.
If you think deep enough on these two modes of organizing public services, you will notice the problem.
The clerk acts as though he is doing the second, whereas he appears to belong to the first. The problem of
corruption in India, I want to submit, arises due to the superimposition of the first on the second.
If this is the case, it ceases being corruption in any sense of the term. Hence my scare quotes as signals.
It is intended to signal that the western normative ethics is structuring our experience itself, even when we
think that we do not know what that normative ethics is all about. We need not study a western text-book
on ethics in order to find out what it is. We merely need to interrogate the way we talk and the way (we
think) we experience our own culture. What I have tried to do in the article is to draw your attention to the
consequences of this way of structuring our experiences at a social and cultural level. In other words, I was
hoping that these scare quotes would force one to interrogate ones own experience. Hence the speed bumps:
do not read further without pausing to think through the implications.
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Is Normative Ethics Richer? S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-03 01:26)
1. Are western traditions innately richer because they have the moral ought?
My answer: No. In fact, in my book on ethics I will prove the following: the non-normative ethics are richer:
Under specific assumptions, in limited conditions, one can derive a normative ethics from a non-normative
one. The relation between non-normative ethics and normative ethics is analogous to the relation between
Einsteinian theory and Newtonian theory: under specific assumptions, in limited conditions, you can derive
the Newtonian theory from the Einsteinian theory.
2. Uchit and Unuchit do not function as ought and ought not do. They mean something like appropriate and inappropriate. That we have different words with different meanings to pick out the moral ought
and moral ought not suggests (merely suggests!) that, perhaps, there is a greater richness to our ethical
languages than those governed by the moral ought and moral ought not.
3. We can neither map the moral imperatives (let me call the ought and ought not this way in order to
avoid using scare quotes to mention these words) at the phrase level or at a sentence level. What we map
are the ethical nature and the ethical force of some statements in some context or the other.
4. Yes, many systems of Deontic logics make use of one or another version of modal logics. They enrich
the propositional and predicate logics with deontic terms (which the moral imperatives are) and allow us to
track the logical and semantic behavior of these deontic operators.
5. Decidability presupposes expressibility and, as you say, the converse does not hold. (See 1.) The trade-off
between the two depends on what human situations require: a decision-procedure or a learning-heuristic.
The western ethics sees the ethical event as one that requires a decision procedure; it is my claim that in our
traditions an ethical event requires an action heuristic.
6. Which is better? This does not depend on the semantics of ethical languages but on what ethics is
supposed to do: teach you how to act ethically, or decide which type of action is ethical. In the latter case,
you still have the problem of performing the ethically correct action.
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Moral domain not defined by norms S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-03 01:33)
The inability of the Chinese language to express counterfactuals is even more intriguing. As you know, Confucius wrote his Analects in the Classical Chinese language. In order to see where I am heading, consider
some of the thoughts that Rosemont, Jr. expresses. (Rosemont, Jr., H., Against Relativism. In Larson G. J.
and E. Deutsch (eds.), Interpreting Across Boundaries: New Essays in Comparative Philosophy. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1988) Not only is there an absence of the concept of morality in the Classical
Chinese, but also the very cluster of concepts required to speak about moral issues.
Consider as a specific example the classical Chinese language in which the early Confucians wrote. Not merely
does that language contain no lexical item for moral, it also does not have terms corresponding to freedom,
liberty, autonomy, individual, utility, rationality, objective, subjective, choice, dilemma, duty,
rights, and probably most eerie of all for a moralist, classical Chinese has no lexical item corresponding to
ought - prudential or obligatory (Rosemont Jr. 1988: 61).
This claim is as puzzling as it is startling: in classical Chinese it is not possible to speak of moral duty or
moral dilemmas or moral choices. It is not even possible to formulate a rule which uses the notions of
ought - either obligatory (All ought to do X) or prudentially (If one desires X then one ought to do Y).
In the western intellectual tradition, we believe it to be the essence of a moral principle or norm that it
is formulated using the ought - either in obligatory or prudential form. Without ought, there would be
no difference in kind between factual and evaluative statements. Yet, it is impossible to do precisely that in
Confucianism. The philosophical significance is immense:
Speakers (writers) of languages that have no terms (or concept clusters) corresponding to moral cannot
logically have any moral principles (ibid.: 60).
But, rightly enough, we take Confucianism at least as an example of a moral system. What is the upshot of
the above remark? Rosemont formulates the issue as follows:
If one grants that in contemporary western moral philosophy morals is intimately linked with the concept
cluster elaborated above, and if none of that concept cluster can be found in the Confucian lexicon, then the
Confucians not only cannot be moral philosophers, they cannot be ethical philosophers either. But this contention is absurd; by any account of the Confucians, they were clearly concerned about the human conduct,
and what constituted the good life. If these are not ethical considerations, what are? (ibid.: 64).
The intriguing question, apart from the truth-value of these claims, is about their intelligibility. What is the
structure of the moral domain if it is not defined by norms? If one does not act morally simply by following
rules, how does one learn to act in a moral way? How is an ethical judgment possible without referring to
norms? How are ethical disputes settled? And, above all, how is an identification of such a domain possible
at all?
What I am trying to say is that these questions arise typically (at the least) in all Asian traditions, including
the Indian one. And that what has been argued as the weakness of these traditions is actually their greatest
strength.
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Is relative ethics coherent? (2011-03-03 01:40)
Does the notion of relative ethics make sense within the context of the western ethics? There are some
attempts to develop ethical relativism, even though it is not clear what is relativistic about them. One
would be a kind of factual claim: different people, different groups, different cultures have different principles
which they consider as morally good. This does not make for ethical relativism. The issue still remains:
are these principles also ethically good? That is to say, one undertakes a normative enquiry in order to find
out whether all these principles are also morally acceptable. The second would be to come up with a moral
norm that is relative to some person or group. Any examination would very quickly lead to the conclusion
that, in so far as it is a norm, it is universalizable even if the domain of objects appears restricted. (That
is because all universal laws specify the domain of objects, whether implicitly or explicitly, where they are
applicable. The relativistic norms appear relativistic because they specify the domain explicitly.) In other
words, no one has been able to come up with any coherent explication of what relativistic ethics means.
(According to me, it is impossible to do so when we speak of normative ethics.)
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Ethically Bad Action vs. Corruption S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-03 01:57)
1. The corruption refers to the social phenomenon in India which makes about 20 % of the adult population
into immoral people. When I said that I refuse to call the clerk corrupt or that the issue I raise is anterior,
I am talking about this phenomenon. One uses the word cheating (something like the Hindi Dhoka probably). One could, for instance, use this word to describe the individual action of the clerk as an unethical
one without making it into corruption.
Are these two conversationally synonymous? I suppose it depends on the person with whom you are having
a conversation, the context and the language used.
Why is this distinction useful? [1]The article tries to show that some logical conclusions (about our social
structure, about the nature of ethics) follow if we use the word corruption the way it is used to describe
the Indian society. I am not willing to buy any of them. That is why I resist using the word corruption to
describe the action of the municipal clerk or the building contractor or whoever else. This is the first reason.
(I use a variant of the reductio et absurdum argument to show why we better make the distinction.)
There is a second reason. Let us continue using the examples of the clerk or the building contractor or a
telephone linesman. The bribes you pay do not merely line the pockets of these individuals without them
being distributed within the hierarchy of whatever organization to which these people belong (the clerk and
the linesman) or the one to whom (say the assistant engineer) the contractor has paid. You do realize, of
course, that there is an enormous integrity within this hierarchy. The bribes are distributed among the
relevant people in a very honest way. Not only that. Once one pays the bribe, one feels that one is morally
entitled to the service one has paid a bribe for. The one who receives the bribe also feels that he is morally
obligated to provide you with the necessary service once he has received the bribe. You are not cheated
from this entitlement once you have paid the bribe. What you get is what you pay for. These index the
extraordinary integrity of the bribe-receiving structures. In fact, these individuals lose their credibility and
trustworthiness (look at the words I am using) if they do not perform after they have received the bribe.
That is, a tremendous trust and honesty is required from both the parties. It is almost as though that in this
perverse (these scare quotes are red flags) system, there is an extraordinary honesty and integrity. Why, if
they were corrupt, could they not tell you to take a hike after they receive bribes? Because, the so-called
corruption works if and only if those who are corrupt are honest and reliable!
The above is the second side to the so-called corruption in the Indian society. What I am trying to do is
make us realize that, because the so-called corruption involves both honesty and bribes, to figure out what
this phenomenon is requires that we go beyond mere ethical characterizations the way the western culture
uses them.
To repeat myself, let us first find out what this phenomenon is which involves both these dimensions. To
simply call it corruption not only has implausible consequences but also blinds us to the issues.
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These are two of the reasons why I want to distinguish between ethically bad action and corruption. There
are more, but they are irrelevant in the present context.
2. Precisely because I was talking to a non-western, and presumably an Indian audience, I did not speak
of the second aspect to corruption. To a western audience, that would have been my first point. In a very
simplified fashion, I would have said, using the word corruption to describe a social phenomenon in India
leads one to say the following: Indian society is corrupt if and only if the corrupt Indians are individually
ethically good. (Each corrupt individual has to be extraordinarily ethical, if corruption has to work at a
social level.) However, a corrupt individual cannot be ethically good. The problem I have had with the
western audience is that they do not believe that corruption works. They are simply hung up on its alleged
immorality.
1.
on-colonial-experience-and-the-indian-renaissance-a-prolegomenon-to-a-project%E2%80%94s-n-balagangadhara/
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Mitigating circumstances, normative ethics (2011-03-03 03:55)
The universalisability of norms does not mean that the western people all factually follow these norms. Even
if everyone were to lie, the ethical statement No one ought to lie is a universal moral statement.
The existence of debates about abortion, war, etc. is indicative of the nature of normative rules. Because
one ought not to kill, debates and doctrines about justified war come into being. It is important to note
that these doctrines do not contradict the injunction not to kill but provide justifications for undertaking
such an immoral action. (They provide, so to speak, the mitigating circumstances.)
Same about abortion. If you follow the debates, one side tries to argue that abortion is not murder of a
human being (e.g. the fetus is not yet a human person); the other urges against it because it is murder.
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Logic of normative ethics: Immorality S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-03 04:16)
Why does one bring up the issue of ones grandmothers judgment about a clerk taking bribes as a counterexample? First, what do I say? That he calls it as corruption has to do with western normative ethics. Does
it follow from this that the action of the municipal clerk is ethically good? It does not, unless one assumes
either (a) I am presenting an alternate moral principle, which will make the action of the clerk morally good;
or that (b) the only morality that will make the action of the clerk ethically bad is the one that construes
it as corruption. I am not presenting an alternate moral rule that justifies the action of the clerk. But I
want to know why the so-called corruption comes about and whether it is that. My attempt at doing this is
assumed to make the action of the clerk or the building contractor morally good. Why this assumption? I
suggest that it comes about because of the assumption (b).
Secondly, consider the underlying rhetorical force of the counter-example: even we Indians call it ethically
bad. But whoever said that the action of the clerk or the building contractor is ethically good? Did I say
that we do not have notions of adharma or paapa? I did not; so why does he assume that my reconstruction
to explain corruption of the clerk is an exoneration of the clerks action?
So, it appears that there are but two options open to me: either I condemn it as corruption or I am doomed to
defend the action as morally good. This is how the issues get set up in the normative ethics. The possibility
that one can criticize the clerk or the contractor without making it into corruption and yet call it unethical is
not even entertained. When vaguely entertained, it becomes a matter of labels as one puts it. The problem,
though, is that this label makes all the difference about how we tackle it: whether as a social phenomenon
or as something else. That is to say, it is not a label which is at stake but one of re-conceptualizing ethics.
Is there the problem of corruption in India that makes about 20 % of the adult Indian population into
immoral people, or is something else going on? Surely, there is something wrong with a theory that makes
us massively immoral but leaves the western culture intact. This is the issue I wanted to focus on. But such
is the logic of the western normative ethics that there is little possibility of discussing it without being forced
either into a defense of immorality or into the assumption that normative condemnation is the only way of
conducting an ethical discussion.
True, I have not offered an alternate theory either of ethics or of corruption. The first will very soon (I
hope) come out as a book, and research is needed on the second. I claim that we need to do research on this
phenomenon, but others know what the phenomenon is without doing any such research. Where do they get
this certainty from? From two things, I would like to suggest. One from the conviction that the clerk and
the contractor are being unethical (but this is not being discussed); second from the belief that the moral
talk that has made this into corruption is also the only talk that will make it unethical. To challenge that
it is corruption is to doubt its immorality. In other words, the only way of indulging in moral talk is to talk
the way the western ethics does.
The above are ones cognitive assumptions, probably not those one is aware of making.
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Criticism: Nonsense (2011-03-03 16:46)
Regarding nonsense. I take it you mean that my claims are false or wrong. In that case, I would like to read
your reasons. There is no point in simply saying something like that without telling which other theory of
religion does better than mine. Even if there are problems in my theory, I claim that this is the best theory
we have in the market place. If you think differently, I would like you to tell us the way in which any of the
competitor theories in the market place does better. Of course, as a scientist, I do know (and accept) at a
meta-level that all my claims are hypothetical and tentative. I very honestly hope to see and greet, before
I die, a much better theory of religion than the one I am developing. Such a process will come into being,
if people like you discuss the theory in a critical but rational way. It will not, if people continue nit-picking
and come up with irrelevant criticisms.
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Criticism: Twisted arguments (2011-03-03 16:57)
Criticism: I use jargon and twisted arguments on a mundane topic. And that every Swami says that Hinduism is not a religion but a way of life. And so on.
If anything, I have avoided jargon (i.e. the use of technical language) in my book. I would like to know
where I use technical language without explaining it. As far as twisted arguments go, I presume you to mean
invalid arguments. If you can point to an invalid argument, you would be identifying a flaw in the book.
Unfortunately, you do not provide instances of it. May be, you should try being concrete.
You say that when you finished half of the book, you wondered why every Swami proudly says that Hinduism
is not a religion but a way of life. I cannot explain why you wondered at the mundane topic, but I can tell
you that the first half of the book does not talk about this. The first half of the book merely talks about
what the western culture did. It does not even provide you with a definition of the word religion, and there
are no hypothesis formulated with respect to the phenomenon that religion is.
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reductionism
and
Indian
traditions
S.N.Balagangadhara
(2011-03-03 19:33)
1. Consider the everyday phenomenon of sunrise and sunset. We see the movement of the sun on the horizon
and, for a very long period of time, people thought that they observed this because that is the way the reality
is: the sun moves around the earth. With Galileo Galilei, two things happened. (a) He argued that the
earth moves round the sun. (b) On the basis of this theory, he claimed that we are compelled to observe the
movement of the sun around the earth. Because of this, a distinction became necessary: the movement of
the sun is merely a phenomenon, whereas the movement of the earth is the real truth. What we previously
thought as reality became downgraded to a mere appearance and something we did not know until then
became the reality underlying this appearance.
Of course, appearance is as much a part of Reality as the essence (or underlying reality, or whatever terminology you feel like using) is. So, we have three notions: appearance, the underlying reality, and the
Reality that unites appearance with the underlying reality. (One might as well call them reality1, reality2
and reality3. But one does not do this because of the deep-rooted western metaphysical assumption that
there is only one reality. However, since I do not want to quarrel with this assumption now, I will make no
further remarks on this issue.)
Notice though that this degradation of what was once thought of as reality to appearance is acceptable (and
possible) because Galileo proves that one is compelled to observe the movement of the sun on the horizon
precisely because of the motion of earth around the sun. That is, he shows that the movement of the sun is
a necessary appearance.
2. Consider now another everyday phenomenon: human beings are intentional. That is, each one of us
experiences oneself as a being that wishes, dreams, hopes, desires, fears, sets up projects, pursues ambitions,
etc. In short, it is our experience that we are intentional agents. All of Semitic theology, most of western
philosophy and psychology and all of our commonsense assume the truth of this experience. This, if you like,
is the reality that Homo Erectus Erectus is. This is what we experience and we experience this, we believe,
because it is the reality.
3. Some have found it fit to challenge this. Mostly, within the western intellectual traditions, it is called
reductionism. Reductionism (Mind-body reductionism, as it is called) claims the following: every set of
claims about the mind can, in principle, be reduced to another set of claims about brain-events. From this
claim, they believe that it is possible to show that there cannot be such an entity called mind. (I want to
leave aside what they mean by reduction not only because it has a technical meaning in the literature but
also because it is not relevant for the purposes of illustration. The same applies to the different varieties of
reductionism and the complexity of the arguments.)
Philosophical reductionism merely tells me that I am wrong (and hallucinate) each time I experience myself
and feel my frustrations, ambitions, projects, etc as mine. Even where I accept that this reductionistic
claim is true, there my experience does not change: I continue to experience whatever I experienced before
and this explanation does not transform my experience. By reading their tracts, or writing their articles, one
does not stop dreaming, or hoping, or desiring, or acting as moral agents. Philosophical reductionism merely
tells me that the whole of mankind is deluded without having a hypothesis about why, if we are under the
illusion that we are intentional creatures, we are compelled to live with this illusion, where it comes from,
how it reproduces itself, how to get rid of them and so on. These theories blandly assure us that we are all
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deluded, and no more than that.

None would have taken Galileos theory seriously, if we had blandly assured us that all of us are deluded in
observing the motion of sun on the horizon. The same with respect to these reductionist theories. There is
no reason to take them seriously in their present form.
4. What do they have to do, if they have to be taken seriously? They have to tell us not merely where
this illusion of being an intentional creature and a moral agent comes from but, more importantly, whether
and how we can be rid of this illusion. This is the requirement for any scientific theory regarding this issue.
However, one point is worth noting at this stage: because being an intentional creature (i.e. a creature which
hopes, dreams, desires, etc) is experiential in nature, any explanation that claims the contrary should help
us experience the illusory nature of intentionality as well.
5. Here is where the Indian traditions step in: they fulfill precisely this condition. They do not merely tell us
where the illusion of being an intentional agent comes from, why they are reproduced, and how I can get rid
of them. (I might or might not accept their claims about previous births. As a matter of fact, I do not. But
clearly they have tried to answer these questions.), but help you experience its illusionary nature as well. In
other words, the Indian traditions save my experience and do not deny it. They are scientific, in the best
sense of the term. (In the sense I have just outlined.)
6. Because of this, much like Galileos theory, the reality of being an intentional creature is degraded to the
level of appearance. (Or, say, reality1.) That one is not an intentional creature is the underlying reality.
(Or, say, reality2.) The ultimate reality (or, reality3) unifies the appearance (reality1) with the underlying
reality (reality2).
If one looks at the issue this way, the question how does one know that one has discovered a higher reality?
answers itself. In exactly the same way we know about these things in scientific endeavors. There is nothing
mystical or esoteric about the Indian traditions. They are the sciences of some aspects of the kind of
creatures we human beings are.
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The past and ways of talking about it (2011-03-03 19:42)
1. What is history? In the first place, it is the subject matter of historiography, which is what historians
write. What does historiography talk about? The human past. In other words, there is a distinction
to be made between the past and ways of talking about this past.
2. If this distinction (between the past and ways of talking about it) is accepted, then we can answer
the question about what history is thus: it is a way of talking about the pasta scientific way. That
is, the truths of historiography are established using the methods and techniques widely accepted in
that domain.
3. The past can be talked about not only by using historiographical methods, but also in different ways:
the way stories, legends, drama, poetry, etc do. These are also ways of talking of the past but they lay
no claims to being histories (or they do not claim to be historiographies).
4. What is the status of the Bible? According to the Semitic religions, not only is it the word of God, but
it also aspires to being historiography. Events like the revelation of the Biblical god, the covenant this
god made with the people of Israel, the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, his claims to being the Christ,
and such like are claimed to be not just events in the human past but, above all, as true events. That
is, they claim to be historical events.
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Intentional operator and inconsistent reasoning (2011-03-03 20:10)
1. A Christian netizen says: there is within exclusive religions the claim that theirs is the only way to God
(that claim can be true or false). There is in inclusive religions the claim that there are several ways to God
and that it is quite possible that one of the exclusive ones (or many of them) are also ways to God. Both
these statements cannot be true at the same time iff the logical law of excluding the middle holds. I dont
think that I have come across a way around this except through it i.e. one of the claims must be false or
worst case both are false (there is no God or there is no path yet).
Let me try to provide you with a species of reasoning, which assumes that the law of the excluded middle
holds and yet is not inconsistent just because it affirms the truth of both statements.
2. Consider a Christian affirming the following: Only through Christ could a human being hope for salvation. This is the exclusivist claim that proclaims the unique nature of Gods revelation in Christ, affirms
further too that salvation is not something that a human being earns but one that depends on the Grace
of God. (And any and all other things that a Christian needs to believe in, in order to be a Christian.) To
the Christian, this is a claim about the world. That is, it is capable of being either true or false and, quite
obviously, the Christian believes it to be true. (We will bracket aside the reasons why the Christian believes
it to be true.) Because of the truth of this claim, the Christian believes further that the Indian heathen is
headed for hell.
3. The Indian heathen believes in the truth of the following claim (let us say): There are many paths to
heaven. He believes this to be a claim about the world as well. That is, it is capable of being either true or
false and the Indian heathen believes it to be true. Because of the truth of this claim, the Indian heathen
is willing to acknowledge that the Christians belief could be true as well. Question: Is the Indian heathen
being inconsistent? Answer: no!
4. Here is how the Indian Heathen reasons: (a) Because there are many paths to heaven, I believe that it is
true to say that there are many paths to heaven. (b) The Christians claim that their path is also a path to
heaven. (c) Therefore, the Christian path is also one path to heaven as well. (d) The Christian believes that
his path to heaven is the only path to heaven. (e) I assent to the truth of (d). (f) However, because of the
that clause, my assent to the truth about what the Christian believes in does not make the Christian belief
true. (The that clause is not truth-functional. My admitting to the truth that Christians hold some beliefs
to be true does not make these Christian beliefs true, of course.)
5. In other words, in the hands of the Indian heathen, the Christian object-level claims about the world get
transformed into claims about the beliefs of the Christians. This transformation is entirely justified because
each claim the Christian makes about the world is preceded with I believe that.... So, what the Indian
heathen does is prefix the claims of the Christians with the intentional operator (or the that clause).
6. When this happens, the Indian heathen has two types of claims about the world: one about the different
paths to heaven; the second about the belief-world of the Christians, which is also a claim about the world
because it is about the fellow-human beings. The law of excluded middle is not abrogated; the Indian Heathen is consistent but he does not say that the Christian religion is false. The same avenue is not open to
the Christian.
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Religious intolerance vs. civic intolerance I (2011-03-03 20:45)
1. Today, in countries like England, Belgium, Germany, Italy and the United States, many religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) and many brands of some of these religions (Catholicism, Protestantism of various
shades, Orthodox Churches, etc) coexist. In Belgium or Italy, for instance, the Catholic Christians do not impose their faiths on those who are not Catholics, i.e., they do not go around proselytizing the non-Catholics
in their countries; in The Netherlands and Germany, for instance, the Catholics and the Protestants do not
go around assaulting each other the way they did during the period of Reformation. Even the Jehovahs
Witnesses do not impose their faith, when they canvass the Good Word from door to door. The Muslims in
Britain, for instance, do not go around converting all non-Muslims either. Questions: Does that mean that
Catholic Christianity in Belgium and Italy (for instance) has become more tolerant than it was couple of
centuries ago? Does it mean that Protestantism has become more tolerant than it was some three centuries
or so ago? Does it mean that Islam in Britain (or in the United States) is more tolerant than Islam, say, in
Africa?
Or does it mean that these countries have become more tolerant of the existence of several religions and
religious denominations in the interstices of their society than they were a few centuries ago?
That these questions can be raised intelligibly and that they can be answered through historical research
show that the word tolerance might mean different things depending on the context in which it is raised.
Tolerance of the existence of different religions within one society is a civic virtue that all citizens within
that society accept. (This is the case with the Catholics in Belgium and Italy; Protestants in Holland and
Germany; Muslims in the United States, etc.)
2. Does the foregoing indicate that Catholic Christianity (and its believers), Protestant Christianity (and
its believers), Islam (and its believers) have become more tolerant of each other and of other religions? That
is to say, does Islam, today, think that Christianity is as true as it itself is; does Catholic Christianity think
that the Protestants claims are as true as their own? Does Judaism believe that their belief that the Messiah
had not come is as true as the claim that he has? And so on.
Their respective beliefs were one of the reasons for the religious struggles of yesteryears. Consequently,
if these religions have become more tolerant of each other, then it is because either (a) their beliefs have
changed; or (b) the believers interpret these beliefs differently, or (c) both.
Further, if this situation has come about because of the civic virtue I spoke of earlier, then one could indeed
claim that these religions have become more tolerant than they were before. Is this the situation?
Again, these questions can be raised intelligibly. One can also give different kinds of answers. Some of the
answers in this context might even have to appeal to answers provided in 1. From all of these considerations,
it follows that the notion of tolerance used here has a different extension than the notion of tolerance as a
civic virtue. Let us call this religious tolerance to distinguish it from civic tolerance.
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3. Tolerance as a civic virtue revolves around building a society free of religious strife. That is, it answers
the question, how can different religious communities coexist in one and the same society?
Religious tolerance, on the other hand, revolves around the question of truth. That is, it is an answer to the
question, which religion is true?
This is an additional reason to distinguish between these two.
4. Notice that one could cultivate the civic virtue of tolerance without, in the least, being required to be
religiously tolerant as well. One cannot be religiously tolerant without, at the same time, having the civic
virtue of tolerance as well. (This is a further indication that these notions have different extensions.)
At first sight, then, it looks as though religious tolerance implies civic tolerance. However, that is not quite
the case: one could be religiously tolerant, i.e., accept that all religions are either equally true (or equally
false, as the case may be), and yet be intolerant, say, of fascists. This shows that the implication between
religious and civic tolerance holds only in the context of discussion about religions.
This is a further indication that there is a substantive difference between civic tolerance and religious tolerance.
5. Even though more nuances can be added and more reasons adduced to distinguish between civic and
religious tolerance, I hope this is enough to provide a prima facie plausibility to my suggestion that, for the
sake of clarity, we would do better to distinguish the two from each other.
6. In my book, I have been insisting that Christianity is an intolerant religion because it is a religion in the
first place. In my book I have shown why this is the case. I have argued there that faith and intolerance are
two faces of the same coin, i.e., one is intolerant precisely because one believes.
To put it in terms of the distinction I have introduced: Jews, Christians and Muslims (of today) might or
might not have learnt the civic virtue of tolerance; but as Jews, Christians, and Muslims they are religiously
intolerant. That is, they cannot accept that each of them is as true as the other.
7. Not only that. While each of the above three religions (and their believers) think that the other is deficient in their worship of God, all of them believe that our traditions are false religions. The latter are that
because they worship the false gods. In other words, there is a difference even with respect to their religious
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intolerance: regarding each other, the above three religions think that the other is deficient in worshipping
God; regarding us, all three believe that we worship false gods.
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Is
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tolerant
Christianity
contradiction
in
terms? S.N.Balagangadhara
(2011-03-03 23:19)
1. Even if one insists (wrongly in my view) that I am suggesting that Alex Alexander is not a Christian,
there are two ways of looking at the object of my assertion: (a) it is about the unique individual that Alex
Alexander is; (b) it is about him in so far as he is an instance of the tolerant Christianity that some Indian
Churches are supposed to be. I am not discussing (a): I do not know this unique individual, his history, his
feelings and such like. Let us look at what discussing (b) entails.
2. Consider the following two assertions he makes:
(i) My Christianity does allow me to accept the rights of others to seek God in whatever manifestation they
like.
(ii) I value and cherish the teachings of Jesus as conveyed to me through my early religious influences in my
childhood.
On the basis of these two statements alone and asking further clarifications and amplifications one can know
more about the kind of Christianity Alex Alexanders Church represents.
3. Regarding (i), some of the questions are:
(a) Does it imply that there are no obstacles to finding God in manifestations like Shiva, Vishnu, Saraswathi,
Hanuman, and such like? That is, if one believes that these are manifestations of God, are they also the
manifestations of God?
(b) Could one earn salvation through personal efforts? That is, is salvation a reward for the efforts a human
being puts in?
(c) What should be saved and from what? Can an individual save himself? through his own, individual
efforts?
(d) Could a moral individual who denies God also attain salvation?
(e) Is doing puja to the idol of Ganesha identical to the worship of God?
(f) Supposing an individual explicitly denies that Jesus is the Saviour and follows Ramana Maharshi instead
equally explicitly. Are there impediments to his salvation?
Thus one could go on. Answers to these questions will tell us whether the Church Alex Alexander belongs
to is religiously tolerant or not.
4. Regarding (ii), the following questions can be raised.
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(a) Is one who follows the ethical teachings of Jesus (e.g. love thy neighbour) is saved if heonly followed
these ethical teachings?
(b) What, if any, is the difference between Jesus and Christ?
(c) Is a figure like Buddha also the Christ figure? Are Shankara, Ramakrishna Paramahmsa, Ramana Maharshi the same as Jesus of Nazareth or the same as Jesus Christ or both or none?
(d) I value the teachings of, say, Ramanujacharya, and Shishunala Sheriff (a Sufi Dasa). Does Alex Alexander
value the teachings of Jesus the same way, i.e. because they provide insights into human beings? I can reject
some aspects of their teachings, if they do not satisfy me. Does he have the same freedom to reject some
aspects of the teaching of Jesus and still lay claim to salvation?
(e) I cherish the teachings of Shankaracharya regarding some aspects and that of Ramana Maharshi about
some other points. That is, I can say that, regarding some or another aspect, I dislike their teachings or
that they are wrong or that I prefer someone elses teachings. Does Alex Alexander cherish the teachings of
Jesus in the same way?
Thus one could go on and on regarding these kinds of questions as well.
5. Such questions are legitimate because Alex Alexanders Church will have explicit standpoints (or they are
derivable as implications) on such and similar issues. These are not questions about whether Alex Alexander
feels the same kind of reverence whether in a Church or a temple; they are about what religious tolerance
means with respect to the Church he belongs.
6. One could easily be against conversion by Islam and some brands of Christianities in India. The rivalry
between the Christian sects could easily explain (much more satisfactorily) why some Christian Churches
in India are won for anti-conversion legislations. That, however, does not make all of them into tolerant
Christians, does it? We need far more proof (which could easily be given by answering questions like the
above) to be convinced that tolerant Christianity is not a contradiction in terms.
7. It is also advisable not to seek easy parallels between a Jesus-Bhakta and a Christian. Most of us heathens
understand too little about the theory and practice of Christianity to do that.
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Inclusivism, exclusivism, and Ignorance of heathens (2011-03-03 23:22)
Words like inclusivism, exclusivism etc. are not a part of my terminology. They are not only imprecise
but also misleading. They have been used mostly as meta-descriptions of the stance that Christian theologies
took with respect to other religions. (To use these loaded notions, even when negatively qualified, to describe
the Indian traditions is totally misleading and entirely wrong.) They are also useless to describe (in any
accurate manner) the Christian religion because each of the above notions expresses a specific solution to the
Christological dilemma. My discussion of Christianity as a religion is pitched at another level of abstraction
than these notions permit.
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On Rajiv s history-centrism S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-03 23:24)
Can history-centrism cause some religion or the other to be belief-based? The notion of history-centrism,
as you formulate it in your article in Sulekha, is too vague to allow a serious answer. In so far as this refers to
a Grand narrative, and this narrative is either an oral or a written account, it is a candidate for the status
of belief. Consequently, your question takes the following form: Does believing in the truth of some or
another historical event cause a religion to base itself on beliefs? (The contrast term to belief will have
to be attitude or action or event.) As Christians do, you might want to distinguish between believing in
(a propositional attitude) and a set of beliefs (which are a set of propositions). In that case, the Christian
stance is superior to your formulation: they say that believing in God is primary with respect to the belief
that God exists or that Christ has come or any such thing.
Empirically speaking, has history-centrism caused some or another religion to be belief-based? An answer
to this interpretation of your question depends on how you write history and whether one sees historical
consciousness as a prerequisite for believing that some proposition is true. Frankly, I cannot quite see how
such an epistemological claim (the latter part of the above sentence is an epistemological claim) can be
argued.
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The religion of secular state: deChristianized Christianity S.N.Balagangadhara

(2011-03-03 23:33)
Assuming that the distinction I [1]proposed between civic tolerance and religious tolerance is acceptable, let
us proceed further to analyze the notion of civic tolerance more closely. (I am simply assuming that it is
desirable and that, from now on, we are talking about religious matters.)
1. It is (logically) possible that there could be religious intolerance and yet the believers in such religions
could have the virtue of civic tolerance. That is to say, even (a) if there is religious intolerance, believers
in some religion or another could have a society where there is civic tolerance. As suggested earlier, (b)
religious tolerance implies the presence of civic tolerance.
2. What do the above two statements suggest? That there could be a possible world (or a possible society)
where both are true as a matter of empirical fact. Let us further assume that western democracies are
examples of such a society.
3. We can now rewrite this as follows. Under certain circumstances, the existence of civic tolerance is indifferent to whether there is religious tolerance or religious intolerance. What are these circumstances?
4. Let us accept the story about Europe at face value. There is a neutral umpire with respect to religious
maters (namely the state) that enforces civic tolerance. When does such a state come into being? Here, the
stories about the western culture are of no use. Why? These stories tell us that (a) generations of religious
strife results in the creations of such a state (because people get tired of religious strife) and/or (b) European
psychology became enlightened. (a) is empirically false: Lebanon, Palestine, Ireland, etc. are examples
that show us that generations of religious strife drives violence deeper into the body of society instead of
generating some kind of tiredness. (b) is also false: Ireland tells us that much.
5. Consequently, a neutral state might be a necessary condition but it is not sufficient. What more is
required? It appears that this umpire must be seen to be neutral by the participants. If it is not seen as
neutral, then this state cannot enforce civic tolerance. In the case of Ireland and Lebanon, believers do not
see the state as a neutral entity (with respect to religious matters) and, consequently, there is continuous
religious strife. (To put it in the language familiar to us, a secular state cannot enforce civic tolerance in a
society if the participants do not perceive the state as a neutral entity with respect to religious matters.)
6. What is required for the state to be seen as a neutral entity with respect to religious matters? Let us look
again at the western history. (i) The state must not take any position regarding the truth or falsity of the
religions. That is to say, the state does not say (a) religion is the revelation of God; (b) religion is not the
revelation of God. (It does the same with respect to different denominations.) That is to say, the state must
remain agnostic with respect to God and His revelation. (ii) It is not enough that state is agnostic but it
must be seen to be agnostic as well. What does that mean? The participants must recognize agnosticism as
a possibility they can countenance in their strife. That means, for both believers and atheists, agnosticism
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must appear as a reasonable option within their discourse. That is, in more general terms, agnosticism is a
choice both within a theistic discourse and an atheistic discourse and, as such, is a part of such discourses.
And, as such, is not an independent third choice that is above and beyond theism and atheism.
7. Let me introduce my research at this stage. I claim that atheism is secularized theism. If that is the case,
agnosticism is a part of both theism and its secularized version (namely, atheism). Better put: agnosticism
is one of the mechanisms in secularizing theism itself. And, in so far as the state is an agnostic entity,
it suggests that the neutral state that the western democracies speak of is one of the mechanisms in the
secularization of Christianity itself. That is, it spreads dechristianized Christianity. Hence, it is acceptable
both to the Christians and to the disguised Christians.
Christianity, as we know empirically, comes in different brands. Consequently, the neutral state in western
democracies not only spreads a dechristianized Christianity but also a particular brand of dechristianized
Christianity. And this brand must be acceptable to all the citizens in that society.
8. This hypothesis, I think, is also sufficient to account for the failure for western secularism to take hold
(a) in the Middle East, (b) in India, (c) in Ireland. This has nothing to do with the psychology of peoples
in these cultures or the genius of the Western people but do with what the so-called neutral state is all
about. The state cannot spread any brand of dechristianized Christianity in cultures that are not Christian;
in Ireland, the strife is precisely about which brand of dechristainized Christianity the state ought to spread.
9. This is not the only reason why this hypothesis is worthy of further investigation. It also explains the
perceptions of (some) people as well. In India, the secular state that Nehru dreamt of is not only seen
not being neutral but also as something alien to the Indian traditions. If the secular state spreads some
brand of dechristianized Christianity, then it is obvious that it will be seen as something alien to the Indian
traditions. Further, where a majority of people are not Christians (but, say, Muslims or Jews) then, it is also
obvious that they will be against any brand of dechristianized Christianity. This might tell us a bit more
both about the state of Israel and the fact that Muslims seem to reject the necessity of a secular state.
10. There is also another intriguing issue that this hypothesis can shed some light on. Despite claiming to
be a neutral state, the Indian state interferes in the Indian traditions. Of course, this is a British legacy.
But is there also a logic to it? I do think so, and I think this hypothesis can also shed light on that issue.
But that is for another post because this post has become very dense already.
1. http://xyz4000.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/religious-intolerance-vs-civic-intolerance/
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Christian
Belief:
Religion
is
cultural/human
universal
(2011-03-03 23:39)
One of these so-called secular accounts that are in fact Christian is the belief that all cultures have a religion.
It is simply a secularization of the Christian belief that the biblical God gave religion to humankind, which
was transformed into the assumption that religion is a cultural universal during the Enlightenment. This
pre-theoretical assumption precedes all empirical research and theory-formation on religion and culture.
From the early missionaries to the contemporary anthropologists, no one has ever even doubted that the
phenomenon of religion is universal to all cultures. All psychological and sociological and even biological and
neurological explanations of religion take this pre-theoretical Christian theological assumption as a starting
point. Now, this is hardly scientific, isnt it? In his book, Balagangadhara shows that the belief that all
cultures have religion has more to do with the structure of the Christian religion than with the nature of
human cultures. Furthermore, he develops a theory of religion which reveals that Christianity, Islam, and
Judaism are at present the only instances of the phenomenon of religion. On top of that, he shows why those
belonging to these religions and to the cultures they have created, are deeply inclined to believe that all
human cultures must have a religion or at least a world view. The latter belief in the universality of religion
is not a scientific hypothesis at all, but a religious doctrine. He also shows that the pagan traditions have a
structure that is completely different from that of these three religions. In other words, the semitic religions
and the pagan traditions are not variants of the same supposedly universal phenomenon of religion, rather
they are different phenomena .
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Secularized Christian Theme: Moral Certainty and Proof Beyond a Reasonable

Doubt (2011-03-03 23:58)
Larry Laudans How Reasonable is Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt ? (published in the journal Legal
Theory), shows how the principle of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is utterly unreasonable when one analyzes it in terms of epistemological standards. Laudans argument is convincing. The problem is it makes all
these judges and lawyers look like fools. Balu was not satisfied by Laudans pragmatic justification of proof
beyond a reasonable dount (of 10 accused, the principle will lead to 9 being legitimately convicted and 1
innocent fellow going to the gallows). Interestingly, the advocacy of this legal principle often invokes a notion
of moral certainty. It is as though when a group of 12 (?) jury members and a judge unanimously come
to the decision that there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt, then the individual at the other end must be
guilty of whatever he or she is accused of. Now, this attitude, Balu suggests, reflects the notion of conscience
in the Christian religion. According to the theology of conscience, God has inscribed His Law for humanity
in all human creatures. A few definitions can show what conscience means to Christians: The conscience
of man&Is a mans judgement of himselfe, according to the judgement of God of him. Or: Conscience is
that Power, or Faculty of the Mind, which judges of our Actions according to a right Rule, whether they
be agreeable to it or not. This rule is Gods Will. Conscience is called that universal Monarch, whose
Ubiquitary Throne is establishd in every mortal Breast. A Quaker writes that conscience is an Ability
in the Understanding of man, by a reflective act to judge of himself in all he does, as to his acceptance or
rejection with God and he adds that this is the inward Rule he hath to walk by. Before the fall, Adam
had been perfectly good and even after the fall, humankind retained the knowledge of the perfectly good in
contrast with evil. This perfect knowledge allowed man to distinguish between Good and Evil, and worked
as a constant witness to God in his soul, and by secret reference to what he was at firrst, tells him what
he still ought to be. The left-over of Gods Will in us after the Fall is what we still call conscience. In
other words, conscience tells us how we ought to act according to Gods Will and judges every act of ours in
relation to this norm. Given the belief that each individual conscience still reflects the Will of God to some
extent (unless it is completely corrupted, but this the selection of jury members is supposed to prevent), the
origin of the notions of moral certainty and proof beyond a reasonable doubt becomes clear. When so many
good Christians agree on the guilt of the accused, it must be Gods Will speaking through their consciences.
It is sickening to see how laws reproduction of secularized Christian attitudes towards morality leads to the
upholding of a silly principle in the American courts (and to the conviction of innocents).
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Secularized Christian theme: interests of a social institution/Christian Church

(2011-03-04 00:08)
About the state, state action and the issue of public interest. There are multiple problems here, which I am
only slowly beginning to recognize. I will share two such problems with you without, however, being able
to concretely spell out the alternatives. (a) Consider the belief that the state ought to act in the public
interest. This belief makes sense if we assume that it is possible to speak in terms of public interest in
some non-trivial fashion. Both Kenneth Arrow and Amrtya Sen have proved theorems that show that any
such use incoherent: Arrow argued that we cannot speak of public will in any coherent way; Sen argued
that we cannot aggregateprivate preferences into a consistent and coherent set of public preferences. Our
notion of public interest includes these two notions and, as a consequence, does not allow of a coherent
conceptualization. Even banning smoking in public places (whatever the notion of a public space be) is not
very coherent, if argued in terms of public interest. In this sense, justifying complex actions, which carry
unintended consequences, in the name of public interest is not an interesting exercise. (b) Despite this, the
idea of the state and its relation to public interest preoccupies people because of something else: that is the
belief that every institution in society has an interest and the state has a public interest. That is, there is
an underlying assumption of intelligibility to claims about institutional interests: each institution has an
interest the way each individual has either a desire or interest. The more I read history, the
less intelligible it has become to me. I believe that this claim is a secular translation of the idea that the
Christian Church has some set of interests and political thinking, since the Middle Ages in Europe, has so
constantly hammered on this theme that it has become a trivial fact that we take for granted. It is totally
unclear to me how we identify the interests of a social institution, the State included, and how we find out
whether we are wrong or right in attributing such an interest to a social institution. In other words, we
have no clue how we solve our disagreement in this area of legal and political philosophy: the more radical
the disagreement, the less clear how we should solve the issue: suppose I deny that the State has any set
of interests that it can call its own, how do we solve this disagreement? On the basis of some or another
definition about what interest is or what State is?
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Christological dilemma and who is a Christian (2011-03-04 00:26)
1. Christians of all hue agree that the figure of Christ is central to the religion that Christianity is. This figure
is the promised one, the messiah, the anointed one, and so on. Kindly note that there is a difference
between the Christ as a figure and Jesus of Nazareth. The Jews also believe in the Christ figure, but they
figure that he has not yet come, and they are awaiting his arrival. The Christians reckon that the Christ has
come and that Jesus of Nazareth was the prophesied one.
2. Jesus of Nazareth, according to Christianity, is also the Christ, and without that being the case, there
can be no Christianity. What exactly does the claim that Jesus is the Christ mean? There is a whole branch
within Christian theology that deals with this question, and it is called Christology. It deals with many
several themes, all focussed around the person and figure of Jesus Christ.
3. In my book, I speak at length about what I call the Christological dilemma. I cannot hope to summarize
it here, but let me simply identify the issue. But before doing so, one needs to have some understanding of
what it means to speak of a dilemma. It merely means the following: (a) a dilemma involves a choice; (b) the
necessary elements of a choice present themselves as alternatives; (c) neither of the alternative is sufficient on
its own; (d) one needs both the alternatives together, but one cannot have both. Such a situation presents
the chooser with a dilemma.
4. The figure of Jesus Christ presents Christianity with such a dilemma. According to Christianity, in Jesus
(a) God not only reveals Himself, but is also (b) His Unique Revelation. It is the combination of (a) and (b)
that makes the son of a carpenter (Jesus of Nazareth) into the Christ. The very same combination presents
Christianity with the Christological dilemma.
5. Christ is the Unique revelation of God. That is, his is the only way to God. At the same time, it is also a
revelation of God, as such, one of the multiple revelations of God, and thus one of the ways to God. Though
following Christ is the only way to God, it is a way which is open to the whole of Humankind. Though open
to the whole of humankind, the other ways that the humankind follows lead not to the Lord but to the Devil.
6. In other words, in the phrase In Christ, God reveals Himself Uniquely contains the dilemma. Either we
emphasize the Unique character of Gods revelation in Christ: in that case, Christianity becomes, to use the
phrase current on this board, exclusivist and intolerant. Or we emphasize the fact that God Reveals Himself
in Jesus: in that case, we can also talk of other revelations of God as being at par. But by doing so, the
figure of Christ disappears from the picture. Christianity might become inclusive and tolerant, but the price
it pays is that it ceases being Christianity. In fact, in such a situation, I argue, one will even be unable to
say whether it is God who reveals Himself or someone else.
7. In the course of the two thousand years that constitute the history of Christianity, indefinitely many solutions have been worked out to address the issue of the Christological dilemma. From the rabidly exclusivist
positions that make Christianity into a sect at one end of the spectrum, to the extremely tolerant Philosophical Theisms at the other end. The first emphasizes the Unique way: thus it focuses on the person in
whom God reveals Himself (an exclusive Christology that makes theo-logy irrelevant); the other, by contrast,
emphasizes God who reveals Himself (an exclusive theology that makes Christology irrelevant). The point,
however, is that one needs both in Christianity but one cannot have both.
8. In other words, it is not my theory of religion that imposes the choice of being either (a) intolerant and
exclusive or (b) being tolerant but non-Christian. Rather, it is the very figure at the heart of Christianity,
namely Jesus as Christ, who gives birth to this dilemma.
9. On the basis of just this dilemma alone, one could not only predict that there are bound to be variations
within Christianity but also, more importantly, predict the limits of such a variation. Of course, there are
all kinds of other factors involved too, and they too add to the predictability.
10. Now, one can make better sense (I hope) of my disinterest in saying whether Alex Alexander, Chacko
and Abraham Verghese are Christians or not. It must also be clear why and in what sense the question who
is a Christian? is an internal problem within Christianity.
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Are Indian Christians not bound by Christian Theology? S.N.Balagangadhara

(2011-03-04 00:34)
You say: Thus when one says that many Indian Christians are pluralistic ... it cannot be refuted simply by
saying, well Christian doctrine fundamentally cannot be pluralistic because all doctrine ultimately always
gets interpreted at the level of the individual.
While it is indeed true that, in the last analysis, everything happens at the level of the individual, it is
wrong to say that, therefore, claims about the Indian Christians cannot be refuted by referring to Christian
theology.
The reason is not far to seek: Christian theology sets limits to the interpretations proposed by the individual believer. One cannot be a Christian of any denomination and say, for example, that Jesus is the
incarnation of the Devil, or that any arbitrary dog is Christ, or that the Messiah has not come, or that God
is a figment of the Human mind, or that Mohammed is the last prophet of God, and so on and so forth.
Consequently, while latitude can and should be given to the interpretations of received theological doctrines
that a believer provides, it is false to claim that the individual, all on ones own, decides about doctrinal
interpretations.
Consequently, one can propose what a Christian can and cannot believe in and still remain a Christian.
Deciding whether some or another Indian is a Christian is not an issue of undertaking a Gallup Poll, but
one of taking recourse to Christian theology.
Here is where the Indian traditions differ fundamentally from the Semitic religions. In these cases, appeal
to an individuals interpretation does not settle the issue one way or another, whereas an appeal to theology
does.
There is no way that one can take up the question, Who is a Christian? and answer it here. I have discussed
this issue through many chapters in my book and I have no hope of being able to summarize it here. One of
the reasons for it is that this question does not have one interpretation and one answer: it depends on who
is asking the question to whom and for what purpose.
However, let me just say that you are not raising the issue of who a Christian is, but whether Christianity in
India is different in some significant aspects because it has come into and grown in the Indian culture. In so
far as you talk about the hypothetical Indian on a park bench, you are asking what the process of conversion
entails. Exclusivity is not the fine print, but that you say it is shows the extent to which you (as an Indian,
Hindu, and the heathen) have difficulty in understanding what religion is. That is what the title of my book
says: as heathens, we are blind to the existence of religion, we do not see it. But one would not think that,
if we were to listen to all the Indians pontificating on Religion, would one?
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On Will Sweetman s Criticism S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-04 07:18)
Let me just focus on one important and one not-so-important claim from Will Sweetmans article
Hinduism and the history of religion: Protestant presuppositions in the critique of the concept of Hinduism. He suggests that I argue the following.
First premise: Christianity is prototypically what religion is.
Second premise: Hinduism does not share all (or perhaps any) of the relevant properties of Christianity.
Conclusion: Hinduism is not a religion.
The problem, here, turns around the notion of prototypicality. I explain at length (a) the source of the
word; and (b) its meaning. For the role these clarifications play in Sweetmans analysis, I might as well not
have written those passages.
Prototypical talks about our language-use. What it says is this. We use the word religion in English to
minimally refer to Christianity. This use does not tell us what the word religion means; does not tell us that
Christianity is a religion. In the book, I suggest that Christianity might not even be a religion and that our
language-use might be totally wrong in this case. (For instance, we used to refer to whales as Fishes. We
now know they are mammals.) But we can only make such a claim after we have a theory of religion. This
is the meaning of the word prototypical. We need to rewrite the first premise so that this point becomes
clear.
First Premise: In English, the word religion refers minimally to Christianity.
Second premise: Hinduism does not share all (or perhaps any) of the relevant properties of Christianity.
Conclusion: ??????
We cannot conclude what Sweetman makes me conclude. We cannot even conclude that the word religion
does not refer to Hinduism (unless we add an additional premise: the word religion refers to Christianity
by virtue of the properties of Christianity).
The problem is clear. Sweetman assumes that prototypicality is the same as (or something like) central
or essential properties of an object. Better put. He probably thinks that a prototypical example is the
best example of an object. However, the technical meaning of the word is not that. It is about what, in
language-use, is understood as a best instance of a word. As I explain in the book, this notion is used for most
natural-language categories and for sets for which the criteria of set-membership are vague. Face, bucket
(to keep to the book) are examples of such natural language categories. :) is a face; so is a visual smiley.
A photograph of a smiling person is prototypical when compared to either of the two. This has to do with
graded membership of the set face, and where it is not possible to come up with an all-or-none criteria.
(For instance, :) is not a face straight away to someone who either does not know computer conventions or
to whom the trick of seeing a face in that set of symbols is not yet explained.)
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In other words, Sweetmans representation of my argument is flawed. I do not say this. This is the important
point. Now to the not-so-important point. He says the following: Balagangadhara himself acknowledges
that there is a quasi-universal consensus that the Western concept of religion is inadequate (Balagangadhara 1994: 313) but he fails to see that this in itself is not a reason for thinking that Hinduism is not a
religion but, rather, a reason to work out a better concept of religion.
I discuss exactly this (and show its triviality) when I discuss Staal. Which intellectual does not want to work
out a better concept? What does this mean, in any case? That we should come up with a concept that
also makes Hinduism into a religion? He calls my hypothesis a tendentious concept and makes it sound as
though I am doing something wrong. Encarta, for instance, defines the word this way: written or spoken
by somebody who obviously wants to promote a particular cause or who supports a particular viewpoint.
I want to promote a scientific viewpoint. Quite obviously, this is not what Sweetman probably has in mind
because he does not consider his argument tendentious.
In any case, it requires at least an ability to read and understand an argument before one can criticize it.
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Meanings and Historical Context: the arguments from Indian scholars

1. Consider the thought that meanings (leave aside the distinction between words and sentences on the one
hand and concepts and categories on the other) do not exist outside historical contexts. What exactly does
this thought say? Begin with historical context. Either every situation that an individual human being finds
himself is a historical context (because human beings are always in a context and these contexts always
occur in history) or there is a difference between a context and a historical context. She cannot possibly
make the latter of the two claims because if the meaning of secularism changes only in historical contexts
but not in other kinds of contexts, it follows that secularism has a stable meaning in other contexts than
historical contexts, which she would want to deny. So, for the sake of consistency, we have to assume
that context and historical context are synonyms. Then, the thought is that meaning varies according to
contexts. Consider the word ice-cream: the only way I can imagine that the meaning of this word varies
according to individual contexts is the following: to one, it means a life saver; to the other fattening and
to the third sweet and so on. (In fact, to one and the same individual ice cream could mean different
things at different points in time: what ice-cream meant when one was 3 years need indeed not be the same
as what it means when one is 50 and suffers from Diabetes and obesity.) So far so good. But the problem
is this: these different meanings of ice-cream presuppose that we are talking about the same thing. Only
under this condition can we say that ice-cream means different things to different people (or to the same
person at different times). To talk about the same thing, ice-cream, we need a reference for that word and,
in many cases (like secularism and communalism, for example) it is a linguistic description of that word
(a definition, or its meaning) that provides us with reference. (In the case of ice-cream, one might use
gestures to point out an ice-cream; you cannot do that for secularism and communalism.) In other words,
the ONLY possible way for secularism to have multiple meanings in multiple historical contexts is by having
a meaning that is INDEPENDENT of contexts. (Or having a meaning that is common across all POSSIBLE
contexts.) In other words, when Neera or Shabnum or anyone else makes the claim that meanings do not
transcend contexts either (a) they are making the trivial point that every word uttered by any human being
always takes place in a context (which no one had ever denied) or (b) by saying that meaning is totally
context bound they are contradicting themselves. Of course, to notice that one is inconsistent, one needs to
think according to the rules of grammar and rules of logic.
2. On the one hand, she says that meanings are particular to their historical contexts and, yet, denies it at
the same time: she finds that infusing the category with new meaning is inadequate. Now, if the meaning
of secularism is particular to a context, it follows that new meanings (as compared to the old meanings:
how, I wonder, does she compare the meanings or even how she can discover that some meaning is new
and some other is old ?) are infused in new historical contexts. If historical contexts are those that provide
meanings, how, then, can she say, that a new meaning that a new historical context provides is inadequate? (How will she judge the adequacy or the inadequacy of meaning of secularism, if its meaning is
particular to a historical context?) She must have a trans-historical context to say that some meaning of
secularism is inadequate.
3. And then, her argument is that the premise that meanings are independent of particular historical
contexts is false. Let us assume that she is right. But what follows from noticing the falsity of a premise in
a chain of argument? It merely tells us that, purely on logical grounds, the conclusion cannot be true. But,
could the conclusion be true in any other way than be logically true? Of course, it can: it could be true
purely as a contingent matter, i.e., it could be factually true (for example, New York is a city in the US)
without being logically true (there is no logical mistake if the city had a different name or would get a new
name). In other words, even if Shabnum were right, there is not much she can say about the truth of the
factual claims made about secularism and communalism in India.
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The problem with Sabnum Tejani s and Neera Chandokes of this world boils down to this: they talk but do
not think.
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Legislations against proselytization: a weakness of Indian culture S.N. Balagangadhara (2011-03-04 23:03)
Question: One thing that Balu says is that propping up legislations against tricky proselytizations reflects
the weaknesses of Indian culture needs to be explained though. How is it a weakness? How is it not a
strength?
1. In both the theory of rights and in discussions about liberty (or freedom), the following two ways of
conceptualizing the issues have been present. One could see rights as an ability or power or capacity to do
something (this is called active rights) or as a duty someone else has towards the rights subject (called
the passive rights). Equally, liberty has been conceptualized positively (as ones capacity) or negatively
(what the other should not do to you). Any good introduction to the theory of rights or theory of liberty
will provide you with the details you require as well as the limitations of these two conceptualizations.
2. No matter which of the formulations one prefers on philosophical grounds, the debates about conversion
in India have been framed in these terms. The defense of a secular state that India is (or ought to be) is
conducted in these terms as well. The opponents in this debate, funnily enough, accept the terms of the
debate, but come up with arguments why banning conversion into Christianity and Islam is justified or
justifiable today. These arguments might be pragmatic in nature, or base itself on one or another notion
of liberty that the western political philosophy has developed or might appeal to the so-called paradox of
freedom (ought one be tolerant of the intolerant?), and so on.
3. The clash between the secularists and the anti-secularists in general (or the Hindutva people in particular)
exhibits itself in an ambiguous way. On the one hand, there is the issue of conversion into Christianity and
Islam. Here, the question can be formulated in general terms as: what is the attitude of the Indian traditions
towards the phenomenon itself? On the other hand, there is the issue about the terms of the debate: Is the
western notion of a secular state the best, the most rational or even the most universal one? The discussions
continuously switch from one issue to the other; from expressing the feeling (for it is present in these debates
as no more than a feeling) that the western notion of secularism is not adequate to the Indian culture to
conducting the debate in terms of the western political philosophy in order to express that feeling. The
ambiguity lies in trying to express one problem in terms posed by another, which forbids such an expression.
4. What Jakob and I did is to show that there are two different issues involved here: Is the secular state
(founded on Law) a neutral one? How did the Indian traditions grapple with the issue conversion?
The first question is important in order to show that the secular stance that requires freedom to convert is
anything but neutral in any sense of the notion of liberty or freedom. By the same token, the anti-secularist
demand to forbid conversion through legislation accepts the very framework it wants to reject.
The second question is important because it allows us to provide an answer that is in sync with the nature
of the Indian traditions. Not only that. We intend to show that this solution is more efficient, rational, and
defensible than any other solution. The talk of resuscitating the vibrancy of the Indian traditions belongs
here.
5. Now, I can give a brief answer to your questions. If we accept the cry to ban the attempts at conversion,
we will be accepting one or another variant of the western politico-philosophical thinking. In and of itself,
there is nothing wrong with it, except that this thinking merely secularizes Christian theology. I do not
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see it as an expression of the strength of the Indian traditions to kneel down before the Cross and confess
that we are all worshippers of the Devil. Whoever else might want to do it, I will not. I do think that our
traditions have within themselves the strength and depth to allow us to think about cultures and societies
in ways hardly dreamt of today.
It is also an indication of the lack of strength. In fact, we confess that without some or another variant
of western thinking in political philosophy, we cannot solve the problem of conversion. If such is the case,
wherein lies the strength of the Indian traditions before they encountered the western culture?
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Criticism: you are spreading hate (2011-03-04 23:15)
Criticism: You are spreading hate by citing Deschners work Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums and ANY
idiot knows even the title is stupid.
I have not cited a single atrocity that Christianity has committed in order to incite hate towards Christianity.
In fact, I have not even discussed any specific theological doctrine of any kind of Christianity, except to speak
of the Christological dilemma. This dilemma is discussed by theologians, themselves Christians, in the field
of Christology. And even here, I localise in it the dynamics of Christianity. The intolerance of Christianity, I
say very explicitly, is its property by virtue of being a religion. That is to say, according to my research, all
religions are intolerant. You might want to disagree with it; you are welcome to put your arguments across
that refute the result of my research. But how does this constitute spreading hate? I am puzzled.
You seem offended by the reference I give to Deschners work, and you say that ANY idiot knows even the
title is stupid. For your benefit, read reviews from many different types of people: philosophers, theologians,
doctors, historians both secular and Christian, and so on. You might want to think that all these people are
idiots; but think of what it does to your credibility if you make such a statement without having read the
books or without being able to back up your assertion.
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How to produce knowledge about Who is a Christian
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S.N.Balagangadhara
(2011-03-04 23:27)
Imagine that I were to say the following: Christ and Ganesha are manifestations of the same divinity; Christ
came about 2000 years ago in the Middle East, whereas Ganesha is how he has appeared in India some
4000 years ago. Now no one can forbid me from saying this and calling myself a Christian. Question: what
should a theory about Christianity do? Show how anyone who decides to call himself a Christian is, in fact,
also a Christian? In that case, all such a theory can do is say something like the following: anyone who
calls himself some name (Christian, Democrat, Marxist, etc) is also whatever he calls himself. Such an
attitude simply ends up making any knowledge of society and human beings impossible.
The second possibility is to norm the discussion. Someone, anyone, is a Christian if and only if he has the
following properties: X, Y, Z. Such a discussion has been conducted during the two millennia that Christianity has been in existence by the different Christian sects. Each has called itself the true Christianity and
stipulated conditions for being a true Christian. This discussion is an internal problem within Christianity
and their answers do not interest me, except in one particular way.
What I need to understand is why each sect within Christianity (from the Catholics through the Orthodox
to the Protestants) finds it an important problem. That is to say, as a scientist, these facts constitute the
problem-situation that I need to understand, assuming I want to produce knowledge about the phenomenon
that Christianity is.
Even here, we know that Christianity is simultaneously several things: it is a movement of people, it is
a landlord and share holder, it is a marketing bureau and a political force... and it is also what it is to
its believers, namely, the revelation of the biblical god in Jesus of Nazareth. I am primarily interested in
understanding Christianity in its last aspect, namely, as a specific religion. I do not want to claim that their
beliefs are either illusions or are true: my primary facts are their self-descriptions, which not only change
from one sect to another but also over time.
Consequently, I set up a hypothesis about what religion is and how Christianity is also a religion. I locate its
dynamics of expansion in what is called the Christological dilemma. Using this hypothesis, I explain certain
other features that are empirically observable in history.
If one has to criticize me, one has to follow the rules of the scientific game: come up with an alternative
hypothesis that not only explains everything I explain, but also more. In all honesty, I have not yet come
across such a hypothesis. But I do fervently hope that I will come across such an explanation in the future.
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Presumption of Knowledge
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The first striking thing is their presumption of knowledge at several levels. Yet, they display abysmal ignorance.
(a) Christianity has not just had a two thousand years history. It has also had two thousand years of doctrinal development. In the latter, every notion that has been employed here has been continuously discussed,
refined, contested and so on. Their meanings, as they apply to Christianitys self-description, has seeped into
and determined what they mean in the English language. Not only words like Christ, Church, Worship,
idol, God revelation and so on but also issues like Who is a Christian ? (Quid sit Christianum esse?)
The discussions hardly exhibit any knowledge of either the richness or complexity of these matters; yet, they
express the firm conviction that what is there to be known is also known. In matters of knowledge, this
combination is deadly.
(b) For more than two hundred years, domains such as the history of sciences, philosophy of sciences have
been conducting debates into the nature of scientific knowledge. For all the role the findings from these
domains play in the discussions, they might as well be non-existent. One seems to know what a scientific
theory is, what scientific laws are, what an explanandum is and what its relation to explanans is. Here
is an illustration: it is nonsense to speak of Christianitys intolerance without implying the intolerance of
Christians. And it is said that such a claim should provid(e) predictability about Christians. Does it mean
that the claim about the tolerance of Christianity should provide predictability not only about all those who
called themselves as Christians in the past, all those who call themselves Christians in the present, but also
all those who might call themselves as Christians in the future? Can any claim ever do this? How might
any claim be capable of doing that? So one of the tests of the theorys validity may be to work backwards
from specimens of Christian individuals we find in daily life and ask ourselves if we find them recognizably
Christian and also tolerant. Quite apart from the fact that no claim is ever be tested this way, how does
this fare as an answer to the demand about predictability? What could one say about either the past or the
future Christians by taking specimens of Christian individuals we find in daily life? And how on earth to
answer the question, without a theory about Christianity, whether they are recognizably Christian?
Can any claim (on its own) ever predict anything? What is predictability ? What relation, if any, is there
between this notion and that of explanation? Of course, if there were an understanding of these issues, they
would not have been brought forward as objections or criticisms. Yet, the presumption of knowledge makes
one &rush in where angels fear to tread.
(c) It is this deadly combination that makes one (i) set up straw men by the dozens and (ii) knock them
down. How can there be no revelation in India, when we speak of Sruti ? asks one. So any side-stepping
about not wanting to discuss individuals except as instances of the Church they belong to is taking cover
from controversy, says the other. One knows what revelation is; the other suggests there is no science
without human disposition. Balu says that Hinduism and Buddhism are not religions since they do not have
one sacred text, revealation (sic), creed, central ecclesiastical organization etc., says one. Yet the same Balu,
hardly a few posts earlier, had said this: In fact, in my book, I show that beliefs, holy books, a founder or
even God are not even necessary for religion (severally or in conjunction). These are empirical constraints
imposed on religion by the kind of beings we are. Of course, one hypothesis is that Balu is inconsistent; the
other hypothesis is that one does not understand what one reads. Pick your choice.
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On Patrick Hogan s
Why Hindus should
Doniger S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-05 00:04)
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be
grateful
to
Wendy
Dear Patrick Hogan,

It is jolly good of you, as the British say, to contribute to the literary landscapes column in Sulekha at this
particular juncture. I am glad too that you put across some thoughtful considerations without being polemical, and that can only help generate a stimulating discussion among all the concerned parties. However, the
way you frame your points make the task an exercise in walking on a tight rope.
(1) Anyone who cares about Hinduism or Indic traditions should be grateful to Wendy Doniger you say.
Well, I am not sure I care much about Hinduism, but I definitely do care about the Indian traditions, which
includes Indic traditions as their subset. I have read a few works of Wendy; I have bought many more
which I will not read; and, I am sure, I am not going to buy any more. I want to reflect aloud why, and
solicit your arguments. Before I do so, a few more preliminary points need to be dealt with.
(2) Because it is about the intellectual contributions of Wendy Doniger, I have to pass (for the time being)
on some of the provocative remarks you make about the Gita. In all honesty, I would have much preferred
to engage you on these points because they are far more substantial than any of the ten reasons you provide
while pleading the case that you do.
(3) In other words, while admitting that you indeed have provided ten reasons, permit me to engage with
you (within the confines of a tight rope) on the issue whether they are good reasons as well.
Let me take first take the title of your contribution literally to see whether, cognitively speaking, I should
be grateful to Wendy Doniger and, if so, which of the ten considerations count as candidates.
1. Her formidable scholarship. Not knowing Wendy personally, I am quite willing to grant her everything
you say. (This includes hyperboles like her command of the Puranas may be unparalleled. Acceptable as a
form of defense, but quite unconvincing: I do not believe she can hold a candle to my mothers knowledge of
the Puranas. Of course, there is no way either of us could argue this case, especially given that my mother
is dead. But I will not take you up on these kinds of issues.) Need I be grateful to Wendy for that? We
have indeed come a long way in the academy if we have to be grateful to people that their learned discourses
presuppose scholarship (not ignorance). I cannot imagine me having to be grateful to a physicist because he
knows the relevant material in his domain. This is a conditio sine qua non for talking Patrick, not something
to be grateful about! But that you find it important enough to be a reason might tell us something about
the nature of scholarship about India hitherto: many who did speak were illiterate in the subject matter. If
such is (was?) the case, compared to them, Wendy could really exhibit a scholarship that is truly formidable.
But then remember, it is defined relative to illiteracy. How does the saying go again? In the land of the
blind& In other words, a reason it might be for one to be grateful to Wendy but a good reason it certainly
is not.
2. Her command of language next. Should one know Sanskrit in order to talk about the Indic traditions?
Well yes, if one does philology but not otherwise. One could build sociological, psychological, economic etc.
explanations about Indic traditions without being a philologist. Even here, a qualification requires to be
made. One could develop a hypothesis about the natural languages, and even more specifically about Sanskrit, without knowing Sanskrit. The sanskritists could provide one with facts that might confirm or falsify
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ones hypothesis; but there is no good reason why the one who makes the hypothesis needs to know Sanskrit
as well. If you grant me this, from this it follows that one would make a perfect ass of oneself by entering
into a philological discussion about Sanskrit without knowing Sanskrit philology. To the extent you say she
knows Sanskrit, I take your word for it, to that extent she is doing something one should take for granted.
(See my considerations above.) Thus, it appears to me, her philological knowledge is no good reason for me
to be grateful to her either. It is like saying one should be grateful to Greek philologists that they know
Greek! [About the other points you make about Witzel and his knowledge of English. Your question: why
he publishes on the internet and does not submit his findings to academic review. It appears to me that the
rhetorical force of your question could get blunted if it turns out, for instance, that there are some excellent
reasons other than those you imply. Are they nit-picking trivialities? Well, that depends on ones vantage
point, does it not? To some, the entire field of philology consists of such nit-picking trivialities; to someone
like me, most of Biblical scholarship (that focus on some or another word fragment and its translation from
the Aramaic into the Septuagint) appears that way. But obviously not to those who devote their life-time to
such activities.] Where would the English or American reader be without Donigers masterful translation of
Manusmrti, her beautiful selection of Hindu myths, her uncompromising translation of the Rig Veda (which,
as she explains, tries to preserve the raggedness of some parts of the original) not to mention her glorious
rendering of the Oresteia? you ask. Permit me a deflationary answer: where they are not today. You need
to show that where they are today is better than where they would have been, if your rhetorical passage is
to have some bite. That you have not.
3. Your third reason why she deserves my gratitude lies in her interpretative acumen. The first aspect
concerns her philological ability. I will accept this for what it is worth. But your second aspect, it appears
to me, is extraordinary to say the least. Here is what you say: Doniger works in the Structuralist tradition according to which it is crucial to read as many variants of a myth as possible. The variants form
a transformation set which gives the interpreter a way of discerning fundamental principles of the culture
that produced, sustained, and varied these myths. The first sentence tells us about the tradition in which
Doniger works; the second amplifies what that tradition is about. From this one has to conclude that her
acumen resides in her choice for the structuralist tradition. There are many points to be made about this;
therefore, I will choose what I consider important. (I can always add other points if and when our discussion
takes of.)
Suppose that I want to understand the western culture. So, I read many variants of the Bible, the Biblical
myths and I arrive at this transformation set that you speak of. Tell me, Patrick, how this helps me in
discerning the fundamental principles of the western culture that produced, sustained and varied these
myths. [You might want to say that the western culture did not produce these myths but some culture in
the Middle East did. But the culture that sustained and varied these myths is the western culture.] What
fundamental principles has this structuralist tradition excavated about the western culture that they enable
me to understand (in whatever sense of the word) the western culture? What do I understand about the
Western culture (at any period in its history) by reading the Four Gospels? (After all, they are four variants
of the same myth.)
What should one say about the acumen, which reads the variants of some Indian myths and makes pronouncements about the fundamental principles of a culture? It does not, I am afraid, tell me anything
positive about this acumen, except that it is pompous, pretentious and stupid.
Am I to be grateful that Wendy propagates this nonsense? Am I to assume that the where the British and
the American reader today is, is better than where they would have been without this deep insight ? Forgive
me Patrick, I do not see any reason for expressing my gratitude to Wendy for this phenomenal achievement.
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Now, of course, you do not say that the transformation set gives one the insights into the fundamental
principles of a culture but that it merely provides the interpreter a way. In this form, it is hardly worth
talking about and I am surprised you consider it as a reason to be grateful to Wendy. In exactly the same
sense, one could claim that eating Idlis is also a way for an interpreter to gain insights into the fundamental
principles of a culture. How can one discuss this, unless one also says what that way consists of?
Your subsequent passage about what the demagogue does, the presence of diversity in a tradition, the fact
that a tradition is not univocal, etc. is an important one but, alas, betrays the absence of an insight into
the nature of political and social movements. Clearly, you are targeting the current Hindutva rage in India.
I join you in expressing my abhorrence towards any virulent ideology. But I must say, I did not need a
Wendy or the structuralist tradition to do this. To the extent the British and the American reader requires
a Wendy to come to this insight, to that extent I can only express my regrets at what has become of modern
education in Britain and America. One would expect a sounder understanding of sociology, history and
politics from students belonging to such advanced nations as Britain and America.
About using the psychoanalytic principles to understand the profundity of the ancient myths. I am sure
many others will want to engage you on this; so I will just make one remark. The profundity of one is the
vulgarity of the other: you will need to do more than hand waving in the direction deep human feelings
to convince me of the acumen in this case.
4. Let me go to the fourth reason for gratitude. It resides in the universalism of Wendy, you say. It is
quite unclear what precisely this universalism is. On the one hand, (a) it appears to be about appreciating
the existence of significant cross-cultural patterns in myth; (b) at the same time, this recurring pattern
is supposed to be legacy of Structuralism and is related to the presence of something like a universal cognitive structure. On the other hand, the paragraphs are also about (c) the contradictory threads within
the Indian traditions; and, all of a sudden (d) affirmations of universalism and pacifism seem to become
the trademarks of Wendy Doniger. While understandable in rhetorical texts, such transitions without clear
focus or arguments make discussions extremely difficult. So, I will have to take a guess about the reasons for
gratitude. By highlighting the ambivalences in the Indian traditions, Wendys contributions can prevent
people from fighting those hijackers of Indian traditions who emphasize the militaristic, divisive threads
within the Indian traditions. If this is what you want to say, I am appalled. (If you want to say something
else, I wish you would spell it put more clearly.)
Are you serious Patrick? Those who have to fight divisive and militaristic tendencies within India are in
India. Most of them cannot speak English; hardly any has heard of Wendy. Should they be grateful for
Wendy? I am sure you do not mean anything as silly as this.
Perhaps you refer to the Indians living in Britain and America. Mutatis mutandis, the same consideration
holds good here too: they may speak English, but most have never heard of a Wendy. In fact, one of the oft
heard reactions to Rajiv Malhotras column (from Indians both in India and elsewhere) was one of shock:
they did not know either about Wendy or about her contributions.
So, who are you referring to? The British and American reader, whose only knowledge of India comes from
Wendys books? Are you suggesting that these readers are sophisticated enough to understand Wendys
psychoanalytical jargon and yet so stupid that they would not know that cultures always exhibit internal
varieties and diversities, and that peace is good and war is bad without Wendys help? Really! Who is
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conning whom here?

In short, whatever universalism it is that you talk about, it is not clear at all why I should be grateful to
Wendy Doniger.
5. The fifth reason is Wendys sensitivity to cultural specificity. What does that consist of? You suggest
two aspects: one which is not about Wendy but what Ashish Nanady claims and what you say Hindu
nationalism is; the second is her conviction that it is impossible to understand Hinduism fully without understanding its close interconnection with Islam. In keeping with this, Doniger has detailed familiarity with
the Quran and Islamic traditions. I will, correspondingly, skip the first aspect (in this post). I can always
come back to it, if you (or other readers) find it important. Let me, therefore, go to the second aspect.
Again, I am surprised. This time at what you possibly think cultural specificity is. In so far as you want
to engage in a polemic with your understanding of Hindutva, I am willing to even endorse this claim and
fight alongside you. But that is not what we are doing now. We are meeting each other as intellectuals in a
public arena. While simplifications and vulgarized presentations are necessary to reach a wider public than
the academics, surely, one should not become simplistic in this process. The issue of cultural specificity, of
India for instance, involves a question like the following: What makes the Indian culture different from,
say, the western culture, the African culture& The answer will explicate the notion of cultural specificity.
If Wendy Donigers writings explicate the cultural specificity of India, I would definitely be grateful to her.
To say that to understand Hinduism fully (whatever a full understanding might mean here) one has to
understand its close (as in only the close ones? Or as against distant ones?) interconnections with
Islam (would one way influence like, for example, the influence of Hinduism on Islam in India be needed to
a full understanding of Hinduism or do they have to be interconnections ?) is to say, as indicated in the
parenthetical remarks, pretty much. But none of them, unfortunately, help one understand the specificity
of the Indian culture.
Besides, while understanding Hinduism might help one to understand a part of the Indian culture, I am sure
you are not suggesting the preposterous idea that understanding Hinduism is the same as understanding
the Indian culture!
So, what is there to be grateful to Wendy in this issue? Nothing, I am afraid.
6. Her intellectual openness. You say that she is always anxious to open genuinely scholarly dialogue. It is
a necessary and desirable property in any intellectual. I do hope that she will exhibit this virtue (that you
attribute to her) by responding in a positive fashion to the genuine issues that Rajiv Malhotra has raised in
his column on this very board. If I remember rightly, in the ensuing discussion, someone raised the question
what Wendys response to Rajiv Malhotras column was. His reply at that stage was, again if I remember
rightly, that Wendy had not responded. Perhaps, you could persuade Wendy to have a dialogue with all
the involved parties. That would definitely convince me and others, and if she were to do that, she would
definitely deserve my gratitude. (Not a special gratitude, but one which I owe to every intellectual who is
open.)
7. The seventh reason you give is that she has (a) popularized Hinduism in the English speaking world;
and that (b) this view of Hinduism has been complex and subtle. I agree with you regarding the first
point. But a simple popularization does not deserve gratitude of course. In and of itself, popularization is a
tricky notion: we need to ask what has been popularized, and whether it is worth popularization and so on.
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Consequently, let us look at (b). You say that her view is complex and subtle. You would be right about the
complexity of her view. Indeed, to popularize a complex view does call for special abilities. While willing
to acknowledge this (with some reservations), I am not sure there is agreement that this view has also been
subtle. What would a subtle view of Hinduism be? That depends, of course, on what the contrast set
is. You summarize it thus: she has tried to avoid the dichotomous options offered by colonialism. You see
these options as the two strains of colonialist Orientalism the denigrating strain that sees Indic traditions
as degraded, and the romanticizing strain that sees Indic traditions as a source of pure spiritual light and
further detect them in Modern India as well.
I am going to read you the following way: you are not saying that Wendy is per se against dichotomies
(as though a monism or a trichotomy would be a better option) but against the two strains of what you
call colonialist Orientalism. This is, of course, a good thing. But how has she done this? You make the
following remark in your fourth reason: Doniger emphasizes, and clearly prefers, the pacifistic strain. I
consider it one of Donigers great services to Hinduism. Surely, preferring one strain that lives within the
Indian tradition (doing so with reference to other living strands within the same tradition) is not the same as
propagating a complex and subtle view of Hinduism. On the basis of this, it would appear to me that one
would say she has popularized a partial view of & what? Of Hinduism or of Indic traditions ? (It looks
as though I was hasty in my earlier post and erred on the side of generosity. It appears that Indic traditions
and Hinduism are coextensive in this case after all. But this does not matter for the moment.)
You say, Doniger has bravely tried to see Indic traditions as human, as manifestations of psychology and
culture, like any other tradition. Should one take these statements seriously or not? I mean, which fool
would say that the Indic tradition is not human and that it is not a manifestation of psychology and
culture of such humans? What is so brave in insisting on a banal point that no one disagrees with? However,
it is comforting to know that Indic traditions are the expressions of the Indian people, their psychology and
culture. It is nice too to know that, in this respect, they are like any other tradition.
As you can see, it is again difficult to find out what one should be grateful about. Nevertheless, a charitable
interpretation could be: the British and the American reader should be grateful that Wendy has made
Hinduism popular. If you look at the discussion generated on the Sulekha board, I have the impression
that the jury is still out on the issue whether one should be grateful or not.
Yet, I am perfectly willing, if you are willing to be less hyperbolic, to accept that the interest in Indology
(in America at least) owes a lot to Wendy Doniger. For this achievement, irrespective of whether she is right
or wrong, she definitely is owed gratitude by anyone who cares for the Indic traditions. I do: therefore, I do
appreciate the enormous effort she has put in.
In fact, as I understand the issue, this is the reason for Rajiv Malhotras article. Not to slander Wendy
Doniger but to invite her to have a dialogue with the Indian Diaspora (amongst others). The invitation
arises through recognition of her extraordinary role in the development of Indology in the United States and
out of a genuine appreciation for her efforts.
In other words, I am willing to go along with this reason.
8. She also tries to avoid the options offered by reactions to colonialismthe unthinking adulation of the
west, and the rigid assertion of a dogmatic and inviolable indigeneityan assertion almost always based on
stereotypes, you say. I must say that you surprise me once again. As a cognitive scientist, surely you should
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know better than to talk about stereotypes in this way. This is not how Social Psychology (whether in
the United States or in Europe) looks either at Stereotypes or their role in both cognitive and social life of
individuals. If this is your critique of indigenity, I am afraid it will not wash. However, my argument is not
with your notion of stereotypes but with your reasons for being too grateful to Wendy. Therefore, let me
continue.
Good for her that she tries to avoid the options offered by reactions to colonialism. But why should I be
grateful to her for this? Has she chalked out a unique path which transcends these alternatives without
transcending the genuine desires of the people, whose expressions these tendencies are? Does she do this
or merely pontificate? It is easy for us all to look down upon these two tendencies, but it requires more
than that to figure out the roots of the phenomena and offer an alternative to both. Do not forget, Patrick,
that you are talking about the longings of a people, who have reacted this way to colonialism. I would be
grateful to Wendy if she indeed shows where this deep longing comes from and how we could channelize these
very powerful desires. She has not Patrick; and neither have you. In its absence, all I see is a sanctimonious
attitude of someone who has no stake in a future that a people tries to carve out, but, instead, chooses
merely to deride their attempts from the sideline. Do not expect me to be grateful for that.
9. Her refusal to deny sexuality. Here, I must agree with you partially. But by only emphasizing this, she
has contributed to towards building a perception that merely eroticizes a culture (this is too polite a way
of saying it, but I will stick to it). Her views could be a corrective, I grant this in all good will, but it cannot
become the leitmotif. Given her impact on Indology in the United Sates, she should have been more sensitive
and realized that she would not simply be applying a corrective but that her corrections would end up as
a whole picture. This reason alone is sufficient to reject your plea. (But with some reservations, as I have
already noted.)
10 And thus we come to your last reason. Her students. You refer to one student; so does Rajiv Malhotra.
He promises a sequel about her other students, whereas you do not mention more than one. How shall we
look at this? That Paul Courtright wrote the book he did wrote because of Wendy or despite her? (I am
simply assuming the truth of your assessment because I have not read that book.) I need more convincing
arguments on this score.
Let me summarize: I have found one reason (with some qualifications) for which I am grateful to Wendy and
another reason (which is held in abeyance). Two reasons are as yet undecided. The other six are not good
reasons for being grateful to Wendy Doniger.
I do not care much for Hinduism; but I do care, deeply and passionately, for the Indian traditions which
include the Indic traditions as their subset. I care what you, Wendy, and the British and American reader
think about my traditions. You too, I am led to believe, care what I care about.
It is in this spirit that I have heard you out. It is the same spirit that has pulled me away from my other
duties and made me spend almost a day to compose this post. Such dialogues are necessary, perhaps today
more than ever before. I have made my disagreements plain and provided you with reasons for my stance. I
hope you will find it in you to respond in the same spirit.
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Rationality and Rhetoric S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-05 00:24)
It is in the nature of a rhetorical text that the author uses linguistic tropes (metaphors, similes, analogies,
imagery, etc) to persuade a reader about the reasonableness of a specific standpoint. It does not build
arguments that systematically lead to a stand point but instead tries to convince the readers (or listeners)
by using the abilities built into natural languages. Such texts do not easily lend themselves to a discussion
regarding the steps taken in developing a stand point, unlike, say, a mathematical proof or a philosophical
argument. [That is the reason why Plato, the philosopher, was very much against the rhetors of his time,
viz., the Bards and wanted all books of poetry, drama, etc. abolished. He found them to be, precisely for
the reasons given above, irrational.] Of course, I do not find such texts irrational.
One possibility is that you do not expect to encounter such emotions in a rational discussion between two
intellectuals. While you would be right on this score up to a point, please reflect on the possibility that you
are circumscribing rationality very narrowly: in such a circumscription, rhetorics would not be considered
rational any more than discussions involving a combination of what we Indians call rasa. Taunts and
teasing, humor and irony, sarcasm and ridicule, are as much parts of a rhetorical text as are praise and
laudations. That is why I did not make the remark that Hogans text was a laudatio but used that character
of his text to enter into a discussion, which, I admit, failed.
The idea that scientific theories should not use rhetorical strategies is something that no intellectual who
knows anything about the relevant domains accepts. In a time when cognitive science, historians of science
are studying the role that analogies, metaphors, and other linguistic tropes play in the process of scientific
discovery (leave alone the propaganda of science), this idea belongs to yesteryears.
Note: When I say rhetorical, I do not mean anything pejorative; Rhetorics was the general name for the
art of persuasion and argument for nearly 2000 years in the West. Even to this day, in high schools in some
European countries, a subject called Rhetorica is taught to young people.
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Professional Competence (2011-03-05 00:27)
The ascription of professional competence to oneself when one does not have that. Each is in a position
to say what the Caste System is, what ethics is, what corruption is, what religion is, what Hinduism
is& Why does one need to build new social science, when every Hindu specimen is an authority on these
subjects? I suppose one can also be a physicist, biologist and chemist on these grounds as well: after all, is
one not subject to gravitational forces, chemical reactions in the body, and suffers pain as well?
Please do not misconstrue what I write. It is no demand that everyone should have knowledge or shut up.
The point is different: you cannot learn, if you do not realize the depth of your ignorance.
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The structure of Christianity as a religion (2011-03-05 00:55)
The logical steps that inevitably make the claim that God revealed His Will in Jesus Christ into an unconditional and exclusive truth claim are fairly simple:
(a) Christianity says that the universe was created by God, and that this universe is the perfect embodiment
of His will or plan;
(b) Furthermore, it claims that this God has revealed His Will to humankind, and that this revelation is the
Christian doctrine as it is embodied in Jesus Christ;
(c) This Divine Will is governing the entire universe including humankind, i.e., it governs everything that
has ever existed, that exists, and that will exist;
from (b) and (c) it follows (d) that the Christian doctrine must claim a universal and unconditional truth
as the revelation of God.
Why? Well, firstly, there can only be ONE WILL that truly governs the entire universe. Secondly, there
can only be ONE TRUE DOCTRINE that conveys this one will to the humankind. Therefore, this doctrine
MUST BE intolerant towards all traditions it sees as rivaling doctrines that convey the will or plan of God.
As I said, it has to construe these doctrinal rivals either as the corruptions of the devil of the true doctrine
in the worst case or as pale and erring variants of its own doctrine (which might contain some rays of light,
that is, traces of divine revelation) in the best case. From this, we can conclude (1) that Christianity cannot
but be intolerant towards the traditions it construes as religious rivals, and (2) that Christianity has an
intrinsic drive to spread its doctrine among those who are not yet aware that God has completed His revelation in Jesus Christ. This either/or zero sum game characterizes Christianity and its monotheistic rivals,
Judaism and Islam. As I said, when you negate this exclusive aspect, you simply deny that Christianity
is the message in which God reveals His plan for the universe, and that would amount to a denial of the
existence of Christianity itself. Exclusivity or self-denial are the only two options for Christianity, whether
Eastern or Western, Protestant or Catholic, Orthodox or Baptist, Pentecostal or Seventh-Day Adventist.
This is not because of historical developments, but because of the intrinsic structure of the Christian religion
(Please see Balagangadharas book for further explanation).
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Atheism: a secularized theism Jakob de Roover (2011-03-05 01:25)
1: Atheism is a phenomenon that came into being in the western culture at around the time of the so-called
Enlightenment. The West claims that it liberated itself from the dogmas of the Christian religion in this
Enlightenment, and those who call themselves atheists mean by this that they belong to the enlightened
people who have escaped from the dogmatic illusions of religion. Now, as it has always done, Christian
Europe simply identified its own history with human history in general, and it claimed that all cultures had
so far been under the ignorant spell of religion, but that they could now be liberated by the Enlightened
West. This claim needs two separate premises: (a) That all cultures have religion (b) That atheism was a
new and rational system of beliefs that could liberate people from all cultures from this illusion of religion.
2. Now we come to what Balagangadhara claims in his The Heathen in His Blindness ..., and what I
consider to be a much better description of the current state of western affairs. The Enlightenment was not
a liberation from the Christian religion at all. Atheism as it developed during the last few centuries in the
West is nothing but one of the results of the dynamic of secularization that is intrinsic to Christianity. As
Balagangadhara has explained, there are two horns in the Christological dilemma, and one horn gives rise to
a dynamic within the Christian religion in which it tries to cast off its recognizably Christian features. That
is, throughout the development of the western culture, Christianity has simply tried to dechristianize itself.
One of the moments within this dynamic was that of theism and deism in which the emphasis shifted from
Christ to God - as the creator and sovereign of the universe. Now, the next obvious step for the western
culture was to dispose of this God and declare the advent of atheism. As we are slowly finding out, however,
this so-called atheism of the western culture is but a theism in disguise. This is why I say that atheists
are Christian theists in disguise. Their moral and political philosophy, their psychology and sociology, their
anthropology, etc. all consist of accounts that make sense only if one accepts a number of deeply Christian
assumptions.
3. One of these so-called secular accounts that are in fact Christian is the belief that all cultures have a
religion. It is simply a secularization of the Christian belief that the biblical God gave religion to humankind,
which was transformed into the assumption that religion is a cultural universal during the Enlightenment.
This pre-theoretical assumption precedes all empirical research and theory-formation on religion and culture.
From the early missionaries to the contemporary anthropologists, no one has ever even doubted that the
phenomenon of religion is universal to all cultures. All psychological and sociological and even biological and
neurological explanations of religion take this pre-theoretical Christian theological assumption as a starting
point. Now, this is hardly scientific, isnt it? In his book, Balagangadhara shows that the belief that all
cultures have religion has more to do with the structure of the Christian religion than with the nature of
human cultures. Furthermore, he develops a theory of religion which reveals that Christianity, Islam, and
Judaism are at present the only instances of the phenomenon of religion. On top of that, he shows why those
belonging to these religions and to the cultures they have created, are deeply inclined to believe that all
human cultures must have a religion or at least a world view. The latter belief in the universality of religion
is not a scientific hypothesis at all, but a religious doctrine. He also shows that the pagan traditions have a
structure that is completely different from that of these three religions. In other words, the Semitic religions
and the pagan traditions are not variants of the same supposedly universal phenomenon of religion, rather
they are different phenomena.
4. Balagangadharas theory first of all shows us that there is no such thing as pagan religion. There are
pagan cultural traditions but these are completely different from the religions of Christianity, Islam and
Judaism. One of the differences is that belief in general and belief in God in particular are central to the
latter, while they are utterly irrelevant to the former. Although even the intellectuals of the pagan cultures
have today learned to speak in the language of secularized Christian theology, they are simply wrong when
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they say that there is a religion of Hinduism which revolves around a belief in Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma, or
the entire Hindu pantheon. Admittedly, in the Hindu traditions, there are many stories about these devas
and many pujas are related to them, but it does not even make sense to ask the question do you believe in
Shiva (or any other pagan god)? to a Hindu or a pagan in general, like you would ask the question do
you believe in God to a Christian, a Muslim or a Jew. Therefore, when you call those who say no to the
latter question atheists, and this is how we have learned to use the word, it does not at all make sense to
designate someone who is no longer practicing any of the pagan traditions as an atheist. This is not even
an intelligible proposition, from the perspective of the pagan traditions.
5. The proposition X is an atheist would be intelligible if and only if you are willing to accept the following
assumptions: (a) The modern western culture is the climax of human evolution; (b) The Enlightenment
truly liberated the West from the illusions of religion, and brought it to the rationality of atheism; (c) This
atheism also offers the possibility of rational liberation to the followers of other cultures, which are all under
the spell of religion; (d) By not participating in the practices of the pagan tradition you stem from, you
have been liberated from religion by the rationality of modern western atheism. As these are all secularized
Christian assumptions, accepting them would simply make you into a Christian theist in disguise.
6. The other option is to take Balagangadharas scientific conclusions seriously. Then it is clear that the
pagan traditions do not revolve around belief in God or gods or any entity. They do not revolve around
belief or doctrine in general, and therefore truth claims are absent in the pagan traditions. Thus, a claim
like Im not on any quest for truth. I simply feel quite happy and satisfied with the fact that I happened
to be living here on Earth at a time when there is such a vast amount of knowledge available that helps me
in answering practically all the important questions that I have, illustrates a typically pagan attitude.
In many pagan cultures, including the Ancient Roman and the Indian, there were streams of thinking that
simply denied the existence of the pantheon of gods or devas. These groups were not systematically persecuted
or harassed, but most of the time they were accepted as merely another avenue in the human quest for truth.
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Is sat being ? S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-05 03:58)
To take German language, let us look at how Heidegger talks about being: there is the big Being (Sein)
and there is the small being (Dasein meaning there-being or so-being). And then there is Sein and
Seindes. All these are translated by the word being.
To jump back a couple of hundred years, and pick up another philosopher with the same alphabet and the
same language, we have G.W.F. Hegel. His Sein of course has nothing to do with the Sein of Heidegger,
even though both are translated as Being with a big B. So, even in one language, there are problems with
respect to translating words into another language.
The post-world war English (and the formal logic of the twentieth century) assures us that being is a synonym for existence: if something has a being, it exists. Were we to use the word being in this sense, then
quite obviously sat cannot mean being. For maya exists and thus has being. But maya is asat.
The ontological and philosophical assumptions of the English language into which one translates a word
from another language and culture should make one wary of making bold claims. No study of any Sanskrit
verb (from 11th century CE) can ever tell what that word means in English in the 21st century. The issue
is not about Sanskrit verbs but what they mean in the English language of today. However, if one insists
sat in Sanskrit has the intension as to be in English, then, it follows that Sat functions as an existential
quantifier (to be, in modern English, is to be the value of a variable.), which it clearly does not. Before
one can say sat is to be in the sense of to exist, one needs to know the intensions of the words to be
and to exist. Since you make a distinction between to be and to exist, may I know what these two words
mean? What is their ontological and philosophical import?
I suggest that deeper investigation is required into language and philosophy before coming up with claims
that sat is being.
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Antiquity and religious wisdom (2011-03-05 04:08)
1. Let me focus on the citation Ours is the true religion because, above all, it...stands up... to tell and to
declare to the nations who are mere children of yesterday in comparison with us Hindus - who own the hoary
antiquity of the wisdom, discovered by our ancestors here in India.
2. Two things are striking in this citation: the truth of a religion is directly linked to its antiquity and
to its wisdom.
3. What is religion to Vivekananda here? Clearly, not every piece of wisdom is religious because it is
wise. (For instance, Polonius advice to his son, though wise, would not be seen by Vivekananda as a part
of religion. That is, nowhere does he consider Shakespeare as a religious sage.)
4. As Vivekananda sees it, religious wisdom is obviously tied to its antiquity. The issue is: what has
antiquity to do with either religious wisdom or its truth? When it comes to knowledge, antiquity is no
guarantee for its truth: we do not say that Plato found the truth because he wrote 2000 years ago, do
we? (I presume that Vivekananda also knew this.) Galileos theory is not true because he came centuries
before Einstein. In other words, Vivekananda turns our normal stance with respect to knowledge and wisdom
completely around, when he talks about religion: other nations are children compared to the Hindus, he says,
and this matters to the issue at hand. The antiquity somehow testifies to religious truth. Question: what
was Vivekanandas notion regarding truth here?
5. There is also a third issue to the theme. One of the striking things about the Indian traditions is this:
(a) on the one hand, there is the refrain that all religions are true; (b) on the other hand, there is also the
constant debate and polemic between the different traditions as to which of these was better. Vivekananda,
as a child of his tradition, was no better.
Just as an example, consider his approving citation of Narada in Volume 3 regarding Bhakti: Bhakti is
greater than karma, greater than Yoga, because these are intended for an object in view, while Bhakti is its
own fruition, its own means and its own end. This means that claiming that all religions are true does
not entail the claim that all religions are equal. Some are obviously better (or more superior) than others.
The history of the Indian traditions provides ample evidence for this stance. Consequently, it follows that,
in the context of the Indian traditions and culture, the claim all religions are true cannot possibly mean
what my respected colleagues think it ought to mean, viz., all religions are equal. This observation merely
reinforces the suggestion that the link between religion and truth (asthe Indian traditions see both) is
not quite the same as our twenty-first century interpretations.
6. Consequently, it appears that the onus of proof lies on my respected colleagues to show either that (a) all
Indian traditions are ethnocentrically jingoistic or (b) that Vivekananda was that or (c) both.
Citations from Vivekananda do not settle the issue one way or another. What are at stake are our interpretations. May I look forward to illuminating (and non ad hoc) arguments about (i) what Vivekanandas
notion of religion was; (ii) what his notion of truth was; (iii) how the claim that all religions are true
entails the claim that some religion cannot be better than the other?
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Ontological
and
epistemological
Hinduism S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-05 04:37)
1.2. March
commitments
of
1. The English word Hinduism not only carries multiple meanings it also appears to refer to many different
things. If the context of the discussion were to help us disambiguate the reference of this word, it might
not pose many problems for a serious discussion. Unfortunately, the context itself gets muddled. Each
understands the question Does Hinduism Exist? in a different fashion. As though this is not enough, this
confusion enters into other areas as well: witness the challenge for people to prove that Sikhism does not
exist. The prima facie evidence seems to be the following: the word Hinduism seems to carry many different
kinds of (ontological) commitments (i.e. when we use the word, we seem to make assumptions about the
kind of entities that exist in the world), many different epistemological positions (i.e. how can either know
or not know what that word refers to).
2. One of the interesting strategies used in scientific discussions to circumvent this problem, especially when
a rival theory enters the fray, is to undertake a linguistic reform. The word Oxygen replaced phlogiston
because the latter word carried too much of baggage. There many ways to undertake a linguistic reform. For
instance, the members of this board could restrict the meaning and reference of the word Hinduism: that
which exists in India. If we use the word thus, of course, no one denies that Hinduism exists. Or again, we
could say that which is common to many different groups in India and to Indians elsewhere. Ascertaining
the scope of this word might be difficult, but we could get along.
3. However, the problem is that when we enter the intellectual arena, our definition of the word is not
the only one floating around. So, either we have such discussions (such a discussion appears interminable)
each time, or we go for some other term which does not create confusions and muddles because it carries
unidentified ontological and epistemological commitments.
4. When I say that Hinduism is an [1]imaginary entity, I mean the following (as I have repeatedly said in
The Heathen...): If the word Hinduism is said to refer to a religion, and the claim is that such a religion
exists (say, in India), then such a claim is false. In order to defend my position, I do not depend on my pet
definition of the word Hinduism but on a hypothesis about what religion is, how to study it scientifically
and so on. On the basis of this hypothesis, I enumerate the sociological conditions that are absolutely essential for the propagation of religion and show that they are systematically absent in India. I also show that
a closer (and more detailed) study would also allow us to argue that it is metaphysically impossible that
religion could exist in India.
5. In the same book, I address myself to the intuition that religion is somehow responsible for either the
emergence of a culture or for its identity. My hypothesis suggests that this intuition is true for the western
culture but that human history is not European history writ large. Even here, the way I make this intuition
come out true is to show that societies and cultures do not come into being because some groups have a
religion (the empirical history of religions shows that religions divide people more often than it unites them)
or because some people practice some or another set of rituals. I speak in terms of configurations of learning
and what brings them into existence.
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6. The usefulness of a linguistic reform should be ascertained by looking at the advantages it brings. (In
my book, I do not indulge in linguistic reform concerning the word Hinduism but in formulating a set of
hypothesis about religion, culture and configurations of learning. These hypotheses can be tested, rejected,
improved upon, etc. on theoretical and empirical grounds.) I suggest that we better look at the Indian
culture in terms of a configuration of learning that brings forth practical knowledge. (I need to correct you
here: the ritualization of daily life in Asia is an evidence for the claim that Ritual plays the role in Asia that
Religion plays regarding the West. I do not substitute ritualized culture for Hinduism.)
7. In the context of my theory, one cannot formulate the question If Hinduism is not a religion, what else
is it? (That is because, I have avoided defining the word Hinduism and my hypothesis works at a very
different level. I speak of Religion that develops a configuration of learning. So, if we write a history of the
Western Culture, only then do we need to look at Christianity as a religion.) You could, of course, raise it
as an issue in order to understand the import of my theory. (Or you could raise it to ask the question, How
do we write a history of India, or Asia?)
8. Let me repeat. I am not replacing the word Hinduism with the word culture (Indian, Asian, ritualized
or whatever else). I formulate a hypothesis, which differentiates the Indian (or Asian) culture from the
Western culture. Zillions of new questions come into being because of this hypothesis. I do not have answers
to all, or even to most of them. For instance, since writing The heathen..., I have taken the first step in
beginning to theorize about the nature of Indian traditions; about how we could start making sense of the
Indianness (I do not like to use this word, but I cannot think of better one) of the Indian traditions. I
have some understanding of the nature of Indian ethics and how it is different from the structure of Western
ethics. I have some idea too why we have such great difficulties in either understanding or testing the kind of
hypothesis I formulate, etc. But these are all mere steps in the direction of a goal, which no one individual
or even one generation can reach.
9. One says: if one abandons the notion of a something (not religion) called Hinduism, I think it is difficult
to understand connections between say, a Vedicist and a Sikh or a Jain or a Buddhist monk. The proof
of the pudding is in the eating, they say. May be you are right; then again, maybe you are not. So far I
have been able to make better sense of what unites the kind of people you mention without using the word
Hinduism or any of its dominant meanings. Not only that. My hypothesis is cognitively superior to every
other theory in the market place that does use some or another meaning of the word Hinduism. So far, I
have dispensed with the word Hinduism itself: I am using words like experiential knowledge, practical or
performative knowledge (no doubt, I will need to coin more new words) to build a testable hypothesis about
the Indian culture. All I do observe is that those millions of writers who do use the word Hinduism are not
able to generate any kind of a hypothesis that can be tested. These writers stretch over three centuries and
embrace intellectuals from both the West and the East. Of course, observing their failure does not mean that
they will also continue to fail. But this possibility does not bother me. I have multiple criteria of scientificity
and rationality to guide me in my endeavor. Let us see where my search takes me. I know where their search
has so far taken them.
1. http://xyz4000.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/%e2%80%98hinduism%e2%80%99-and-hipkapi-an-imaginary-entity-%e2%80%
93s-n-balagangadhara/
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and
hipkapi:
an
Imaginary
entity
S.N.
Balagangadhara
(2011-03-05 04:46)
1. What did the theory of gravitation do? Apart from describing the fall of bodies on earth, it also tied
the motion of planets and the ebb and tide in the sea to each other. This theory allowed us to predict the
motion of the planets and helped us discover a new planet in the solar system. In other words, it provided a
theory that unified phenomena. Until that stage, we did not know that these three phenomena were linked
together, and we had independent explanations for each of them. This is one of the things that a theory
does: it identifies the phenomena that belong together.
2. The issue before us is this: when the west (let us stick to the west for the time being) unified some
phenomena into something they thought was a religion and called it Hinduism, were they guided here by
a theory (i.e. a theology) as well? If yes, the first question is this: did this theory tie certain practices
and beliefs together into a phenomenon (called Hinduism) that do not belong together, or did they merely
describe a unitary phenomenon in a wrong way? That is to say, is the Hinduism that we know through a
standard text book story made into a something (a unified phenomenon) through the use of theology? Or,
did the west merely describe Hinduism wrongly, namely, as a religion?
Notice though that by suggesting that Hinduism does not exist, one is not saying that those beliefs and
practices that went into constructing this unity do not exist. What one is denying is that these beliefs and
practices (taken together) constitute a phenomenon called Hinduism.
3. Let me provide an imaginary example and draw an analogy. Imagine someone coming to earth and
noticing the following phenomena: grass is green, milk turns sour, birds fly and some flowers put out a
fragrant smell. He is convinced that these are organically related to each other and sees hipkapi in them.
The presence of hipkapi not only explains the above phenomena are but also how they are related to each
other. To those who doubt the existence of hipkapi, he draws their attention to its visible manifestation:
the tigers eating the gazelle, dogs chasing the cats, and the massive size of the elephants. Each of these
is a fact, as everyone can see it. But, of course, neither severally nor individually do they tell us anything
about hipkapi. When more like him come to earth and reiterate the presence of hipkapi, other conditions
permitting, hipkapi not only becomes a synonym for these (which?) phenomena but also turns out to be
their explanation. Thereafter, to ask what hipkapi is, or even how it explains, is an expression of ones idiocy:
does not everyone see hipkapi, this self-explanatory thing?
This is what the Europeans did. The puja in the temples, the sandhyavandanam of the Brahmins, the Sahasranamams, etc. became organic parts of the Indian religion. Purushasukta was the cosmogenic explanation
of the caste system, and untouchability its outward manifestation. Dharma and adharma were the Sanskrit
names for good
and evil, the Indian deities were much like their Greek counterparts. To the missionaries, we were the
idolaters; to the emasculated liberal, we are mere polytheists. In the analogy I
have used, the visitor constructs the hipkapi. To him, it becomes an experiential entity. He talks about
this experiential entity, as his fellow-beings do, in a systematic way. The facts exist; does the hipkapi exist?
This is the issue. Puja in the temples, the sandhyavandanam of the Brahmins, the Sahasranamams, the Purushasukta, our notions of dharma and adharma, etc. all exist. Does their existence tell us that Hinduism
also exists? Are they organic parts of a phenomenon called Hinduism, even if that phenomenon is not a
religion?
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4. In other words, I am not suggesting that the west provided a false description of the social and cultural
reality in India. But the unity they created by tying these things together is the problem: this unity is
a unity for them. They had to create such a unified phenomenon because of their theology. They could
not understand us otherwise. In discussions about Hinduism, this is the problem. Is hipkapi a unified
phenomenon or an imaginary entity? Is Hinduism a unified phenomenon or an imaginary entity?
5. The majority opinion on this issue is clear. Hinduism exists, but it has not been accurately described.
One might want to call it religion, the other might say that it is more accurate to speak of Hinduisms (and
not in the singular)... and so on. The post-colonials are willing to concede the construction of Hinduism,
but suggest that this construction exists now. In the strict minority of one, what I am saying is that this
unity is not a unity within the Indian culture.
6. Am I suggesting then that these phenomena are unrelated to each other? Or am I merely suggesting that
they have a different relationship to each other? Irrespective of my answers to these questions, the claim
holds: Hinduism, the phenomenon constructed by the West, is an experiential entity only to the West and
not to us. In
this sense, Hinduism is not a part of the Indian culture. It has no existence outside of the western experience
of India.
7. Now comes the really interesting issue. Could we provide a different description of the Indian culture?
Would such a description tell us what exists in India, and which of the above are related to each other and
explain how they are related to each other? Yes, I believe, we can. But the absolute presupposition for that
the current framework (which we have imbibed through the western scholarship) is completely left behind.
Not only do I believe that a different description is possible but also that it will be cognitively superior to
the majority view.
8. My article How to speak for the Indian traditions? begins to lay the groundwork for such an endeavor.
See whether it is a more interesting attempt or not.
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Use and Mention (2011-03-05 05:04)
All works of Balagangadhara make use of [1]use-mention distinction. Please get familiarized with this distinction.
In logic the words use and mention [both the nouns and the verbs] are sometimes used in a technical
sense to mark an important distinction, which is explaind by example:
1. London is a word six letters long.

2. London is a city.
In A the word London is said to be mentioned; in B the word London is said to be used (and not
mentioned).
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinction
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Cognitive Superiority (2011-03-05 05:24)
It is partly a term of the art (in the philosophy of sciences) and partly retains the commonsense usage. When
one compares theories (in order to choose the best one among the rivals), one compares them with respect to
the important properties that theories should have. What these properties are depends upon the philosophy
of science one subscribes to. For instance, one might think that a theory should explain phenomena. If this
demand is put, then one chooses a theory that does a better job at explaining the phenomenon. One might
add additional conditions to this demand in order to clarify what it means
to explain better. For instance, one might want to say that some theory X explains a phenomenon better
than theory Y if X can explain some additional things as well, or explains things that theory Y cannot
explain. One might further add that the theory X should be falsifiable or that it has more facts in its favor.
Or, again, one could suggest that the theory X is better than Y because X solves more problems than Y. Or
again, that X is more useful in prediction than Y. And so on. In other words, what constitutes better (in
the claim that theory X is better than theory Y) depends very much on the kind of philosophy of science
that one accepts.
With respect to The heathen..., I suggest (and partially argue) the following. My theory is better than any
other theory in the market place because it can fulfill the demands put across by the different philosophies
of sciences. That is to say, the superiority of my theory is not dependent upon the choice of any particular
conception of a scientific theory. I indicate this state of affairs by using the words cognitively superior. If
you want to put in Websters definition of cognitive it means the following: Balus theory is superior to its
competitors because it is better based on empirical factual knowledge.
In short hand, you could also say that my theory provides knowledge about religion whereas my competitor
theories do not. :)
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Commonalities/Similarities S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-05 05:37)
1. You begin the first sentence thus: While our Western observers mistakenly saw religion in India.... As a
scientist, you should know that Nature cannot be cut at its joints because Nature does not have joints. It is
our theory (or description) of the world that allows us to speak of (relatively) independent phenomena like
gravitation, electrical forces, magnetism, nuclear attraction and such like. Again, it is our theories that try
to unify these forces. That is to say, our theories first distinguished them, only to try and unify them at a
later stage. The same applies to culture. The western observers did not see religion; their hypothesis about
religion allowed them to construct a phenomenon (from a set of facts which their hypothesis singled out as
relevant) they called Hinduism as a religion. So, unless you are willing to argue that cultures comprise of
distinct and discrete phenomena called religion, politics, secular and such like, you cannot claim that the
western observers saw something that is discrete and that they mistakenly described it as a religion.
2. You say, I have no doubt that they did follow the principle of not unnecessarily multiplying entities... You
should have doubts, because it is historically false. (a) They spoke of one religion called Hinduism because
heathendom or paganism was one phenomenon for them. (b) Why they did not speak in terms of regional
religions has to do with the fact that their theory about religion did not tie religion to either a people or a
region. Such an attitude of tying religion to a people has more to do with the notions of traditions (as the
Romans used them). (c) As their knowledge of India accumulated, they made many differentiations. For
instance, they spoke of Vedism and Brahmanism as the religions that preceded Hinduism. The latter
is the corrupt version of the purer Brahmanism. (d) They also differentiated between Buddhism, Jainism,
Sikhism, Bhakti movement, etc. as religions that are distinct and different from Hinduism. Todays wisdom
wants to speak of Hinduisms in the plural and not just Hinduism.
In other words, they did not follow Occams Razor in not multiplying entities. However, if they did (as
you suggest), I am afraid you are contradicting yourself. Multiplication of entities refers to multiplying
theoretical entities, and not observational ones. If they saw Hinduism, Occams Razor is not applicable
(you see what there is, is it not?); if they followed the argument of Occam, then they could not have seen
Hinduism but postulated its existence as a theoretical entity.
3. You then go on: So whatever it was they observed, there was sufficient commonality in it. I do not see
how you can say this. Commonality is a concept we use in describing. When we say some things have some
properties in common, it is shorthand for the following: we can build a set with a specific set of properties
and we
can give a true description of some objects such that they constitute a set. Neither in Nature nor in Culture
could we say that objects have commonalities. Objects have something in common in one set of descriptions; in another set of descriptions, they need have nothing in common. From this it follows, they could
see commonalities
because according to the description they provided, whatever they saw had commonalities.
4. You say: I take our subject of study to be the traditions, teachings and practices of dharma and moksha.
Let me just say why this is not sufficient to speak of Hinduism. Kamasutra, under this interpretation, does
not belong to Hinduism. But it does talk also mention dharma. What do the Tantriks speak about? They
explicitly deny wanting Moksha (so do the naastikas), and they practice adharma. Are the charvakas not
Hindus?
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Refutation (2011-03-05 05:43)
1. My book is not about India but about the western culture. It is a study of the western culture using one
thread, namely, religion. To the extent I talk about India, I do so using some of the facts that Indologists
(and others) have so far used. My use of their facts (to show the opposite of what they believe they have
shown) illustrates the consensus in the philosophies of sciences (of the last hundred years or more) that facts
are mostly facts of a theory.
2. In its simplest form my thesis is conditional in nature: If Judaism, Christianity and Islam are what
religions are, then Indian culture does not have native religions. By the same token, if Hinduism etc
are religions, then Judaism etc are no religions. The book builds this thesis in several ways: (a) through
historical narrations and analyses; (b) through arguments; (c) by building a hypothesis, etc. If you want to
challenge this thesis, you will have to build a thorough-going criticism of the entire book.
3. Let us agree to conduct our discussion in a systematic fashion. Doing so would allow us to (a) localize
our disagreements; (b) formulate the criticisms succinctly; (c) identify the arguments we need to accept or
reject; (d) indicate the manner of resolving disagreements etc.
With these preliminaries out of the way, let us begin at the beginning.
I argue that the western culture claims that religion is a cultural universal but that this claim is not the result
of (a) empirical enquiries or of (b) a defensible theoretical hypothesis. In other words, I talk both about the
western culture and about what this culture says. Do you disagree with this argument? If you disagree, you
will have to show either (a) that a substantial empirical enquiry has been undertaken in the western culture
to investigate the existence or non-existence of religions in other cultures or (b) there is a very satisfying
theory about why religion should exist in all cultures. In both cases, we need references to details: either the
names of people who have done such research and their works or a summary of such research. In case you
feel that this is too broad for a beginning, let me propose an alternative: what reasons are there to believe
that religion exists in all cultures? What would happen if we discover some or another culture that does not
know of religion? Here, your arguments would suffice.
Depending on which of the two options you choose, we can look forward to a fruitful discussion.
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Review of Argumentative Indian
1.2. March
Today, there are multiple images of India current in the West. There is the mystic India, an image that
the German Romantics created and the flower children of the sixties made popular. There is the third
world India with enormous poverty and suffering, which the developmental workers have projected. There
is also the India, the centre of IT outsourcing, which the developments in the last decade have brought into
existence, and so on. Amartya Sen, the Indian noble prize-winner in Economics, has written a book on The
Argumentative Indian which speaks of an India that he wants us to consider. This India is an India with a
history of toleration and pluralism, an India that has brought forth its own version of secularism, and an
India that is every bit rational, discursive and analytical as the western culture itself.
Before reflecting on some of the issues that Sen raises, let me confess to my disappointment: this collection
of essays, written over a period of time, is neither thought-provoking nor deep. Despite the ecstatic reviews
this book has received, I find the essays very shallow. They are quite obviously written by an intelligent
mind but to say that is to say little about the quality of the essays. They are intelligently mediocre; though
in saying this, I am being charitable.
India is a secular republic that is what the preamble to Indian constitution grandly proclaims. For nearly
two decades now, Indian intellectuals have been debating the nature of this secularism in India. Many
prominent intellectuals, including Sen whose own contribution is republished in this book, have argued to
and fro on the matter. Much heat has been generated through this debate, it is true, but how about some
light?
Two background facts are needed to appreciate the force of this question. The first is the emergence of
the so-called Hindu right or the Hindu Fundamentalism in India. There is a virtual consensus among
the Indian intellectuals that the attempt to create a Hindu State (i.e., a State that proclaims itself to be
Hindu), something which those who want to proclaim the Hinduness (Hindutva) want, is a retrograde
movement. The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), which formed a previous government at the Centre, is seen
as a political expression of an attempt by those who argue for this Hinduness (thay are called the HindutvaWaadins). The secular intellectuals have taken to the streets and their pens in order to combat this
fascist and fundamentalist development in the Indian society.
The second fact, which is of greater importance, is something that Sen also talks about extensively. India has
had a very rich history of and experience in pluralism and toleration. Many religious communities have lived
together for centuries, without any community being systematically prosecuted because of its faith. So, one
would expect the debate on secularism in India would bring new considerations to light than those we know
from the familiar debates in the West. Instead, what we find is an atrocious rehash of the western discussions, conducted mostly by those who know little or nothing of the western intellectual history. Quite apart
from throwing light on their intellectual ignorance, this empty argument about the different meaning that
secularism has in India also raises an issue that is puzzling: if Indian culture has such a deep appreciation
of tolerance and pluralism, why are not the Indian intellectuals reflecting on such a rich cultural experience?
Why do they, like Sen does, merely parrot what we already know, namely, that the state can be neutral
towards religion either by supporting all religions equally or by being equidistant from all religions? Surely,
we need more than such a text-book reproduction or a slogan like in India, secularism is a way of life, to
understand why secularism is a problem in the Indian society and culture of the twenty-first century.
There is even a deeper puzzle. When you read the debates on Indian secularism, you are left with the impression that you understand what Hindu Fundamentalism is. This impression has to do with the assumption
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that Hinduism is a religion the way Christianity, Judaism and Islam are also religions. Yet, if there is one
fact that all students of Hinduism (whether from the West or from the East) agree upon, it is this: Hinduism
is not a religion like the Semitic religions. It has no founder, no church, no creeds, no dogmas; no single
practice or belief or holy book is common to all those who call themselves as Hindus. So, what makes
Hinduism into a religion at all? This question knows of different answers, but that is not at issue here. The
issue is: what is the Hindu Fundamentalism that the secularists oppose?
Let me develop this issue a bit more. Basically, it involves the problem of Hindu-Muslim relations in India.
In the Indian debate on the Hindu-Muslim problem, three parties claim to offer a solution. The secularists
argue the need for a secular state in India; the Hindu nationalists or the Hindutvawadins plead the case for
a Hindu state; and the anti-secular Gandhians claim that the Indian tradition has the resources to handle
the question of pluralism of religions. For the sake of argument and convenience, I will divide these parties
into two groups, viz., secularists and anti-secularists.
On the one hand, there are the proponents of secularism: they propose that the Hindus and the Muslims (and
the other communities) should accept a common framework of secular law. This framework claims neutrality
with respect to all religions. The position of secularism in India is generally associated with the ideas of
her first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who said that no state can be civilised except a secular state.
The Indian secularists generally defend a position well known to political theory: the religious neutrality of
a liberal state.
On the other hand, there are the opponents of secularism: they refuse to accept the western theories about
the religiously neutral state and offer an alternate system of traditional values. The different communities,
they feel, should accept this system as the common framework. Its fundamental principle is the equality of
religions: since all of them are incomplete manifestations of a supreme truth, all religions are equal. This
group consists of the advocates of Hindutva on the one side and the Gandhian anti-secularists on the other.
Although there are significant differences between these two anti-secularist parties, they agree on one issue:
in India, one should not separate politics from religion because Hinduism yields a more tolerant politics than
western secularism. When Balraj Madhok, one of the Hindutva spokesmen, says that Hindu secularism is
superior to western secularism, he is voicing a widespread opinion:
... [A]ll through the history, the Hindu state has been secular. All Hindu rulers were expected to live up to
the ideal of Sarva Panth Sama Bhava in their dealings with the people. This concept of equal respect for
all panths or ways of worship is a positive concept with a much wider and broader meaning than what is
conveyed by the concept of secularism as accepted in the West (Madhok 1995: 116).
Or, to let the most distinguished among the Gandhian anti-secularists, Ashis Nandy, explain the moral of
his story:
...[I]t is time to recognize that, instead of trying to build religious tolerance on the good faith or the conscience
of a small group of de-ethnicized, middle-class politicians, bureaucrats, and intellectuals, a far more serious
venture would be to explore the philosophy, the symbolism, and the theology of tolerance in the faiths of
the citizens and hope that the state systems in South Asia may learn something about religious tolerance
from everyday Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, or Sikhism rather than wish that ordinary Hindus, Muslims,
Buddhists, and Sikhs will learn tolerance from the various fashionable secular theories of statecraft (Nandy
1998: 338).
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The anti-secularists challenge the secular belief that different religious communities can live together in a
society only within the framework of a religiously neutral state. Thus, this debate revolves around one of
the basic tenets of the contemporary theories of toleration, viz., the belief that state neutrality is necessary
for a peaceful and viable plural society.
One should not reduce the clash between secularism and anti-secularism to a clash between a tolerant, progressive left and an intolerant, conservative right. Instead, it is a clash between two frameworks both claiming
to provide a solution to the problem of conflicts between the different communities in Indian society.
Some go even further and claim that the concept of tolerance is inadequate to represent the Hindu way of
life: You can hate a man but still tolerate him. But there is no hatred. You recognize the right of every
person to have his own belief. He is recognized and respected religion is no barrier for mutual love and
understanding. This is the Hindu attitude (K. Suryanarayana Rao in Kanungo 2002: 125).
Since their organizations are often involved in the hate campaigns and the violence against the Muslims,
one could suggest that such people are hypocrites. In that case, we need to question the neutrality of the
secular parties as well: they have consistently failed to treat the Muslims and the Hindus on equal terms.
For instance, several reforms were imposed on the Hindu traditions by the Indian state under Congress rule,
whereas Islam was left untouched. Instead of getting into such a dispute, let us take the claims of the two
parties at face value.
Both parties agree on the objective of a peacefully diverse society. Both allow people to worship, pray, or
do puja in whichever way they prefer and to whatever god(s) they prefer. Both allow the followers of the
various religions to visit their mosques, churches, gurudwaras, temples, or stay home. Both allow people to
believe in one God, or in three or five thousand gods or claim that there is no God. If there is agreement on
all these issues, what then is the clash about?
In vain, you search for an answer to this question either in Sens book or in the decade-long discussions on
secularism in India. In fact, and this is even worse, there is not even a sense that such a question is present.
Repeating the western arguments glibly, as Sen does, takes us hardly any further. It is not my intention to
provide answer to this question here, but I would be amiss if I did not locate the direction in which answers
have to be sought.
In the western culture, the problem about the neutrality of the state emerged when different Christian denominations confronted each other, each claiming to be the embodiment of the truth. The same problem
continues to persist, when different Semitic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) confront each other:
each claim to be the exclusive purveyor of (the Biblical) Gods revelation. However, pagan traditions,
whether from the European Antiquity or from the Indian subcontinent of today, do not make such claims.
Instead, they suggest that all religions are partial answers and that, therefore, no religion is either true or
false. Consequently, the modern Indian society does not confront the question, which the European societies confronted. In India, the pagan traditions are a living force; they confront the Semitic religions that
argue the opposite. Consequently, the problem of secularism in India cannot even be formulated (let alone
answered) by reproducing ill-understood clichs from political philosophy textbooks. It is in such mindless
repetitions that we see the intellectual poverty of the secularist thinkers like Sen.
The failure of Sen, and generations of intellectuals in India, can be localized in their absence of insights into
both their culture and the western culture, even though they think they understand both. Perhaps, nowhere
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is this more forceful than in Sens urgency to show that India is every bit as rational as the West. Let me
leave aside the image about the rational West but focus instead on the mystical East.
Ever since German Romanticism, the period when translations of Indian texts into European languages occurred, it is indubitable that India has been seen as a mystical culture. It is also true that this image has
often been used to portray India and her culture in unflattering ways. Quite independent of these issues,
however, there is an intellectual problem: is this image false? Could we make the claim that, for centuries,
the westerners (travelers, tourists, intellectuals, bureaucrats, etc) have been hallucinating in their perceptions
about the mystical nature of the Indian traditions? If we say yes, how shall we go about either explaining
or understanding this massive hallucination about India? We cannot use explanations from Individual Psychology: it is impossible to argue that, for the last 250 years, all westerners share the same psychology. Social
psychology will not help us either because the western society has changed in the course of the last three
centuries. We do not have a Cultural Psychology that can tell us why people in the western culture have a
tendency to succumb to such a massive hallucination. In other words, the explanatory problem is so huge
that it is embarrassing to see people not even recognizing its existence, when they go on pontificating about
India and her culture. Surely, no one can take the claim seriously that one culture (the western culture) has
only hallucinated about another culture (the Indian, in our case) for centuries on end, unless one can come
with a theory explaining such a cultural hallucination. Needless to say, neither Sen nor those like him who
claim to know both the East and the West have even a clue how to go about accomplishing such a task.
I owe the reader an answer, but the size of the article prevents me from saying much more. Let me, therefore, issue guidance instead: my research in Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschap takes up these and analogous
questions in an attempt to understand the relations and the interactions between the western culture and
the Indian culture. It is against this background that I judge intellectuals coming up with their favorite
hobby-horses. Against such a background, only one judgment is possible about Amartya Sens efforts: it is
pathetically poor
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Review of Staal s Rules Without Meaning S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-05 06:25)
FRITS STAAL. Rules Without Meaning: Ritual, Mantras and the Human Sciences. Toronto Studies in
Religion, Vol. 4. New York and Bern: Peter Long XIX+419p.
In order to set the tone of this review article, let me begin straightway with a confession: I have been a closet
admirer of Frits Staal ever since I discovered his writings in 1987. The reasons that undergird my attitude
are several: firstly, most of his writings are about a culture I am familiar with, namely, India; secondly,
absent from them is the dewy-eyed romanticism that is pernicious to any serious study of cultures and people; thirdly, present in them are insights that are immensely important and extremely exciting; fourthly, the
theses argued for are the results of absolutely pioneering research which fly in the face of deeply entrenched
commonsense wisdom; and so on& He is my fellow-traveler on more tracks than one, and my own thinking
on several subjects over the last few years carry the deep imprint of Staals rigorous thinking and painstaking
enquiries.
No admiration, hoxwever, is unqualified at all levels and mine is no exception. My unease arises from the
fact that, for some reason or the other, Staal seems to stop short of building his formidable insights into a
well-articulated theory. The book under review, Rules without Meaning, which pulls together many strands
of research that Staal pursued over the last decade, exemplifies this tendency too.
The book is about many things: language and meaning, rituals and mantras, science and philosophy, religion
and music. Not only are there general considerations about each of these themes but they are also supported
by empirical studies of one culture, namely, India. In this sense, Rules without Meaning is an anthropological study of aspects of Indian culture as well. Nor merely that. Staal enters into polemics with Tambiah,
Obeyesekere, and Geertz about their methodologies. Thus it is a book about theories and methodologies.
The sub-title of the book, Rituals and Mantras and the Human Sciences, appropriately enough, tells us
how ambitious Staals project is. He cuts across disciplinary boundaries by tackling several authors active
in different domains of social sciences. He believes too that what is being said is of relevance not just to
sanskritists, indologists, or to scholars active in the domain of religion alone. Even though it is indubitable
that his insights, if true, will have profound repercussions on various human sciences, it is nevertheless not
obvious to an attentive reader what Staals theory amounts to. By the time we reach the end of the book, we
will know the several theses Staal argues for. But their impact is not so evident because one does not quite
know what to do with them. This may sound both exaggerated and unfair because Staal keeps continuously
emphasizing the importance of theory building to scientific endeavor throughout the book. In this review, I
will present a reasonable case for making the criticism stick.
Consider, for instance, the bare bones of Staals claims about Ritual: it is a meaningless activity (but not
valueless because of that); exhibits a recursive structure; and, as related to the above two, the syntax of the
natural languages may have their evolutionary origin in Ritual. These claims (especially the first two) are
the results of painstaking analyses of some of the Vedic rituals, which have been transmitted in their original
form for over thousands of years in India. However one might look at them, it must be admitted that these
are revolutionary claims. They are not badly stated either. The evidence that Staal presents for each of these
theses is extremely impressive together, they stand more than a cut above anything that anthropologists
have ever presented in defense of the opposite, commonsense view that rituals are symbolic activities which
carry deep meanings.
As though this is not enough, Staal uncouples ritual from religion and, as he puts it, from society (p.141). I
am not sure what he wants to say by the latter, but that ritual needs to be looked at independent of religion
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is something I agree with. Furthermore, with respect to religion, he makes the claim that it may not be
universal and refers explicitly to India in particular and Asia in general.
This is where Staals thesis becomes intriguing and cries out for a theory. If ritual transmission is so strong
in India, if transmission of religion has characterized the West, how have they affected these two different
cultures? What, furthermore, does this tell about human cultures? These questions provide us with a serious
entry-point to theorize about cultural differences and hence about human culture itself.
Here is where Staal disappoints us the most. Despite his repeated emphasis throughout the book on the
need to build theories, there is very little attempt to do so. At least one reason for this failure is Staals
own meta-theoretical commitments as they are reflected on at least two levels. Firstly, what contemporary
philosophy has become: a profession which confuses building theories with providing arguments for making
this or that thesis appears plausible or acceptable. Of course, this may not be just a conclusion. It could
be the result of holding the no-longer tenable view that scientific explanations are some sort of deductive
arguments. Secondly, rather naive notion of what sciences are and thus what human sciences can be: if some
phenomenon is not universal then a theory about it cannot be set up (e.g. p.63).
The first point must be evident to students of contemporary philosophy, but the second may require a word
or two. If it is the case, as Staal suggests, that India knows of no religion whereas the West does, it is no
doubt that trying to build a theory about the origin of religion and its continuous persistence in human
cultures will not bear fruit. But we must not lose sight of the fact that the affirmation about the universality
of religion is a theoretical claim, which has issued forth from some or another theory about human beings.
(A skeptic need only glance thru the writings of Hume, Durkheim, Freud, etc. to be convinced of this.) An
alternative to a theoretical claim cannot be anything less than a theory explaining not merely why religion
is not a cultural universal but also why it is nevertheless believed to be one. That is to say, the localized
existence of a social phenomenon, when it has hitherto been argued to be a cultural universal, poses a problem whose solution requires the presence of theory. It will not, of course be a theory of religion (in the sense
of Hume and others) but one which can tackle religion as a trait of a specific culture. It might do so by
theorizing cultures in terms of their differences. Religion could turn out to be a phenomenon present in one
specific culture, but only a theory about human cultures could tell what it means to make such a claim.
In contrast to the above route, Staals ideas seem to roughly run thus: religion is not a universal, hence it
may not be possible to set up a theory about it; ritual probably is, hence a theory may be possible. But
what if ritual is not a cultural universal either? I believe it is not. As I see the issue, ritual and religion are
mutually exclusive as cultural phenomena. Of course, commonsense wisdom makes ritual into an integral
part of religion (religious rituals) and even speaks in terms of ritualistic religions. I think that this is
wrong. The way to decide the case is by building an adequate theory about bothone which tells us why
religion and/or ritual are not cultural universals or whether they are. A singular negative statement does
not, of course, falsify universally quantified statements. As student of cultures, however, we must not forget
that our problems actually begin here: why did we hitherto believe in the universality of some cultural
phenomenon? Why does it enjoy merely a localized existence? Solutions to these questions require nothing
short of building theory.
The reason why I have emphasized the absence of theory in Staals writings is simply this: without a theory,
even truly revolutionary insights end up getting trivialized. This is what Staal has done to himself. There is
no better way to appreciate the predicament than follow Staal in his own reasoning. For the brevity, I shall
focus on just one
theme (religion).
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Staal takes exception to the existing concepts of religion and their applicability (!) in Asia. He motivates
this stance on two grounds in his most extended considerations on the subject so far (1989). The first ground
involves using a rather narrow concept of religion based upon the three western monotheisms, and seeing the
extent to which such a concept is useful in Asia. What would this narrow concept be?
(E)ven if we do not seek to provide a precise definition, it is not entirely unclear what would be involved in
a concept of religion based upon Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It would involve such notions as a belief
in God, a holy book, and (at least in two cases out of these three) a historic founder. Taking our cue from
this last exception (the fact that Judaism has no founder), we can meaningfully ask whether it is feasible to
apply to Asia a concept of religion that requires the presence of at least two of these three characteristics.
(397-398.)
What would we find in Asia were we to apply this narrow concept of religion?
What we find, even with these relatively flexible characteristics, is that none of the so-called religions of
Asia is a religion in this sense. Buddhism, for example, has a founder, but neither belief in God, nor a holy
book&Taoism does not have a belief in God&Tantrism does not appear as an independent movement. It is
allied with Buddhism or Saivism, and shares characteristics with theYoga which enters into similar alliances.
Shintoism lacks all three characteristics. Confucianism possesses only one: it has a founder. And so our
conclusion can only be that any notion of religion that is based on the characteristics of the three Western
monotheistic religions is inapplicable in Asia (398).
There is, to be sure, a great deal of truth to his empirical description of the Asian traditions. However, it
is not clear that these properties make the three western monotheisms into religions either. Could Jesus be
considered a founder of Christianity? An orthodox Christian would be hard put to answer the question
unambiguously: there cannot be a Christ figure without there being a past to Christianity. The fulfillment
of Gods promise is the event of the coming of Christ in flesh, but that does not make Jesus into the founder
of Christianity in any unambiguous sense. If Christianity is the continuation of the real tradition, then
it is no breakaway group with Jesus as its founder. If Judaism is the real tradition, then Christianity is
the splinter movement. This point is equally true for Islam. Again, a Muslim would be hard put to answer
the question unambiguously: if the prophet Muhammad was not there, in all probability, there would be no
Islam. However, the Muslim would continue, Muhammad was merely the last prophet of God in a line of
other earlier prophets. In this sense, just as is the case with Christianity, if one sees Islam as the continuation
of the real tradition, Muhammad did not found a new religion. On the other hand, if Mohammed was no
prophet at all then one could say that he founded a new religion. Equally, Christ need not have asked Peter
to build the Churchwould Christianity have been any less of a religion for that? As far as holy books are
concerned, there were Christians before the gospels were codified after all. In other words, it can be plausibly
maintained (to some extent) that Christianity itself need not necessarily have these properties in order to be
a religion. Of course, as a matter of historical fact, we do describe (from the outside) Christianity in terms of
its holy book, the figure of Christ, the Churches, and such like. How much of this is historical contingency,
and how much by virtue of the fact that Christianity is a religion?
The same point could be made with respect to belief in God. Even though I have tried to argue that atheistic religiosity is Christianity gone secular, and I have difficulty in comprehending how God could become
irrelevant to being religious, this argument does not establish that such religions could not exist elsewhere
or that they could not come into being. In this sense, even this possibility requires to be left open until that
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stage where we could show that belief in God is essential not to just these three religious traditions, but to
the very nature of religion itself.
The reply to Staal, then, could be that this narrow concept is inapplicable in Asia because its applicability
to the Western monotheisms is itself suspect.
His second argument involves using an extended concept of religion, which includes or incorporates the
categories of doctrine (belief), ritual, mystical experience, and meditation. He argues (I will not summarize
the points here) that because the last three consist of other categories more fundamental than the concept
religion, an extended concept of religion that comprises of these three is an incoherent concept. As such,
the category religion exhibits
all the characteristics of pathological, if not monstrous growth, tumorous with category blunders. It is worse
than a spider with a submarine, a burning bush, an expectation, and a human head. We have found that
the trio of ritual, meditation and mystical experience consists of categories that are more fundamental than
the category religion itself (401).
Consequently, he suggests that we take a terminological decision and confine the term religion to Western
monotheisms.
Let us go along with Staal for a moment and take this terminological decision. What exactly does this imply? It could imply several things, depending on how we state the thesis. What I shall do now is to provide
three versions of Staals thesis a weak version, a strong version, and a stronger version. Even though more
variants are possible, these three are enough to appreciate the problem.
(a) Our conceptualization of religion has been inadequate. We need to develop a more adequate, more sophisticated, and a more fine-grained concept of religion in order to satisfactorily account for different religions.
The weak version of Staals thesis would almost win universal consensus. No intellectual worthy of his name
would resist a plea for developing subtler and richer concepts. Further, there is also a quasi-universal consensus that the Western concept of religion is inadequate. Staal subscribes to this thesis as he explicitly
states:
A philosophy of religion worthy of its name should begin with a discussion of the concept of religion and
an investigation into the status of a possible science of religion based upon what is presently known about
religions or so-called religions of mankind (418; italics mine).
But then, people have been doing precisely this for over a hundred years. This weak thesis does not entail
that we confine the concept of religion to western monotheisms. If we cannot use the concept religion,
which other concept shall we use? Indeed, many would be willing to concur with Staal that
the imposition of the Western concept of religion on the rest of the world illustrates how Western imperialism
continues to thrive in the realm of thought (419).
They would also add that one has to start somewhere, with the existing concept of religion for example, and
appropriately extend it, modify it, enlarge it, refine it, by studying other cultures. Studying what in other
cultures though? Why, religions of course. Staal would also agree with this point of view because, as he says,
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we should base ourselves upon what is presently known both about religions and the so-called religions of
humankind.
Let us now look at the strong thesis.
(b) We cannot use our concept of religion to translate certain concepts in Asia, because both this concept
and the concept cluster associated with it are absent in its culture.
This is the strong version of his thesis, which may or may not imply the weaker thesis. (That is to say, it is
logically independent of the truth of the weak version.) It does entail that the western concepts of religion
are not applicable in Asia. Staal subscribes to this thesis as well:
(T)erms for religion that refer to its doctrinal content are relatively rare in the languages of Asia and are
invariably of recent date&In India, the term dharma has been used in the sense of religion in expressions
like Hindu dharma, bauddha dharma, jaina dharma only during the last few centuries. The same holds for
the Chinese tsang-chiao and the Japanese shukyo. The concept of Hinduism, incidentally, came up in the
thirties of the nineteenth century in English literature (390; italics mine).
One of the reasons why this strong thesis might not entail the weaker version has to do with the italicized
portion of the citation. If one uses the concept of religion to refer to doctrinal contents, then the point
could hold. However, this concept is not the only one floating around. There are other western concepts
too such as those that refer to an experience of the Holy, the absolute, or of a mysterium tremendum et
fascinans. Or, again, if the western concept constitutes a polythetic class, in which the doctrinal content
is but one property, the entailment that the western concept of religion is inadequate does not hold. The
clarion call to refine this concept further, being the platitude that it is, does not get not affected.
These remarks are sufficient to turn our attention to the stronger version of the thesis.
(c) The concept of religion is inapplicable because that which is designated by the term religion in the
West is absent from the cultures of Asia.
The stronger thesis entails the strong thesis (b) by being its explanans. The weaker version is logically
independent of this stronger thesis as well, for obvious reasons. To say that religions are absent in Asia is
to say that they are unreal in that culture; they are not products of Asia but creations of the West. Staal
appears to subscribe to this thesis as well:
The inapplicability of Western notions of religion to the traditions of Asia&is also responsible for something
more extraordinary: the creation (Staals emphasis) of so-called religions. This act was primarily engaged in
by outsiders and foreigners, but is sometimes subsequently accepted by members of a tradition. The reasons
lie in the nature of Western religion &In most parts of Asia, such religions do not exist, but scholars, laymen
and Western converts persist in searching for them. If they cannot find them, they seize upon labels used
for indigenous categories, rent them from their original context and use them for subsequent identification of
what is now called a religious tradition. Thus there arises a host of religions: Vedic, Brahmanical, Hindu,
Buddhist, Bon-po, Tantric, Taoist, Confucian, Shinto, etc. In Asia such groupings are not only uninteresting
and uninformative, but tinged with the unreal (393; italics, unless otherwise indicated, mine).
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This is not all. Staal goes even further to emphatically state:

Hinduism does not merely fail to be a religion; it is not even a meaningful unit of discourse (397; my italics).
The implication, then, is that religion is not a cultural universal but a conceptual compulsion of a religious
culture. If Hinduism is not a meaningful unit of discourse, that is because (Staal notices this) it does not
refer to a single unified phenomenon or even to a set of discrete phenomena. Simply put, it has no reference
to anything in the world but a learnt way of answering the question, are you a Hindu?
If Staal subscribes to this version, how then could he argue or accept the following?
The study of religion ought to play an important part in the human sciences, for while language provides
the foundation for most intellectual activity of the human animal, religion hovers around the loftier realms
of human expression and belongs to a domain that lies beyond language
(387).
He could not; yet he does. My thesis entails the negation of the above sentiment. It may be informative and
illuminating, given what I have said during the last few chapters, to note that Staal does not argue for the
truth of the above but presupposes it: it is the opening paragraph of his discourse into religion.
Let me provide a brief overview of the nature of the difference between Staal and me. I am investigating
the object designated by the term religion; Staal is talking about some or other concept of religion. I am
arguing that religionas an entityhas not been shown to exist in all cultures; Staal assumes its universality
and suggests that the Western concept is incoherent. If I succeed in my aim, I will have argued that religion
does not exist in Asia and, therefore, it is not a cultural universal; Staal pleads for a philosophy of religion
whose task would involve, among other things, a conceptual analysis of the concept religion (or, in more
pedantic terms, providing a good definition).
By all standards, the first two theses are both lame and trivial. Yet the suggestion that India (Asia) has
no religion is anything but lame and trivial. But what is its significance? There is only one way to answer
this question and that is by building a theory about religion. How to go about doing this, if religion is not
cultural universal? This is not the place to discuss this issue as I have recently completed a manuscript on
this very question. (The Heathen in his blindness: Asia, the West and the dynamic of religion, 1994) There
I too argue that India (Asia) does not know of religions; and I have been able to shed light on the belief
about the universality of religion by beginning to build a theory about religion.
There is also a second theme to this difference. Staal is content to note Western imperialism and its continued operation. I think that it is a problem we need to understand. What compels thinkers of today and
yesteryears in the West to see and create religions in other cultures? To call it imperialist is to baptize it
with a name and names, as we all know, do not explain anything or solve any problem.
To the reader of this review, it may appear that I sound negative. But it is anything but that. Staal is
probably the most interesting anthropologist/Indologist (professionally he is neither), whose writings are
pioneering in every sense of the world. His proposals are immensely important, heuristically powerful, and
cognitively productive. Surely, this book is a required reading for any student of human cultures. I have
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only two regrets, one of which I have already expressed: alas, Staal does not build a theory that can give
the required prominence to his revolutionary ideas. There is a second regret too: this book will not be easily
accessible to those who need to read it. The extraordinarily prohibitive price of the book will keep it forever
away from the personal libraries of intellectuals.
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Understanding and Imagination: A Critical Notice of Halbfass and Inden S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-05 07:10)
Introduction
During the last decade or so, a new restlessness has begun to disturb the calm facade of the social scientific
academia. As yet, it has no name. Better said, it has many names: from reflexive to the post-modern.
The ferment is not widespread, but the voices of discontent are coherent and articulate. The critical voices
indicate the many kinds of dissatisfaction they have with the status and nature of social sciences. Even
though most dissenters cannot be grouped as representatives of any one tradition, many of their writings
stand out above the rest. Two such authors are Wilhelm Halbfass and Ronald Inden; each has written a
book that is worthy of attention and respect.
It is easy enough to identify the context that has brought forth the dissatisfaction of these two authors: the
indological discourse and the manner in which Indian culture and civilization has been made into object of
study and description over the centuries. Thematically, the ground for their restlessness is one of representational inadequacy: the extent to which accounts for other cultures capture the otherness of their object. As
a theme, during the last decade or more, it has come into prominence in many fields and in many guises: in
philosophy an attack against the notion of knowledge as a representation of the world has been remounted by
Rorty; in anthropology it has taken the form that the anthropologist does not describe the other culture he
meets with but writes some kind of psycho-biography instead. Whatever ones stance with respect to these
emerging disputes be, it does not take away the fact that, say, anthropological and Indological accounts are
experienced as constituting some kind of problem.
What kind of problem? In this critical notice, I will look at how Wilhelm Halbfass and Ronald Inden answer
the above query. Each has sliced the theme along different axes: Halbfass focusses on the hermeneutic situation of inter cultural dialogue and titles his contribution, India and Europe: an Essay in Understanding;
Inden, appropriately enough, opts for a more ambiguous Imagining India.
1. Halbfass on India and Europe

Halbfass book consists of three parts: the first part deals with the historical growth of the multiple appreciations of Indian thought and culture in the West; the second part deals with the Indian thought and the
way it has looked at other peoples and cultures; and a third part with appendices that treat some of the
problems tackled in the first two sections. Each of these parts ends on a theoretical note, which reflects
about what has been said: a preliminary postscript concludes the first part; an epilogue ends the second;
in lieu of a conclusion sums up the appendices and the book as a whole. There are ample end notes to
each of the chapters (totaling nearly 130 pages). The book is reasonably well written, crammed with many
different kinds of information, thus enabling its use as a reference work as well.
In the ten chapters that constitute the first part of the book, we are provides with a general survey and
overview of the prevalent pictures the West had of India till the twentieth century. The first chapter begins, appropriately enough, where western philosophy is supposed to have begun: with the Ancient Greeks.
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Through the early church fathers, the story is carried forward to the Islam encounter with India (chapter 2).
The third chapter treats the constructions of the Christian missionaries.
The next chapters (till chapter 8 ) handle the historymostly Germanof the western understanding of India.
The German Romantics, Hegel, Schelling and Schopenhauer, and the developments following them, each
of these gets a chapter. The ninth chapter discusses the place accorded to India in histories of philosophy.
The last chapter ( #10), a preliminary postscript, deals with the hermeneutic situation in the twentieth
century. Writing such histories is always a risky enterprise. Inevitably, one opens oneself up for charges of
one-sidedness, incompleteness, and such like. To level such charges with respect to the first part of this book,
however, is to completely miss both the project of the author as well as the works pioneering character. As
far as I know, this is the first book-length attempt to provide us with an outline of the way European images
of India have been built up over the centuries.
The above paragraph notwithstanding, I should nevertheless like to raise an issue of historical inadequacy
which, in fact, touches on a core problem of Halbfass project itself. As he himself notices (p.53), the Christian
missionary literature has been extremely important in constructing the western images of India. Curiously
enough though, a disproportionate amount of space is devoted in the third chapter to Roberto Nobili who
played very little role in defining the western understanding of India. The Catholic Church was suspicious of
Nobili, and his works hardly saw the light of the day. Roberto Nobili is an interesting figure, to be sure, but
hardly of any significance to the actual dialogue as it took place between these two cultures. By contrast,
Halbfass glosses over missionaries like Abrahamus Rogerius, Philippus Baldaeus, etc., who were extremely
important in outlining precisely the contours of understanding and dialogue that Halbfass is interested in.
It is almost as though two different questions and two different concerns are constantly interfering with each
other. There is the first set which Halbfass constantly grapples with: who are the best exemplars of the
hermeneutic situation of inter-cultural dialogue? Which figures exemplify best the tension inherent in the
attempts at cross-cultural understanding? And, then, there is also the second group of questions which
actually sets the context for the above questions. How shall we choose our best exemplars?
One choice is to look for those who were most sensitive to the problems generated by the contact and dialogue between India and the West. More likely than not, such figures have also been utterly marginal to the
actual hermeneutic process; they have been unable to determine the terms of the dialogue. Furthermore, the
contemporary situation from where we identify hermeneutic questions is itself the result of the hermeneutic
understanding as it evolved. Consequently, the second is to opt for those figures who have effectively shaped
such a dialogue. These alternatives are not a mere speculative enumeration of possibilities. They have altogether different consequences to Halbfass project if it turns out that there is a hiatus between, on the one
hand, the dialogue as it took place and the marginal figures who raised sensitive hermeneutic questions on
the other.
To see what this remark means, consider another genre of writingsthe travel accounts published between
the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries in Europe. For example, the writings of Varthema, a Portugese
exploer, were immensely popular in the West and it is such writings that tell us what the hermeneutic situation was like. The early missionaries, the philosophers of the enlightenment, all and sundry in fact were
brought up on such tales and accounts. When a Herder or a Hegel speaks of the culture of India, when they
attempt to understand translations of fragmentary texts, their horizon of understanding was determined in
very important ways by what explorers had written about India. Yet, Halbfass hardly mentions the travel
literature. This is not a mere side comment on the bibliographical inadequacy of India and Europe. Rather
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it points to a fundamental lacuna, which can be formulated in very simple terms. Halbfass seems to pay
no attention to the contexts of dialogue. By this I do not refer to such events as colonization and so forth,
but to those that fundamentally defined the very nature of the dialogue itself. When Christian missionaries
from the seventeenth century Europe described Indian religions and philosophies, they were working within
Christianity. When the enlightenment philosophers looked at other cultures and peoples, they were doing
so within the ambit of Protestant criticisms of Catholic Christianity. To even think of abstracting from this
context (because of the excuse that one is not giving an exhaustive history of the encounter between India
and Europe) is to fundamentally misconceive the dialogue itself. One example ought to suffice.
Halbfass uses the term fulfillment to describe the attitude of the nineteenth century missionaries in India
who looked at Christianity as the fullest and most complete religion and believed that the religious needs
and feelings of people are fulfilled only in Christianity. About this orientation, he says
We may even suspect that the development of the idea of fulfillment among the Christian missionaries is,
in part at least, a response to the Neo-Hindu inclusivism as we find it exemplified by Ramakrishna, Keshab
Chandra Sen and Vivekanda ( p.52).
Despite the qualifications (we may even suspect, in part at least) that rob this formulation of much of
its worth, surely, this is untrue. The idea of fulfillment is as old as Christianity itself. It is a part of
Christian self-understanding that Jesus is Christ and that in him alone does God reveal Himself fully and
completely. (Some modern-day Christian philosophers of religion and theologians are less inclined to subscribe to this remark of course.) In fact, Eusebius, some of whose writings Halbfass seems to be acquainted
with summarized the understanding prevalent during his time ( 300 years after Christ) in his famous Evangelical Preparations, where he sees the Ancient Greek and Roman Culture as preparations for the advent of
Gospels. Two hundred or so years later, St. Augustine (in his De Vera Religione) argues that all heathen
religions were fulfilled by the coming of Christ in flesh; and so forth. The missionaries (both Protestant
and Catholic) after the reformation schism never made any bones about this theological issue. In this sense,
to attribute an absolutely essential part of Christian self-understanding to a response to the inclusivism
of Neo-Hinduism is to live in a no-mans land. Clearly, Halbfass pays no attention to the fact that these
missionaries were Christian and were looking at India through the lens of their religion as they received it
from their milieu. As a consequence, Halbfass cannot but misread both what the missionaries were saying,
what Neo-Hinduism is about, and what the nature of their dialogue was. Thus a big question opens up:
which dialogue is Halbfass describing? How could we continue a dialogue if we are oblivious to its very
terms?
Traditional Hinduism has not reached out for the West. It has not been driven by ... the urge to understand
and master the foreign cultures. ... India has discovered the West and begun to respond to it in being sought
out, explored, overrun and objectified by it. ... Europeans took the intiative. They went to India. This is
a simple and familiar fact. Yet its fundamental significance for the hermeneutics of the encounter between
India and the West is often forgotten. (p.172; see also p.437)
Thus begins the eleventh chapter (and the second part) of Halbfass chronicle of Indian xenology. ( A
term that Halbfass borrows from Duala-Mbedy to pick out the attitudes towards and conceptualizations of
foreigners; p.507. n2.) In this part, Halbfass is interested in finding out what Indian xenology has been
like. There is obviously not much of an interest in the other in the traditional Indian thought. Halbfass
believes that the lack of xenological interest and initiative in traditional Hinduism is obviously connected
with its lack of historical interest and motivation ( p.196). The next chapter is about Rammohan Roy (a
Bengali reformer). We read there that Roy was deeply influenced by the European thought: The mark of
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European thought may be seen in his program of a return to the purity of the original sources, his universalism, his concept of God, his style of Interpretation, etc. (p. 207). What was his contribution to the dialogic
encounter? Here is Halbfass answer, one of those typical passages that abound throughout the book:
Rammohans contribution to the encounter between India and Europe is not to be found in any teachings
about the relationship between the two, nor in any theoretical model of cross-cultural or interreligious understanding. The essence of his contribution lies instead in the variety and interplay of his means of expression,
in the rupture and tension in his hermeneutic orientation, in his practice of responding and appealing to different traditions and horizons of expectation, and in the exemplary openness and determination with which
he avails himself of the historical situation and its hermeneutical opportunities (p.208).
It is worth our while to pause and look at the above passage and its message. Roys contribution was not
theoretical in the sense of providing a theory (or a model) of cross-cultural or interreligious understanding;
it was not empirical in the sense that he discovered something hitherto unknown in either India or the West.
His contribution lies in the way he used some parts of a language (in the variety and interplay of his means
of expression); in the fact of what he wasa Europeanized Indian Christian (in the rupture and tension in
his hermeneutic orientation). Because of this, he had to appeal to what he knew of both these traditions
(his practice of responding and appealing to different traditions and horizons of expectation), and in doing
so, he was quite an unprincipled opportunist (the exemplary openness and the determination with which
he avails of the historical situation and its hermeneutical opportunities). In other words, Rammohan Roy
had nothing interesting to say and his importance to the Indians (or Hinduism) is the fact that he is an
Indian. If this is it, why not simply say so? Is it a fear of hurting Indian readers? or simply a reflection of
the tension and rupture in Halbfass own hermeneutic orientation? Whatever the reason, I can only note
that such paragraphs hardly help an interested reader.
The next chapter ( #13) about Neo-Hinduism is followed by five subsequent chapters ( #15 to #19) which
are of narrowly Indological interest. They discuss the notion of Dharma, philosophy and such like in the
Indian literature. Here, Halbfass is at his best revealing a masterly grasp of relevant texts. Extended discussion of these chapters will not be of great interest to the readers of this journal and, personally speaking,
I am skeptical too of the results that this kind of Indological research can possibly deliver. A short epilogue
concludes the second part of the book.
The third part consists of a series of appendices: one on the concept of experience, the other is the authors
debate with Hacker on the concept of inclusivism, and ends in a chapter that should be seen In lieu of a
conclusion.
By now it must be evident that Halbfass has written a rich and complex book. It is a difficult book to
evaluate, partly because it is not obvious to me what his central thesis is or whether he has any. Neither
thematically not chronologically is it a unified book. While reading the book, I often had the feeling that
Halbfass has identified some interesting problems, has developed insights that are immensely important
but is unable (or unwilling) to elaborate them in any systematic way. Perhaps, one reason is his adopted
philosophical style: a peculiar combination of hermeneutics with a typically German idea of what it is to
think through. In fact, one of the irritating aspects of this book is its tendency to raise multiple questions
without trying to answer any of them. There is a world of difference between simply formulating questions
by their hundreds and solving problems. It is the latter which helps us understand more about the world,
and the former has merely a nuisance value when raised without answers or even hints of one. Here are two
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characteristic passages (there are many such in this book, e.g. 161, 163, 169, 260-261, 262, 379-380, 401-402,
419, 439-440) that typify what I am talking about.
Is Hegels scheme of historical subordination and his association of the idea of philosophy with the historical
identity and destiny of Europe entirely obsolete? Does it reflect the attitude of his own time and the earlier
history of European interest in India? To what extent has it influenced its subsequent development? Has
it finally been superseded by the progress of Indian and Oriental studies and by the results of objective
historical research? But to what extent is such research itself a European phenomenon and part of European self-affirmation? To what extent does it reflect European perspectives and motivations? How, on the
other hand, has the encounter with India, the accumulation of information about it, affected the European
self-understanding and sense of identity? Has it affected the meaning of religion and philosophy itself? How
and why did Europeans become interested in Indian thought? Which questions and expectations did they
have concerning India and themselves? How much search for Indian wisdom has there been, and what is
its significance? (p.2; see also 374-375)
In a very trivial sense, you will be able to answer these questions at the end of Halbfass book; but then, in
exactly the same sense, you would have been able to answer them before reading the book as well. Consider
now the second characteristic passage.
Is there a philosophy today which is nourished by an equal, and equally committed, familiarity with Indian
and European sources? Has the encounter between India and Europe, and the comparison of Indian and
European philosophies, opened new prospects for philosophy itself? To what extent have we gone beyond the
projection of speculative images of India on the one hand, and the accumulation of historical and philological
information on the other? To what extent have the Indians gone beyond apologetics, reinterpretation, and
the combination and interplay of Indian and European concepts? Will Indian and European thought come
together in a truly cosmopolitan world-philosophy Will there ever be a global philosophy and a genuine
fusion of horizons, i.e. a new context of orientation and self-understanding which would be fundamentally
different from what Troeltsch called bookbinders synthesis or from a merely additive accumulation of data
about foreign traditions, and a non-committal recognition and understanding of alternative world-views?
In what sense can the dialogue between India and Europe affect our way of asking fundamental questions,
as well as our reflection upon the meaning and limits of philosophy itself? Is there hope for a philosophically
significant comparative philosophy which would imply the freedom to transcend philosophy in its European
sense? (p.375)
These are, let us note well, important questions. But how shall we go about answering them? Even more
importantly, what would count as answers to these questions? Halbfass own reflections on the above paragraph take the following form:
These questions remain open. The temptation to answer and discard questions of this nature by presenting
general and programmatic declarations has itself contributed greatly to the abstract rhetoric which continues
to dominate wide areas of comparative philosophy (ibid).
Will, I wonder, Professor Halbfass understand and forgive me if I raise a rhetorical query or two myself? To
what extent are these questions like those raised by Professor Halbfass themselves contributive to making
what comparative philosophy has become? Is there a way we can fruitfully conduct serious enquiries without being tempted to appear prematurely profound? Is there hope for a serious cross-cultural theory which
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avoids the extremes of mimetic reproduction of hackneyed themes or a rehash of famed vulgarities? Your
guess in answering these queries, I am inclined to say, is as good as mine.
Polemics aside, let me note that my criticism of Halbfass is not that he has failed to answer all or any of
these questions. But we need to know what would count as an answer and what is required in answering
these questions. Of course, more theoretical and empirical work is all that is needed in answering this or any
other question about the world we live in. But surely, we need to go beyond this trivial truth after having
read a book about the dialogue between India and Europe.
Modern Indian thought, says Halbfass continuing, finds itself in a historical context created by Europe,
and it has difficulties speaking for itself. Even in its self-representation and self-assertion, it speaks to a
large extent in a European Idiom (ibid). Without a doubt, a fundamental and true insight; but what is its
import? This is true not merely for India but also for all non-western cultures. Our problem is to find out
how this insight could be put to work in a creative and productive fashion. Until such a stage is reached,
repetition of this insight will be so much flag waving. Surely, this situation has not come into being because
we speak a European language or that sufficiently intelligent people do not exist in India or elsewhere. What,
then, has made the Indians understand themselves in terms of the European understanding of their culture?
Ronald Inden, in his book about Imagining India, tries to obliquely answer this question.
2. Inden on Imagining India
As one of the interpretations of the title is suggestive of, Inden concentrates on the way Europe has imaginatively pictured India. The three interdependent theses he argues for, however, have a broader scope than
the Asian subcontinent alone. To begin with, Inden argues that a particular kind of metaphysic has had
the historical consequence of producing false descriptions of India which parade as Indological knowledge.
Furthermore, this metaphysic is not uniquely present in Indology alone but has a wider acceptance among
social scientists. Secondly, embracing an alternative metaphysics is required if one intends to do more than
merely exercise ones imagination while indulging in a study of peoples and their ways of living. He argues
for this thesis by drawing upon Collingwood and by trying to redescribe the ubiquitous caste system and
state. Thirdly, there is the broader thesis that the image Europe has of itself is tightly connected to the
image it has of the other, in this case, India. Of necessity, the second and the third theses are less elaborated
than the first.
With the exception of the first and the last chapter, the bulk of the book concentrates on spelling out both
the metaphysic that has supported the European understanding of India and the several landmarks that
characterize this description. Each one of them is accorded a treatment in an independent chapter: the caste
system ( #2); Hinduism ( #3); the village India ( #4); and oriental despotism ( #5). These chapters are to
illustrate the contention that a particular metaphysic underlies Indological practice. Put in extremely simple
terms, this metaphysic displaces human agency to supra- or trans-historical essences. In more elaborate
terms, the characteristic properties attributed to the social world by this metaphysic are the following:
1. It is objective. It exists as its apart from any knowledge of it and does not differ with the interests or
perspectives of those who know about it.
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2. It is necessarily unified. All its parts operate together toward the same goal or in accord with the same
design
3. It is bounded, in that it is isolable from any other systems that can be known apart from them.
4. It is atomist and consists ultimately of fundamental units that are the smallest, irreducible entities in it,
to wit atoms in physics, individuals in the social world.
5. It is complete; any diminution of its parts would impair its working; any addition would be redundant.
6. It is self-centered, that is, it has a directing centre and a directed periphery.
7. It is self-regulating; it operates automatically, apart from the original and perhaps occasional intervention
of a Prime Mover, equatable with the guiding mind of this giant body.
8. It is determinist. Its parts follow universal laws; events in it are discrete, each cause having a definite
effect, which is to say that the future is determined by the past.
9. It is essentialist. The phenomena that make up the world are manifestations of essences, objective
determinate entities that underlie their surface features or appearances, e.g., sovereignty is the essence of
state (p.13).
Indens fire, then, is directed against all social scientific thinking that is guided by this metaphysic. His aim
is to demonstrate that Indological discourse is indeed imprisoned by this way of thinking.
Has Inden succeeded in showing this? The answer to this question is not simple, unfortunately. It depends
on very much on what is count as evidence for these claims. That is not all. The relationship between this
metaphysic and the Indological descriptions is not a simple relation of a premise to its consequence either. As
Inden puts it: I shall be concerned to bring out the presuppositions that silently inhabit their (the European
scholars of South Asia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries) words and thoughts and the consequences
that attend them (p.11). What kinds of consequences are these? The footnote formulates it thus: I distinguish consequence here as a historical problem from entailments in a formal, logical sense (ibid; fn.5). If I
understand Inden correctly, he is suggesting that the Indologists have often made assumptions characteristic
of a certain kind of metaphysic and that, as a historical fact, some peculiar problems have come to the fore.
What relation is there between these assumptions and the problems that have emerged in the Indological
research of the last two hundred years? In the rest of the book, a dependency relation is posited between the
two without being clear, however, about what that relation is. As I shall be returning to this point later on,
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let me suggest that the best strategy to evaluate the success of Indens enterprise is to look at one or two
chapters closely. That I shall do by looking at the second chapter (caste) here, while glancing at the third
chapter (Hinduism) towards the end.
Caste system in India

Inden introduces the theme by speaking about the problem that has fascinated many. China, the other
greatest civilization that dominates Asia, was never really colonized; India, by contrast, has often been.
What differentiated India, then, from China and the Near East was this paradoxical fact: outsiders, beginning with the Aryans and ending with the British had conquered India again and again, but her ancient
civilization had survived into the present more or less unchanged. ...
... What in the nature of this civilization could possibly explain this seeming paradox? The answer discourses
on India have given ... has been Caste, that institution considered peculiar to India, and particularly to
Indias distinctive religion, Hinduism ( p.55-56)
Of course, this problem arises only if India is seen as an unchanging civilization. But then, as Inden points
out, this image of static India was as such a part of the Indological discourse as was the solution provided
to answer the alleged paradox.
This solution knows at least two dominant variants, as Inden tells the story. There is, firstly, the empiricist
theorizing about the origin of this institution; secondly, there is the idealist speculation about its emergence. Rejecting the story about the cosmogenic creation of four groups (from the brahmin to the sudra) as
an explanation for the genesis of Caste in India, the empiricists (which counts mostly the British colonial
administrators, utilitarian thinkers like James Mill, and so on) went in search of a possible mechanism that
could account for its origin. One of the favored hypothesis was the interaction and intermingling of racesthe
Aryan with the native, the Dravidian. To the idealists, the cosmogonic story about the birth of four varnas
constitutes the fundamental explanation of what caste is. Inden also sketches the ideas of some dissenting
voices: from Hocart through Weber to Dumont. Nearly all, however, have continued to look on their version
of caste as a post-tribal society of natural ties that constitutes the distinctive essence of India (p.83).
More or less among similar lines, by referring to appropriate authors, Inden provides a critical look at the
other pillars that constitute the other pillars of the Indological discourse: the belief that understanding
Hinduism is to grasp the nature of the Hindu mind (chapter #3); that the essence of India is in her villages
(chapter #4); and that the oriental despot provided the key to understanding her political structure (chapter
#5). In the last chapter, Inden attempts at a reconstruction of medieval India by using the philosophical
resources adumbrated in the first chapter.
In my assessment, his last chapter is by far the best in the book; the first chapter, the worst. For the
purposes of this discussion, however, I will ignore both: the last chapter because Indens reconstruction is in
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a preliminary phase and we should all wait and see what kind of a theory will come out before indulging in
an assessment; the first chapter because it is counter-productive to have a philosophical fight at this stage.
How could a debate about philosophical presuppositions be counter-productive when the meat of Indens
bookand his messageis precisely about the need for examining the metaphysic of social scientific discourse?
How, furthermore, could Inden write such an important and exciting book while giving himself over to excavating and discussing philosophical assumptions of Indological discourse?
Indens Critique of Caste

Reconsider the two dominant theories prevalent in the Indological discourses as Inden outlines them: a
racialist theory and the idealistic one. Both attempt to explain the origin of Caste by assuming its antiquity.
Apart from their cognitive inadequacies as explanations of social phenomena, their status as theories get
discredited if it turns out that what they explain never existed i.e., if Caste does not have such an antiquity
at all. Inden, in fact, states asmuch by referring to his early work on the Bengali kinship:
(T)he distinctive institution of Indian civilization does not appear until the thirteenth or fourteenth century,
at the earliest; and castes are not the cause of the weakness and collapse of Hindu kingship, but the effect of
it. (p.82)
Such a discussion about objective-level accounts is both productive and important. But Inden wants to push
the discussion one step further and go to the roots of these images themselves. Such would be possible, if
these images have some one foundation. My suggestion is that they do not.
To appreciate this suggestion better, consider the fact that the Indologist discourse over the last few hundred
years does entertain the image of Caste-dominated India. How has this image sustained itself? Why is there
such a wide-spread acceptance of this datum among intellectuals? Here is one way to account for this state
of affairs. Thinkers from succeeding generations have read either books or have read/heard in the media
that Caste is a non-dynamic social fossil, or whatever. Some among them treat this as a fact requiring
explanation, build their theories to do so; subsequent generations look at the earlier, unsuccessful theories
and try to improve upon them, and so on. Thus, over a period of time, a commonsense claim crystallizes as
a factnow it is also a fact of these theories.
This possibility shall definitely have occurred to Inden and, perhaps, he rejects it because it is too banal.
He tries to look for a deeper explanation and finds it in the metaphysics of essences. However, this is no
explanation at all, deeper or otherwise. Why not?
First, an empirical example. Marcus Olson jr. wrote a book a few years ago titled The Rise and Decline
of Nations (Yale University Press, 1982). He is neither an anthropologist nor an Indologist, appeals to the
writings of Nehru among other things, but one of his problems too is: how to account for the social fossil
that Caste is supposed to be? Nehru, as Inden argues, may have been a prisoner of the metaphysics of
essences; Olson, by no stretch of imagination, is. Olsons explanandum happens to be Nehrus fact as well as
the Indologistss characteristic description. Olson merely takes it as a problem requiring a solution without
enquiring into the process of how it was made into a problem. In fact, Olson even believes that the power
of his theory could be measured by the number of problems it solves including the unsolved problem of
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explaining Caste. So do the sociobiologically oriented sociologists like Pierre van de Berghe (The Ethnic
Phenomena, Elsevier, 1981), for instance. Individuals active in one field of social science take over problems
(which might later turn out to be pseudo-problems) and facts from their colleagues active in other domains
whenever they believe they have built a theory which can successfully solve a number of problems hitherto
unsolved.
The forced reconstruction of Indology as a prisoner of a particular metaphysic can succeed in the face of
such empirical examples and practices only if it is the case that taking over a fact or a problem also entails
taking over the metaphysic. That is to say, if the relation between a theory about some phenomena both
entails and is entailed by a specific metaphysic. Can such a claim be made today?
At first sight, it appears as though there is a very tight relationship between how we describe the world
and what we take to be present in the world. Someone who believes that the world is made up of spirits is
not likely to come up with the relativity theory, of course. While true, it does not tell us what kind of a
theory such a person is likely to come up with either. Maximally, when alternative theories and ontologies
are present and known to us, we can anticipate some kinds of impossibilities regarding a description of the
world that such a person could provide. More generally put, we do not have a great deal of clarity about
the nature of the relationship between meta-theoretical assumptions and theories about objects in the world.
We do believe that our philosophies have a heuristic function with respect to developing scientific theories.
But more than that is very difficult to maintain today.
The empirical history of natural sciences, as well as the plurality of the philosophies of sciences, are the
best examples of our problem. Surely, it cannot be held that each practitioner of different scientific theories
over the last three hundred years or more entertained the same meta-theoretical assumptions. If anything
is knowledge at all, theories in natural sciences are that. Their growth and development itself constitutes a
philosophical problemsubject to different meta-scientific treatments ranging from inductivist arguments to
problem solving accounts.
The first reason why Indens diagnosis fails to be convincing is this: Why should either Indology or human
sciences be any different in this regard?
Close on the heels of this question comes the second. Assume, counterfactually, that Indens portrayal of
Indological accounts is acceptable. That is to say, Inden is able to show us textuallysomething which, in
his book, often turns around whether or not same author uses the word essentially, as thought this betrays
a commitment to essencesthat he can make interpretative sense of these authors by using certain philosophical assumptions. What does this demonstrate? Not that Indologists have entertained certain beliefs
about the world but that Indens proposals appear to be heuristically powerful. We can test Indens claim
about Indology by deriving (in some suitably diluted sense of the word) the Indological theories from the
assumptions.
In other words, Indens proposal could only be convincing if we have some kind of a theory which tell us
what the relationship between our meta-theoretical commitments and our descriptions of the world. None
has such a theory today. In its absence, to lay even a part of the blame at the doorstep of a set of philosophical assumptions can hardly convince. It is a gratuitous act.
Neither empirically nor theoretically could one argue that embracing some metaphysic or the other has necessary repercussions on object-level theories about some aspect of the world. A group could hold on to one
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theory and yet differ in metaphysical commitments (e.g. quantum physicists); a group could hold on to
different theories and yet subscribe to one and the same metaphysic (Inden accepts this claim). That is why
I find philosophical discussions at this stage (when we have no serious theories in the field) a waste of time.
Consider the same issue from another angle, which Inden himself suggests. He claims that the social scientific
discourse is a prisoner of the metaphysic he identifies. Let us accept this claim at its face-value. In what
does the identity and unity of Indological, as distinct from the social scientific, discourse consist of? Because
the same metaphysic is operative elsewhere, the specificity of the Indological discourse lies in the object
of its study, viz., India. In that case, why is there a positive description of the West and a negative one
of India? One cannot lay blame on philosophical assumptionsthey are the same in the social sciences as
a whole. Consequently, the blame can only be laid on the individual practitioners of Indology: they were
racist, prejudiced, biased, ... While this is one way of holding these practitioners responsible, Inden wants
to hear nothing of such judgments, as he repeatedly makes clear:
Throughout his book I have argued that the problem with orientalism is not just one of bias or bad motives,
hence, confined to itself (p. 264).
What is the second possibility? The Indologists were not individually prejudiced or racist but, as a group,
they were expressions of the bourgeois imperialist class interests. They were objectively serving the interests of the imperialist powers. This possibility too is rejected by Inden. (Even though, let it be noted, he
himself leans toward such an explanation albeit covering it up with the talk of knowledge formations and
hegemonic intellectuals and their texts)
This third possibility is to locate the biased and prejudiced descriptions in the Indologists desire to discover
otherness and alienness in Indian culture. That may well be true; but the question remains: why did they
speak of otherness in the manner they did?
Indens answer, as I read his book, is simplistic. It had to do with the dominant metaphors in terms of
which the West understood itself. The western intellectuals perceived their culture as exemplifying a male
with a world-ordering rationality contrasted to which stood the other as negation. It is, of course, difficult
to demonstrate that all these intellectuals did really think of both themselves and others in terms of these
metaphors. Be it as that may, there are two distinct issues here. First: Inden is right in suggesting that
the kind of otherness which one can conceive of depends on how the self itself has been conceived. The
second issue is where to localize the terms of self-description. My claim is that one has to look at object-level
theories. Neither their underlying metaphysic, nor even these metaphors help us much.
The reason for this is not far to seek. The relation between theories and metaphors is not a one-way traffic.
Metaphors have proved to be powerful heuristics in the process of producing and popularizing theories. But
the expressive abilities of metaphors depend on what kind of theories we have at our disposal as well. From
a commonsense point of view today, order and chaos might appear as two poles of a description, but you
would not think so any more if you knew the theory of Fractals. Consequently, to judge whether worldordering rationality is responsible for the description of the Indian culture as a female irrationality, we first
need to look at object-level theories held by the practitioners during that period. How the West looked at
caste system is parasitic upon its ideas of what social groups were; how its intellectuals treated Hinduism
will be non-trivially dependent on what religion was to them; etc.
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Is Inden doing the same? Yes and no. The yes is evident, but the no is more important: he criticizes some
alleged common metaphysical presuppositions instead of focusing on object-level constructions. The commonality in the Wests multiple descriptions of India cannot be shown by some fancy footwork. It requires
nothing less than building a theory about the western culture itself and a tendentious hermeneutic exercise
is no substitute for it.
3. Halbfass and Inden: About Limitations
While discussing Halbfass book, I made the point that he appears oblivious to the cultural nature of the
hermeneutic encounter between India and Europe. To show how and in what sense such a dialogue is cultural, we need theories about cultures which give us insights into the nature of cultural differences. In Indens
account too, this sensitivity to cultural difference is missing. Like Halbfass, he too is aware that the Indian
intellectuals have mostly taken over as their self-description those that the West has provided (p.38). His
answer to this puzzle, one supposes, is that Indians have taken over the metaphysic of their western counterparts. No doubt, colonialism (in one way or another) would be a very important part of an explanation.
But the very idea that cultural differences could be a part of the explanans appear inadmissible to Inden (cf.
p. 263).
From any point of view, this is extraordinary. We have two books on our hands that focus on the contact
between two cultures and talk about the images that one culture has built up of the other. But they are
either oblivious to (Halbfass) or dismissive of (Inden) the possibility that it could have much to do with the
cultural differences between India and the West.
I cannot hope to argue for this point in any detail here; but it may be worthwhile to register here that I
have begin constructing such a description which does not trivialize the nature of cultural differences. (The
Heathen in his blindness: Asia, the West and the dynamic of religion, 1994.) What I can do, however, is to
indicate what it means to ask for what I am asking by looking very briefly at Indens treatment of Hinduism.
Inden on Hinduism
In the process of understanding India, the European savants went in search of a religion that underlay its
social organization. In this process, they constituted Hinduism (p.89), broke it into elements and mapped
it onto three groups in the Indian society: Brahmanism, the religion of the priests, viz., the brahmins;
the popular Hinduism, which expressed the piety of the laity, and a crude, animistic religion meant for
the illiterate. Inden chronicles the history of this Hinduism as it was penned by the European scholars. A
sectarian phase of excesses, during which period there was a decline and degeneration of Hinduism.
As Inden tells the story, the Europeans did not merely look for the religion of another culture. They also
looked for another religionan other from their ownthat could explain the alienness of Indian culture. The
contrast set to the male world-ordering rationality ( p.86) of the European culture, says Inden, was found
in the essentially feminine, sponge-like, amorphous entity that Hinduism was.
Mills chapter on the religion of Hindusin his Historyand the Wilsons Indological comments on it provide
the framework for the orientalist discourse. What is that framework? It is actually a combination of two
things: an explanation about the origin of religion (viz. the transformation of natural forces into divine
entities) coupled with a pejorative description of Hinduism. This combination does create a problem: if
religion is an explanatory attempt (the so-called intellectualist description of religion), how to understand
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the absence of any coherent system of belief in Hinduism? The answer to this question, says Inden, was
provided by the German Romantics and Hegel.
That answer had to do with combining the development of religion with faculty psychology: religious consciousness grows from an inferior form of reason to its explicit articulation in reason proper. As a natural
religion, Hinduism was a product of imagination; the latter itselfas a faculty of human psychewas under the
sway of emotions. Inden detects the multi-layered picture of soul in contemporary authors like Levi-Strauss
and in those many studies of myth as well (p. 96).
In the subsequent pages, Inden tries to show how the European descriptions of Brahamnism, popular
Hinduism, and the animistic religion of the illiterate are accommodated within the framework of Mill. Brahmanism appeared, as the Europeans described it, to have a double essence:
In the first instance, it is an over-elaborated cosmic ritualism; in the final instance, it is a radical idealism
or mysticism. There is not the orderly world made by King Reason and his Prime Minister Will. It is the
disordered, extreme world conjured by the mistress of the senses, Imagination ( p.104).
Popular Hinduism, appropriately enough, grows from the more elite religion. Concomitantly, it focuses the
piety of the laity by using icons, images and such like. In one version, Brahmins catered to the superstitious
masses; in another, they popularized their own creeds to meet the religious needs of the masses (p. 112).
As the Indological research progressed and knowledge about India accumulated, a third religion was revealed
to exist beneath the earlier two: a sacrificial and animistic cult seen severally as a native religion of the
Dravidians which shaped Hinduism or as an archaic survival.
In the subsequent part, Inden looks at several authors from Jung to Sudhir Kakar, who have taken over the
notion of an essentially feminine Hindu mind.
On Indens Critique
To know the religion of the Hindus, it was and is still believed, is to grasp the nature ( or mind ) of their
civilization. This belief, however, has no special relationship with either Hinduism or any world-ordering
rationality. Rather, it is part of a much more pervasive, deeply rooted idea (which, nota bene, Inden shares
as well) that religion is a constitutive element of human cultures. This assumption has a history of at least
two thousand years in the Westand it partially constitutes the West as a culture. Not merely does this
belief about religion make the West into a culture, but the latters constitution as a culture is itself a history
of what religion is to this culture.
Neither James Mills treatment of Hinduism, nor the so-called intellectualist explanation of the same, nor
even the historian Spears portrayal of Hinduism as an amorphous entitynone of these is a characteristic
description of either Hinduism or the female that Indian culture is supposed to be.
For a nearly two hundred and fifty years (from Herbert of Cherbury to Freud), the question of the origin of
religion was a hotly debated issue in the West. What a Spear or a Mill said about Hinduism was said long
ago by others of paganism and heathendom. Mill, contra Inden (p. 70), set neither the terms nor provide
the framework of presuppositions for describing the nature of the Hindu religion. He himself inherited all of
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these from the debates about the nature of religion. As long as we do not understand why the issue of the
origin of religion was important to this culture and what its importance was, we are simply doomed to lay
the blame at the doorsteps of a spurious metaphysic, mysterious class interests, or whatever else takes your
fancy.
Again, the description of the priests of Hinduism was not specially coined for the Brahmins. This too has
a heraldry and a tradition within Europe. Its ancestry stretches back to the Greeks; using such theories to
attak heathen priests is as old as Christianity itself.
The point I want to make is the following: the multiple constructions of hinduism, those several descriptions
of the brahmin priests (including the pejorative terminology) were developed within Europe, applied internally in its culture first. This process resulted in the elaboration of a theoretical framework, which was
later used to describe other cultures, including the Indian.
If we lose sight of internal developments in Europe, we are likely to misread (the way Inden does) what
European intellectuals did with respect to Hinduism and, more importantly, why they did so. Bu the same
token, one reproduces the same intellectual mistakes without realizing what these mistakes were.
In other words, Indological discourse was to a very great extent determined by the kind of issues that European culture was struggling with. These issues and their resolutions has made Europe into a culture, and
Indological discourse expresses the different phases in the self-constitution of the European culture.
Understanding such issues, however, requires doing something that neither Halbfass nor Inden do. It requires
looking at the participants in this encounter (especially the western intellectuals) as individuals-in-a-culture.
They are not supra-humans embodying a set of metaphysic (which seems to float around in a non-cultural
world but highly catching as a disease) or raising some deep hermeneutic questions in vacuum. It requires
too that the chronicle penned by Inden and Halbfass be retold: as a story of one cultures way understanding
the other; seeing, in such a story, how the West has become a culture; framing such a story not in some
culture-free term (for, that indeed is the self-image of the West as a culture) but showing how the West has
so far always looked at the other in terms of its self-image. Contra Inden, this is what has happened so
far: the western culture never grasped the otherness of another culture. The others have been but the pale
and erring variants of itself. If anything is characteristic of the western culture, it has been the above. Inden
treads the same path as well.
Halbfass and Inden have written excellent books. If I have dwelt on some of their weak points, it is because
such a criticism has a purpose today. It is to say that until intellectuals from other cultures start providing
partial descriptions of the world against the background of their own cultures, our understanding is not likely
to grow.
Both Halbfass and Inden would agree with this sentiment. They would concur too in the assessment of what
has been produced by intellectuals from elsewhere: either a mimentic reproduction of western quasi-theories
or a third rate rehash of more abominable ideas from the western commonsense.
The publication of these two books could turn out to be an event in the history of Indology and anthropology. It will be an intellectual non-event, however, if all we are going to get hereafter is a mini-Inden
in Delhi and a mini-Halbfass in Bombay. This critical notice is hoped as a contribution to the formerbut
whether intellectuals from India (and elsewhere) will feel challenged by the inadequacies and dead-ends of
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the intellectual traditions these two books represent is something that only future can tell.
Wilhelm HALBFASS, India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding. Albany, New York: State University
of New York Press, 1988.
Ronald INDEN, Imagining India. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990.
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Cultural difference: temporality (2011-03-05 08:46)
Experiences are structured differently in different cultures. We believe that it is possible to give a true description of this difference, at some level or the other, as a difference regarding the experience of time itself.
Consider the traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. One of the central notions in these traditions
is that of temporality. That is, they believe that all events, processes, and objects are transient, irreversible,
and fleeting. From this experience of transience and very few assumptions about human psychology, these
traditions have quasi-derived some of the most fascinating doctrines that we know of. It is worthwhile to
contrast these with Judeo-Christian traditions, where this kind of temporality plays no role. It is possible to
explain the actions of people in these cultures, at some level of adequacy, by appealing to their conceptions
and/or experiences of time. One can research on the question does not their experience of transience play
a causal role in the actions they perform?
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Introspection
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vs.
reflection
upon
experience S.N.Balagangadhara
(2011-03-05 09:05)
In this post, I want to reflect on what it means to think about experience. Perhaps, not so much on what
these words mean but what is entailed by (or what happens when we indulge in) this kind of activity. I think
the best way to begin this analysis is by asking the following two questions about an activity familiar to most
of us: what do we do when we think about ourselves? Do we do it the right way? Let me begin with the
first question and postpone looking at the second for a later stage, including how we should understand it.
Because most of us know how we think about ourselves most of the times, I will take a trivial example and
skip over certain explanations and analyses. The holes in my reasoning can either be filled by our memories
or by discussing them at a later stage.
Let us suppose, and it is true by the way, that I lose my temper rather quickly. This makes me say unfortunate things which I regret later on or wish I had not said. Repetitive experiences of such situations
make me want to control either my temper or control my tongue when I lose my temper. However, my
experiences have also taught me that I fail in doing both: infinite self-admonitions do not help; endless
number of promises (that I shall not speak when angry or I shall not get angry) does not work. The only
result of these efforts is being saddled with a huge sense of remorse, self-directed anger, and an increasing
sense of helplessness. I know there is much at stake: I have had fights, hurt people needlessly and messed up
relationships, and so on. Yet, nothing, not even a study of books on psychology, seems to help except feed
the sense of helpless rage.
Not many options are open to me: I could hope for a miracle medication (there is medication for attacks
of rage but none for short temper) or undergo psychoanalysis. The first is not there yet and, for whatever
reason, I do not take the second option. Books in Biology tell me that this anger is the animal part of me
and that some or another chemical is produced too quickly in the brain. Even if this trait has survival value
to my species, it is a handicap for me. So, it appears that I have to live with it, but precisely that is my
problem: I cannot and do not want to live with my short temper.
So, I seek help by thinking about myself and by talking to others about my problem. Neither helps: thinking
about myself, which includes detailed analyses of the situations where I have lost my temper, either makes
me feel utterly despondent or even more guilty; sage advice of friends of counting tell ten before speaking
turns out to be impracticable: if I have the presence of mind to count till ten when I am angry, I would also
have the presence of mind not to say the nasty things I say. This last fact, that I say nasty things too, adds
an extra-weight to my self-recriminations: why do I talk (and behave) like an uncivilized brute? Perhaps, I
am one such nasty creature even though I know in the heart of hearts that I am not so. My situation could
be put in simple terms: I have a problem I cannot live with but I do not know (and nobody else seems to,
either) how to get rid of it. At best, all I can do is to look at others and envy them: for the control they are
able to exercise; for the kind of creatures they are but, alas, I am not. This, of course, makes the situation
even worse: why cannot I do it, while they obviously can?
I have said enough, I trust, to ring familiar bells in you. This is something we all know and share and, most
of us, in some or another aspect of our psychology, would have felt this at some stage or another. We are
familiar too with the endless loop these kinds of problems generate and the extra burdens they place on us.
We become the most difficult persons to live with for ourselves. Somehow, we are very unhappy with the
way we are and punish ourselves for that. We believe that we could be different; we genuinely wish we would
change; we have the required intensity of desire and tons of motivation. Yet, all of these are to no avail. The
beast simply refuses. Why?
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To answer this simple why, we need to achieve some clarity first. Let us do that by noticing that two kinds
of problems are entwined in the above description: (a) there is the problem of my short temper and what I
do when I lose my temper; (b) there is the set of problems and feelings generated by the way I think about
myself. If you look at the description closely, or look into how you think about yourself carefully, you will
discover something remarkable: most of the problems that make my living so painful are generated by this
way of thinking about me and not by my short temper. That is to say, it is not how I am that makes living
so painful but how I think about it. The biggest problem is posed by my way of thinking about my existence.
Let me call this familiar way of thinking about myself as introspection. In fact, I would suggest that the
biggest obstacle to self-change is this process of introspection and not how I am.
Even though it is extremely important for my purposes to trace the origin and crystallization of this habit
of introspection, I will skip this bit for now. Let me just say that most of us brought up in the modern cities
of India have made introspection our own by the time we reach the age of 14-16. If we also have the fortune
(or the misfortune) of going abroad, then by the time we reach our thirties we are mired in this mode. It
would have become a natural part of us. We have learnt to continuously introspect.
This process of introspection, which I have learnt exclusively from the West and which has been transmitted
to me through the medium of modern education in India and the socializing process abroad, presupposes
something about human psychology that is remarkable to say the least. It tells me that this short temper
of mine expresses something unique about me and tells the world at large (including me) what kind of a
creature I am. Consequently, if I want to change and grow or want to become a different person than who
I am at the moment, I have to transform this short temper and all such unique qualities that I possess.
That means to say, introspection presupposes that the unique nature of my existence is contained in and
expressed by all (and only those) properties (like short temper) that express the unique nature of my person.
To understand myself, I need to understand the nature of these unique qualities; to change myself I need the
help of depth psychology or psychoanalysis, which tell me how to change myself.
What, then, do I share in common with my fellow human beings? Basically, I share the same biological
substratum: genes, cells, body and brain. Of course, these do have their influences on my psychology, but
at the moment we do not know what and how these influence us. In so far as I am a member of society,
the current social psychology tells us, I behave in certain ways which (mostly) do not synchronize with my
individual psychology: I share prejudices of my community; I act irrationally when in a crowd and violently
when a part of a mob and so on. In short, the social and cultural psychology tell us about the ways in which
society and culture influence our behavior and thinking, which, of course, is mostly different from the way
I am. What I am is a confluence of all the unique properties that I have.
As I have said often, this is only one picture about who we are and what we are. This is a story that one
culture has produced about human beings. These are not facts about ourselves or about the way we are,
even though we believe in their truth. Let me use a metaphor to describe this image about human beings:
our biological inheritance forms the foundation of who we are. Above this foundation, a structure gets built.
This structure expresses our unique nature and our individual psychology. In one sense, we are this structure.
Changing ourselves requires changing this structure. Introspection involves delving into this structure; depth
psychology and psychoanalysis dig deeper into this structure and relate layers from this structure to each
other. The lower we go in this structure, the more we share with other human beings. The higher we go,
the more unique we are. Thus, in the last analysis, depth psychology and psychoanalysis relate the structure
to some or another layer that is common either across a small group of people (people who were abused
during their childhood) or across a bigger layer (the incestuous hunger of a son for his mother). Whatever
the explanation, the point is this: this structure is who we are and any analysis can only relate some layers
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(or some elements) of this structure to other layers or elements from the same structure. This is the image
behind the process of introspection we are so familiar with.
Two things standout in this regard: (a) the higher I go in the structure, the more unique I am because I
share less with other human beings; (b) my uncontrollable short temper is undoubtedly how something
which I share with other human beings is expressing itself at the apex of such a structure. That is why I
seem unable to do anything about it. Thus, the apex of the structure is at the same time an expression of
my unique nature and also how something else, which is less unique (and therefore what I share with other
human beings) is expressing itself. Then, my problem is with this structure itself: the way I am uniquely I.
In short, my problem is precisely with what I take to be my uniqueness!
This argument appears as a form of reductio ad absurdum of the idea underlying the process of introspection
which I have expressed in the form of imagery. On the one hand, I am driven to build and put great weight
on the structure I have built because it expresses the unique nature of my being. On the other hand, it is
precisely this unique structure that makes me so unhappy because it looks as though it is not sufficiently
unique or unique enough. On the one hand, I aspire to be unique; on the other, no matter how much I try, I
cannot be unique enough to earn that sobriquet. This makes my life a hell. It makes me unhappy. It makes
it impossible for me to live with myself. Thus, I have no other choice except to commit suicide.
Hopefully, we can now understand why I said earlier on that the problem lies not in how I am but with
how I think about myself: the problem lies not in my short temper but with introspection. It is this way of
thinking that is creating the problem and not my being. If that is the case, is there another way to think
about ourselves? Can we think about ourselves without introspecting?
Our Indian traditions, with their psychological theory about human beings, and our practices (which still
dominate village life) give an affirmative answer to these two almost synonymous questions: yes, there is.
Let me sketch the outline of that answer (as I understand it today) using the same imagery I used before,
namely, that of a foundation and a structure erected above it. And I will continue to use my short temper
as an example.
Suppose that I was born a hundred years ago in Bangalore or born in a village in the interior of Karnataka
about 58 years ago. Let us suppose too that I had the same short temper and the same uncontrollable
tongue. How would my social circle have looked at it and taught me to go-about with it? After umpteen
attempts to help me control my short temper, my parents would have given up on me as well. However, in
the course of this process, and as result of their failure, they would have also given me nick name: it could
have either referred to the sage Durvasa or to Rudra. In any case, my entire family and my circle of friends
would have known about this: Balu has short temper. But, they would have added, this is how he is, but
he means no harm and does not mean things he says when he loses his temper. As I got socialized, I would
also learn that this is how I am and that there is little I can do about it. As I grew old and acquired
nieces and nephews, they too would know: their uncle is short tempered but is otherwise a sweet and lovable
man. In short, both the social circle and I would have learnt to accept it as an idiosyncrasy of mine. In
the same way someone has a nervous tic, some other person is afraid of spiders, Balu has short temper. My
nick name would precede me and I would pay no high price for it. I would learn to live with it without
being obsessed about it. My society and my culture would teach me that the structure that gets built on the
foundation consists of such idiosyncrasies of people and not worth fretting about. Everyone is, in this sense,
idiosyncratic and mine happens to be my short temper.
Notice what has happened in this process. What the western culture teaches us as an expression of the unique
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nature of our beings is seen in India as nothing but a cluster of idiosyncrasies. One does not introspect about
the latter but only regarding the former. The latter is almost inconsequential; the former constitutes the
core of our being. This is one of the reasons why there is almost no introspective literature in India and
hardly any deep autobiographies that analyze motives, desires and so on the way western autobiographies
do.
In such a culture, what does thinking about oneself consist of then if it is not the same as introspection? If
idiosyncrasies are not worth thinking about, what do we think about if we want to think about ourselves?
The answer is obvious: you can only think about what you share with your fellow human beings (and perhaps
even other organisms). That is, you think about the foundation. Reflection about oneself is to reflect about
the nature of human beings. To the extent you are an exemplar of the human species, the knowledge you
have of your self is the knowledge that you have of other human beings. If you are short tempered, greedy
or whatever else, your reflections can only be about the nature of anger and the nature of greed. In short,
as you go through life and to the extent you think about your self, you are thinking about fellow human
beings and the psychology we all share. The further you push this reflection the more you understand human
beings. The more you understand the latter, the more you understand your self.
In short, what the Indian culture transmits is this kind of self-reflection. It does not simply tell you that you
ought to indulge in such reflections. But if you want to, there are multiple tried and tested ways to do this:
the varied paths to enlightenment (in the Indian sense) are those tried and tested paths to self-knowledge.
That is why this path does not pain you, does not harm you and does not make you unhappy. It is the route
to happiness.
From the contrast I am drawing, we can also distil some general guidelines regarding the difference between
introspection on the one hand and reflection about ourselves on the other. When do we know when we
are introspecting and when we are thinking about ourselves? Clearly, the objects of reflection are different:
introspection focuses on the structure, self-knowledge focuses on the foundation. The manner of thinking is
also different: introspection seeks to relate the layers of the structure to each other, whereas self-knowledge
focuses on developing hypotheses to account for elements in the foundation. The experience of this thinking
too is different: introspection generates pain (and such allied emotions); self-knowledge makes you happier.
They also exhibit different kinds of movement: introspection generates a loop and you move without going
anywhere and returning to the same point again and again; in self-knowledge there is progress because the
nature of the problems changes with each solution you find. The experience you have of the movement is
different as well: introspection sends you down a bottomless pit, whereas self-knowledge generates the sense
of escape from a cage. Even the experience of your being is different: the more the introspection, the heavier
you feel and more load you have to carry. In self-knowledge by contrast, there is a feeling of lightness because
the load gets shed and each additional step becomes only the lighter for it. In short, there are two sets of
criteria that you can develop: a cognitive set and an experiential set.
The reason why I have gone into this matter is this: the idea of reflection on experience makes sense only
in relation to a way of thinking that is not introspection. Introspection does not make experience accessible
at all; instead, it takes us away from experience. Introspection creates a self-sustaining loop and confines us
to a place, where there is no experience at all but only an endless series of imaginary thoughts. The first
step in learning to think about experience is to break free of the habit of introspection and desist reflecting
on our own individual thoughts, individual feelings and individual sensations.
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Avidya,
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Ajnana,
Ignorance:
learning
process
S.N.Balagangadhara
(2011-03-05 09:17)
1. When we speak about ignorance, we can do so in two ways. One is by talking about how the world
is; the other is by talking about how we think the world is. Even though we could use both ways to
characterize ignorance, they are not coextensive (or synonyms) because (a) they are about different
things in the first case it is about the world; in the second case it is about what we take to exist in
the world and, therefore, (b) they have different consequences.
Let me illustrate this difference by taking up the snake-rope metaphor. The first way says how the
world is: there is a rope on the path. The second talks about what we take to exist in the world:
she believed that there was a snake on the path. What caused the person to shudder? Her belief that
there was a snake on the path. This distinction is easily understood in this case because we are able to
neatly partition the two halves: what there is in the world and what we believe to exist in the world.
2. Our problem begins when we go to the next stage of questioning: how do we explain our reactions in
the world? Let us use the snake-rope metaphor again: (i) she did not at all know what was there on
the path; (ii) she did not know that there was a rope was on the path; (iii) she believed that a snake
was on the path. However, why shudder? The fact that she did not at all know what was there on the
path does not explain the event of shuddering: if you do not know what there is, you do not shudder
(assuming some facts about human psychology). Neither does the second possibility explain: if you do
not know that a rope was on the path, you do not shudder either. However, provided we know that
she shuddered, we can look elsewhere for an explanation for the shudder. If we do not at all know
how the person reacted, then the sentence (she did not know there was a rope on the path) appears
incomplete: why talk about what she did not know? For this sentence to be complete, we need to
know how the person responded. If we know this, and also know what there is in the world, then the
second possibility functions as a heuristic in looking for explanations. Like all heuristics, this sentence
appeals to what we assume to be true about human psychology.
So, the first possibility, namely she did not know what was there on the path, merely tells us what she
did not know. However, this sentence cannot explain anything, even if we knew how the person reacted.
Nor does it tell us where to look for an explanation. If we are merely told that the person did not know
what was on the path and that the person shuddered, we can come up with any explanation: the
person might have suddenly felt chilly; the person might have remembered some incident; the person
might have seen a ghost; and so on. Assuming that a person was walking on the path, the sentence
takes the following form: she shuddered and did not know what was on the path. Could we say she
shuddered because of the ignorance of what was on the path? We cannot: to say this, we have to
further assume that the shudder had to do with what was there on the path. But this is merely an
assumption on our part; we do not know this to be true. So all we can do is take the sentence at its
face value and let the conjunction (and) function purely linguistically: the person did not know what
was on the path and he shuddered.
In the second case, by telling us what was there on the path, namely a rope, and telling us that the
person did not know this, the sentence suggests that we need to relate the shudder to something
on the path. That is to say, the second possibility tells us more. It tells us that the response has
something to do with what was on the path, viz., a rope and that it has also something to do with
the ignorance of the person about that fact. If we draw upon our knowledge of human psychology to
explain the shudder, then we can begin formulating the problem: what could appear like a rope and
cause a shudder in a human being? In this sense, this sentence forces us to look for something else
that explains the shudder and puts some minimal constraints on what that explanation should look
like. But this constraint is minimal: it merely allows us to assume that the fact that he does not know
the truth about the world has something to do with his response. However, neither of the two explains
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on its own in the sense that we need to add additional premises, if we have to explain the shudder.
This is what ignorance is: absence of knowledge.
However, there is an interesting difference between these two cases. In the first case, ignorance, or
absence of knowledge, is with respect to what there is in the world. Were we to know how we react in
the world and also know which aspect of the world we react to, even then, we cannot choose between
the different explanations as to why we react the way we do. We would also not know where to look
for that right explanation. We know that the person shuddered and we also know that the person
did not know what was on the path. But it is not clear whether the person reacted to something on
the path and what, if any, her ignorance (or absence of knowledge) about that aspect of the world had
to do with the act of shuddering. In other words, the mere fact of ignorance about some aspect of the
world and our responses in the world does not tell us what, if any, is the relationship between some
aspect of the world and our responses to it. We would suspect that there is a problem to be solved
(or that we should provide an explanation) without knowing what precisely that problem is. We get
an ill-defined problem where we have to answer questions about our reactions. Our ignorance about
some aspect of the world does not even contribute to defining the problem-situation. That is to say,
our problem becomes one of explaining why some person shudders. That persons lack of knowledge
about what there was on the path merely tells us where that incident took place; it is not even obvious
that the path has anything to do with the event of shuddering.
With respect to suffering, this possibility is akin to the following: you are suffering and you do not
know the nature and structure of the Cosmos. It might be the case they are related; it might be the
case they are unrelated. All you have on your hands is the following: why are you suffering? We do
not know where to look for the answer.
The second case narrows our field of search. It tells us that we are ignorant of some specific fact about
some specific aspect of the world. Or it characterizes our ignorance as an absence of some specific
knowledge item. It circumscribes our ignorance in terms of the truth about the world: the world is
structured in some way (there is a rope on the path) and that we are ignorant of this structure.
Because of this circumscription, this functions as a heuristic. It tells us to draw upon the knowledge
we already have about the relevant aspects of the world (our ideas about human psychology) to frame
the problem. It does not explain or solve the problem of the shudder but it tells you about the likely
place you have to search in, if you want a solution.
With respect to suffering, the above takes the following form: you are suffering because you do not
know things are transient and impermanent. We can appreciate why this puts only minimal constraints
on our explanation because we can easily imagine a response that goes as follows: of course, I know
things are transient and impermanent; that is why I lost my wife to death. Hence the reason for my
suffering . We can also imagine an analogous response with respect to our metaphor: of course I know
that it is a rope; that is why I shudder; the rope makes me think of the gallows. In other words, even if
we were to supplant ignorance of some particular fact with knowledge about the same, our explanation
could turn out to be wrong. We need to further assume that the assumptions we make about human
psychology also hold true in particular cases.
3. She shudders because she thinks there is a snake. Now, if we know the structure of the world (or
believe we know it), we can characterize this is a false belief. There are two important things to note
here. First: the belief might be false, but she believes that it is true (at that moment). That is to say,
the presence of this belief and assumption she makes about its truth are required to explain why she
shudders. Second: one can say that this belief is false provided we know either (a) there could have
been no snake there or (b) there was a rope. This either/or is not the same: in one case we know that
there could be no snake (even if we do not know what else was there); in the other we know what there
is.
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4. In the snake-rope metaphor, the absence of knowledge does not/cannot explain the shudder; false belief
does. This is the point I have been repeatedly making. Indeed, one of the explanations for suffering in
the world is the set of (false) beliefs which we entertain because we think they are true: the I is the
body, the mind, wealth, power, status, etc.
5. When I speak of ignorance conceived negatively, I have the absence of knowledge mind. I say that
this does not explain suffering (any more than it explains the shudder in the snake-rope metaphor).
However, when I want to speak of ignorance conceived as a positive force, I want to talk of something
entirely different. I am trying to answer the following question: why do people, across generations and
cultures, come to have the same sets of commonsense beliefs about who they are? I mean to ask: why
is it that every human being (more or less) learns that the I is the body, the mind, wealth, power,
status? This question opens up a hornets nest. Let me outline some of the issues.
6. In the first place, we have to describe a learning process as something that produces false beliefs about
the nature of the I. In some senses, there is something strange about coupling a learning process
with the production of false beliefs. In our language-use, we speak of knowledge as the product of
a learning process. That is to say, we tend to speak of learning only when such a process leads to
knowledge acquisition. Even though unclear about what the relationship between truth and knowledge
is, we relate knowledge to truth and not to falsity. At the minimum, we do not say that some sets
of sentences are false and thus knowledge. In this sense, there is the problem of making sense of a
learning process that produces false beliefs even if the object under question is the I.
One way of solving this problem is to suggest that we constantly formulate hypotheses about the world
to account for what we see and do. Then we have a situation where we make best guesses about the
world (our hypotheses), which we entertain only as long as they are not proved false or better ones do
not come along. Instead of speaking about how knowledgeable we are, we can only speak about how
ignorant we are. Truth becomes the end-goal of our hypothesis production. In this case, we can speak
about learning as an act of hypothesis generation.
7. Whether we take this route or not, there is a second notable problem. To what should we appeal in
order to explain why all people come up with the same (or similar) hypothesis regarding the I ? One of
the strategies used in the natural sciences is the following: postulate a new hypothesis about the same
phenomenon and show how (minimally) the earlier hypothesis and its consequences are derivable from
the new hypothesis. Formulated differently: make a distinction between appearance and reality and
show that the nature of reality generates the structure of the appearance. For instance: we believed in
the geocentric nature of the solar system. By relegating it to the world of appearance, the reality was
shown to be the heliocentric in nature. The appearance (movement) of the sun became a necessary
consequence that required an explanation.
If we take the Indian insights into the nature of the I seriously, we see that this approach will not work.
The reality of the I does not in any sense cause the illusion that the I is the body, the mind, agency,
wealth, power, or whatever else. Consequently, we are forced to rethink the relationship between how
we experience the I and the nature of the I. Our experiences of the I are not the appearances; the
true I is not the reality hidden behind the appearances.
If this is the case, enlightenment is not a movement that traces the effects to their cause. We cannot
describe the experience of the I as a logical consequence of the structure of the I. These two belong
to different realms or levels without a causal or a logical relationship between them. Nevertheless, it is
possible to move from the level of experience to the other level.
Thus, the Indian traditions cannot possibly claim that our experiential world is an illusion, underlying
which there is the real world. Therefore, Maaya cannot be an illusion and unreal. In so far as
Maaya is responsible for our daily experiences in the world, if anything, Maaya would be real and
be a cause of our experiential world. This brings us to the next problem.
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8. We have now two sets of questions. One pertains to the generation of false beliefs about the I; the
second is about the nature of reality. Let us begin with the first one. Maaya is itself the learning
process or the learning process is an element (or a component) of Maaya. The learning process
generates certain false beliefs about the world. Either this learning process itself is Maaya or, other
things, components of Maaya, contribute to the generation and fixation (or reproduction) of these
false beliefs. Let us work with this hypothesis for some time and turn our attention to the second set
of questions.
Maaya is real (because it exists) and so are its effects. The I is also real. So, either we talk about
two realities, the false reality and the true reality or we say that existence and reality do not
coincide: what exists is not real just because it exists. So, we have to say, Maaya exists; so do its
effects. But neither is real. Quite apart from saying what reality and existence mean in this context,
we are confronted by yet another weighty problem: that of truth.
9. Consider our commonsense notion of truth, often called the Aristotelian concept of truth, which says
that truth is to describe what is there as it is there. For the moment, let us accept the idea that
truth is a linguistic property of statements. That is to say, let us agree that we can speak sensibly
about whether or not some sentence is true. If we accept this convention, we can say the following: the
statements that describe existence are true; the statements that describe the real are also true. That
is, it is true that the I is body etc because this I exists; it is also true that I is not body etc. because
this I is real. Some statement about the I is either true or false depending on what it describes:
whether it describes what exists or whether it describes what is real. (We need to keep in mind that
both what exists and what is real can be experienced.) We can avoid the problem of speaking about
two kinds of truth, the conventional truth and the Adhyatmic truth, by distinguishing between what
exists and what is real.
10. However, many Indian traditions also use the predicate truth to characterize what is real. The real
is what is permanent, unchanging and unconditioned. It is rather tempting to suggest that such ideas
about the real are derivative of our linguistic intuitions about the nature of truth: a true statement
remains true under all circumstances; a true statement does not become false; and so on. If we go in this
direction, we can understand why the Indian traditions claim that the real is permanent, unchanging
and unconditioned: they have simply projected the linguistic intuitions about truth onto the world. We
can also show that logic and philosophy has progressed since then because we are able to retain these
linguistic intuitions without having to speak about the world in these terms. Furthermore, we can also
give up the distinction between reality and existence. Our ontologies take on manageable forms.
11. Though tempting, the above route faces two kinds of difficulties. The first involves some of the assumptions it makes: (a) with respect to the Indian thinkers, we have made progress in the area they
were busy with; (b) the problems of contemporary philosophy and that of the Indian thinkers are the
same; (c) our language-use almost completely determines our experiences; (d) the experiences of the
Indian thinkers require no further explanation than that they were mistaken; and so on.
The second kind of difficulties has to do with what it cannot explain satisfactorily. (a) Why do the idea
and the process of a search for truth resonate so deeply in the Indian traditions? (b) Why downsize
the possibility that the Indian thinkers were busy in making sense of experience? (c) Why should there
not be an experience of the real I ? (d) How to make sense of the experience of those many Gurus who
also talk in terms similar to those from yesteryears? And so on.
12. This lengthy digression had to do with the hornets nest of philosophical problems opened up by an
earlier suggestion (in point 5): why is it that every human being (more or less) learns that the I is
the body, the mind, wealth, power, status? Answering this question in a satisfactory way requires a
hypothesis that is powerful enough to suggest answers also to some of the problems mentioned above.
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13. Currently, I am working with a hypothesis which includes the two notions of ignorance that the Indian
traditions talk about. The first looks at Ignorance as the absence of knowledge (see point 3). This
kind of ignorance is a precondition for knowledge. We want to have knowledge precisely because we
are ignorant.
14. Then, there is ignorance conceived as a learning process. This learning process is a hindrance to
knowledge because it continually generates false beliefs about the world. The point to note here is not
merely the fact that we have false beliefs. If that is all there is to it, reading a Buddha or a Shankara
would be sufficient to dispel all such beliefs and enlighten us. However, this happens rarely, if at all. We
do not get enlightened by merely reading either the Buddha or the Upanishads because such readings
do not interfere with the learning process that generates false beliefs. As long as this process continues
to function, it reproduces and sustains our false beliefs. To be sure, the Indian traditions often speak
about false beliefs, which knowledge dispels: they use several analogies like the sun and the mist, the
light and darkness, and so on to illustrate this point. In that case, we can consistently talk about
ignorance in terms of beliefs alone: the absence of beliefs about some object and the presence of false
beliefs about the same object. While this would be convenient, it could also makes us forget the more
important question: why is there a necessity for false beliefs, i.e., why do all of us succumb to false
beliefs so easily? In order not to lose this focus, I speak about ignorance as a learning process.
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The reality of elusive man? S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-05 09:22)
Speaking of the greatest mystery of our humanness, Sinari raises the following questions: Why are we
present in the world rather than not being there at all? Why are we present to ourselves as world-experiencers
and world-explorers rather than being simply there as perhaps animals are (p.1) In brief reply to his provocative paper, I would like to reflect on the nature of these queries and with the issue: what would count as an
answer to these questions
1. EXPLANATORY ACCOUNTS AND INTELLIGIBLE CONSIDERATIONS
Let me take a simple example to focus on the issue very quickly. Imagine a non-smoker objecting to others
smoking in his presence. Let us say that we need an account of this objecting behavior: Why does he object
if others smoke in his presence? Consider two kinds of accounts, an explanatory and an intelligible one, given
in answer to the above question.
One could make the objecting response of the non-smoker intelligible by appealing to the (reasonable and
justifiable) beliefs held by him: he believes that smoking is injurious to ones health; that passive smoking
is also a form of smoking; and that he does not desire to injure his health & etc[1]. We can understand
his behavior as an intentional act. Why does this non-smoker object to others smoking in his presence?
Because, so the intelligible account goes on, he believes that & The ellipsis would get filled-in by these
above beliefs. It is important to note that his beliefs are connected to his actions by means of principle(s) of
sound reasoning.
Because I merely want to illustrate the difference between the two kinds of accounts using the same example,
let me introduce myself into this picture as a possessor of some piece of information. Let us suppose that
I am his friend and that one day, in strict confidence (which I am, alas, breaking for the good of science),
he informed me that he cannot stand the smell of smoke. He does not believe that the smell of the smoke
is injurious to ones health at all. Smirking smugly, I now tell you that the cause of his objecting behavior
has nothing to do with his beliefs. Because, I say grinning from ear to ear, he cannot stand the smell of
smoke & [2]
While more could be said about the issue than what I have said, it is neither central nor relevant for my
concerns to do so. The only point is to see that we have two kinds of accounts, an explanatory account and
an intelligible one, each of which appears to focus on different questions. Consider now one possible answer
to Prof. Sinaris questions. We are present in the world rather not being there at all because we have evolved
from certain kind of animal; and that our self-consciousness is an emergent property of a sufficiently complex
system; and the like. Would an evolutionary explanation which appeals to causes constitute a satisfactory
answer? Even though one may be willing countenance it as a part of an answer, to construe it as the complete
answer is to succumb to reductionist temptations if I understand Prof. Sinari correctly. In other words, we
need to give reasons as well in answering the query: why are we there the way we are instead of being there
in another way? It is not just our humanness that must be made intelligible, but also the causal explanation
that springs from it. That is, one must not only be aware of the world as a train of meanings (p.7), realize
that the thereness & of the world & springs & from the subjectivity of the perceiver (ibid.), but also
needs to account for the raison detre and ultimate validity of scientific explanations (p.19). What would
constitute a satisfactory answer to Prof. Sinaris questions? An account which not only appeals to causes
but also makes the latter intelligible. Causes alone are not enough, we need reasons as well. That is to say,
we need an explanatory and intelligible account of why we are there in the world rather than not being there
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at all.
Having established this much, I shall now reverse my argument. I shall argue that the desiderata as an
answer is not so much that it is explanatorily intelligible but that one can ask these questions only because
of the presence of such an account in the background. It is only within the framework of an explanatorily
intelligible account of the world that we can raise such questions, and not otherwise. Its implications will
tell us both about the topicality and the future of philosophical anthropology.
2. EXPLANATORY INTELLIGIBLE ACCOUNT
What would an explanatory intelligible account look like? Consider an account, which suggests or hints that
some sets of actions are intelligible because they instantiate some set of beliefs. And that the relationship
between intending and acting is not only constant but that nothing else interferes between the former
and the latter to such an extent that they virtually become identical. To those from the outside who only
observe the actions, knowledge of these actions is sufficient to draw inferences about the reasons for these
actions. There is only one proviso attached. Because the observers knowledge of these actions is always
framed in some description or the other, one can only read-off the purposes of the actions exhaustively if
the descriptions of these actions are themselves exhaustive. That is to say, a complete and totally accurate
description of the actions is required before we can be said to have a complete knowledge of the reasons for
the actions. Such an account, when it is forthcoming, of such set of actions, if they are possible, of such a
being, if it exists, together will give us an explanatory intelligible account of that being and its actions. The
reason for calling it thus must be obvious: the causes of actions are also its reasons. Further, because each
type of action instantiates one and only purpose, prediction becomes possible as well. The causal law will
be general, predictive power is not reduced, and the causes are intentions of such a being.
Suppose that we now have a doctrine which says the following: such a being exists, such actions exist as well,
but we could never provide a complete description of the actions of such a being. At best, we could have
a very partial and fragmented description of such actions, but we cannot possibly observe all the actions of
that being either. Further it adds that this being has communicated its purposes to us the understandability
of this message is again restricted by descriptive possibilities open to us. In such a case, we have two sources
of knowledge: some set of actions that we try to understand; and the message, which we try to make sense
of. Let us further suppose that this being is The Elusive Man referred to in the title of the paper and
that his actions are the universe. His message is precisely the above doctrine. His Will holds the universe
together and constitutes its cement. His reasons are also the causes such that causal relations express his
intentions.
If and when you have such an account, it makes sense to ask Why are we present in the world rather than
not being there at all? Why are we present to ourselves as world-experiencers and world-explorers rather
than being simply there as perhaps animals are? (p.1) and seek answers to these questions. By now, of
course, you will have realized that I have provided you with an admittedly crude outline of religion. Not
any religion, but the Biblical one.
3. CULTURES AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
This, then, is what I want to argue. Western culture, an appellation that suggests neither monolithicity
nor absence of diversity, has been dominated by religion for more than 1800 years. Religion is not only an
explanatory intelligible account of the cosmos, but also the only we know of. It is important to realize that
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religion makes the cosmos an explanatory intelligible entity, not by providing an account of several set of
phenomena, but by saying that it is so and structuring the experience accordingly [3]. Only because the
world is asserted to exemplify the reasons and purposes of God, could one ask for the reasons and purposes
for the way things are: Why this way and not another way? As time progressed, this framework faded into
the background; but what have not faded are the questioned raised within it. They continue to haunt us to
this day. I just said that questions raised within the framework of the Biblical religion continue to haunt us.
Who is this us anyhow?
Unless one assumes the truth of the Bible that God gave one religion to mankind, something I certainly cannot subscribe to, we are faced with the following empirical diversity: there exist other cultures and groups
to whom the universe does not exemplify either a plan or a purpose (or even a set of them) of a divine,
semi-divine or even a primeval being. No Will governs the universe; all that was, is, and shall be does not
embody anyones Will. How, then, can the questions of the philosophical anthropology the Quest for Man,
nota bene be those that can only be raised within the framework of the Bible? How can the secularized
questions of a religion turn out to be the questions of humankind and in answering them the Quest for
Man ? They cannot; unless one presupposes the truth of the Bible and, as said already, I do not subscribe
to it. These are merely the questions about human beings raised by a culture they are neither universal
nor do they tell us much about mankind.
I beg, therefore, to submit to you that the future of philosophical anthropology does not lie in giving an
Asian, African or an American-Indian answer to the western (religious) questions about man. Rather, the
quest for man involves, in the first place, raising Asian, African, and American-Indian questions about man.
To do so, I suggest, is what makes philosophical anthropology topical. In my modest opinion, the future of
philosophical anthropology does not lie in its past; the questions we have come across are those that belong
to the past of a culture. Not merely are they questions from a past (human history does contain multiple
pasts, of course) but they are also, by virtue of this, well and truly past. This is the challenge of the future.
Whether intellectuals from other cultures and groups are up to this task, however, is a totally different issue.
REFERENCES:
1. The etcetera clause requires further filling out before we could consider it an account of the objecting
behavior
2. Of course, I need some kind of (contingent) causal law governing human behavior before I could be
said to have a causal explanation.
3. I cannot argue for it here in any detail but have done so in Comparative Science of Cultures and the
Universality of Religion. Gent: Centrum voor Godsdienstwetenschappen RUG, Gent 1991.
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Colonial Consciousness as a process and as an event (2011-03-05 09:27)
It is an event because the colonial consciousness that I am talking about comprises of multiplicity of actions
executed by indefinitely many Indians over a long period. It is a process because colonial consciousness
reproduces itself, colonial consciousness is transmitted from generation to generation and it is learnt. Consequently, we need to understand the mechanisms of this process and the structure of that event.
At the minimum, this process has to be cognitive in nature. It must be cognitive because a cognitive framework (and theories within that framework) denies access to our experience and makes us reproduce some
sets of descriptions as though they are descriptions of our experience. It has to be cognitive at the minimum
because in reproducing some sets of descriptions and in embellishing them with details, we act as though we
understand such descriptions. In other words, the growth and spread of colonial consciousness requires some
kind of a cognitive explanation.
When we talk about colonial consciousness, we face four kinds of issues, none of which should be lost sight
of. The first issue is about the nature of that experience which we do talk about, when we use colonial
descriptions. In some articles, I have called it the colonial experience. What is this colonial experience?
For the time being, the word colonial experience picks out the experience of the colonial masters and their
subjects. The colonial masters described their experience but in the belief that they were describing the
world (and the colonized).They described their experience in terms of the features of the world that generated such an experience. How could a description of some features of the world be the same as a description
of the experience of some aspects of the world? Under some (unspecified and at the moment unspecifiable)
assumptions about human psychology, we need to add the premise that unless we are hallucinating, our
experience of the world is veridical. (That is, unless we are hallucinating, our senses tell us what there is
in the world.) This is a premise that all human beings normally accept. Therefore, in and of itself, there
is nothing surprising that the colonial masters should describe their experience in terms of the nature of
colonial subjects. (They experienced Indians as lazy, corrupt, dishonest, backward, immoral, etc. This was
their experience but they formulated it in terms of the features of the world.) In this sense, the descriptions
of their experience were not subjective but wholly objective. In fact, we can show that the colonial masters
are wrong only because they have provided us with objective (and not subjective) descriptions of the world.
My research programme, unlike the others, does not deny objectivity to these descriptions by suggesting
that such descriptions are not describing some features of the world and that they have to be explained by
appealing to racism, white superiority or any number of such assumptions. Instead, I guarantee objectivity
to these descriptions by anchoring them in the culture of the colonial masters. This is required because the
belief that such descriptions are objective descriptions was very much part of the colonial experience.
For their part, the colonized accepted such descriptions as descriptions of their experience of the world. (There
is also another way of saying the same, which does not appear very productive: the colonized accepted the
claims of the colonizers as objective descriptions of the world as well.) There arises a crucial question now:
if the Indian culture differs from the western culture, there will have to be a mismatch between the way the
west described its experience of the Indian culture and the way Indians experienced themselves. Assuming
this, what made Indians even think that the British experience of India was also the Indian experience of
their own culture? This question becomes even more acute because of another claim I am developing in
the course of my research: one of the characteristic aspects of the Indian culture has been its continuous
emphasis on reflecting on experience. Consequently, what made the Indian intellectuals blind to the nature
of their own experience?
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As of now, I have answered this general question with three sub-hypotheses. Each of these hypotheses corresponds to the three other issues that we should not lose sight of when speaking about colonial consciousness.
The first is the hypothesis about the Islamic rule. I believe that it was not a mere rule but a colonization of
India instead. Islamic colonization did what any and every colonialism does: it denies access to experience.
By destroying (and thus arresting) the learning and teaching processes of reflecting on experience, Islamic
colonialism created a vacuum. By the time the British colonized India, by and large, the intellectuals had
already forgotten how to reflect on their own experiences. Islamic colonialism created a class of pundits,
who were mostly divorced from the activity of producing knowledge, which, in India, was strictly tied to
reflections on experience. Not that such pundits did not exist in India before the Islamic colonization. They
did. However, Islamic colonization transformed them into the only guardians of the Indian intellectual tradition. British colonialism marginalized these pundits even more by creating a new class of intellectuals
who were even further divorced (than these pundits) from the activity of producing knowledge that is characteristic of our culture. In destroying the class of Indian intellectuals, Islamic colonization damaged the
Indian culture but did not destroy it. What was destroyed (in the process of damaging the culture) was
both the production of and the capacity to produce our equivalent of the western theories. Such damage
is equivalent to destroying the institutions of learning in the west: it cripples the culture for a time, but the
configuration of learning will (sooner or later) allow the reemergence of theoretical knowledge. This is the
first sub-hypothesis.
The second sub-hypothesis follows upon the heels of the first. The framework that the British introduced did
two things. Firstly, that framework secularized the Christian framework. For instance, it recast the nature
of Indian traditions in terms of religions; it described Hinduism as a variant of Catholic Christianity and
Buddhism as a variant of Protestant reformation. The tyranny of priesthood was as prevalent in India as it
was in all heathen religions (including the heathen Catholicism). Entry into the temples became an important slogan because, the British thought, the power of the Brahminical priests was located in their temples
and the concomitant priestly powers. Breaking the powers of the priest craft would be accomplished by
insisting upon universal entry into the Hindu temples. And so on. Much of what they said and did can
be shown to derive from this process of secularization. Secondly, this framework attached itself to reference
points of the daily life and transformed them into elements of experience of the Indian culture itself. That
is to say, this framework filled the vacuum that the Islamic colonization had created and began to function
the way Indian theories had done before.
The last sentence requires some further explication. While Islamic colonization destroyed the centres of
learning and arrested the process of reflections on experience, it did not provide the Indian culture either
with an alternate way of reflecting on experience or with an alternate framework for reflecting on experience.
It merely created a vacuum without putting anything else in the place of what it destroyed. The British
colonialism did not destroy any centre of learning (partly because there were no such centres left to destroy)
but, instead, filled the vacuum created by Islam. (When the British colonized us, the regeneration was
already taking place in the Indian culture. This is evidenced in the way the Indian culture had begun to
grow new traditions arising out of its contact with Islam. However, this process of regeneration was just in
its early phases.) Its framework identified reference points (the massive illiteracy of the Brahmins in their
own shastras, for instance) and began to function as an explanation of (and thus a reflection about) of these
reference points. Indians took to these explanations the way ducks take to water because they saw in this
framework and its explanations something they were already familiar with: reflections and theorizing about
experience. By identifying these reference points with the Indian culture, the British created a class of intellectuals who accepted the claims of the British (about the caste system, about Hinduism and Buddhism,
and so on.).
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However, it is one thing to believe that the description of the colonizers experience of the world is also the
experience of the colonized but it is quite another thing altogether to discover that it is also the same.
When the two are not the same, there are only two ways to make them the same. The first is to deny oneself
the access to ones experience; the second, to the extent the mismatch keeps intruding, is to transform the
description of the colonizer until it rhymes with the experience. I have already spoken of the first way in the
above paragraph; therefore, let me look at the second way.
This, then, is the third hypothesis. We will have taken over the descriptions of the British and transformed
them in such a way that they make surfacial sense to us (because they pick out the reference points the
British identified). In the process, we will have created a demonstrable distance between the meanings and
references contained in the colonial descriptions and our use of the same words. Given my research project,
this distance can be predicted: the words we borrow will have no semantic connection with their meanings
in the discourse used by the British and we will not be able to provide any reference to such words.
If the above sounds abstract, let me make it concrete. For instance, the British said that Hinduism is in
need of a reformation. When they made such or similar statements, they had a very specific set of ideas in
mind: Catholicism (and heathendom generally) is the sway of the priests who rule over the gullible. They
do so by pretending that the prescriptions and the laws they, the priests, formulate are also the laws and
prescriptions of God following which is necessary to salvation. Such additions corrupt the true religion not
only because such laws are immoral but also because any human addition to the revelation of God is a
corruption of the true religion. They saw such a priestcraft in Hinduism, such a protestant reformation in
Buddhism. Of course, they merely said that Buddhism was the protestant reformation of India and not that
following Buddhism allows one to seek salvation.
Given the absence of religion in India, there is no way on earth we could have understood the claims of the
British (let alone the nuances in their claims). However, we would twist and distort them until it makes
sense to us: we would have interpreted reformation as the process of introducing reforms (the way one
reforms laws and education system). To us, there would be no difference between social reform and
religious reform: human beings in quest of a better system would undertake both. The clarion calls of
the Indian religious reformers of yesteryears or of the Yahoo internet group Navya Shastra of today would
be to reform Hinduism so that it suits our modern day sensibilities. Not only that. Even the rejection
of Hinduism will have followed the same lines: the belief that Hinduism is too corrupt to be reformed
(because, say, of the caste system) and one should leave its folds and seek something better elsewhere
(Buddhism or Christianity because, say, they do not support a caste system). That means to say, both the
religious reformers and the rebels against the caste system would share the same conviction: Hinduism
is in need of reform. It is antiquated, backward and a hindrance to everything that we believe in: equality
of human beings, of widows, of the need for progress and change&
In the process of understanding reform this way, we would completely fail to understand what the British
said or what they could possibly mean. What makes a religion corrupt, to repeat, is the fact that human beings add to Gods revelation. Reformation rebelled against these additions (like the canon laws, the practice
of indulgences, and so on). The Indian reformers, in the name of the same reformation, want to delete
things from original revelation and add new things, all of which are the results of human deliberations! In
short, they look at Hinduism as a creation of human beings (the way laws and education systems are) and
want to modernize it. In the eyes of the Protestants, it would be an abomination to put them in the same
league as the Indian religious or social reformers. However, the Indian reformers are totally oblivious
to the situation. They repeat the British and, in doing so, they act as though they understand the British
claims. Yet, when they ask the opposite of what the British could ever have asked for, they show us that
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they have no understanding of the British criticisms. This is an example of what I call colonial consciousness.
Such a consciousness is characterized by a double impotency. It is impotent to access its cultural experience.
Where it does read the shastras or uses technical terms from them that have become a part of the daily
language-use (atman, chitta, kosha, Buddhi, etc), it has no understanding of their meaning or reference.
It is equally impotent to access the outlines of the experience of the western culture. Such impotent consciousness constitutes the class of Indian intellectuals today. Is there any wonder that they fail to produce
any interesting reflections on either secularism or political or cultural theory? Is there any wonder they are
also incapable of bringing about any regeneration of the Indian culture? Most Pundits in India, the fossils
created by Islam, reproduce Indian shatsras mantrically without making any original contribution. The
modern Indian intellectuals, another fossil created by the British, reproduce western claims equally mantrically without being able to make any original contribution to the regeneration of the Indian culture. Neither
the children of the mullahs nor the children of Macaulay should belong anywhere other than in a Jurassic
Park. I hope we can build such parks soon.
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Rituals and their meaninglessness S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-05 09:47)
1. Consider, say, a ritual like sandhyaavandanam. Here are two extremes, when it comes to saying what it
is: (a) one goes very deeply into what Mudras mean, which of the mudras occur in this daily ritual; analyses
the praanayaama as it is taught; goes into what the Gaayathri mantra really means; and so on. (b) The
other extreme is an ordinary Brahmin who performs all the prescribed actions without knowing what any of
them mean.
1.1. When asked, they both give their answers: the one tells us of the results of his research and the other
simply says: I do not know what any of these mean. I perform them because I have been taught that
way. Question: which one of these claims is TRUE? Further, unless you make a meta-assumption about the
whether or not rituals ought to have a meaning, you cannot even privilege one story above the other.
1.2. Consider a third person, who says: none of these actions mean anything. And when all three perform
the ritual, is it possible to say of any one persons performance that he is not doing sandhyaavandanam?
1.3. The three have a debate. The third says of the first interpretation, the following: I do not deny that
you can interpret the ritual that way, or another way. But that is how you interpret it. That need not be the
only true interpretation. In fact, my Guru told me the following: the truly enlightened man does all these
ritual actions without ascribing any meaning to them. The enlightened man knows that he is not performing
any of these actions, does it without any goal or purpose in his mind; is completely indifferent to what these
actions mean or whether they mean anything at all& One can learn to become enlightened by doing the
ritual the way the enlightened man does it: that is, by being totally indifferent to what these actions are,
what they mean, etc. Therefore, the real meaning of this ritual is what it is to the enlightened man: it
means nothing. Would our traditions allow us to say that this claim is FALSE?
1.4. We have then, three claims: the ritual is pregnant with meaning; the performer is not aware of it; the
performer denies meaning. Our traditions allow us to say that each of these claims is TRUE. (Here is one
way of how one would make all three claims come out true: the ritual is meaningless to the enlightened; since
not everyone is enlightened, one needs to know what they mean; but because not everyone can find out all
these meanings, one can continue to do perform the ritual even if one does not know what it means & That
is the truth of the claim is relativized to the person performing the ritual.)
1.5. Logically speaking, we have the following situation: something has meaning (true); there is no awareness
of any meaning; the same thing has no meaning (true). Yet all three perform the same thing. The logical
conclusion? That thing is indifferent to meaning-ascription. The truth value of the ritual does not change
as the meaning of that ritual changes.
1.6. At the first level of abstraction, this is what it means to say that rituals are meaningless: one can
provide multiple meanings; one need not know any meanings; one can deny all meanings. And yet,one can
perform and be seen as performing the same ritual. (Consider the chanting of mantras, for instance.) In
some senses, our (Indian) common-sense preserves this insight thus: mantras and rituals are provided with
efficacy, whether the performer is aware or ignorant of the meaning of these rituals and mantras. This
insight does not mean that rituals or mantras have some magical potency (though this is how common-sense
puts it), but that they are indifferent to meanings. They just work (says our common-sense) because they
are rituals and mantras.
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2. Consider the Catholic mass (assuming, for a moment, that it too is a ritual) as an example. There
are rigid limits to interpretation. You might or might not believe that transubstantiation really occurs,
where the bread becomes Christs body and the wine his blood. In fact, you can even be agnostic about
this doctrine. But the limits of what they mean are prescribed by the Catholic theology. You are not
eating the naiveedyam you prepared in your kitchen, or the bread you bought at the bakers shop. Nor
are you celebrating Ganesha Chathurthi. Some variation is allowed in interpretation of the meaning of the
Catholic Mass; but the variations are circumscribed in such a way that of each interpretation it can be said
unambiguously that it either true or false. I do not, for instance, consider the Catholic Mass as a ritual;
it is a liturgical event.
3. X says that it is his gut-level feeling that rituals are not meaningless. My riposte is this: it is not his gutlevel feeling at all; but his westernized consciousness that speaks here. This consciousness makes meta-level
assumptions about human actions, what it means to speak of their meaning, and the kind of beings humans
become when they perform meaningless actions.
4. Of course, we need to develop a good theory of rituals. That is a task for the future. But there is nothing
silly or stupid about the claim that providing symbolic (or other) interpretations of rituals are typical of the
western culture because it does not know of rituals. A flag-hoisting ceremony is not a ritual, any more than
scratching your skin because it itches is a rite.
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Comparative Anthropology and Rhetorics in Cultures. (2011-03-05 20:27)
Introduction
Perhaps it is best that we begin on a personal note. Neither of the

two authors of this article is a specialist in the domain of
argumentation theory. Even though we have picked up smatterings of
logic, we are not professionals working on either informal or formal
logic. One of us is a practicing anthropologist, while the other is
oriented towards comparative anthropology. And yet, we are invited to
speak to an audience comprising of people specializing in dialogue
logics, argumentation theory, psychology and such like. If the
invitation to present a paper is not mistake or an oversight on the
part of the organizers of this colloquium, then it could only mean
that there is an expectation regarding our contributions:
anthropologists have something to say about rhetorics, argumentations
and their norms, which is of relevance to specialists like you.
Is this a reasonable expectation? Anthropologists, normally speaking,

study and describe the habits, life-styles and beliefs of peoples and
cultures. They may, if we restrict ourselves to the doubly normative
theme of this gathering, describe the ways people argue in other
cultures, outline some of the norms (if and where they exist) that
guide discussions and so on. Specialists like you, on the other hand,
cogitate about what an argumentation ought to be like, what its norms
ought to be, whether the latter are defensible and many other similar
questions.
How, then, are we expected to contribute to the colloquium? Perhaps,

we could provide you with some reflections about the Tiv (which we
shall do), or some facts about the way people resolve conflicts in
Timbuctoo (which we shall not); or a colorful description of the
curious habit of resolving disputes by bashing the opponents head,
which the inhabitants of Ruritania seem to like so much. You may
listen to all of this with mild curiosity or with scarcely disguised
impatience. Either way, it does not mean much. Anthropologists appear
to be at a disadvantage: we cannot hope to contribute substantially to
the furthering of insights into the norms of argumentation.
At this point, one would expect a reasonable person to down his/her

tools and take leave of this distinguished company mustering as much
dignity as possible. As you will no doubt have noticed, we are not
doing so.
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Stubbornness apart, there is a deeper reason for not travelling that

route. And that has to do with the fact that the theme of this
conference reflects a set of highly culture-specific assumptions. As
anthropologists we think that this set carries a mantle of
universality which is rather illusory.
What we would like to do, in the course of what follows, is to share

with you some of our reasons for thinking so. If we succeed in
persuading you to reflect about our arguments seriously, then the
expectations of both the organizers and ourselves will have been
fulfilled: maybe, just maybe, anthropologists can contribute
substantially in normative domains after all.
1.Norms of Argumentation: On Presuppositions
We would like to address ourselves to the task by first identifying

some of the properties that are allegedly shared by argumentative
interactions:
(a) An argumentation takes place between two parties, whenever their
avowed opinions conflict;
(b) What makes something into an argument is the semantic relation

between the utterances, and not the nature of either the speaker or
the audience;
(c) Insofar as a speaker has a specific goal, it is to persuade or

convince an audience to accept a position that s/he has put forward;
(d) This goal can be reached only if the norms and values held by both
the speaker and the audience at least partially overlap.
While the above four are empirical properties of argumentative
interactions, in almost all theories of argumentation there is also a
normative assumption at a meta-level:
(e) It is rational to settle disputes argumentatively, and it is
preferable to be rational rather than irrational. Consequently
argumentative activity ought to be a norm-guided activity, where the
norms are binding on all those who are participants in an
argumentation.
While these assumptions are common to all argumentation theories that
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we know of, what divides them is the answer they give to the following
two overlapping questions: what ought to epistemically count as a
reasonable discussion? What ought to be the norms that guide a
rational argumentation?
The first question that we should ask is about the status of the
properties of (a) to (d): Are they factual statements making claims
about teh way people argue? Or are they conceptual conditions that
lay down criteria for considering only some verbal exchanges as
argumentations? The second possibility is not very interesting because
these properties get built into a very stipulative definition of
argumentation: An argumentative situation is, by definition, one where
there exists a conflict of avowed opinions; an argumentive process is,
by definition, one of advancing, defending, retracting some opinions
and so forth. While such stipulative definitions surely have their
place in building formal systems (e.g. Barth and Krabbe, 1982), or
even in circumscribing the domain of enquiry in a particular way (e.g.
van Eemeren and Grootendorst, 1982), they are not cognitively
productive. We need to be able to raise the question whether
interactions involving the settling of disputes, without taking
recourse to violence or fiat, do exhibit the above-mentioned
properties everywhere.
Therefore, let us not waste time fighting over the definitional

problem. We will henceforth assume that theorists of argumentation
are making the more interesting claim, viz., that wherever rational
procedures are used to settle disputes, the verbal interactions
exhibit these empirical properties. In the subsequent sections, we
will see whether the first two claims are true. Afterwards, we could
assess the value of the normative assumptions.
1.1 The structure of the paper
It is not controversial to suggest that conversational activity is

intimately connected to argumentative interactions. Therefore, it
would be reasonable to accept the idea that theories of conversation
and theories of argumentation are closely related too. Working on the
assumption that there is a close relationship between the two, we will
look at some cross-cultural scenarios in the second section. We show
how our theories of conversations generate implausible conclusions if
asked to account for these scenarios. These conclusions, we shall
argue there, arise due to culture-specific assumptions made by
theories of conversation and try to explicate some of them.
In the third section, we suggest that arguing is a specific way of

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conversing and that the assumptions of theories of conversations are

also the premises of argumentation theories. Consequently, the
implausible conclusions encountered in the previous section hold good
here, too. But in the domain of argumentation, the implausibility is
less obvious than it is with respect to conversation. We will look
into the reasons for this appearance by analyzing two models that
inspire theories of argumentation: legal disputes and scientific
discussions. We shall how both models fail us--albeit in two different
ways.
In the fourth section, we localize the reason for this failure in

terms of a culture-specific approach to answering some particular
issue. We shall identify the issue for what it is. This should enable
us to answer the normative question regarding the rationality and
superiority of argumentation by comparing it with the way other
cultures solve them.
The next obvious task is to outline how other cultures solve them. But
here, we bounce against the page-limit. Consequently, we are forced to
issue a promissory note to return to this theme elsewhere. We end on
an invitation to theorists of argumentation to work along
with anthropologists before building their grand, unifying theories.
Though the paper is critical in tone, it is friendly in nature. Our
hope, then, is that it will be so read and understood too.
2.
Conversations and Conversational Theories
It is legitimate to claim that one does not need to know what a

conversation is in order to have a conversation. Therefore, whatever
else we may want to say, it would be very difficult to
maintain intuitively that there is no conversation in other cultures.
Equally difficult would be to hold that some cultures are inferior to
others regarding their practice of conversational activity. In other
words, our intuitions do not allow us to assert either a factual or a
normative claim, which would either deny the existence of conversation
in other cultures or suggest that members from some cultures are
incompetent conversationalists. Let us see how our theories of
conversations help us relate to this intuition.
2.1 Some scenarios

1. As a white man and foreigner, you are a teacher in an English class
in China. All of a sudden, one fine day, the Chinese director of the
school drops in during the afternoon and requests to speak to you.
After nearly a quarter of an hour, during which time the director has
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praised your work and qualities sky-high, and just when you thought
that he was coming to the real point of his visit--he politely takes
leave. You know that what he said was not what he came to say;
nevertheless, you also realize that it has been said.
2. As a white man and foreigner, you are travelling somewhere in Asia
(say, Thailand). Intending to take the public transport, you go to a
bus stop and enquire a native passerby when the next bus is due. The
native consults his wristwatch, assures you that you could expect it
any minute and moves along. An hour and a half later, while still
waiting for the same bus, you spy the same native returning from his
errand. Furious, you collar him and ask him the same question. Though
a bit surprised at your rage, when the native gives the same answer,
you realize that you have been had: that guy had no more clue about
the bus timings than you had!
3. As a white man and foreigner, you are travelling on a train in
India. Seated next to you is a Brahmin, eager to strike up a
conversation and impress you with his learning. Your sensibility is
shocked by the poverty in India, and by the existence of
untouchability in that culture. Outraged and incensed by the
indifference that Indians show to poverty and suffering around them,
you quiz this Brahmin about why he is unmoved. The Brahmin assures you
with great solemnity that most of the beggars you have seen are
really no beggars at all, but, to the contrary, rather wealthy. Many,
in fact, are wealthier than either of you. In support of this fact,
the Brahmin tells you a tale (an anecdote) about some beggars who
turned about to be the greedy rich in disguise! Regarding the lot of
those beggars who are not cheaters, he merely shrugs his shoulders and
says that it is their karma. You are utterly shocked by both the
flimsiness of his explanation and by the total lack of humanity in
that Brahmin. Both of you know that the anecdote was a figment of
his imagination.
Each of the three scenarios is a part of our folklore: almost each

traveler and tourist who has been to Asia will have some such tale to
tell. Before we reflect about any of the above three, allow us to
shift our glance to the North American Indians. Here is an anecdote
from the fieldwork days of one of the coauthors.
4. A student nurse came to the center of the Navajo reservation in a

big and rather new American car. Her whole appearance radiated a
"clean" upper middle class white background. On her arrival in
Lukachukai, Arizona, she immediately went up to our interpreter
(F.H.), urging him to address the monlingual medicine man (R.W.). She
declared that she wanted to collect information from the latter about
"diabetes" in the traditional medicinal lore. R.Ws reaction was as
follows: he did not know anything about diabetes prior to the contact
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with the Whites and that he did not have time that day. "May be she
should come back tomorrow". The next day, upon her return, she was
told that he did not have time for her because the "chickens have to
be fed and watered". The third day, she was told that there was no
time because "the sheep have to be fed". The Navajo, as it happens, do
not feed either their sheep or chickens, let alone water them. As far
as we know, she was given no information on those questions with which
she approached the Navajo.
2.2 Conversational theories and their cultural assumptions
There will not be much of a controversy, we suppose, if we identify

all three as conversations. That is to say, two or more people are
involved; there was some kind of a question and answer, some exchange
of information in some context or the other. We do not suppose that
one needs to be knowledgeable about conversation theory in order to
identify that a conversation has taken place. And yet, were we to look
at some of the existing theories about what conversation is ( e.g.
Grice 1975, Sperber and Wilson 1986), we are led to some nontrivial
and startling conclusions: it would appear either that there has been
no conversation at all or that in each of them some or other maxim
has been violated.
In and of itself, this piece of knowledge is not startling. But it
does become so when we take into account that these types of
conversation are not exceptions but standards, and that they all are
examples from non-western cultures! (The white man and foreigner bit
is meant to help you relate to these scenarios better; perhaps, you
have had some such experience yourself or you have heard it recounted
by someone else. It has no other special significance in this
context.)
In the first case, for example, the Chinese director was neither
brief nor relevant; in the second, the native was violating the
cooperation principle and was lying; in the third the same holds
true too.
Our theories of conversation, then, generate the conclusions that
other cultures either do not know how to have a conversation or that
they always violate the norms of conversation or, even more crudely
put, most of the time only westerners are competent
conversationalists. This is a logical possibility, to be sure; but
there is something utterly implausible about such conclusions. Our
conversational theories generate such conclusions because of some
assumptions they make. Let me try and identify them.
The first assumption:
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of conversation is the assumption that conversational relations (like,

say, that of relevance) hold between beliefs. That is to say, the
semantic relations between propositions (or whatever else you want to
use in its stead) constitute the main area of inquiry. The
not-so-recent pragmatic turn has not seen it fit to challenge this
basic assumption: the attention merely shifts to the changing set of
background beliefs, which impose constraints on the conversational
process.
There is, on the other hand, a more deeply-rooted feeling that

conversational activity is something that only human beings indulge
in. That is, we converse with you, or somebody tries to persuade
someone else, and so forth. Contemporary cognitive scientists
notwithstanding, we find it humorous when someone says "I am having a
deep conversation with my computer" or "I have finally convinced the
computer that it ought to accept my point of view" etc. We find such
statements humorous, because we feel that some kind of category
mistake has been committed. And one of the ways of being humorous, as
we know, is to commit some types of category mistakes.
The second assumption:

That our theories of conversation do
not refer to the fact that it is people who indulge in conversation,
but that this fact is ineliminably present in our deep intuitions
about conversational activities need not necessarily be opposed to
each other. That is, the distance between the theories and our
intuitions is bridged (often) by a metaphysical assumption, which is
highly culture-specific: only human beings have beliefs or only they
entertain propositional attitudes and such like, discussions in
cognitive sciences notwithstanding.
Taken together, these two assumptions cloak our theories of

conversation with a mantle of universality, which is highly illusory.
How does this come about?
Because our theories of conversation do not refer to human beings (who

are always spatio-temporal particulars) as they are involved in a
conversational activity, the feeling is that they are general
theories. Beliefs appear better behaved than their embodiments, viz.,
human beings, and even pragmatics of communication becomes less
shifty when conceived as the shifting set of background beliefs. Even
though conversation occurs between some specific human beings, our
theories suggest that it is an interaction between two species
members, viz., between partners of a dialogical process. Even where,
as in some dialogical logics, words such as opponent and proponent
are used, or as in theories of rhetorics concepts like speaker and
audience are taken recourse to, they mean nothing more than the fact
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that the content of these beliefs constitutes the functional position

of the generic individual. There is very little that distinguishes one
such generic individual from another: they are all embodiments of
beliefs and, as such, they are partners. With respect to the property
of entertaining beliefs, it is not possible to distinguish between
human beings. Because embodied beliefs are individuated the way
beliefs are, the promissory note (one supposes this) that
conversational theorists give us is that where one has to refer to
those individuals who are having the conversation (a king talking to
his subjects, the journalist interviewing the prime minister, the pope
speaking to a priest, a Nobel laureate talking to a green doctoral
candidate etc.), it could be done by referring to the belief sets. (A
proponent is someone who has a pro-attitude to belief; a Pope is an
individuation of the belief set Pope, etc.)
The third assumption: Some activity is a conversational activity, or a

reasonable discussion, if it instantiates or exhibits those properties
required for it to be a conversational activity or a reasonable
discussion. Insofar as a reasonable discussion is a norm guided
activity, and norms qua norms are those which are universally
obligatory or forbidding, to formulate a theory of argumentation (or
conversation) is to build a general theory with universal
norms. How, after all, could one defend a norm of rationality that
is not universal?
In other words, even the kind of cursory and superficial glance as the
one we have cast allows us to pick out at least three assumptions
underlying theories of conversation:
(a) an assumption about the nature of human beings, which says that
human beings embody beliefs;
(b) an assumption about the nature of persons, which says that humans
are equal with respect to this property;
(c) an assumption about ethics and the nature of norms, which says
that norms are obligatory in nature.
The first allows you to discover relations between beliefs; the
second enables you to provide a general structure of what it is to
converse and the third helps you to propose and defend maxims or
norms as the case may be.
If this caricature is even approximately true, we can raise the

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question now: What if there exist cultures and societies, where none
of the above assumptions are true? That is, what if there are cultures
and societies, which do not make this kind of a distinction between
human beings and the rest of nature; to whom the observational term,
viz., human beings turns out to be a very theoretical term; and who
do act ethically without requiring or needing norms and values?
Clearly, in such cases, our theories of conversation break down. By
the same token, they cease being universal--in the sense of being
theories of human communication.
We would like to propose is that this is indeed the case: in each of
the scenarios sketched above, what we see is the breakdown of our
theories of conversation. In these cultures, the kind of conversation
held depends on exactly who the participants are; the relevant
answer to a question depends upon just who is asking the question and
who is doing the answering; the conversational process is guided not
by norms, but a learning process of executing appropriate actions.
We will not be arguing for any of the above points, much less provide
you with overwhelming empirical data in support of them. Even though
we are convinced that these assertions are true, candor requires us to
warn you that our stance does not represent the consensus of the
anthropological community.
3. Conversations, arguments and cultures
So far, we have spoken about conversation and conversational theories.

What is their relation to argumentation and argumentation theories? We
would like to suggest that the latter is extension of the former. That
is to say, arguing is continuous with conversing. Because we cannot
see what is objectionable about this point of view, we will not defend
it. But to make this stance amenable to criticisms, we need to spell
out some implications.
Argument, under this construal, is something like a subset of

conversation: properties of conversations are properties of arguments,
too. An argument may possess more properties than a conversation; but
no interaction can be an argument if it is not also a conversation at
the same time. That is to say, not all conversations are arguments,
but all arguments are conversations. By saying this, we believe that
we are merely describing the consensus that exists in these two
fields.
If this is true, the following is also true: all assumptions of

theories of conversation are also the premises of theories of
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argumentation. From this it follows that if our theories of

conversation lead us to say that people in other cultures do not
converse properly, our theories of argumentation can do no better:
people in other cultures do not argue properly either.
It is here that we encounter the clouding of our intuitions: the

conclusion that other cultures solve disputes less properly (or more
often a less rational way) appears less implausible. It looks as
though it could be true: one is more inclined to retort with a so
what?, and suggest that only an empirical enquiry could give lie to
this answer. Even though we think that it would be wise to curb this
inclination, it is more interesting for our purposes to pursue another
question: Why is the implausibility less obvious in the case of
argumentation than it is in the case of conversation?
Our answer is that it is because of the association that most make

between rational argumentation on the one hand, and institutions that
arose in the West on the other. Two such are important in this regard:
legal institutions and scientific institutions. Given the historical
fact that the West nurtured and developed the theories of natural
sciences and the institutions of law, nothing appears to be seriously
amiss if one believes that both the theories about and the practice
of rational discussions are more advanced in the western culture
than elsewhere. That science appeared first in the West and that it
underwent a long period of development there is a historical accident.
It is equally a historical accident that legal theory and institutions
based on them had their origin and growth in the West. Because of
these accidents (convenient no doubt, but not providential because of
that), there is a greater tendency in this culture, when compared to
other cultures, to argue rationally. Even if one is normatively
prepared to recognize that all cultures are equally worthy, it does
not prevent one from suggesting that factually the West is more
inclined to pursue argumentation in settling disputes than are other
cultures.
What is the worth of this argument? We shall not take the easy road of
pointing out to the records, which have chronicled the history of the
West. We will travel a different route instead. To assess this claim,
we will find out the specific problems confronted by argumentation
theories that take legal disputes or scientific discussions as their
models. That is the task of this section, beginning with legal
disputes.
3.1 Rhetorics and others
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The Berkeley group of anthropologists led by L. Nader (e.g. Nader and

Todd, eds., 1978) has pioneered the attempts to understand the
disputing processes and courts of diverse forms in other societies. In
these cases one invariably gets a party which is wronged in some sense
or other and a party which is litigated. Often, there is a third party
which adjudicates the offence. Prima facie the relation appears to be
the same as that we see in our courts. And yet the differences are of
such a nature that the anthropologists are required to take recourse
to generalities in order to make sense of the simple fact that there
are disputing processes elsewhere too. Nader states, for example, that
the growing insight of the anthropologists is that
(d)isputes are social processes embedded in social relations. The

focus of attention shifts from the dispute itself (and the techniques
for handling it) to the social processes of which the dispute is a
part (Starr & Yvgvesson, 1975 cited in Nader & Todd, 1977:16)
Now, this is hardly an earth-shaking statement. At first sight, it is

even extremely trivial. This description is true for any
disputational process. For example, dispute in a court of law is a
social process that is embedded in the social relations of a society,
which recognizes juridical relations between its members. Any person
who studies a disputing process, say marital disputes, empirically
focuses on the "social process of which the dispute is a part" and not
just the "dispute and the techniques for handling it" after all! Why,
then, are legal anthropologists forced to embrace this trivia as a
great insight whenever they study disputing processes in other
cultures? There are two obvious answers to this question. The first
one is simply this: they are unable to capture the disputing processes
in other cultures as disputing processes, if they merely extend (in a
simple or even a complex way) our notions of disputations.
Why? What kind of problems do they confront? In legal anthropology,

there are no clear answers provided. But the issues confronted have
found some articulation. Consider what Bohannan (1975) has to say (see
also Nader, 1975) about the problem of studying the process of
discussion in so-called tribal law (the Tiv). Approaching this from
the point of view of characterizing the nature of legal discussion in
the Tiv, he says: "But the two languages per se--English
jurisprudence, and the native language--are not equivalent entities"
(1975: 404). The problem, as he sees it, is that British jurisprudence
is a sort of formalized language. Consequently, he speaks primarily
about the vocabulary of the Tiv and the jurisprudence. But his
problem is not simply one of presence or absence of some set of words
in either of the two languages. Hence, on the same page, he says that
we should think of the British jurisprudence as a whole medium,
which is not at all similar to the Tiv tradition. A similar point is
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made by Nader too: what seems familiar in western and non-western

traditions at first sight (disputing processes, argumentation, etc.)
proves to be very different in practice. That is to say, the notion of
legal dispute makes it almost impossible to theoretically recognize
as a legal dispute, even where it is perfectly obvious that the
phenomenon is a legal dispute.
To understand this predicament better, we need to look at the second

answer to the question why the anthropologists palm off trivia as deep
insights. It involves a literal reading of their answer, but against
the background of what we have identified as the assumptions of
conversation and argumentation theories. If we do that, we can rewrite
their general point thus:
(a) A dispute is not merely a confrontation of belief systems, but a

relation between specific human beings as the socio-cultural entities
that they are.
(b) The parties of a disputing process are not mere partners, and a
dispute cannot be reduced to a set of techniques used by them. What
goes on in a dispute is a genuine change of social status, of
personhood etc., according to the tradition one lives in.
(c) The dispute is relevant to or restricted to the tradition of the

disputants. Indeed, in most disputes with members of another tradition
(a foreigner, enemy, etc.) a different language and other procedures
are used.
In other words, our theories of rhetorics that take legal disputations

as models fail us if used to understand disputing processes in other
cultures. They do not even allow us to identify the process which we
need to study in order to settle the question of the existence or
otherwise of rational procedures for solving conflicts. This, then, is
the problem faced by one set of theories of argumentation.
What would happen if we were to take scientific discussions as our

models? Could we at least make use of that to defend our normative
assumption about what a reasonable discussion ought to be like? Some
have indeed travelled this path. Let us examine their attempt now.
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All appellations such as universal audience notwithstanding, the

models that appear to inspire the rhetoricians are those involving an
ideal scientific community. There is, it appears, an entrance fee to
be paid in order to be a partner in a rhetorical event:
knowledgeability in the particular domain. This price is not only too
steep for the ordinary citizen, but it also effectively excludes
cogitations about almost all issues of social, political and moral
significance. Because of this, theories of argumentation threaten to
become irrelevant. Let us explain ourselves.
Consider, as an example, van Eemeren and Grootendorsts book (or, for

that matter, Barth and Krabbes dialogical systems). It is really
difficult to take the rules that they propose for reasonable
discussion seriously: speaking in turn, discussing critically
(dialectically) some or other thesis put across by a proponent, etc.
Surely, when Blackhole physicists come together in a conference and
try to evaluate the competing claims of theories they have a
reasonable discussion without ever having heard of rhetoricians.
How, we wonder, would physicists react when one of their colleagues
puts across a hypothesis and refuses to test it? What would their
response to a colleague be who tells them to accept some theorem as
true, but refuses to prove it when asked to do so? (This is the
obligation to defend ones position--one of the norms in
argumentation theory.) By and large, it appears to us, contemporary
rhetorics is irrelevant to scientific discussions. Not only because of
the fact that the latter functions as a model for the former, but also
because the strictures of contemporary rhetorics are far too primitive
to regulate scientific discussions.
For the life of us, on the other hand, we cannot imagine what the
demand for critical testing really means when issues of social and
moral concern are debated. How could one critically test the claim
that peace in Europe since the second world war is due to the nuclear
umbrella? Or, for that matter, its negation? How to critically test
the statement that eliminating the budgetary deficit ought to be the
aim of a government which intends to guarantee the welfare of its
people? How to critically test the proposition that sanctions
against South Africa are moral or that it is immoral? Critical
rationalists, like van Eemeren and Grootendorst, do not give us any
answers.
Such a theory of argumentation ends up becoming totally irrelevant:

where we do argue reasonably, there we do not need a theory of
argumentation to tell us that it ought to be done. Where we do not
know how to reasonably argue, there the theory of argumentation has
little to tell us!
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It must be pretty obvious what the problem is: when scientists come
together to discuss and mutually evaluate the results of their
colleagues, they come equipped with a whole arsenal. They have
explicit theories, localizable problems, experimental techniques,
accepted notions of experimental evidence, and many other things we
do not know much about. The theories of argumentation that take
scientific discussions as their model are not built after a thorough
analysis of the structure of discussions in (m)any scientific
domain(s). Instead, the theorists rush into the battle-field with
pitiful slogans like falsifiability and anti-justificationism and
such like. The problem with issues of social, moral and political
concern is that none of the above conditions hold: most of our
theories are either implicit or fragmented; it is difficult to
specify what the problem is or what counts as its solution, etc.
There is another way of putting this: theories that take scientific

discussions as their model suggest that a persuasive speech merely
involves transmission of information. Where it does concern only
transmission of information--such as reports of the results of
experiments, elaboration of mini-theories and such like--it does make
sense to focus upon the efficacy of transmitting information, its
brevity and relevance and such like. But as we have seen, in such
situations the argumentation theories are irrelevant. When it is
about issues of social, political and moral concerns of communities,
it is hardly clear what counts as information and what does not.
There is no great need, we take it, to summarize more than briefly the
drift of what we have argued so far: our theories of argumentation
threaten to become irrelevant. They become irrelevant to studying
other cultures (in one case) because we cannot even identify the
phenomenon that we are supposed to study; they become irrelevant (in
the other case) because they have nothing to say!
What, then, are theorists of argumentation really doing when they

speak of norms in argumentation? What are they studying? Why do they
fail us, all tall claims notwithstanding? To get a grasp on this
question, we need to identify the "problem situation" (as critical
rationalists put it) of theories of argumentation. To this task, we
now turn.
4. Learning and rhetorics
Let us begin with the following two questions: when is someone a

speaker? Under what conditions is someone the audience? In order to
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prevent possible misunderstanding, let us say straight away that we

are interested in the nature of these roles. That one and the same
person can be both a speaker and the audience within the same
argumentative interaction does not, in any way, alter the answer that
one gives to the two questions.
4.1
The speaker and his audience
Let us begin with the speaker: in an ideal case, the speaker wants to
persuade his audience that the information he is about to convey to
them is true (or acceptable or whatever). He also wants to win the
adherence of the audience to his position because it is a rational
position. Since we are talking about (and interested in) issues of
social, political and moral concern, we can reformulate the above
sentences thus: In an ideal case, a speaker has chosen for a course of
action, his choice is a rational one, his goal is to convey reasons
for his choice and persuade (where applicable) his public to be
equally rational. The audience, if we assume that the speaker has been
successful, has now learnt something from the rhetor: it has acquired
a new piece of information. What competence is required on the part of
the audience in order to be persuaded? The only condition is that it
understands the speaker. The public requires linguistic competence,
and nothing else. That is to say, learning (on the part of audience)
is fundamentally a passive act of absorbing information! Consequently,
if the audience has to learn, it has to be passive.
One might want to say that the audience is really not passive, but
active instead, because it needs to think, analyze the argument,
check for inconsistencies and so forth. Is this indeed the case? We
do not think so: insofar as no axiomatized theory about issues of
political, moral and social issues exist, the inconsistencies in
arguments about these issues are found out by using the logical
intuitions built into the language. To be a competent
speaker-in-a-language (not an infallible one), to understand a
language is to understand the logical relations between the sentences.
No extra activity apart from understanding a language is required.
The same holds for thinking and analyzing the argument too. In
other words, a successful speaker requires a passive audience; a
passive audience is a pre-requisite for rational argumentation.
This is a curious paradox: the alleged partnership (with all its

connotations of equality and such like) involves an undignified,
asymmetrical relation. The speaker speaks, while the audience shuts up
and listens. (In the hands of contemporary critical rationalists, it
is even the norm!) If we look at a bit closely, the paradox
vanishes: if human beings are embodied beliefs, a learning process for
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such beings cannot be anything other than change in their belief

systems. The culture-specific assumptions that we identified earlier
are continuous with this state of affairs as well.
4.2 The field of argumentation
Let us shift our attention sidewards to bring the (problem) situation

into better focus: Consider any situation where we intuitively would
like a theory of argumentation to help us: abortion, divorce
situations, discrimination on grounds of race and sex, nuclear
umbrellas, unemployment, AIDS... Why exactly do we want to argue?
Because it is not clear which action has to be executed next in that
situation which called for an argument. That is to say, both the
speaker and the audience are in a learning situation. The
situation is new, the learnt repertoire of actions does not appear to
be adequate; consequently, both the speaker and the audience have the
same question to which they seek an answer together: what to do next?
To this description of the situation, if you add such assumptions as:
(a) one decides first: actions are executions of decisions;

(b) an action is rational accordingly as whether the decision was
rational or not;
(c) a human being is rational if he decides rationally; and such like,
then you will arrive at the more familiar picture of a person unable
to decide which course of action to choose. To provide help in such
contexts is to provide as much and as accurate information as
possible. A good speaker does precisely that.
In other words, the issue that argumentation tries to solve is one of

providing a set of learning strategies. It is telling us how to go
about solving a problem of learning to execute new actions . Its
heuristic (even if the theorists call them norms) for learning is
that we should try and acquire information by listening.
But, of course, this is not what argumentation theorists say: they say
that the domain of rhetorics is about resolution of the conflict of
avowed opinions. We would like to suggest that this self-description
of contemporary rhetorics is a false one, if it is taken to mean that
both the domain and the problem exist quite independent of a highly
culture-laden way of conceptualizing the domain itself. It is taken to
mean this, because each writer informs his readers that "wherever
there are people, there are differences of opinion" and so forth. Let
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us look at this point more closely.
Consider the following example: In order to say that Aristotelian

physics is less preferable to Galilean physics, we need to identify
the question which they were both trying to solve, viz ., Why do
unsupported bodies fall downwards? It will not do to say that
Aristotelian physics was solving only the problems of the existence of
entelechy or energia. Rather, with these and other related notions,
Aristotelian physics tried to solve, say, the problem of the motion of
bodies. To be sure, it also formulated questions and answers that
cannot even be conceptualized in Galilean physics: the relation
between actuality and potentiality, for example. But when these two
theories in physics emerged as rivals, and a choice was made between
them, one had to (at the least) identify a set of common problems that
both tried to solve. Analogously, the problem which argumentation
theories answer is one of How to learn what to do next? The problem
How to solve conflicts of opinions? is a problem within
argumentation theory in exactly the same way the question How does
potentiality relate to actuality? was a problem in Aristotelian
physics. In order to assess the worth of argumentation theories by
comparing them with rival theories, their internal questions are of
little use.
We could also reformulate this point differently. One could and should
draw a distinction between (i) a field of study, and (ii) a particular
approach or a collection of approaches typically used in that field of
study. To say, as contemporary argumentation theorists do, that they
study the field of argumentation is, we claim, wrong. The field of
study is one of finding out how to execute an action when the next
action is not obvious. That is, it is a field of action-heuristic. The
characteristic property of contemporary argumentation theories is that
they solve this problem by suggesting that we have differences of
opinion and that we try to resolve it. This is but one answer, but one
way of conceptualizing the solution. If this is the case, what happens
to the normative position underlying the existing argumentation
theories?
4.3 Why is it rational to argue?
One of the most simplistic answers to this question, unfortunately the

only one that seems to exist in the literature, is the one that Popper
has popularized. It appears as though Humankind knows of two things:
either argue peacefully or chop off the heads of those who disagree.
As he put it once,
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If the method of rational critical discussion should establish itself,

then this should make use of violence obsolete: critical reason is the
only alternative to violence so far discovered. (Popper 1972, p.292;
emphasis by Popper)
Either people die, or people let ideas die in their stead. "In the
face of argument of such quality" writes Gellner--a Popperian, though
no neophyte--"one can only feel embarrasment". (Gellner, 1985, p.43)
Not all, apparently, share Gellners discomfiture. Barth and Krabbe
more or less endorse the reason or violence view of Popper (p. 25,
1982); the same motif appears to animate the work of van Eemeren and
Grootendorst too.
We can appreciate why this alternative between reason and violence

will not do. Because, to make this alternative stick, one will have to
show that the way the argumentation theories look at their field of
study is also the only way of peacefully solving it. No critical
or dogamtic rationalist has shown this; nor, for that matter, can
they show it. The reason is as obvious as it is deplorable: they have
not studied how other cultures have solved the same problem. Not only
that. Only the arrogant or the foolish would claim that their pet
theory is the only way of solving some problem. History of sciences
has taught us at least that much.
5. A Question
We would have liked to outline at least one other way of solving this
problem by drawing upon one of the living cultures, viz., Asia. But
the page-limit that is imposed upon us makes it impossible to do so.
Consequently, all that we can do in the rest of the space allotted to
us is to raise some questions.
The premises of argumentation theory, viz., the presentation of a

thesis, adducing evidence for it, addressing a universal audience,
etc., are all culture-specific assumptions. They are not the result of
considered reflections (even if they are the results of considerable
efforts) on human situations. Stipulative fiats aside, we see no
obvious superiority to these notions as they are canvassed by
theorists of arguments. Practically, these proposals are next to
worthless. Empirically, with respect to other cultures, they are false
anyway.
If you are with us so far, you have been with us almost to the end.
Our theories of conversation, our theories of rhetorics suggest to us
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that others neither know how to talk nor how to argue. Factually these
claims are false, normatively they are untenable. (Nor because, we
would like to emphasize, of a dubious normative premise that all
cultures ought to be considered equally worthy or equally rational or
whatever else.)
The question that we should ask ourselves, at the end of an

anthropological disquisition such as this one, is this: should we not
attempt to develop our general theories of communication after we
have made some efforts to understand other cultures and other human
beings on their terms? Should we not attempt to get rid of our
illusions regarding the universality of what are really our provincial
experiences before building theories that lady down normative rules
as to what counts and does not count as reasonable discussions? As
anthropologists (even if one of the coauthors does not think himself
as an anthropologist!), our answers are in the positive. Whether we
have able to convince you or persuade you is something that we shall
know only later. It is our hope that we have at least made our claims
appear plausible.
References
Barth, E.M. and E.C.W. Krabbe: 1982, From Axiom to Dialogue: A

Philosophical Study of Logics and Argumentation, Walter de Gruyter,
Berlin.
Bohannan, P.: 1975, Ethnography and Comparison in Legal

Anthropology, in L. Nader (ed.) Law in Culture and Society, Aldine
Publishing Company, Chicago, pp. 401-418.
van Eemeren, F.H. and Grootendorst, R.: 1982, Regels voor Redelijke
Discussies, Foris Publications, Dordrecht.
Gellner, E.: 1985, Relativism and the Social Sciences, Cambridge

University Press, Cambridge.
Grice, H.P.: 1975, "Logic and Conversation", in P. Cole and J. Morgan

(eds.), Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 3, Speech Acts, Academic Press, New
York, pp 41-58.
Nader, L. and Todd, H. (eds.), 1977, The Disputing Process: Law in Ten
Societies, Columbia University Press, New York.
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Popper, K.: 1976, "Reason or Revolution", in The Positivist Dispute in

German Sociology, Heinemann Educational Books, London, pp. 288-300.
Sperber, D. and Wilson, D.: 1986, Relevance: Communication and

Cognition, Harvard University Press, Massachusetts.
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1.2.85
The
Future of the Present.
BlogBook
Thinking Through Orientalism S.N.Balagangadhara
(2011-03-05 20:40)
Though the book was published nearly two decades ago, Saids Orientalism continues to be topical. Many
have rejected the message of this work; others have attempted to develop its arguments yet further. This
article will not be one more interpretation of Saids book; after all, there are many such interpretations,
including Saids own. Instead, it probes the phenomenon of post-Orientalism. Even here, the intention is
not to map its contours either historically or conceptually. Rather, the focus is on raising the question: what
next after Orientalism?
I
The Study and the Kitchen
Not of all books can it be properly said that they change our perception of the world. In a very literal
sense, such a predicate does apply to Saids Orientalism. Until that book arrived on the scene, all that one
saw were pieces and fragments. After 360 and odd pages one saw or at least one thought that one saw
patterns, structures, consistencies or a Zusammenhang where there were only blurred images and vague
dissatisfactions before. One of the most interesting intellectuals on the current Indian scene captures this
experience beautifully in the following imagery:
I will long remember the day I read Orientalism. It must have been in November or December of 1980. In
India this season is classically called Hemantha and assigned a slot between autumn and winter. In Calcutta,
where nothing classical remains untarnished, all that this means is a few weeks of uncertain temperature
when the rains have gone, the fans have been switched off and people wait expectantly to take out their
sweaters and shawls. I remember the day because the house was being repainted and everything was topsyturvy. I sat on the floor of the room in which I usually work, now emptied of its furniture, reading Edward
Said whom I had never read before. I read right through the day and, after the workmen had left in the
evening, well into the night. Now whenever I think of Orientalism, the image comes back to me of an empty
room with a red floor and bare white walls, a familiar room suddenly made unfamiliar (Chatterjee 1992:
194).
Partha Chatterjees bare room, the study with which he is intimately familiar, had suddenly become different. Not alien, not new, and I submit, not even just unfamiliar. It had become intimately unfamiliar a
strange conjoining of terms to indicate the strangeness of the experience. This intimately unfamiliar study
was the India that Chatterjee and many of us saw as well.
However, without the shelves and their books, the table and the chair, and that particular sofa by the window
without these the study is not a study either. It is merely a room like any other. Not quite, because it
is shorn of familiar reference points: this particular copy of Hegels Phenomenology; that dog-eared version
of Kautskys The Agrarian Question; that heavily underlined, cheaply priced, Progress publishers edition of
the third volume of Capital This intimate and familiar paraphernalia this European intellectual tradition
had transformed the bare room into the study and had us believe that we knew the latter as well (or as badly)
as the proverbial back of our hands. Until that day then, when the painters arrived, one read Orientalism
with the room made bare, and the realization dawned: we know India through the reference points of the
Western intellectual tradition.
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If we know India through the organization effected by the Western intellectual tradition, how would it look
if organized otherwise? What if the study became either the puja room or a kitchen with-a-puja-corner?
Saids book raised these kinds of thoughts in the minds of many of us. It succeeded in provoking us to look
in particular directions by depicting the consistent manner in which the West had described the Orient over
the centuries. The book suggested too that these descriptions enjoy stability, possess durability and have
a peculiar kind of objectivity (the latter in the sense that these descriptions are not myths). The entire
story, as told by Said, held out a promise as well: thinking through the issues raised by the phenomenon of
Orientalism could/would lead to the coalescing of a very interesting research programme.
The Orientalist Discourse
As Said says repeatedly, racist sexist and imperialist vocabularies do not transform something in to an
Orientalist discourse, any more than the use of dichotomizing essentialism. These are not the constituent
properties of the discourse but merely its imageries. Such a discourse does not just consist of a set of
stereotypical images about people from elsewhere and the value of their cultures. That Indians are lazy,
dishonest, superstitious, etc., to be sure, are a part of the vocabulary. So too are the notions that Indian
culture is ancient and backward, it is dominated by the caste system and such likes. Nor is the discourse
a perpetuation of the romantic image of India: an ancient land with a mythical past, harbouring spiritual
insights of a lofty nature, merely waiting to be discovered by modern man... These and similar imageries
neither are constitutive of the Orientalist discourse nor do they exhaust it.
Saids characterization of Orientalism occurs almost en passant. Orientalism... is, rather than expresses,
a certain will or intention to understand, in some case control, manipulate, even to incorporate, what is
manifestly a different (or alternative and novel) world (P.12). Therefore, Orientalism is better grasped
as a set of constraints upon and limitations of thought than it is simply as a positive doctrine. (P.42, my
Italics.) This means that limited vocabulary and imagery ... impose themselves as a consequence (P.60).
That is to say, the limited vocabulary and imagery of the Orientalist discourse are the consequences of a
set of constraints imposed upon Western thinking in its attempts to understand a world manifestly different
from its own.
It is trivially true that all human thought is subject to constraints and limitations. Such constraining is a
conditio
sine qua non for human thought: it is constrained by language and by the conceptual resources available to
it. That is to say, human thinking is always a particular way of thinking. It is not as though human thought
is placed under constraints varying in time and place. Rather, it is the case that formed thinking is what
human thinking is. To draw an analogy: it is not that human language is subject to arbitrary constraints
like English, French or Sanskrit that varies in time and place. Only when we learn these languages do
we speak human languages at all. In the same way, thinking in some particular way is what human thought
is all about. For the sake of convenience, one might want to identify the notion of some particular way
with that of constraints. However, this epistemic trivium should not be confused with that set of constraints
which brings forth Orientalism. To do so is to claim that all human thought is Orientalist a patently false
statement if ever there was one.
While Orientalist thinking is also human thinking (because it too is subject to constraints), it is not Orientalist because it is human. Orientalist thought, as a particular way of thinking, is Orientalist because it is
a particular way of thinking. What constitutes this particular way of thinking? What kind of constraints
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upon and limitations of thought transform human thinking into Orientalist thinking? Saids remarks are en
passant here as well:
(T)he Orient and the Oriental, Arab, Islamic, Indian, Chinese, or whatever, become repetitious pseudoincarnations of some great original (Christ, Europe, the West) they were supposed to have been imitating.
(P.62)
To the Westerner, however, the Oriental was always like some aspect of the West; to some of the German
Romantics, for example, Indian religion was essentially an Oriental version of Germano-Christian pantheism.
(P.67)
That is to say, in the Western descriptions of other cultures, the otherness of the latter has disappeared.
Or, better still, non-Western cultures are seen to differ from the West only in the sense that the former
are pale (or erring) imitations of the great original that the latter is. Orientalism is constrained to describe
non-Western cultures not merely in terms of Western culture. It is also forced to do it in a way that effaces
the differences between the two. A limited vocabulary and imagery are the consequences of this constraint.
It requires noting that this formulation merely characterizes Orientalism. Nevertheless, it is sufficient to
make sense of almost the entire book, and see in the latter the historical illustrations of the depth and the
scope of the Orientalist discourse.
Such a circumscription of Orientalism, as a discourse that is constrained to describe non-Western cultures as
variations or imitations of the West, is not merely of hermeneutic value. It has also heuristic potential in at
least two distinct ways. On the one hand, it prevents us from being trapped into cul-de-sacs or from raising
pseudo or sterile issues. On the other, it enables us to think through and identify those genuine issues and
challenges, which the phenomenon of Orientalism confronts us with.
Saids Musings
Often, writers of great books fail to appreciate the true depth and breadth of what they themselves have
written. Such is also the case with Said. His own thoughts on the issues raised by the phenomenon of
Orientalism, predictably, take on a very disappointing hue:
(T)he main intellectual issue raised by Orientalism (is:) Can one divide human reality, as indeed human
reality seems to be genuinely divided, into clearly different cultures, histories, traditions, societies, and even
races, and survive the consequences humanly? I mean to ask whether there is any way of avoiding the
hostility expressed by the division.. of men into us (Westerners) and they (Orientals). When one uses
categories like Oriental and Western as both the starting and end points of analysis, research, public policy...
the result is usually to polarize the distinction the Oriental becomes more Oriental, the Westerner more
Western and limit the encounter between different cultures, traditions, and societies. (P.45-46)
If human reality is genuinely divided into clearly different cultures, histories, traditions, societies, surely one
ought to assert that human reality is thus divided. Yet, talking about the division seems to cast doubts upon
our abilities to survive its consequences humanly. One could, of course, lapse into a profound meditative
silence and, I suppose, this is one alternative. The other, I suppose as well, is to ask silly questions like how
to survive these consequences humanly?
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When Said wrote his Orientalism the situation has not altered much since then describing other cultures
was predominantly a Western activity. The hostility that Said speaks of was engendered by these, Western
descriptions. Even if they limited the encounter between human beings, surely this does not provide us
with the evidence that talking about genuine divisions could have catastrophic consequences. It might be
even more plausibly held that dividing the reality into us and they does not lead to violence. Whereas,
the way the West has conceptualized both us and they have the tendency to do so. All that we have are
the generated descriptions of cultures using the resources of but one intellectual tradition, viz., the West. No
other culture in the world has come even remotely close to the West (in either depth or variety) in describing
both itself and the world. Consequently, there is no possible way for us to know how alternate descriptions
of the world would look like or whether they too would suffer from the same debilitating diseases. By merely
looking at just one individual who is deaf, dumb, lame and blind, what predictions or pronouncements could
we make about la condition humaine?
The point can be made even more forcefully when, towards the end of the book, Said muses about the
character of his project.
My project has been to describe a particular system of ideas, not by any means to displace the system with
a new one. In addition, I have attempted to raise a whole set of questions that are relevant in discussing
the problems of human experience: how does one represent other cultures? What is another culture? Is the
notion of a distinct culture (or race, or religion, or civilization) a useful one, or does it always get involved
in self-congratulation (when one discusses ones own) or hostility and aggression (when one discusses the
other)? Do cultural, religious, and racial differences matter more than socio-economic categories, or politicohistorical ones? How do ideas acquire authority, normality, and even the status of natural truth? What
is the role of the intellectual? Is he there to validate the culture and state of which he is a part? What
importance must he give to an independent critical consciousness, an oppositional critical consciousness?
(P.325-326)
These questions deserve either frivolous answers or none at all. To the question how one represents another
culture, what do you think of the answer, very carefully or by drawing pictures ? I am not contesting that
Saids questions are relevant to discussing the problems of human experience. However, I do contest that
Orientalism raises them or that Saids book provides an adequate basis to do so.
The Critics of Orientalist Discourse
As indicated earlier on, Said was the first to alert us to the existence of the phenomenon of Orientalism.
While he was unsure whether Western constructions of other cultures followed the logic of Orientalist discourse, we need entertain no such doubts today. Our certitude is both factual and theoretical. The sheer size
of empirical research conducted since Orientalism is sufficient to provide the factual certitude. If Orientalism
is the constrained thinking of Western culture, theoretically speaking, it must be manifest in its descriptions
of all cultures including the Orient.
Given these certitudes we know now that Orientalism exists what should our research do? Surely, it
should answer questions like the following: why develop a critique of Orientalist discourse? What forms
should such a critique take? What is its function? etc. However, most of the research conducted after Saids
book is an ad nauseam repetition of the following claims: that Orientalism exists; that knowledge is related
to power; that essentialism is a sin; that one should not think in dichotomies or binary oppositions.
In short, it is all but clear why one should provide a critique of Orientalism. Except, that is, for purposes
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of self-edification. As examples, take two of the very best of such efforts: Indens Imagining India, and
Almonds The British Discovery of Buddhism.
Inden, inspired indirectly by Said, tries to provide us with a picture of the Orientalist constructions of India.
He details the imaginative construction of India in much the same way Said has done with respect to the
Orient. Unlike Said though, Inden intends travelling further: he wants to identify the foundation on which
the Orientalists India is erected. Such a foundation turns out to be philosophical, consisting of essentialist
ontology, a metaphysic of structures, and such likes. Consequent to these, Inden tries to outline a metaphysics drawn from Collingwood and Gramsci that gives agency back to the Indians. Inden does not
pause to think whether it makes any sense to ascribe some single metaphysics to all those who have written
and talked about India during the last 150 years or so. Nor does he realize the flimsiness of his attempts
to tie different theories to a particular philosophy. In any case, the rich, three-dimensional Orientalism of
Said becomes a flat, two-dimensional, one-way relationship between meta and object-level discourses.
While Indians are no doubt eternally grateful to have been accorded the status of agents in Indens brilliant
book, as an Indian intellectual, I am left with nagging doubts. If Collingwood and Gramsci are required to
elevate human beings into agents, what about those innumerable social theories which presuppose neither
one nor the other? What is the status of human beings in Western societies and, more to the point, in
social theories about the West? How could psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, historians, cognitive scientists, etc., in the West, when they theorize in their respective domains, accord agency to human
beings without Collingwood or Gramsci? If they do it on a different basis, why can we not use the same to
talk about India? Surely, on any count, the possibility of raising such legitimate questions should make one
sceptical regarding stories like those told by Inden.
Almonds project, by contrast, is more modest but no less disappointing. Narrated in brilliant detail, the
story is about the creation of Buddhism in one culture by the efforts of another. The West imaginatively
created Buddhism in the East, says Almond, without, however, willing (or wanting) to tell us what this
imaginative creation consists of. For instance, does that mean that the status of Buddhism is that of the
Unicorn struggling to get into my study? Or like that of the electron in theoretical physics?
Both Inden and Almond, like Said himself at times, are seduced by the imageries used in Orientalist discourse. The result is an inevitable identification of the imagery with the discourse. One is merely left with
the feeling that essentialism is equivalent to the Original Sin. However, none of the writers bothers telling
us either what essentialism is, what is sinful about it, or what alternative one has.
At least one cause for this intellectual sterility can be identified. In the process of analysing Western constructions of other cultures in this case, India the central idea that made Saids book interesting is lost
sight of: such constructions are created by Western culture. Consequent to this, no relation can be postulated
between Orientalist descriptions and the constraints of a specific culture.
The Issues in Orientalist Discourse
In the course of generating descriptions of other cultures whether framed in positive or negative axiological
terms Orientalism made use of a conceptual reservoir. It consisted of ideas and theories about human beings, the nature of languages, the structure of societies, the character of cultures, the nature of religion, the
value of history etc. In its turn, such a constructed discourse had its impact on the evolution of subsequent
theorizing about Man and Society. In other words, Orientalist discourse did not evolve in splendid isolation
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but in continuous interaction with and as a part of the growth of social sciences. It is not an extraneous
and alien growth on the otherwise splendid corpus of social sciences. Instead, it is an inextricable part of
social-scientific discourse as the latter have evolved in order to understand human beings, their societies and
cultures.
By saying this, I am not advancing the absurd claim that all social sciences are Orientalist in nature. They
would have been that if they spoke only about non-Western cultures, which they obviously do not. What
I do want to say, however, is that we must appreciate that Orientalism is not just a way of talking about
non-Western cultures. It is also partly the way the West has tried to make sense of the social world. The
way the West looks at its own culture is sustained by the way it looks at other cultures; the way it looks at
them is implicated in the way it looks at itself. Its experience of the world involves these two dimensions of
the self and the other. Though distinguishable from each other by virtue of the object of their discourses,
one can understand neither of the two in isolation from either. This is what I am trying to get at.
When looked at this way, the phenomenon of Orientalism begins to take on interesting proportions. If Orientalism picks out the dimension of the other present in the experience of Western culture, one can then
begin to get grips on the reproduction of Orientalist discourse in the West. Answering the question, why
does Orientalism sustain and reproduce itself in the West? does not require chanting mantras invoking
deities like Foucault or Gramsci. Rather, it becomes a task for developing a theory about Western culture.
Similarly, the reproduction of Orientalist discourse elsewhere will need a different answer as well. Whereas
the mechanisms for the reproduction of Orientalism within the West are those that constitute the Western
experience of the world, the same answer for obvious reasons can hardly work with respect to India.
The Challenge of Orientalist Discourse
Orientalism refers not merely to how Europe experienced the Orient, but also to the way it gave expression to that experience. In the process of doing the latter, Western culture built and elaborated conceptual
frameworks using the available resources from its own culture. It is also the case that these descriptions were
used to generate Europes description and understanding of itself. That is to say, Europes descriptions of
other cultures have been fundamentally entwined in many untold ways with the way it has experienced the
world. To understand the way Western culture has described both itself and others is to begin understanding
Western culture itself. The challenge of Orientalism, thus, is a challenge to understand Western culture.
To appreciate this challenge better, let us pursue the issue conceptually. It is an epistemic truism to claim
that all and sundry descriptions of the world are framed using the concepts of the describer. Consequently,
such a description does at least two things. In the first place, it claims to provide a partial description of the
world. In the second place, being framed this way and not that or another way, the description tells us something about the framer of such a description. This epistemic truism has immensely profound consequences
to our subject matter. If constancy, consistency and durability are there to the Wests descriptions of itself
and others, then such descriptions tell us much about the culture that has produced them.
Let us assume that cultures other than the West exist and that they experience the world differently. In
that case, to study Western descriptions of the world as the way one culture experiences it, and to generate
alternate descriptions of the same world are the real and only challenges raised by the phenomenon of Orientalism. Before meeting these challenges, however, we need to understand them first. The question is: do
we?
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II
The Nature of a Monologue
Without the least bit of exaggeration, it could be held that the study of societies and cultures is a project
that the Western world has initiated. Over the centuries, Western intellectuals have studied both themselves
and other cultures and, in this process, have developed a set of theories and methodologies to understand
our human, social world. What we call social sciences are the result of the gigantic labour performed by
brilliant and not-so-brilliant men and women from all over the world over a long period of time.
Let us formulate a hypothetical question in order to express the problem: would the results have been the
same, or even approximately similar if, say, the Asians had undertaken such a task instead of the Europeans?
That is, suppose that in the imaginary world that we are talking about, it was the effort of the Asian intellectuals reflecting about themselves and European culture, as they saw them both, which eventuated in
social sciences. Would the result have looked like the contemporary social sciences?
I put to you that the most natural answer to this question is: We do not know. It is worthwhile reflecting
on this answer. The inability to answer the question does not arise from the impossibility of answering
questions about hypothetical situations. All our scientific laws describe hypothetical situations and we can
say what would happen in such situations. (E.g. If I drop a stone from the top of a building, what would
happen to it? It would fall downwards ... etc.)
The ignorance in our case has to do with the specific kind of hypothetical situation the question picks out,
and with the feeling that there is no way to check the veracity of the answers given. That is, because we have
no model of such an attempt, we have no way of deciding how to go about answering the question. Worse
still, because we have no models where the answers can come out true or false, we feel that all answers to
this question are meaningless and, therefore, that the question itself is meaningless. The question has not
violated any syntactic or semantic rule; it has not committed any category mistake; yet, we do not know
how to make sense of this question.
There is a peculiar air about this state of affairs. We are not able to make sense of a question, which asks
us, literally, how we appear to ourselves and how the West appears to us. Yet, we have been studying both
the West and ourselves for quite sometime now.
Western culture, with background assumptions peculiar to it, problematised some phenomenon, which has
taken the status of a fact to us. We prattle on endlessly about the problem of underdevelopment; the
question of human rights in Asia; the amorphous nature of Hinduism and, in the same breath, about
Hindu fundamentalism; the problem of modernity and nationhood; the womens question in India; etc.
The same is also true for our perspectives on the West.
Surely, but surely, there is a problem here. If our culture differs from that of the West and if, perforce,
our background theories and assumptions are other than those of the West, we could not possibly either
formulate questions or assign weights to them, both about us and the West, in exactly the same way the
West does. Yet, we do invariably and as a matter of fact. How could we make sense of questions routinely
copied from Western social research and go on to answer them by means of empirical studies? We do we
act as though these questions do make sense to us.
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We know the West the way the West looks at itself. We study the East the way the West studies the East.
We look at the world the way the West looks at it. We do not even know whether the world would look different, if we looked at it our way. Today, we are not even in a position to make sense of the above statement.
When Asian anthropologists, psychologists or sociologists, do their anthropology, psychology or sociology
the West is really talking to itself.
The Consequences of a Monologue
Such a monologue, however, has a number of consequences. Two are of importance to us here. The first is
also the most obvious. Research into indigenous phenomena will not contribute in any fundamental way to
the growth of knowledge about the object of enquiry. Instead, it will merely reproduce, in a monotonous
manner at that, claims made elsewhere even if they are spiced with local details. The second of these consequences pertain to the perpetuation of Orientalism itself. One does not have to use either the well-known
imagery or the familiar vocabularies both of which are limited in order to reproduce Orientalism. As must
be obvious by now, the same job can also be done by reproducing those theories that have given expression
to the Western experience of the world.
A topical candidate to illustrate these consequences is the discussion about secularism in India. Because
this debate really deserves a book-length treatment in its own right, I shall not go deep into the issue but
will merely touch upon it.
In any debate about secularism, two kinds of problems are involved. The first has to do with the relation
between any two (or more) religions; the second, about the relation between these religious groups. The
relation between religions is a theological issue: each religion characterises itself explicitly and thus specifies
what its relation to its predecessors (and competitors) is. This theological stance generates a civic issue: how
could groups that belong to several religions cohabit the interstices of the same society?
In order to keep the discussion manageable, let us stick to the classical text book story about civic tolerance.
It tells us that explicit theorizing about tolerance emerged first in the Christian West, subsequent to the
schismatic developments in Christianity. That is to say, Reformation forced the issue of civic tolerance on
the agenda. The idea of civic practices, viz., those practices which were neutral or indifferent with respect
to religious ones, began to merge with the idea of secular practices. It must be remembered, however,
that the notion of secular is the contrast set of the concept of the sacred. That is, the secular as that
which does not belong to the domain of the sacred. Deviating from the standard text book story, it can
be shown (Balagangadhara 1994) that the emergence of such a secular world in the Christian West did not
mean detaching the former from the latter. Instead, the secular world remained within the religious world
and what emerged was a secularized religious world. That is to say, it was a religious world in a secular
outfit.
Consequent to this, the European societies torn internally by the religious wars faced the following question:
how could different Christian groups live together within the ambit of the Christian West? The parameters
of the problem also contain the seeds of the solution. Within the ambit of a secularized religious world,
different religious groups could continue to coexist. This secularized religious world was thus charged with
the task of enforcing peace among the necessarily intolerant religious groups.
Historically speaking, it is the case that the notion of tolerance makes sense only within the larger framework
of intolerance. That is to say, tolerance is conceptually parasitic upon the notion of intolerance even if the
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prima facie linguistic form appears to suggest otherwise. Especially in this context, the notion of tolerance
can only be explicated in terms of abstaining from actions that express intolerance. In Europe, the notion
of intolerance made sense both conceptually and factually: people broke into each others churches, defaced
them, beat up the preacher and the congregation of the faithful, etc. This idea of civic tolerance did not
does not mean that the Protestant ceased to think that the Pope was the anti-Christ; or the Catholic
thought that the Protestant was not a heretic. To this day, they continue to think so. A similar point holds
elsewhere too, if we broaden the range of the discussion a bit more. A Jew cannot claim that Jesus is the
Christ and continue to remain a Jew. Nor could a Muslim say that doing Puja to Ganesha is the same as
worshipping Allah and continue to be a Muslim. This is the reason why the notion of civic tolerance made
(and makes) sense. Needless to say, this intolerance is predicated at the level of the individual believer.
What do tolerance and intolerance either mean or signify in Indian culture? At least in the several Indian
languages I know, translation is not possible. Words like patience (as it is contrasted with the notion of
impatience), and acceptance (in the sense of a resigned acceptance as contrasted to protest) are used to
translate the notions of tolerance and intolerance. In and of itself, this linguistic fact need not mean much.
However, try telling a non-Muslim, non-Christian Indian (i.e. a Hindu) that he ought to tolerate his
neighbour going to some temple X, doing puja to some Y, and celebrating some other festival Z. Not only
will he stare uncomprehendingly at you but will also probably feel that you ought to be certified. If he is a
bit talkative, this is what he will tell you: it is absolutely none of his business what his neighbour does; it
does not and it never did interest him; it does not in the least matter to him what his neighbour does or does
not; and that, in all honesty, he does not really care ... These are not some deep anthropological facts. They
are the day-to-day trivia of every Hindu, if not of every Indian. Nevertheless, for a discussion of tolerance
in the Indian context, they are relevant and salient. Why is it that the Indian intellectuals remain silent
about such facts, while pontificating endlessly about the virtues of tolerance?
Tolerance is a civic virtue in a secularized religious culture like the West. In India too, like in most places,
different peoples and practices coexist. However, they are premised not on tolerance but on indifference.
(The contrast notion here is that of interference.) Neither religious intolerance nor civic tolerance makes
sense in Indian culture. Examples of intermittent persecutions of groups belonging to different traditions
there must be many such do not illustrate religious intolerance in India. If one insists they do, these
examples merely illustrate ones own ignorance regarding whether and why religions of intolerant of each
other.
Be it as that may, because the pro-secularist discourse is unable to shed any light on the so-called HinduMuslim strife, it takes the form of a moralizing sermon. The narrated empirical details of the dispute, about
the original site of Ramas temple and the demolition of Babra Masjid, merely add local colour and indigenous flavour to the sad tale enacted many-a-time in Europe: religious intolerance. A secularist account
that tells us this is just about as illuminating as an explanation of the totality of human history in terms of
greed. While such a story might make a fine object for theological reflection, it does not carry us far. One
might write interesting theological tracts about the nature and structure of human greed. Others might use
them to preach third-rate moralizing sermons. Neither makes us understand human history.
The Reproduction of Orientalism
As indicated earlier on, the Western description of the Orient and its self-description are like two faces of
the same coin. The constraint imposed upon the way the West experiences other cultures has partly to do
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with what Western culture thinks of itself. What it thinks of itself, in its turn, is also parasitic upon what it
thinks of other cultures. In other words, it looks as though two sets of constraints are operative here. One
set of constraints, namely its self-image, constrains what the West says of other cultures. The second set of
constraints, namely what it thinks of the others, appears to constrain how it views itself.
What, however, is the self-image of the West? Culled from the Orientalist writings, there is a prepared
answer, as outlined from Said through Inden: the West thinks that it is a scientific, entrepreneurial, rational
culture contrasted with which stand the Western conceptions of the Orient. If one is satisfied by this answer,
one has succumbed to the seductive power of the imageries. Should this be the case, there are but two
avenues of research open. One is to locate the causes for the emergence and sustenance of these images. Depending upon ones philosophical proclivities, one could identify the causes in some ontology or metaphysics;
or in imperialism; or in the mantra knowledge is related to power, or whatever. The second avenue plays
on the fact that these self-images privilege the West above other cultures and that all cultures are prone
to self-edification. One could then begin on the endless journey of pseudo-philosophical despair about the
nature and notion of representation, etc. Clearly, this situation signals us that something is wrong with the
question that traps intelligent minds in cul-de-sacs.
Let us, therefore, step backwards a bit. Since Said, we know that the Western representations of other
cultures have taken specific forms: Orientalism is an academic domain, a set of institutional structures, a
discourse, etc. That is to say, one is able to answer questions about the forms taken by the Western conceptions of other cultures. Surely, the next logical step would be to formulate a similar question regarding the
self-image of the West as well. What form has the self-image of the West taken? Enough has been said
during the course of this article to enable a sharp, short answer: social sciences.
We are now able to identify the two constraints more precisely. Social sciences constrain Orientalist discourse;
Orientalism constrains the social sciences. We need to see whether this formulation is able to make sense
of what has been said so far. Before doing that, however, let us notice its implication with respect to the
reproduction of Orientalism.
If Orientalism is thinking under a particular set of constraints and if this set is the set called the social
sciences, then it follows that to use the latter is to reproduce Orientalism. When Indian intellectuals use the
existing theories about religion and its history, for example, to analyse the Hindu-Muslim or the HinduSikh strife then they are reproducing both directly and indirectly what the West has been saying all
along. Directly, in the sense that the secularist discourse about either of the two issues can hardly be
distinguished whether in terms of the content or the vocabulary from the Orientalist writings of the
19th and 20th centuries. Instead of talking about Indians or the Hindus, one talks about the BJP or the
Hindu fundamentalists. The criticisms of most progressive thinkers or of the Dalit intellectuals against
Brahmanism or against the evils of the caste system are no different from those of the erstwhile Colonial
Masters of a century or two ago.
It is also an indirect reproduction of Orientalism in the sense that its constraints are reproduced when we
study Indian culture using the self-image of the West. To the extent that the most interesting writings
in India today are also criticisms of Orientalism, to that extent, Orientalism is reproduced in the name of
a critique of Orientalism. It is of complete irrelevance whether one uses the language of a Marx, a Weber,
or a Max Mller to do so. Of equal irrelevance is the fact that one borrows the vocabulary from a Derrida
or from the post-modern, post-colonial writers in Amsterdam or California instead. In both cases, the
result is just about the same: uninteresting trivia, as far as the growth of human knowledge is concerned,
but pernicious in effect as far as the Indian intellectuals are concerned.
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This tirade can be justified if and only if the identification of the Western self image with the social sciences
can be made sensible. Further, there is also the claim that the social sciences force Orientalism into effacing
the differences between cultures. This too has to be made sense of. As though this is not enough, one has to
make sense of what, in that case, anthropology is all about. Is it possible to make sense of these, and many
more, assertions?
III
It is my conviction that the answer to the above question is in the positive: yes, it is possible. It is also
imperative that we do so. However, assaying the possibility of the task is not the same as executing it. It is
the hope that this article lends some plausibility to my conviction. As far as executing this task is concerned,
well, it is a collective effort. I can do no more than invite the interested to help build the required research
programme. Not ex nihilo of course, not. Some spadework has been done, some foundation work is in
progress, and some initial results are already in. In fact, these either lend plausibility to the programme or
will fail to do so.
Orientalism and the Social Sciences
Orientalism has been characterized as a particular way of thinking. The particularity of this thinking lies
not merely in the fact that understanding other cultures takes place in terms of Western culture. It is also
exhibited in the way other cultures are transformed into pale imitations of the West. Let us recollect Said
again:
(T)he Orient and the Oriental, Arab, Islamic, Indian, Chinese, or whatever, become repetitious pseudoincarnations of some great original (Christ, Europe, the West) they were supposed to have been imitating
(P.62).
Being the constraints upon and limitations of thought, social sciences generate Orientalism, when the West
looks at other cultures. Looked at in isolation from Orientalism, social sciences are how the West experiences
itself. That is, social sciences teach us about Western culture.
However, social sciences are many: not just in terms of domains or fields of study, but also in terms of
domain-theories. How to read them as expressions of a particular type of culture? Are the changing theories,
their assumptions, etc., symptomatic of the changing nature of the Western culture? Alternatively, is there
also an underlying continuity (the famous essence) to these changes? For instance, there are as many notions and theories of religion and ethics as one could think of. From among them, which notion or theory
about either of the two phenomena expresses Western culture ? How could one justify the selection at all,
without a prior theory of the Western culture?
These are legitimate problems, to be sure. It is, however, of great importance to note that they have arisen
in the context of looking at social sciences independent of Orientalism. In fact, these problems parallel those
with respect to Orientalist discourse, when we look at it as an independent, isolated discourse about other
cultures. What we need to do, therefore, is to look at the one as providing answers to the other. In rather
abstract terms, it means that Orientalism answers questions about social sciences. The former constrains
the latter to ask particular kinds of questions; these, in turn, tell us about the kind of culture that asks these
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and not other questions.

Even at this general level, if this claim is true, we can begin to appreciate the signal achievement of Saids
Orientalism. He has provided us with the Archimedean point to move the world. It can now be shown why
a critique of Orientalism is required. Such a critique does not help us to ascertain our dignity or recover
our pride, or saddle the current and future generations in the West with guilt complexes. In a true and
fundamental sense, it enables us to contribute to the growth of human knowledge. For that is what we will
surely be doing when, through a critique of Orientalism, we undertake to understand one particular cultures
way of understanding itself. Such a task will force us to provide alternate descriptions of the world that are
richer and fuller than those we have today. If this is not a quest for knowledge, what else is?
Social Sciences, Orientalism and the Ethical Domain
As noticed above, the mutual relationship between Orientalism and the social sciences has been formulated
abstractly. A relatively concrete illustration might go some way in making my claim more credible. With
this in mind, I would like to touch upon the conceptualization and description of the nature of the ethical
domain in India.
Most of us are familiar with the modern Orientalist descriptions of Indian people and their morality. That
Indians are dishonest, liars and cheats, is as much a part of this picture as the recognition that the British
did a great service when they implanted their system of Law in India. A totally random citation, therefore,
just for the sake of academic decorum:
(C)ould I transplant my reader, to the purely native circle by which I am surrounded, and could he understand the bold and fluent hindostanee which the Hindoo soldier speaks, he would soon distinguish the
sources of oriental licentiousness, and how unprincipled is the Hindoo in conduct and character.
In nothing is the general want of principle more evident, than in the total disregard to truth which they
show; no rank or order among them can be exempted from the implication. The religious teachers set the
example, and they are scrupulously followed by all classes. Perjury and fraud are as common as is a suit of
law; with protestations of equal sincerity will a witness stand forth who knows the falsehood of his testimony,
and he who is ignorant of what he professes to testify. No oath can secure the truth; the water of the Ganges,
as they cannot wash away the filth of lying and deceit, so they cannot preserve the court of law from being
the scene of gross and impious contradiction. No task is so difficult as is he who would elicit truth from the
mouth of a witness. Venality and corruption are universal; they are remarkable, too, for their ingratitude.
(Massie, Vol. 1, 1840: 466-467.)
If Orientalist discourse transformed Indian Culture into an immoral one, what are we to make of a scientific
discourse that transforms Indians into moral cretins? For that is the result of Shweders research (Shweder,
et.al., 1987), where he tries to relate culture to moral development. In the course of conducting a crosscultural research into the growth of moral awareness, Shweder and his co-workers developed a questionnaire
supposed to test the presence of several moral notions among their subjects. The contrasting cultures are
the Indian and the American; the interviewees are both children and adults. From the list of the cases
that Shweder uses, here are the first five in order of perceived seriousness of breach, as judged by Hindu
Brahman eight-year-olds:
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P.40).
regarding the first two cases (P.63), there was no consensus only among children regarding the last three
cases.
What are we to make of this kind of research? Firstly, it appears to me that the garnered facts cannot be
disputed regarding their veracity. It is almost certain that the Indian informants would consider the above
cases as paap or even as a great paap. Secondly, it is equally probable that this concept has been translated
as sin by Shweder and his co-workers. Thirdly, consequently, sins have been interpreted as violations of
ethical norms.
None of these might appear problematic in of themselves, until one reads through the rest of the cases.
Keeping in mind that they are ordered in terms of the perceived seriousness of the breach, we further come
across (ibid., P.40):
13. In a family, a twenty-five-year-old son addresses his father by his first name.
and, as the fifteenth,
15. A poor man went to the hospital after being seriously hurt in an accident. At the hospital they refused
to treat him because he could not afford to pay.
Surely, now is the time to pause and take stock of the situation. Consider the first case again: The day after
his fathers death, the eldest son had a haircut and ate chicken. This moral transgression consists of two
actions: eating chicken and having ones hair cut. It is a matter of certainty again that the same informants
would not think unanimously and unconditionally that eating chicken is a moral violation. Certainly, none
would say that going to the barber is a sin either. It now follows (as a matter of logic) that the conjunction
of these two actions cannot be a moral transgression either. It could be the case, a very improbable one, that
Indians cannot think logically and, consequently, do not appreciate logical consequences in moral matters.
Should we leave this Orientalist imagery aside, then quite obviously we have a serious explanatory problem
on our hands.
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The problem gets compounded by the fact that what one would normally consider as a moral breach is
ranked the fifteenth. Assume, for a moment, that such is the moral domain for the Indians. If this is the
case, there would be no India to talk of. No group could survive as a culture if its members think that eating
chicken and going to a barber, or a widow eating fish are more immoral than not treating a poor man for
his sickness. Indians might be moral cretins; if they were that, there would be no Indian culture today.
One supposes that Shweder is vaguely aware of the absurdity of the situation, especially when the American
children and adults do not consider eating chicken or the widow wearing bright clothes as moral transgressions. Instead of trying to figure out what has gone wrong with his research that cretinizes an entire culture,
Shweder tries to figure out an ideal argument structure, which can provide a reasoned defence of family
life and social practice. How does it look like? Here is how:
The body is a temple with a spirit dwelling in it. Therefore the sanctity of the temple must be preserved.
Therefore impure things must be kept out of and away from the body (Pp. 76-77).
Because further commentary is superfluous, let me make my point. As I said before, the facts are almost
certainly true. The problem lies not in the mere translation of the Indian paap into the English sin but
elsewhere. It lies in the very notion of the ethical domain.
One of the essential characteristics of the Western intellectual tradition regarding ethics is the belief that
this domain is constituted by moral rules. Those rules are normative, in the sense that they proscribe one
action, prohibit some other action and permit a third one. Being ethical means that one acts according to
some rule or another. In accordance with this view, ethical differences between cultures have traditionally
been conceived as differences between rules for moral behaviour. What is considered moral in some culture
need not be seen so in another. This factual variety, however, has not damaged the belief that it is in the
nature of moral rules to be universally valid. The requirement of universalisability is a constitutive part of
the Western idea of ethics (Potter and Timmons, eds. 1985).
Yet, the combination of both views viz. (a) that the ethical domain consists of rules and (b) that rules
actually differ from society to society has led to certain problems, as it still does, especially when the
description of the moral domain of a non-Western culture is at stake. They have to do with the difficulty in
identifying something in Asian cultures, akin to a universalisable moral norm.
In order to clearly see the difficulty involved, consider the following claim: Not only is there an absence of
the concept of morality in Asian cultures, but also the very cluster of concepts required to speak about
moral issues.
Consider as a specific example the classical Chinese language in which the early Confucians wrote. Not merely
does that language contain no lexical item for moral, it also does not have terms corresponding to freedom,
liberty, autonomy, individual, utility, rationality, objective, subjective, choice, dilemma, duty,
rights, and probably most eerie of all for a moralist, classical Chinese has no lexical item corresponding to
ought prudential or obligatory (Rosemont Jr. 1988: 61).
This claim is as puzzling as it is startling: in classical Chinese it is not possible to speak of moral duty or
moral dilemmas or moral choices. It is not even possible to formulate a rule which uses the notions of
ought either obligatory (All ought to do X) or prudential (If one desires X then one ought to do Y).
In the Western intellectual tradition, one believes it to be the essence of a moral principle or norm that it
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is formulated using the ought in either obligatory or prudential form. Without ought, there would be
no difference in kind between factual and evaluative statements. Yet, it is impossible to do precisely that in
Confucianism. The philosophical significance is immense:
Speakers (writers) of languages that have no terms (or concept clusters) corresponding to moral cannot
logically have any moral principles (ibid.: 60).
But, rightly enough, we take Confucianism at least as an example of a moral system. What is the upshot of
the above remark? Rosemont formulates the issue as follows:
If one grants that in contemporary western moral philosophy morals is intimately linked with the concept
cluster elaborated above, and if none of that concept cluster can be found in the Confucian lexicon, then the
Confucians not only cannot be moral philosophers, they cannot be ethical philosophers either. But this contention is absurd; by any account of the Confucians, they were clearly concerned about the human conduct,
and what constituted the good life. If these are not ethical considerations, what are? (ibid.: 64).
The problem is not limited to classical Chinese and Confucianism alone. I have suggested (Balagangadhara
1988) that in India we are confronted with exactly the same problem. The ethical domain itself is constructed differently; ethical language is not a normative language.
The intriguing question, apart from the truth-value of these claims, is about their intelligibility. What is the
structure of the moral domain if it is not defined by norms? If following rules is not characteristic for acting
morally, how does one learn to act in a moral way? How is an ethical judgment possible without referring
to norms? How are ethical disputes settled?
And, above all, how is an identification of such a domain possible at all?
Surely, these are the questions that Shweder should be asking, which he does not. The reason for this is
the relation between Orientalism and the social sciences that I have alluded to. The science of ethics in
the Western intellectual tradition makes it impossible to conceive the domain other than in terms of norms,
duties, obligations, etc. That is to say, an Orientalist is forced or constrained to describe ethics elsewhere
(in non-Western cultures, that is) except as repetitious pseudo-incarnations of some great original (Christ,
Europe, the West) they were supposed to have been imitating. This constraint on Orientalist thinking
comes from the field of ethical theorizing. However, if it is the case that such a normative domain does not
exist in some non-Western cultures, what else can Orientalist discourse do except portray us as immoral?
On the other hand, if one would like to deny the facts that Orientalism has dredged up that, for instance,
Indians have no moral norms what routes could one travel? One could suggest that Orientalism was
prejudiced; one is more enlightened today; and that Indians are not immoral but merely moral cretins. Take
your pick: moral idiocy or total immorality. These are the only two choices open to us, if we do not realize
the intimate relationship between Orientalism and the Western theorizing about ethics.
IV
Much more requires saying than has been said so far. Let me, however, round off reasons of space forbid
anything else. What should the Indian intellectuals be doing today, if their present should have a future?
What is the future for what they are doing at present?
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I have tried to suggest that what they are doing at present has no future. There is no future to a parrot-like
reproduction of Western theories whether Marxian, Feminist, or post-Modern. There is, however, a future
for their present if they think through the issues that Orientalism raises.
This article began with a citation from Partha Chatterjee. Let me also end on citations, both of which come
from Parthas books. The first is original to Gandhi; the second is Partha Chatterjees own conviction. As
we read through them both, let the distance as well as the nearness between the two sink in. And then,
perhaps, we could ask ourselves the question: what is the future of the present?
First Gandhi:
Let us not be obsessed with catchwords and seductive slogans imported from the West. Have we not our
own distinct Eastern traditions? Are we not capable of finding our own solutions to the question of capital
and labour? ... Let us study our Eastern institutions in that spirit of scientific inquiry and we shall evolve
a truer socialism and a truer communism than the world has yet dreamed of. It is surely wrong to presume
that Western socialism or communism is the last word on the question of mass poverty.(Cited in Chatterjee:
1986, P. 112.)
Now Partha Chatterjee (1994, P.169):
Now that there is a much greater eagerness to face up to ... historical material, its very richness forces us to
throw up our hands and declare that it is much too complex. .... (T)he feeling of unmanageable complexity
is, if we care to think of it, nothing other than the result of the inadequacy of the theoretical apparatus with
which we work. Those analytical instruments were fashioned primarily out of the process of understanding
historical developments in Europe. When those instruments now meet with the resistance of an intractable
complex material, the fault surely is not of the Indian material but of the imported instruments. If the
day comes when the vast storehouse of Indian social history will become comprehensible to the scientific
consciousness, we will have achieved along the way a fundamental restructuring of the edifice of European
social philosophy as it exists today.
References
Almond, Philip, C. The British Discovery of Buddhism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1988.
Balagangadhara, S.N. Comparative Anthropology and Moral Domains, Cultural Dynamics 1: 98128, 1988;
Balagangadhara, S.N The Heathen in His Blindness...: Asia, the West and the Dynamic of Religion. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994
Chatterjee, Partha Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1996. (First edition 1984).
Chatterjee, Partha The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1993.
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Inden, Ronald Imagining India. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994

Massie, J. W. 1840 Continental India, 2 Volumes. Delhi: B. R. Publishing Company, 1985
Potter, N.T. and M. Timmons (Eds.) Morality and Universality: Essays on Ethical Universalizability. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1985
Rosemont, Jr., H. Against Relativism. In Larson G. J. and E. Deutsch (eds.), Interpreting Across Boundaries: New Essays in Comparative Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988
Shweder, Richard, A., Mahapatra Manmohan, Miller, Joan, G. Culture and Moral Development. In Jerome
Kagan and Sharon Lamb, Eds., The Emergence of Morality in Young Children. Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1987, Pp 1-83.
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Comparative Anthropology and Action Sciences. An Essay on Knowing to Act

and Acting to Know S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-05 20:48)
Introduction
Should action sciences exist, it is obvious what they would have to study; the nature of human action, the
kind of knowledge that actions generate, the process of learning to perform different types of action and so
forth. Comparative anthropology, as a discipline, studies and contrasts, where such contrasts are possible,
the different ways in which human beings organize their lives, think about and experience both themselves
and world around them. A culture is a form of life and, as such, it is a way of going about the world. One
would therefore expect to find a deep and intimate relation between action sciences on the one hand, and
studies of culture on the other. A perusal of literature, however, shows the fact of the matter to be different.
Different in which way? It is not necessary to speak here about the attempt of anthropologists to relate both
their theoretical and ethnographic work to theories of action; many anthropologists and few anthropological
quasi-schools have felt and continue to feel the need to integrate theories of human action in their approaches
to the study of society. The same, it would appear, cannot be said of action theories. As a rough way of
establishing the interest that action theorists show in this matter, let us notice the kind of themes they take
up for investigation; the relation between action and intention, between actions and events; the nature and
properties of efficient and inefficient action, the rational and irrational action etc. A great deal of familiarity
with the literature in this tradition is not required to observe that neither anthropological theories nor
ethnographic studies play any role in their discussion.
Why is this so? Here is one possible answer; the problems that are taken up for scrutiny are invariant across
cultures and, consequently, there is not much that anthropology can contribute to this enquiry. This stance
is implicitly assumed by most; perhaps, if called for, they would also defend it explicitly. There is, however,
a second way of looking at this issue; the themes that action theorists address themselves to are the deep
and ground intuitions of one specific culture, viz. The West. To the members of this culture, it is obvious
that human action, by virtue of being human, exhibits some typical, species-specific properties such as being
intentional, goal directed, rational or whatever else that you may want to attribute. Not only is it natural
speak about human action in these terms, but to look at it any other way would be so deeply counterintuitive
that it does not appear plausible. In so far as most western anthropologists share this basic intuition, there
is not much in their field work that could contribute to the discussion. After all, they too are framed within
the descriptive possibilities open to this culture.
While both these answers shed some light on why action theories are indifferent to anthropology, the second
carries a rather disturbing implication: It suggests that what the action theories study are not so much
human actions (in their species typical generality) as a culture-specific mode of acting. And that there are
other modes of acting and other ways of going about the world which may not exhibit any/most of the
properties that human action are supposed to have. Consequently, if action sciences are to exist as sciences
at all, it is advisable that they look at the way other cultures act and at other forms of life.
In this paper, I want to examine whether the second answer could turn out to be both intelligible and sensible.
(I shall leave the question of its truth aside.) I shall do so by very briefly looking into a notion that pertains
to the domain of action theory viz., action-knowledge. I will suggest that the notion of action-knowledge
within the western tradition, by and large, has come to mean knowledge about actions. My claim will be
that this is not what action-knowledge is. In such a case, we need to understand why action-knowledge has
come to mean what it means. Lending credibility to this claim requires that we develop a more adequate
notion of action-knowledge. Both purposes could be fulfilled, I shall suggest, by looking into the practices
across cultures. In the following pages, I shall endeavor to lend some plausibility to these suggestions by
looking specifically into one culture, viz., India.
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To provide a degree of intelligibility to these claims is the aim; detailed arguments and elaborate defences
are as much outside my ken as they are beyond the province of this essay.
The structure of the paper
This paper has six sections. In the first, I introduce the problem that, more or less, forms the thread that
runs throughout: Why is there an absence of theoretical treatises about social practices in a culture like
India, when it has got what is manifestly the most complex form of social organization that human history
has ever known? This question is not answered directly, but functions as the background within which other
issues are raised. In the second section, I suggest that learning is related to culture and examine one of
the elements, viz., the experience of order, which plays an important role in the kind of learning process
that a culture develops. In the next two sections I outline a notion of learning and claim that as a mode
of learning it is specific, if not unique, to Indian culture. The properties of such a learning process, which
creates action-knowledge, are examined in the third section. While at it, some empirical hypotheses are
generated to show the heuristic potential of this approach. In the two parts that comprise the fourth section,
I take up the problem of comparison: How culture specific is the notion of action-knowledge? I examine
one domain that belongs to the realm of human action, viz., the ethical in the first part. In the second, I
compare the notion of action-knowledge with the most familiar notions of knowing how and knowing that.
The problems that arise as a result of such a contrast function as the theme of reflection in the last section.
As a part of an unconcluded project I am working on, this article merely expresses some working hypotheses
that appear rather productive. As a project, it has the ambition of wanting to formulate the intuitions of
one culture within the language of an other. As an article, its aim is not to convince but to persuade. Could
it be, I want to ask, that we may fruitfully look at the issues in a way we are not accustomed to? What
would it be like; I want you to ask yourselves by the end of this article, if cultures could learn to really look
at each other?
1. Raising a problem: knowledge and social life
To any one who has some first hand knowledge of India, the conjunction of the following three phenomena
must appear both extraordinary and striking: Firstly, its social organization (viz., the so-called caste system)
exhibits enormous complexity, manifests some kind of an order and touches every walk of life. It is a social
organization under whose scope falls not only the mundane and minutiae, but also the deeper and the lofty.
And yet, no Indian could tell you much about the principles of this system, leave alone the dynamics of its
reproduction. Theories about this social organization, one that has had a history of more than two thousand
years, are not to be found within the Indian tradition. Of course, many treatises about the caste system
have been authored by Indian intellectuals during this century. My point is that theorizing about the caste
system is neither indigenous to the tradition nor inherited from it, but a learned and acquired mode of
treating the subject. Secondly, each of the caste groups in India appears to have an enormous repertoire
of dos and donts. Again, were you to dip into the literature of the Indian tradition expecting to find
complex reasonings and justifications to support any one set from this variegated, hardly overlapping sets of
injunctions, you are likely to draw a blank. That is, individuals perform a great variety of moral actions
and there appears to exist many action alternatives without a correlated corpus of justificatory literature.
Thirdly, neither the social institutions nor the moral practices are founded upon centralized authorities: be
they religious, moral or political. In other words, absence of knowledge about practices is not supplanted by
the presence of authorities whose cogitations could make debates and arguments superfluous.
What, you may wonder, is problematic about the coexistence of these three phenomena in any one society?
The answer would be evident, if we were to indulge in a comparison. Contrast the situation sketched above
with that of the West regarding some similar domain, say, that of the ethical. Consider, for example, the
total number of moral principles (or injunctions) in the West with the amount of literature produced about
them. These injunctions, each of which is formulated and defended as a general principle, do not (probably)
number more than twenty. But the literature about them stretches to infinity. With respect to India, it
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would be difficult to make any such claim; it is not clear whether the injunctions are general principles or
not; one does not know how many injunctions exist and, as I said, there is hardly any justificatory literature.
What are we to make of this? Here are two possible responses from among many:
(a) Because Indians have no comparable moral theories (comparable, that is, to those of the West) they
really have no notion of good and bad. Therefore, they are immoral. Not many would say it in quite this
fashion, even though many still think so. This does not merit an answer.
(b) They are arrested at a primitive stage of moral development, even if they have stumbled upon some
fundamental moral principles. This is a self-defeating response: if a culture has stumbled upon such
principles and every individual from each generation over thousands of years continues to stumble upon it,
moral practice does not require to be supported by ethical theories. By the same token, the existence of
theoretical treatises about moral practices in a culture is hardly indicative of its maturity.
It is only by leaving such or similar responses aside that we are better able to formulate the issue that a
culture like India raises. Let us do so by looking at some facts. The Indian caste appears to have survived
(in whatever form, and through whatever mechanisms) many fundamental upheavals: through challenges
posed by internal movements (like Buddhism etc.) to externally imposed economico-political reorganizations
(Islamic invasion, British colonialism and subsequent integration into a world capitalist system). That is to
say, caste system appears to have adapted itself to changing environments over the course of the centuries.
This is a statement that one could make without having to prejudge the desirability or otherwise of such
an organization.
Clearly, the minimum that is required for such an adaptive social organization is that some kind of knowledge
present in society and that it be available to its members. Knowledge must be present, because the actions
that reproduce a way of living are knowledgeable actions and cannot be either random or purely explanatory
ones. Furthermore, because these actions enable a social organization to adapt itself, they will have to
be informed actions. And because what is adaptive over thousands of generations is one and the same
organization, which is a creation of infinitely many actions of indefinitely many individuals, each member
of such a form of life must have access to this knowledge. Otherwise, there would be no continuity between
generations and hence no culture either. Given that Indian society has some such thing called culture and
some kind of a history, the question must now be fairly obvious: If knowledge about these practices is
not what there is, what other kind of knowledge is it? How is such knowledge transmitted through the
generations? How do individuals learn it? How does this enable them to sustain a very complex form of
social interaction?
These questions have rarely been raised in the literature, be they philosophical, sociological or anthropological. Most of the studies about the Indian caste system, for example, have assumed the presence of
some or other principles underlying and supporting the system. These studies have also excavated and
brought to light many such principles: from non-egalitarian principles through hygienic principles (albeit in
a metaphysical form); from transactional rules through rules of coalition formation to the very propensity
of human beings to maximize fitness through extended nepotism, etc. This is not the place to discuss the
veracity of any of these studies. And yet, I mention these attempts because it is relevant for the concerns
of this paper to ask why this approach has been the dominant one at all. That is, why is it assumed that
knowledge about human practices is the best way to understand human ways of going about the world?
In this paper, I begin to answer this question as well, by trying to link notions of knowledge and ways of
knowledge acquisition to the nature of cultures. Thus, a philosophical quest, viz., that of clarifying some
conception of knowledge begins and ends as a project in comparative anthropology.
2. Culture, learning and paradigms of order
Is it plausible to accept the idea that the way the members of a group learn is intimately connected to the
culture of that group? In this part, I shall provide a brief positive answer by looking at one element that
plays an important role in linking the mode of learning to the culture of a group.
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As human beings, we are socialized within the framework of groups. In its broadest sense, socialization
refers to the process of living with others. Who these others are, and what it means to live with them are
things that a human organism learns when it gets socialized. That is, socializing process involves transmitting
this knowledge, which is practical in nature. The customs, lores and traditions of human groups not only
preserve this knowledge but are also the mechanisms of its transmission. What a learning process is, when
viewed from the point of view of he organism that is being socialized, is a teaching process from the point of
view of those responsible for socializing that organism. The teachers, thus, draw upon the resources of the
culture to which they belong.
Consequently, the methods of teaching an organism will teach only to the extent they dovetail with the
process of learning. Because we, as human beings, are not genetically determined to learn in any one
particular way, it could be safely held that the teaching processes give form to the way an organism learns
about environment. That is, the way one learns is non-trivially dependent upon ones culture. We may,
therefore, accept the idea that not only the what but also how of learning is connected to the culture of
an organisms group. All of the above claims appear extremely reasonable. As we shall soon see, it also
appears possible to generate a culture-specific notion of learning, which is able to shed light on a diverse set
of phenomena that are characteristic to a culture.
Several elements are of direct relevance to the way a culture teaches, and to the way its members learn: the
experience of self and others; the experience of body and space; etc. Unable as I am to discuss any of
these, I shall restrict myself to just one element from the set, viz., the experience of order.
If construed rather broadly, learning can be seen as the way an organism makes its environment habitable i.e.,
it is an activity of making habitat. The fashion in which this takes place, however, depends on the experience
the organism has of the environment that has to be made habitable. One of the fundamental differences
between cultures is the manner of structuring this experience and that, I suggest, take place through the
mediation of some or other paradigm or root model of order. Let me explain.
Almost all cultures inculcate and preserve a sense and feeling of order within their members. It is almost as
if each generation teaches the following truth to the next generation: cultural systems are not the intended
results of the actions of its members. Both the order in ones culture and the order that the cosmos is share
the property of not being and planned products of the actions of its members. The awareness that actions
of its members are necessary to maintain the cultural order and that actions, somehow, can either sustain
or disrupt these orders is also present in most cultures.
However, what distinguishes one culture from another is, among other things, the way this sense and feeling
of order is preserved. Quite obviously, some way of preserving a sense of order can continue to preserve only
to the extent it ceaselessly structures the very experience of order itself. That is to say, preserving the sense
of order and structuring the experience of order are both descriptions of the same process but from two
different points of view; each generation preserves its experience of order by structuring the experience of
the next. A way of preserving a sense of order can structure an experience of order, it appears to me, if
it itself models or represents or explicates that very order whose experience it is supposed to structure. In
other words, that which structures the experience of Cosmos as an order must itself, in some way or another,
exhibit or express the order of the Cosmos. I call such a prototype of order, the primary root model of order.
What distinguishes cultures from one another, under this construal, would be the nature of their paradigms
of order.
My suggestion is that religion has been the paradigm of order for the western culture. According to the
account given above, it would mean that religion both structures the experience of the universe and is itself
an instance of that order. Now, whatever religion might be, it is without doubt true (If, that is, Judaism,
Christianity and Islam are what religions are) that it is explanatory. That means to say, the structure and
the strategy of religious explanations both structures and sustains an experience of order that that universe
is. Because the finer and subtler points about the nature of religious explanations are not relevant for this
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paper, let me crudely outline the three basic phases which culminate in the sense of order that I consider
typical for, if not unique to, the West.
There is the first phase, I suppose, of a pre-religious experience of the world. In this phase, there is an
experiencing of the constancy and regularity of the universe. The second phase denies this experience of
order and draws the attention to the chaos the world actually is. In the third phase, there is a discovery
of a deeper and underlying order beneath the chaos of the phenomenal world. What happens in this
process is that the first experience, the naive experience of order, is totally bracketed away, leaving behind
only the chaos that the phenomena experience is supposed to be until the deeper order is discovered. The
obviousness and the all pervasiveness of this attitude is expressed in the way child development was conceived
until recently, and in the way the emergence of mythical and magical thinking is accounted for. A childs
world, it was surmised, is a bloomin, buzzin confusion until it learns to conceptualize, categorize and
speak. And we are told that our ancestors attempted to find explanations for natural phenomena because
they were confronted by a chaotic world i.e. by the occurrence of random events. Even the arguments
for the existence of God took the form of arguments from design in the hands of the medieval naturalists
and theologians. The fundamental attitude, in other words, is that if there are no laws or principles
underlying an experiential world, such a world will have to be a chaotic and unordered world.
Consider now another culture, where such or similar paradigms of order do not exist. To its members
the above suggestion would appear strange: neither chaos nor deeper laws are experiential units to this
culture. The universe is experienced as an order: neither a creator nor His design requires to be invoked as
the reason for this order. Explanations may try to say what the order consists of; but the truth or otherwise
of these explanations arc irrelevant to the fact that the universe is an order. That is to say, the world does
not embody or express an order (or anything else): to speak of the world, to experience it, is to experience
order. For this to be true, it would require that such a culture have a root or primary model of order which is
not explanatory in nature. Nevertheless, it must be ordered and that order must be visible on the surface.
The truth or falsity of the many different explanations (interpretations would, perhaps, be a better word
in this context) must be irrelevant to answering the question whether such a root model is an order. That
is to say, in such a culture, the root or primary model of order must be pre-linguistic (or non-linguistic) in
nature. A set of actions, with a beginning and an end (neither of which need be an absolute), following each
other contiguously in time would constitute such an order. India is one each culture, I want to claim, and
its paradigm of order is not religion but something else. Call it, for the sake of convenience, Ritual.
Under this construal, Religion and Ritual are two fundamental paradigms of order or two fundamental ways
of structuring the experience of the universe. This does not require that the other mode (ritual for one,
religion for the other) is absent in either of the two cultures: they exist, but as subordinate moments and
hence as almost unrecognizable counterparts. A religious ritual is as different from Ritual as ritualistic
religions are from Religion. We shall have an opportunity to relive this problem again, but in another form
later.
Given this, the problem that occupies the intellectual energies of one culture is: given that the universe is
an order, how to perform actions that better fit the order? In an another, it takes a different form: What
is the nature of the order such that one may perform the action that require to be performed? How, asks
one culture, to perform actions and continue to improve them such that the order does not disintegrate? In
an another, the order is not visible: it is a design; a law that lies hidden beneath. Knowledge of this
order would allow one to decide about the right action that requires to be performed in indefinitely many
contexts. These two paradigms of order, that distinguish these two cultures, shed some light on the way the
problem of action is treated: to know one has to act in one culture; to act one has to know in another.
My suggestion is that these paradigms of order, in their turn, enable the emergence of culturally dominant
modes of learning. In a culture like India, this leads to a learning process whose main focus it is to develop
the ability of performing and improving actions. The knowledge that the members of such a culture have
is what I shall call action-knowledge. In the next two sections, I shall go a bit deeper both into the kind
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of knowledge that action-knowledge is and into the nature of learning process required to acquire such a
knowledge. Contrast and comparison with the West will be attempted subsequently.
3. Action-Knowledge and exemplary learning
The proposal that I shall outline in the rest of this paper is the following: Action-Knowledge (or Practical
Knowledge) is a species of knowledge that is distinct from theoretical knowledge. The process of acquiring this
knowledge involves mimetic learning i.e., learning through exemplars. Exemplars are different from examples
and, therefore, the process of learning through exemplars is not the same as learning through examples i.e., It
is not some kind of inductive learning. Action-Knowledge, on this account, is not knowledge about actions;
neither is it the same as acquiring some skill or the other. In the next section, I shall look at the properties of
practical knowledge and the consequences that follow when proposed as a culture specific mode of learning.
3.1 Stories as models
One of the characteristic properties of Indian society, something which strikes everyone with more than a
vague acquaintance of this culture, appears to be its incredible variety and stock of stories. Inundated with
stories, its people appear to relish the act of telling stories: there are stories for every situation; all reasons
and explanations require stories and their presence is as ubiquitous as the very air itself. Clearly, if a child
is constantly exposed to stories at all levels of social interaction, they end up playing an important role in
the very process of socializing itself. So, whatever be the roles that stories play, it is reasonable to assert
that they are vita] ingredients in the process of learning to live with the others. That is, in. such B culture,
stories would have to function as units of a learning process.
By virtue of which property can stories play the role that I suggest they do? I am rather hesitant to ascribe
any internal or intrinsic properties to stories that enable them to be units of learning. I do not think that it
makes a great deal of sense to speak of unite of learning outside a specific learning process. However, given
a specific kind of learning process stories could be its units because they do have some properties. For the
moment, two such merit our attention.
Firstly, stories are a way of representing the world. Cognitively speaking, they are models of the world in a
broad sense of the term. As models, they portray, stand for or represent some small part of the world. Let
us briefly see how they do it.
Take, for instance, a group performing some ritual or the other, say, a rain ritual. When asked about the
significance of their actions, one gets to hear a story. Such a story depicts a set of events which includes
the performing of the rain ritual in conjunction with some other events. Now it is not the case that causal
efficacy is attributed to the performance of such a ritual. That is, the members of the group do not believe
that their singing and chanting in some specified fashion and the pouring of ghee into the fire altar cause the
rains to come. They are not justifying this belief by telling a story. What then are they doing?
Because stories are models of a situation, as models they are neither true nor false; it is only in models that
statements come out as true or false. When the group performs such a ritual and no rains come, all that
can be said about the story is that it is not a model for such a situation. If, on the other hand, we look
at the way the members of the group experience the situation, then quite a lot could be explicated. When
the ritual is performed and the rains do not come, the group experiences this situation as something having
gone wrong somewhere. When the rains do come, it is experienced as everything is as it should be. What
are these experiences signalling?
Recollect, if you will, the suggestion I made earlier about experiencing the world as an order. The truth or
falsity of the explanations about the nature of the order, I said, is irrelevant to the experience that the world
is an order. There is a question embedded in that suggestion that can be answered now: In any such culture
(including the Indian culture that I am talking about), at any moment of time, hypotheses float around
which purport to explain the order of the universe: some or other-account of the pattern that ones culture
and the cosmos exhibit, and some explanation of the role of individual actions with respect to sustaining or
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disrupting that order. Many such explanations have come and gone: Why does the sense of order not follow
suit?
This is best answered, if we ask how such cultures manage to sustain this feeling in the absence of knowledge
about the pattern. What mechanisms preserve the sense of order without requiring the presence of knowledge
about the order, which the culture and cosmos exhibit? One such mechanism admirably suited for the job
is the stories and legends that a culture possesses.
Stories preserve patterns without saying what these patterns are. They depict partial aspects of an order without specifying what the order consists of. Performing the ritual, the coming of rains, etc., is a
sequence of events described in a story without specifying a relation between them. The experience of
something having gone wrong somewhere and that of everything is as it should be are expressions of
disturbance/appropriateness accordingly as whether the story is not/is a model of the situation. Stories do
not explain anything because they do not model relations (causal or otherwise) between events. In very
simple terms, they just model a set of affairs.
What I have so far said about the stories allows roe to propose the following idea: the representational
aspect of stories is what makes them continuous with other representational products known to us like
philosophy, scientific theories, etc. But, of course, there are also differences between them: whereas theories
claim to explain, stories make no such claim. Theories may justify some belief that you have, stories do not.
Nevertheless, stories are pedagogical instruments in so far as they have the representational (or cognitive)
property. Therefore, I will now make a mild claim, which I hope to strengthen later on in this article, that
stories embody some kind of knowledge. Or, slightly differently, they are units of learning.
What kind of knowledge is it that these stories embody? And in which kind of a learning process are they
its units? In order to begin answering this question, I need to look at the second property of the stories as
well.
3.2 Stories as exemplars
Apart from exhibiting a cognitive, property, stories possess a practical one too. By describing a way of going
about the world, they are a way of going about the world. They are models in a practical sense i.e. they can
be emulated. Stories are pedagogical instruments par excellence because of this additional property. But
how can stories leach us to do anything? How can they be instructive, i.e. instruct us to do anything at all?
How can a description of a way of going about in the world be itself a way of going about in the world?
As stories, they do not come with any explicit morals attached: they do not, for example, say that the moral
of this story is... They are not structured as manuals for practical action either: do X in order to achieve
Y. If they can teach, then it is because of the way learning occurs in India. Consequently, the question
becomes: What kind of a learning activity is required, if stories are how one learns? My answer is that it is
mimetic learning. As stories, they are a set of propositions. What they depict are actions. Between these
actions and those of ones own, what obtains is a practical relation of mimesis. Only as such can stories
function as instructions for actions.
Stories combine this double function: they are theoretical and practical at the same time. They are not
straight forward instructions; nor are they only representational. They entertain too: but not the way the
The Little Red Riding Hood does. Understanding and imitation fall together: to understand is to imitate
and to imitate is to understand. Stories are oblique instructions disguised as representations depicting
actions. One learns while one is not aware that one is learning. Mimesis is a sub-intentional learning.
In the previous section, I suggested that methods of teaching will teach only to the extent they dovetail with
the processes of learning. Though not a controversial suggestion by itself, it must be clear what it implies:
Stories can be used to teach if, and only if, the process of learning is such that its units are exemplars.
Consequently, in a culture where mimetic learning is not a dominant mode, there the stories do not play
the same role. They may entertain, take your fancy, capture your imagination; but instruct, they cannot.
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Stories, in such a culture, become a genre of literature and, mostly, remain at that level. Narration would
be different from instruction.
If, on the other hand, narration is to become coextensive with instruction, either the narrative or the narrator
must carry instructional authority. Neither the stories nor the story tellers carry this label on their sleeves. It
is not even the case that stories about Gods or respected figures (say a Buddha or a Shankara) are sufficient
to lend instructional authority to the narrative. That is to say, stories are not emulated because they portray
action executed by either divine or human authorities. (This is both a factual statement about India and a
consequence that flows from the suggestion that mimesis is a sub-intentional learning.) What, then, lends
Instructional authority to the stories? This is the same as asking what makes stories into units of a learning
process. I have partially answered this question already.
But, there is a more intriguing point lurking in the background: instructional authorities need not be
coextensive with religious, moral, political or divine authorities. That is to say, learning through mimesis,
looked at from the point of view of the learning subject, involves the activity of constructing the authority
of the other. This must be an active process because the other does not carry identifying marks on its
forehead. This has several interesting consequences as a result, not all of which are of equal importance to
this paper. Let me, therefore, restrict myself to just identifying two.
If the process of going about the world involves the activity of constructing instructional authorities; and if it
is the case that there is no necessity, say, that religious or political authorities, by virtue of their position, are
also instructional authorities, the consequence is obvious: their ability to give form to your learning activities
is very much reduced. Or, put in broad and historical terms, where mimesis obtains, there neither religion
nor politics would have a dominating and decisive impact on ways of going about the world. The converse
would also hold true: the foundation for forms of interaction between members of such a society would have
to be fairly independent of both the religious and political authorities. Sociologists have often puzzled
over the fact that in India, religion, commerce, politics and education did not fuse, for any length of
time, into one centralized authority. I suggest to you that the way learning process occurs in India might
well begin to shed light on this issue.
The second point that I want to make regards the public or social process of mimesis. Both the process of
learning and the knowledge that is acquired presuppose social interaction, instead of arguing for it in the
abstract, let me illustrate by referring to, say, the moral domain once again. To be moral, in the West, is
to follow some or other moral principle. The relation is between an individual, isolated subject and some
injunction or the other. How the community in which such an individual finds himself is? Is a question of
no moral significance to his moral behavior? By contrast, in a culture dominated by mimesis (like India) the
relation is between individuals (be they the really existing community or the fictitious individuals portrayed
in the stories). A moral individual, in other words, presupposes a moral community. Reformulated in different
terms, the general point is this: Because mimetic learning has a public dimension, epistemic problems will
have to refer to the community of learning subjects.
4. Learning through exemplars: properties and consequences
Mimetic learning, to briefly summarize, is learning through exemplars. Exemplars, as unite of such a learning
process, have a representational property and can be emulated. My claim is that the dominant mode of
learning in India is mimetic or exemplary learning.
There is a kind of circularity in what is said, if you take it as a definition: mimesis is exemplary learning
and exemplars are units of mimetic learning. To avoid this circularity entirely, more requires to be said
both about exemplars and mimesis than I could possibly say now. However, it is possible to minimize the
circularity in two, ways: Firstly, take what I have said so far not as a definition, but as an attempt at
explication; secondly, by speaking a bit more about both exemplars and mimesis, I shall suggest that it is
possible to understand them in relative independence. Quite apart from that, something else requires to be
done: the claim that this way of learning is a dominant mode of learning in India has not yet shown to be
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the case. I shall try to do that as well. However, the intention is not so much to convince you of the truth of
that claim as to make it appear plausible. That will be done by drawing out some consequences that follow
from such a claim.
4.1. Properties of action-knowledge
Let me begin by exploring the properties of action-knowledge. Because I want to talk about this at a rather
general level, let me take an example some or the other variant of which will be familiar to you.
Suppose that you are a social worker, working, say, amongst immigrant children from the neighborhood.
You have undertaken many activities to integrate them better into the neighborhood social life and, for the
moment, you are at a loss about how to proceed further. That is, you do not know what to do next. While
wrestling with the despair arising out of the desire to do something new and not being able to know what
it is that yet should do, you meet an old friend of yours. In the process of conversation, he casually mentions
about some activity that an acquaintance of his undertook in, say, an old peoples home. As soon as you
hear about it, you suddenly know what your next action would be with the immigrant children. And, in all
probability, your action is totally different from the activity that took place in the old peoples home. What
exactly happened here?
I would like to suggest that the activity performed at the old peoples home functioned as an exemplar for
you: that is, it functioned as a generative action. This, in the first place, is what an exemplar is: it creates
new, original actions. If you are willing to accept this suggestion, I should now like to elaborate further on
this point.
There are two ways in which you could understand the statement made above. You could say that the
linguistic description of the action gave you a new idea about the action that you can execute. But, there
is also a second way of construing the statement, which is what I am proposing. I am not saying that the
activity performed at the old peoples home gave you an idea of another action that you could perform
in your situation. No. You must read me literally: that persons action generated a new action; you are
now able to perform a new action, something that you could not do before. While you may be able to
describe the activity, which you intend to perform, this description/conception of the action is parasitic
upon the ability to execute it. In exactly the same way someones idea/thought/theory can create/generate
new idea/thought/theory in your head, someones action, as an exemplar, creates a new action. You may
complain that this is spooky. Fair enough. But, I put to you, it is no more spooky than the fact that ideas
can give birth to new ideas. Actions give birth to new and original actions in the way ideas create novel
ideas.
You have now, in other words, acquired action-knowledge. That is, when described from your point of view,
your ability to produce a new action now is what it means to speak of you having acquired action-knowledge.
In this case, the exemplar happened to be a linguistic description of someones action. Quite obviously, it
need not be so in all cases. You may see someone doing something, and that enables you to execute a new
action as well. In both cases, the learning process is the same: learning through an exemplar or mimetic
learning. As a consequence, it must be clear that mimesis, as a learning process, is creative and dynamic.
Consider, now, the second property of action-knowledge. In our case, the exemplar happened to be a very
specific action undertaken by, a very specific individual in a very specific context. And yet, it was able to
create in you, another specific individual in a totally different context, the ability to execute an entirely
different action. All exemplars are always context bound. But, they are generative in totally different
contexts. Or, put even more clearly, it is precisely the context dependence of an action that makes it fertile
in different contexts.
Our general intuition regarding the nature of guidelines or decision principles is that the more general,
abstract and context independent they are, the more useful and true they are. In fact, this is a demand that
we make upon all knowledge-claims: a moral principle, a. legal statute is acceptable if and only if it enables
you to choose and execute the right action in all/most contexts. For that to happen, a moral principle
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requires to be context free. However, for action-knowledge it appears to go the other way: Inter-contextual
applicability is directly proportional to contextual embeddedness and inversely to context insensitivity and
generality.
Consider, now, the third property of action-knowledge. Even though you knew what it is that you wanted
to achieve, the knowledge of this goal, together with the knowledge about your present state, did not help
you in producing a new action. Also, your learning through the exemplar occurred when you were not aware
that you were learning. Even though each of these two points enables me to argue the point independently,
their conjunction gives it a greater force: your ability to execute a new action is indifferent to the presence
or absence of goals. Or action-knowledge is not goal dependent.
One of the basic beliefs in the Western tradition is that human action is goal oriented action, and that this
constitutes an intrinsic property of human actions. It I am right, just the opposite is true: intrinsically,
human action is goal-less. This does not, quite obviously, prevent you from finding a goal for an action
when you have action-knowledge. But mimesis, as a sub-intentional learning that involves the ability to
execute actions, does not require the presence of goals. Practical activity, practical knowledge - as species of
knowledge - is not intentional and it is not goal-directed.
Consider the fourth and final property of action-knowledge. Here, I will be brief because to argue the case
would require bringing in other considerations extraneous to the paper. The situation you were in was one
where you did not know what to do. It is not as though you had difficulty in choosing between the alternatives
that were open to you. It is not even the case, I would like to suggest, that you chose between the action
that you can now execute and those action-alternatives that existed previously. Rather, acquiring the ability
of executing a new action was the same as knowing what to do.
In slightly more general terms, what I am driving at is this. Within the western tradition, the dominant
approach is to treat epistemic problems in decision-theoretic terms or as decision problems. I believe that
this is not the case with respect to practical knowledge: epistemic problems regarding action-knowledge ore
not decision problems, but learning problems. Problems of social interaction and social organization, under
this construal, are problems of learning.
By saying this, I do not deny that it is possible to describe them as decision problems. (Why it is possible to
do so is a theme I reflect upon in the last section.). Besides, I am aware, that social sciences are increasingly
turning towards game theory and choice theories in their attempts to understand social interactions.
4.2. Action-Knowledge and cultural specificity: some hypotheses
Let me now turn my attention to outlining some empirical hypotheses that seem to follow if we accept the
idea that mimesis is a way of learning characteristic to India. In fact I believe that it is typical of the Asian
culture and not restricted to India alone. Consequently, here and there I talk of Asia and India as if these
two terms are interchangeable, which they are in the context of speaking about learning processes.
1. If socialization involves mimesis and families are the primary units of socializing a human infant, the
success of the socialization process depends very much on what the family exactly models. That is,
an individual can be taught to live with others if, and only if, the family stands for or represents the
significant details of the social environment. The family, in its important details, must be continuous
with the moral community at large. And, I submit, it does.
Not only this. In a peculiar way, this sheds light upon the sternness or harshness considered typical
of both family life and teaching situations in India. One is being prepared for life when one is brought
up as an offspring and a pupil. The parents and the teachers, between them, prepare the child to act
morally when it goes out as an adult to meet the world at large. That can only be done if the child,
during its maturational phases, faces a wide variety of situations and sees the way in which the others
are going to construe its actions. Parents and teachers must, in the full sense of the word, stand for
and represent the rest of the community. Consequently, ones family is also ones sternest and harshest
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critic. If one passes this test, the belief is that one can pass any other test. Hence the descriptions of
an ideal father or teacher: harder than the diamond, softer than a flower.
The family as a moral arena as Indian culture sees it, and family as a Heaven in a Heartless World
(as Lasch titles his book on the family) cannot be sharper. In Western families one is to experience
love, one learns to be oneself. The socializing or the educative role of the family is secondary, it is
derivative. Its primary task is to protect the child from the cruel world out there. If it prepares the
child to face up to the cold and indifferent world, it does so by providing that love and understanding
which gives the child the courage to go and get what it wants. Family is ones only oasis in the desert
of social life.
2. Mimesis, though not a blind imitative learning, entails a reproduction of existing actions i.e. it essentially conserves. A culture dominated by mimetic learning must, perforce, exhibit a very strong pull
towards conservatism. Indian culture is essentially conservative. Tradition, the past etc., must weigh
heavily on all those who are members of such a culture. Again, I submit that it does.
3. The other side of the same phenomenon is what happens when such a culture meets with that of the
West. There is a partial exchange of authorities, not their disappearance. The tendency is towards an
imitation of these new authorities. Whether we look at the shallow westernization of the youth, the
clarion call of the intellectuals to follow the West, or even at the fact that the Japanese have earned
the label, often used pejoratively, of being very good imitators - the phenomenon is the same. We
imitate the West not because there is some iron law of capitalism that compels us, willy-nilly, to be
like them, but because it is our way of learning.
4. Learning through mimesis requires that one develops the ability to discriminate finely. One has to
sort out, so to speak, situations and actions in such a way that one distinguishes between to emulate
in this situation from to emulate in that situation. Not all aspects of an event or action should be
emulated. In other words, one grows to be a member of such a culture by acquiring a finely tuned set
of discriminating criteria.
How is this acquired? Again, the answer cannot be other than to say by mimesis. However, events
and actions must loose their clarity and simplicity when multiple and often incompatible models are
said to model the same situation. They must become complex and essentially ambiguous. Indeed, I
claim, they do. One expression of this situation is the extraordinary productivity of Indian culture
with respect to religions.
5. In the previous section, I pointed out that instructional authority is not coextensive with religious,
moral or political authorities. Here, I will simply state some things explicitly, which were said there
implicitly. Nothing about the learning process prevents that they be the same; the point is that it is
not required
The first thing to notice is that if there exists a learning process one of whose moments requires constructing
an authority, this orientation is bound to spread into or spill over into other spheres. That is, the very
idea of what it means to be an authority will begin to get affected. Consequently, what it means to speak
of political authorities, rule of law or even religious authorities in a culture like India is anything but
clear. To appreciate the force of this difference, takes a look at the history of the West: each challenge
to the authority (be it clerical, biblical, political or juridical) has precipitated a deep crisis in the culture.
Challenges of similar nature, of which there have been many, have hardly rippled the fabric of social life in
India.
There is a second point, about which I can afford to be briefer. Mimesis is a way of learning to live with
others and go about the world. The nature of this learning process severs any intrinsic relationship between
instructional authorities and political or religious authorities. If the Indian caste system is the result of
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such a learning process, it follows that it rests on neither religion nor politics. Not just that. It must be
an organization that resists any centralization of political and religious power where the latter, by virtue
of such centralization, could begin, to function as an instructional authority. (I say it must be, because it
could not have survived for so long if it had tied itself to any one religious or political authority.) What its
implications are, I will leave it to you to reflect about.
1. Consider another implication of my suggestion. I am informed by people active in the area that some
philosophers of mathematics are beginning to turn their attention to the processes of constructing a
proof in order to say what it is for something to be a proof. They believe that the notion of proof is
somehow related to, or requires ineluctable reference to, the activity of constructing a proof. Consider
now another fact: Immigrant Asians in Europe and America turn out to be better in such disciplines as
Mathematics and Engineering than any other ethnic minority. This difference between Asians on the
one hand, and other groups (including the native white population) is statistically significant enough
to engage the attention of psychologists, pedagogists, etc., and to initiate research into this question
in a concentrated way. Suppose that there is some truth to the proposal made by some philosophers
of mathematics. In such a case, the fact I drew your attention to appears to follow as a consequence
of the notion of learning through mimesis: A culture whose dominant mode of learning develops
action-knowledge in its members, predisposes the latter to become proficient in domains involving
action-knowledge. When members of such a culture take to mathematics or engineering, the number
of those who become mathematicians or engineers will have to be significantly higher when compared
to members from another culture. Prima facie, it appears to me, such is the case.
7. Consider, finally, another kind of issue that emerges if we relate what is said about action- knowledge
with the suggestion I made about order and learning.
If the action of action-knowledge is neither intentional nor goal directed, the problem of action could hardly
be one of relation between intending: and acting However, if the perception of order is such that it is not
possible for it to be there without underlying laws or principles, then it is obvious that action (typically
human action, that is) could not be without a conception guiding it. Action becomes nothing but applied
conception; practice nothing but applied theory, and technology nothing but applied science. However, this
view is one cultures way of looking at the issue. It is in this sense that I said in the introduction that action
theories, when they talk about action, are not so much talking about the nature of human action as much
about one culture-specific -notion.
In what I have said above, there is a problem that requires to be made explicit. If action (the typically
human action) does not rest upon conceptions; if it is not an execution of an idea, what could be said about
the results of such an action? By the same token, and extending it further, it could be asked, Could an
ordered phenomenal world exist without being law-governed? The answer will have to be yes, but requiring
of some qualification.
Were we to think of the Natural world, the positive answer provided above appears quite incomprehensible.
The natural world is ordered precisely because it is law governed. What would a negation of this statement
amount to? Frankly speaking, I doubt whether one could put it in words at all. I do believe that the natural
world is law-governed and an ordered phenomenal world without laws is simply incomprehensible. We could
not survive in such a world.
The matter, however, takes on a different light when the world in question happens to be the social world. A
social world is the creation of human actions, the knowledge of creating it is action-knowledge and this action
is not an. execution, of conceptions. Incredibly complex forms of social organization can exist, continue to
adapt and expand themselves without being governed by any laws. That is, there is no prima facie reason
why it is not possible. Not just that. If you are willing to assent (however tentatively) to what I have said so
far, it might appear that it is the nature of social organizations that they are based upon no laws or principles.
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A social organization is accumulated practical knowledge. To seek to understand a social organization by

looking for its laws (or the principles upon which it is based) might be as absurd as the denial of the
law-governed nature of the Natural world. It must be obvious where I am driving at: Indian caste system is
based on no principle. This is obvious to an Indian, but quite incomprehensible to indologists. The way of
creating a social world is different from the way of understanding a natural world.
These are but a few of the consequences that follow from the notion of mimetic learning. As I said in the
beginning, these consequences do not prove my claim. But, they ought at least make my suggestion appear
plausible.
Let me summarize what I have said so far: Action-knowledge is not a knowledge about actions, but the
ability to execute new actions. Action-knowledge is acquired through mimesis, which is a process of learning
through exemplars. Actions generate actions - not ideas about actions - in exactly the same way ideas
generate ideas. Action and action-knowledge require total contextual embedded ness and are intrinsically
goal-less.
A culture like India must now begin to appear in a different light: inundated with exemplars, it must be
dominated by mimetic learning. Spheres such as morality, law, social organization, human interaction etc.,
belong to that of practical knowledge. Practical knowledge is cumulative perhaps to a greater degree than
knowledge in the theoretical sphere. And the form of social organization, the so-called caste system, is one
such cumulative result. And that is why; no Indian could tell you what its principles are. Yet, it reproduces
itself because there is knowledge available - action-knowledge - to reproduce it. Its ability to adapt itself
to changing environments is merely the ability of human beings to execute actions in different environments.
Several intriguing results flow-from this (re)description of the Indian caste system, but exploring them is
beyond the province of this paper.
5. Knowing how, knowing that and action-knowledge: a contrast
How much of what I have said so far is unique to Indian (Asian) Culture? Is there no mimetic learning in the
West? Or is mimesis merely a variant of a learning process that is really not culture specific? The answers
to these questions are complex. In what follows, I merely try to take the first step in exploring them.
At first sight, it would appear that mimesis is omnipresent in the West as well. Children learn through
imitation; an adult learns to eat with chopsticks or learns to dance through imitative actions; an academic
imitates his more successful colleagues by trying to publish as many articles as he possibly can etc. The
list, it seems, is quite huge.
Not quite. Instead of arguing for the details, let me show what I take to be the case in two ways. You would
be willing to accept, I suppose, the .suggestion that the moral domain is a domain of human actions. Let
us, therefore, look briefly at the presence or absence of exemplars in this domain for the West. After having
done this, let us see what the relationship is between action-knowledge on the one hand, and the forms of
knowledge theorized about in the West on the other.
5.1. Action-Knowledge and moral action
If stories about individuals have to function as exemplars, as I have said before, either the narrative or the
narrator must embody instructional authority. At first sight, it would appear that such moral authorities do
exist within the Western culture: some saints; perhaps the figure of Jesus Christ himself; priests; or figures
like Martin Luther King or even someone like Gandhi. These people call them moral ideals, seem to play
the same role as those played by the exemplars: one is inspired by their lives, one takes them as an ideal to
emulate, one is exhorted to follow in their foot steps etc.
On the other hand, it is also the case in the West that moral learning i.e., acquisition of practical knowledge
is conceived to consist of two steps:
(a) making some set of moral principles ones own; followed by (b) an attempt to apply them as, consistently
as possible. The first phase alone involves what could reasonably called a learning process: in the process of
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maturation from childhood to adulthood, one learns these principles. Once this phase is traversed, the rest
of ones life consists of successes and failures in the application of these principles.
The link between these two, between the existence of instructional authorities and the notion of moral
knowledge as a knowledge of principles, is quite clear: these moral ideals embody some or other set of
principles. Consequently, if none of the above figures embody the moral principles that some individual
happens to subscribe, these ideals cease having any instructional authority. Further, it is not even necessary
that there be embodiments of moral principles at all: acceptance of moral principles is not parasitic upon
the existence of ideals.
Nevertheless, let us look at those to whom such or similar figures are worth emulating. (Because, it is only
with respect to these kind of people that we could speak of mimesis in the field of the ethical.) What could
they emulate? Either they could follow what these moral ideals have said, or emulate what they did. To do
the former is the same as accepting some principle as your own: the only difference, in this case, is that either
its foundation or its legitimacy derives from the person in question. Let us look at the latter possibility.
What does emulation mean here? It means a simple, mechanical and blind imitation of these ideals. Each
of these ideal figures, as individuals, were born into and confronted situations and events that are totally
different from that of those who want to emulate them. Not only that. As embodiments of principles,
they are indifferent to contexts. Consequently, these ideals are exemplars only in this sense: either one
reproduces their lives and their actions, which is impossible (not quite, think of the early Christian martyrs),
or one accepts the impossibility of such a reproduction. These two possibilities are preserved in the moral
talk of the West thus: One ought to be moral, but one never is, or that the ought is different from
is; and that these individuals are (somehow) exceptional figures. That means to say, moral ideals have
instructional authority only in the sense that they embody or represent the longing and desire to be moral.
More, they are not. As exceptional individuals, they are other than and different from the ordinary mortals
who strive to be like them (i.e. be moral persons themselves). But, they represent a goal that is worthy, but
quite unreachable. If they are relevant to daily practices, it is only in a negative way: daily practices ought
to be other than what they, in fact, are. What one does not learn from such ideals is how to reach that
goal i.e. these ideals do not help improve daily practices.
If we look at the stories in India, on the other hand, they are tales about real or fictitious figures performing
actions- in-contexts. Stories of kings, long lost life styles and of actions ages ago are used as though they
have something to say to us in todays world. That they do say something makes it obvious that whatever
might be required, it could not be blind emulation. These stories enable you to execute the action in your
situation without there being any kind of similarity between these two contexts.
The point of this contrast is the following: morally exemplary figures (in the West) are not exemplars in the
sense in which I am using the term. An exemplar is a unit of learning and moral ideals of the West are
never that. There is a disturbing consequence to this thought: in the field of morality, the West does not
have the process of learning that I call mimesis, i.e., because there are no exemplars, there is no possibility of
learning through exemplars. If moral knowledge is practical knowledge (not knowledge about principles that
allegedly guide actions), and practical knowledge requires exemplary learning, the conclusion is as obvious as
it will be unpalatable: the voluminous literature about moral activity in the West hides an abysmal poverty
in moral life. Those millions of treatises, tracts and articles that exist are not expressions of the sophistication
or the advance made by the West in its quest for the moral order, but expressions of unease and absence:
absence of morality and the concomitant unease.
Is this consequence true? I do not think that the issue is one of veracity or otherwise of the claim. I, for
one, do not personally like descriptions of other cultures that make them out to be immoral or non-moral.
There is a more substantial problem at hand: Why does the moral domain of one culture when described
from within the culture of another appear immoral or non-moral ? Unfortunately, I cannot take up this
problem here.
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Be as it may, it is time to look at the issue of the presence of mimesis in the West from a more general point
of view.
5.2. Skill and action-knowledge
Consider the following example, original to Ryle, about a skilled mountaineer stuck on a mountain. At a
loss to negotiate the obstacle that is in front of him, he observes a monkey performing some sequence of
actions. That inspires him to explore new strategies; new ways of circumventing the problem, the result of
this strategizing is a successful climb.
A Rylean would see this improvisation as a part of being a skilled mountaineer. Consequently, the suggestion
about learning through exemplars appears assimilable within the Rylean knowing how and knowing that.
That is to say, what I have called as a process of learning through exemplars may be conceptualized as a
process of acquiring the skill to identify an exemplar. As a result, the notion of skill could be reintroduced
at a meta-level in such a way that knowing how to identify an exemplar and knowing how to use it on the
one hand, and knowing that something is an exemplar emerge as the two primary divisions within the sketch
that I have provided. An added temptation or philosophical incentive for indulging in such an exercise would
be that some of the counterintuitive properties may be dispensed with by pleading ignorance: because we
are not quite clear how human beings acquire the various skills that they do acquire, until such time as we
are clear, there is no need to postulate a new species of knowledge with queer properties.
Action-knowledge, as an ability to produce new actions, could not possibly be a skill because any skilled
action has a history of execution with respect to the organism in question. The characteristic property of
action-knowledge is precisely that the action) which can be executed, is novel and original. Even though this
appears a decisive argument, it could be easily met thus: what it means to speak of a skilled chess player, a
skilled surgeon or a skilled driver is precisely their ability to improvise in new situations and come up with
new actions. After all, skill is not an execution of drilled actions, even if some kind of drill is required to
acquire some skill.
However, it appears to me, that the new action that a skilled practitioner can execute arises by a combination
of actions, which he had already executed. That is to say, it is like generating a new word out of an existing
repertoire of words. Secondly, even more importantly, the skill that one has in combining familiar actions to
produce new actions is not sufficient, in at least some circumstances, to improvise. A skilled mountaineer
stuck on the mountain absently watching a monkey move from place to place is able to do something as a
result of taking the actions of the monkey as an exemplar. Prior to this learning episode, there was an action
that he could not generate out of the repertoire of actions he had. If he could have, he would have not been
stuck in the first place. To be sure, he needed his skills in order to learn what he learned from the monkeys
movement: you and I watching the same monkeys action would not be able to what the skilled mountaineer
did. But, this is no problem: what we can learn depends to a very great extent upon what we have already
learned. That one and the same kind of learning process can occur both within the framework of exercising
a skilled activity and elsewhere (that does not involve an exercise of skill) suggest very strongly that learning
through exemplars cannot be seen as a skill to identify and use an exemplar.
There is a third reason, purely linguistic in nature, that suggests that mimetic learning cannot be identified
with knowing how. In the statement skill to learn through exemplars, the word skill can be replaced
by the word learning without any obvious loss of meaning. This suggests that skill is coextensive with
learning. However, the same substitution does not work elsewhere as far as I can see: He is a skilled
tennis player, He is a skilled surgeon, He is a skilled problem solver etc., would lose some of their
intended meaning if learning replaced skill everywhere. Consequently, we could not be using skill with
the connotations usually attached to it, when we say the skill to learn through exemplars. Fourthly and
finally, the knowing how in its normal usage picks out a cluster of actions that are related to each other.
To do so with respect to learning through exemplars, it appears to me, would not come easily and with the
same degree of familiarity.
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Even though these are some of the reasons for wanting to distinguish between a learning process that is
indifferent to what is learned and a skill that is not so, none of them, as I see the situation, are decisive. With
suitable modifications, it is possible to absorb action-knowledge into the relatively more familiar knowing
how.
Why, you may wonder, is it important? The answer would become obvious when we look into the way
action-knowledge could be absorbed into propositional knowledge.
5.3. Action-knowledge and knowing that
Is there any reason to limit the process of mimetic learning to the domain of actions and social interactions?
No reason apart from an arbitrary fiat comes to my mind. Besides, if learning through exemplars is indifferent
to what is learned, there is no good reason to say that it is limited to practical actions only.
Consider a surgeon who intends to use radiation therapy on his patient in order to destroy a tumor. Though
a concentrated high dose is required, to use it would be fatal to the patient. While at a loss as to what to
do, he hears of an army general who conquered a fortress by sending in his army in several very small units
and have them converge upon the fortress from different directions. The result of this hearing enables our
surgeon to execute a new action: he now radiates the tumor away by sending in several mild doses and have
them converge upon the tumor in different directions.
There is a reason why I choose this story: it is one of the examples used to study the role analogies and
metaphors in human problem evolving processes. I do not want to go into the details of the arguments, but
the claim of the cognitive scientists working in this domain is that analogies and metaphors play a role in
discovering a solution in the way the story of the general inspired a possible solution to the doctors dilemma.
In other words, what I would have called an exemplar is what they call an analogy.
If exemplars are nothing but analogies or metaphors, both the process of mimetic learning and the notion
of action-knowledge can be dispensed with. With that also go the so-called counterintuitive consequences.
We could safely suggest that the stories, for example, give you an idea about the action that you could
perform; learning through exemplars is really the more familiar process of solving problems using analogies
etc.
How can this challenge be met? Firstly, the point of analogies and metaphors, in so far as they are a part of
the learning process, is this: learning is learning through examples. Examples are illustrations, or instances,
of some general principle or the other. To learn through examples is to discover the general principles that
are instanced. Analogies and metaphors, as a consequence, turn out to be good examples, i.e., they are
a subset of examples. It appears to me that this exactly is what exemplars are not: they are not examples
because they do not instantiate anything.
Secondly, such a process of learning is what we call inductive learning, i.e., a process that induces general
principles from a set of particular instances. The kind of knowledge gleaned is the knowledge of general
laws and, as such, pertains to the domain of theoretical knowledge. However, it appears to me that one
does induce any principle while learning through mimesis. And the kind of knowledge that one acquires is
an ability to perform or execute some kind of an action. It is because of this that I would like to look at
action-knowledge as a distinct species of knowledge.
Neither of the two arguments are decisive, much less convincing. It appears to me that it is possible to
assimilate the notion of learning through exemplars into some or other variant of analogical problem solving.
However, if such an assimilation of mimesis into either skills or knowledge were to occur, the following
appears to happen: you could not shed light on, say, caste system (or any other fact) of a culture by
speaking of either skills or analogies. In other words, the explanatory potential of the heuristic would be
lost if such assimilations were to occur.
The problem must be obvious by now: Action-Knowledge and the idea of mimetic learning, which have
some counterintuitive consequences, are proposed as culture specific modes of learning. When seen in this
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light, they appear to be productive because they are able to shed come light on phenomena which otherwise
appear puzzling. However, as a mode of learning it appears capable of extension to areas other than practical
learning. Not just that: any refusal to do so appears arbitrary. However, when this extension takes place, it
merely appears as a mild variant which can be absorbed by other notions of learning. These other notions of
learning, however, are unable to shed much light precisely about those phenomena which mimetic learning
was able to illuminate. How should this be addressed?
6. Comparative anthropology as a philosophical quest
In the first section, I suggested that the paradigms of order differ between cultures: Religion for one, Ritual
for the other. There I hinted that each knows of the other paradigms of order as well: religious rituals and
ritualistic religions. But a religious ritual is and is not ritual; a ritualistic religion is and is not a Religion.
This division has now reproduced itself in the dominant modes of learning: mimesis is and is not inductive
learning; it is and it is not a skill; it is present and is not present in the West.
I am not going to plead dialectics in order to understand the situation. There is, I believe, a more substantial
issue at stake.
In so far as learning is a process of creating a habitat, several kinds of activities are involved: the ability
to build and sustain social interactions, the ability to think about Nature and society etc. Each cultural
group, it appears to me, develops one of these kinds of activities into a dominant mode. Other kinds and
ways of learning continue to exist and develop: but they do so within the dominant framework, as modified
by it and in a subordinate mode. This is, of course, obvious: even if mimesis is the process of developing
action-knowledge, a culture dominated by it requires theoretical knowledge. However, the mode of theoretical
learning emerges within the overarching frame of practical learning. The other way, for another culture, goes
as well.
Consequently, the issue of extending one mode of learning to encompass other modes is actual not because
of the propensity of the theoreticians to raise it: Rather, it is an actual extension that a culture has already
accomplished. That is to say, cultures have developed other modes of learning apart from the dominant mode
of learning but within the latter: subordinated to it or modified by it. Formulated differently: A culturally
dominant mode of learning extends and adapts itself to other areas of learning. However, as we have seen,
such extensions are not productive: Mimetic learning docs not appear to tell us much about theoretical
learning; theoretical knowledge has even less to say about practical knowledge. This state of affairs mirrors
the historical development that has actually taken place: A culture like India that had specialized in
developing action-knowledge did not give us the Natural sciences. By the same token, the culture that did
develop the natural sciences exhibits abysmal poverty in social, practical and moral life.
When we therefore ask questions about the existence of different kinds of learning in other cultures, we will
have to answer in the affirmative: Yes, for example, mimesis exists in the West as well. But its relation to
the dominant mode of learning in India is akin to some kind of family resemblance, these two are not the
same; they are not identical learning processes. Consequently, the second answer: if mimesis refers to the
way learning occurs in India and to the domains it includes, then mimesis is absent in the West. Mimesis is
and is not present in the West.
In the first section, I linked modes of learning to the experience of order. In this paper, I speak of the Indian
and Western cultures. There are, however, other cultures and civilizations: the African, the American-Indian
- to mention just two. How do they experience order? What kinds of learning processes have they developed
as their dominant modes of learning? To really and seriously begin asking questions about human learning,
leave alone developing a theory about it, we need to have culture-specific answers to issues that we cannot
even formulate properly today. Before we could say what knowledge is, we need to know how cultures
survived, and what they have learned.
Such studies, undertaken by members of different cultures against the background of their cultures, have
hardly started to emerge. Instead, what we do have are some universal theories which are neither universal
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much less theories - that merely legislate universal scope to one culture-specific conceptions. In the same
way a religion does not become a universal religion because it calls itself Catholic, a dominant mode of
learning does not become the way of learning simply because it is called scientific. To debate today whether
theoretical knowledge is more basic than action-knowledge or whether the former is parasitic upon the latter
is to indulge in a senseless struggle. However, given the kind of dominance that the West enjoys and the
tragic manner in which it has acquired this dominance, the questions set by its intellectuals have become the
questions of inquiry: the problem of action is the relation between intending and acting, between mental
states and actions and so forth. These are not the problems of action or action-knowledge, but those that
arise when you attempt to treat a dominant mode of learning as a subordinate one.
In this article, I have taken a very hesitant first step in executing a project that I believe is necessary. As a
first step, it is unbalanced and uncoordinated. However, the tentativeness of the first step is not an indication
of the weakness of the project of learning to walk; instead, it is a prelude to tread firmly. In the same way,
I hope that you will not prejudge the kind of project I am pleading for by the merits (or their absence) of
this paper. As we well know, experience, here as elsewhere, will bring the requisite skills.
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Comparative Anthropology and Moral Domains. An Essay on Selfless Morality

and the Moral Self S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-05 21:48)
A Disquieting Suggestion
Arthur Danto, the well-known American philosopher, prefaced a book he wrote in the 70s on oriental thought
and moral philosophy titled Mysticism and Morality with the following words:
The factual beliefs (that the civilizations of the East) take for granted are ...too alien to our (the Wests)
representations of the World to be grafted on to it, and in consequence their moral systems are unavailable
to us.
The factual beliefs that Danto talks of are not about the structure of the DNA molecules or the space-time
singularity in the region of Blackholes or even the laws of conservation of energy. Rather, they are beliefs
about the social world which engage his attention. Suppose that Danto is right, and that the truth of his
advice is independent of the culture of the audience to whom it is addressed. Suppose furthermore that
thinkers from the East take this suggestion seriously as well. What would they say?
They would say that the factual beliefs that the West takes for granted are too alien for them to be grafted on
to the beliefs that the East holds, and in consequence the moral systems elaborated by the Western thinkers
are unavailable to them. This would mean that from the intuitionist to utilitarian ethics, from Kantian to
contractarian ethics, from deontological to consequentialist ethics, would all be unavailable for the Eastern
civilizations. But, that is not all. The very terms in which the Western thinkers conduct their ethical discourse cannot be adopted by the East: the notions of good and bad; the terms like moral and immoral;
the concepts of moral rules; the very idea, then, that moral rules are universalizable. Consider just one
more extension of these implications: all moral systems which recognize that human rights are inalienable
moral rights possessed by all human beings become unavailable to Eastern civilizations.
Even though these are not the only consequences which follow from Dantos suggestion, let me leave them
aside for the time being to look at the issue from another point of view. Whether or not these consequences
indeed follow from his suggestion depends, inter alia, upon whether there do obtain different factual beliefs
that are relevant for the case. One such relevant factual belief is about the nature of human self. Do the
civilizations of the East and the West have different notions of self? If yes, is it possible to assess the relevance
of this difference with respect to the moral phenomenon? How does the notion of moral agency affect the
construal of the moral domain? In this article, I would like to explore the answer to these questions. I want
to look into the extent to which the moral systems of the West are unavailable to those of us who are from
the East. I should like to, in other words, describe the western ethical systems against the background of
some of the factual beliefs that we hold in the East.
The Structure of the Paper
This paper has four sections. In the first, I outline the conceptions of self in the East and the West and
briefly contrast them. The next two sections deal with the notions of morality as I perceive them to be
present in the West and the East. The final section contrasts these two views. The concluding part of this
article reflects upon some of the methodological issues raised by such an exercise as this one.
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It has not been easy to communicate intuitions of one culture within the language of another. The paper
bears marks of this struggle in more ways than one. As a transitional piece within an unconcluded project
that I am working on, it is caught in the half-w house of framing the concepts of one civilization within the
confines of another. This could create confusions in the reader, but I have not been able to do it differently
despite the best of my efforts.
Finally, I would like to draw your attention to a methodological point. Even though I am aware that many
conceptions of the self and morality have been put across in the West by scholars working in several domains,
because I believe that it is possible to pick out one dominant conception of self and morality, I will nevertheless speak of the Western model of self and ethics. The same applies to the East as well. The purpose
of this article is not to present the views held by some group of thinkers at some period of time from either
of the two civilizations, but to explicate the conception of the self and the ethical as they are present in the
folk psychologies of these two cultures. Such must be the nature of these conceptions that it allows those
who have them to make intuitive sense of the variety of social institutions and practices that obtain in these
two cultures. This stance, however, is nowhere defended explicitly.
1. The Self in Ourselves
1.1 The Self in the West
The basic conception of self in the Western culture can be very briefly outlined thus: in each human being,
there obtains an inner core which is separable and different from everything else. In such a culture, when
one speaks of finding oneself one means that one should look inside oneself, get in touch with an inner self
that is there inside oneself, and peel everything away that surround this core. To such a self, even its own
actions can appear strange. As Rousseau put it in his Confessions,
There are times when I am so little like myself that one would take me for another man of entirely opposite
character.
It is possible to be so little like oneself, to be both one and the same human being and a totally different
human being, if there is a self that can be like and not like ones actions. Rousseau again:
There are moments of a kind of delirium when one must not judge men by their actions.
The actions that one is ashamed of are performed in moments of such delirium. It is by referring to the
inner self that one judges men, not by looking at their actions. And it is thus that one says of oneself as
well: This is really me or This is really not me.
These are not just Rousseaus sentiments alone, but those of a culture. The Western culture allows each of
us a self: a self waiting to be discovered within each one of us; something which can grow and actualize itself;
that which either realizes its true potential or fails to do so etc. Such a self plays many roles: it guarantees
identity when philosophers ask questions about self-identity; it acquires an identity when psychologists attempt to describe the processes and mechanisms by means of which a human organism builds an identity;
it is the agent of the moral thinkers when they talk of moral agency etc. Such a versatile self has various
properties. One of them is its reflexivity: the self is aware of itself as a self, or it has self-consciousness.
Consequently, human beings who are endowed with such selves are all self-conscious beings. As we know,
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most philosophers are agreed upon that self-consciousness typifies the uniqueness of human beings, and that
this distinguishes Man from the rest of Nature.
Involved in the talk of such a self is, first of all, a distinction between human beings as biological organisms
and the selves, which they are endowed with. Secondly, consequently, human beings do not build a self, but
create an identity for the self. This already existing self acquires the identity (in the sense of taking possession
of it), which the human organism has built up for it. Thirdly, human beings are seen as self-conscious beings
only because inside them is a self which is self-conscious, and for no other reason.
When I formulate it explicitly in this fashion, you may not be willing to accept the suggestion that such a
concept of self is the Western concept of self. Space forbids me from going any deeper into this issue here in
order to provide plausibility to my claim, but I shall try to do so later by showing that the Western notions of
the ethical are simply incomprehensible in the absence of precisely such a concept of self. Or, more carefully
put perhaps, this is the only way that I can begin to make sense of the Western discussions on the ethical
phenomenon. Let me now turn my attention to an equally brief sketch of the notion of self in the Eastern
culture.
1.2. The Self in the East
There is no better way to introduce the concept of self as it is prevalent in the Indian culture, it appears
to me, than contrast the two different ways in which the two cultures talk about persons. Consider the
following questions and their answers:
What kind of a person is he?
A. He is a friendly person.
B. He comes home every week to enquire after my health.
What kind of a wife is she?
A. She is a loving, caring wife.
B. She does not eat until everyone in the family has eaten first.
What kind of a student is he?
A. He is an industrious and intelligent student.
B. He listens to everything I say with great attention.
I would like to put to you that the answers marked B are very typical of India, often very irritating to
westernized sensibilities because they do not appear to be direct answers to the questions at all. The question
was, not what someone does or does not do, but what kind of a person that someone is. The former may
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be relevant to answering the question, but that alone does not constitute an answer. This would be one
response.
The second response would be to say that these do answer the question, and do so directly. By picking out
some or other action, it tells us that the person in question is someone who has the disposition to perform
these kind of actions. One of the attributes of a loving, caring wife could indeed be the act of eating only
after everyone else in the family has had their meal.
There is a third possibility which I want to explore. And that would consist of suggesting that B does
answer the questions directly, and that it is not doing so by speaking about dispositions at all. Instead,
the answer is asserting an identity relation between actions and persons. That is, a distinction is not made
between an agent who performs the action and the actions that the agent performs. An agent is constituted
by the actions which an organism performs, or an agent is the actions performed and nothing more. And
this appears to me to be the concept of self that is present in the Indian culture.
In order to better appreciate what is being said, let the dummy letters X and Y to stand for two biological
organisms. In this case, the self of X is nothing other than the actions that it performs. Even here, the
nature and the character of the actions that X performs depends very much upon how Y construes them.
There is another way of putting this: Y constructs Xs self in the same way X constructs Ys self. Y is
very crucial for the construction of Xs self, because in the absence of Y the actions that X performs are
meaningless. That is, Y is required so that Xs actions may be seen as some specific type of action or the
other. If we were to restrict ourselves to X in order to talk about its self, so that we may contrast this
notion with that of the West, we could say that its self consists of a bundle of meaningless actions. Because
of this, the self of X crucially depends upon continuously being so recognized by Y.
There is nothing spooky or mysterious about this: you are a son, a father, a friend, etc. only to the extent
you are so recognized. And you can only be thus recognized when you perform those actions which are
appropriate to the station of a son, father, friend, etc. The presence of these gestalts in the culture of the
community not only imposes restrictions upon the way Y can construct Xs self, and thus reducing the
possible arbitrariness involved in such a construal, but it also enables X to challenge Y within limits.
1.3. East and West: The Selves in Contrast
Let me now contrast these cultural conceptions of selves, thus elucidating them a bit more. At an experiential
level, the Western man feels the presence of something deep inside himself even if he is unable to say what
it is. Better still, he intuits a presence. By contrast, the Easterner would experience nothing, or of some
kind of hollowness. To use a metaphor, the latter would experience his self as an onion stripping of whose
layers would correspond to the bracketing of others representations. At the end of such an operation, what
is left over is exactly nothing, and that would be how someone from the East experiences his self. This
experiential difference is not being mentioned in support of my claim, but only to make it intelligible.
In one culture, human organisms are endowed with selves in whose nature it is to be different from one
another. A human organism builds an identity (in the psychological sense) for such a self; the latter, in its
turn, is what makes such an endowed organism unique. This means that the self can be individuated, and
the criteria for it are precisely its possessions: at the minimum, for example, the body of a human organism
belongs to the self whose body it is. In the other culture, the self is a meaningless bundle of actions created
by human organisms. The psychological identity of such a self is a construction of the other. A human
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organism which builds such a self is conscious, to be sure, but it lacks that self-consciousness which is
supposed to typify human beings. The dividing line between such a sentient or conscious self and other
sentient selves, where it is drawn at all, is of very little moral significance. That creatures other than
human beings, under such a view, end up having selves is not only not a problem, but also a recognized
consequence.
The implications of entertaining such different conceptions of self are enormous. In the rest of this paper,
I will explore some of them with respect to one domain viz., that of morality. Hopefully, such an exploration
would also make it obvious why I claim that the writings on the theme of self are no evidence, at least not
by themselves alone, for claims about the notion of selfas it may be present in a culture.
2. An Ethical Problem and the Problem of the Ethical
2.1. Learning to be Moral?
Let me enter into the theme of the present paper by trying to solicit your agreement for a shared epistemological intuition: today, we would not be willing to concede that what we know about the physical world is
all there is to the world. A physicist or a logician or a mathematician is someone who is always trying to
learn physics or logic or mathematics. That is, we do not call someone a physicist because he has reached
a stage where no further physical knowledge is to be had. We believe, rightly in my view, that considerable
though our collective knowledge of the world is, we are never finished learning about the world. There are,
of course, many reasons for this belief: at least one of them has to do with the complexity of the universe
that we are a part of.
Consider now another broad agreement that obtains today, all controversies notwithstanding, regarding moral
phenomena: morality pertains to the domain of regulating human intercourse. Each of us knows without
requiring to be told that human interactions are extremely complex. One way or another, we are busy learning to go about in the world and with our fellow-human beings throughout our entire life. Consequently, we
are never finished learning to be moral, or so would one think, if our epistemological intuition is applicable
here, as it surely must be. And yet, I put to you, such is not the case in the Western culture today.
I am not suggesting that the western culture believes that one could behave morally without learning to
do so. What I want to draw your attention is to the kind of learning process that it is supposed to be. A
forceful, if crude, formulation would go like this: learning to be moral involves the process of making some or
other moral principles ones own. In the process of maturing into adulthood, what one learns are these moral
principles. Hopefully, in the process of learning these moral principles, one has also acquired the ability to
be guided by them. (But this is not an essential constituent of learning to be moral: the weakness of the
will, because of which you do not consistently apply moral principles all the time, is not considered immoral
by every one.) To the extent we say that someone is still learning to be moral, we usually think of that
someone as a child who is not yet an adult. That is, the belief is that moral learning has a terminus, and
an adult has this terminus behind him so that the rest of the moral life consists of successes and failures in
applying these principles.
If all there is to being moral is an application of a set of principles, and if there are many principles at
the market place and if, furthermore, the theories that embed or justify these principles are all fragmentary,
as is the case today in the West, what does the moral life really consist of? The answer is as simple as it
is unpalatable: one simply does what one feels like, with the happy realization that whatever one does is
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condonable/condemnable from one point of view or the other. I would like to put to you that I understate
the case if I say that this is a partial picture of Western culture today. This is understating, because this
situation has been blessed and sanctified with the label of pluralism. Pluralism of values merely hides
an abysmal poverty in moral life or, even worse, a profound immorality: not many moral thinkers would
consider ethical egoism as anything but immoral, and yet that would probably constitute the best description
of moral life in the West. What is the notion of the moral in the West which has allowed this extraordinary
situation to come about? What is the consensus of a culture about the nature of moral phenomenon that
allows it to believe that only moral learning has a terminus? And why, in a culture obsessed with moral
discussions as no other culture has ever been, has no one even posed the question whether learning to be
moral could be anything other than a full-fledged learning process end only with the death of those who are
the learning subjects?
2.2. Action and Moral Rule
In An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Hume raises a question, which has always been one
of the basic concerns of ethical investigations in the West: What theory of morals could serve any useful
purpose, he asks, unless it can be shown that all the duties it recommends are also the true interest of each
individual? There are several interesting things about this question which are of relevance to this paper.
Firstly, there is a belief about the individual that he requires reasons to behave morally which is precisely
what a theory of morals is supposed to provide. He requires reasons because, this is the second claim, moral
rules constrain his actions. Since it is rational that each individual pursues his own interests, any constraint
placed on his behavior requires some kind of justification. Hence the third condition which every useful
moral theory must meet: the reasons such a theory provides should be shown to further the pursuit of the
true interest of each individual. Fourthly, there is also a claim about the scope of morality: because it
recommends duties to each individual, and what is recommended does not depend upon the unique identity
of these individuals, the recommendations are valid for all human beings. That means to say, all the duties
that a useful moral theory recommends are in the true interests of each individual because of the fact that
all individuals have the same set of true interests. Or what it recommends to all is in the true interest of
each.
These comments do not exhaust all that could be said of this question, but it is sufficient for my purposes
to rest content with a slight reformulation of these observations. It is believed that it is rational for human
beings to be self-interested. And because morality constrains the pursuit of a rational activity, the former
requires to be rationally justified. Hence the question: is it rational to be moral rather than immoral? Or,
put in a more general form, why ought I behave morally? Under this reformulation, this question is an old
one: it was Glaucons challenge to Socrates in Platos Republic. Obviously it made sense then, as it does now,
to ask for a justification for moral behavior. To the extent that moral rules (or moral laws) constitute the
domain of morality, to seek justification for having to behave morally is, to that extent, to seek justification
for moral rules. A search, in other words, for a foundation of ethics. (I would like to disregard the distinction
between moral and ethical, drawn by many thinkers, in the rest of what follows.)
I would now like to suggest, simplified though this account is, that this fundamental intuition about the
moral domain has been preserved intact despite all transformations and changes that the Western culture
has undergone over the centuries. I would like to suggest furthermore that this picture of the moral domain, as consisting of rules requiring and having a foundation, is a deeply religious conception; and that
contemporary ethical discussions, including those of the consequentialists who do not appear to fall under
this description at first blush, are merely secularized versions of a religious intuition and a theological belief.
(For the purposes of this paper, I will restrict myself to Christianity leaving both Judaism and those elements
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that Christianity absorbed from Antiquity out of my consideration.) If I can show that there is an implicit
consensus in the West about what the moral phenomenon is, and that it is a Christian intuition, then Danto
will turn out to be right, but for reasons that he may not have expected.
Before I do this, however, I will have to state what I take to be the Christian notion of the moral domain.
Given the length of the paper, I cannot but simplify it. I hope that it is recognizable nonetheless.
To begin with, what makes something into a Law is that it is willed by the Sovereign. A Sovereign is the
supreme au over a domain which belongs to him. What is willed by the sovereign is Law to those things that
belong to the dominion of the sovereign, and the reason for obedience is that the Law has its origin in the
sovereign. Christianity countenances only one Sovereign, the Lord and Master of All, and His Will is the Law
of the universe. This Law is the Moral Law, present in the cosmos and revealed to the authority. Obedience
to it is being moral, because there are no other conceptions of (moral) Law and no other Sovereign. All
human beings belong to the dominion of the Sovereign and, as His subjects, they have to obey His Will.
There is a reason why I have capitalized Law throughout. It is to indicate that it belongs to the family of
concepts, which is expressed by Das Recht and Le Droit in German and French respectively. This should
suggest that what is willed by the sovereign is not only a law, but also Right. That means to say, what gives
moral character to what is willed by the sovereign is that its origin is the sovereign. This notion contains
the seed of the conflict we are very familiar with now-a-days: the morality of legality. Because Law cannot
be distinguished from morality, the presence of more than one sovereign is sufficient to provide us with the
problems we are familiar with. (To discuss this any further is, however, beyond this paper.)
Consequently, some of the criticisms made against religious ethics do not really hold much water. Platos
question, Whether God Wills Good because something is Good or Whether something is Good because God
Wills it, is often taken to exhibit the problem with religious ethics: if the latter, it is suggested, God becomes
a terrible despot and if the former, we can do without Him in our search for the foundation of ethics. This
criticism would make sense if the Good can be divorced from Gods Willing, and if there was some way of
understanding Good (Right) independent of The Sovereign. That, however, is not the case. The notion of
Right that we have, in all interesting Natural Rights theories for example, is quite incomprehensible without
the presence of the notion of sovereignty.
Be as this may, none of this is immediately relevant to my concerns at the moment. What is relevant is the
extent to which such a picture is required, if sense is to be made of the western notion of morality.
Before proceeding any further, let me briefly return to the question of moral learning. The notion of morality
that I have sketched partially explains to us why one does not learn (in any way other than making some
principles ones own) to be moral: all that moral laws can do is to impose restrictions on the choices open to
an individual. Because it functions as a decision rule used to choose between different courses of action, the
requirement is that there are alternatives to choose from. How to generate the courses of action themselves?
is not a question that morality addresses itself to. Consequently, the ability to create alternatives, which is
what learning entails, is not acquired when one acquires moral principles. The importance of this point, I
trust, will become clearer later on when we discuss the notion of morality in the Indian culture. For the
moment, what we need to see is the extent to which a religious picture undergirds this idea of morality.
2.3. The Moral Agency
There is a widely prevalent belief in the West that there is a distinction between the moral domain and the
non-moral one and, consequently, between a moral action and a non-moral one. What is it, then, that makes
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an action into a moral action?

The first necessary condition to consider some action as a moral action is that it must be susceptible to a
description under some or other moral rule. A moral rule is a normative statement expressing either a prohibition or an obligation. While this necessary condition might capture the intuition of the deontological
conception of ethics, it might be said, it does not do so with respect to the consequentialist notion of ethics.
Because such an objection, if raised, has some force I would like to reformulate the necessary condition thus:
if an action or its consequences can be so described that either of the two fall under a normative description
embodying an ought, then such an action is a moral action either directly or derivatively. This necessary
condition takes care of both utilitarianism and situationist ethics under some versions: the Benthamite principle of the greatest happiness of the greatest number and Fletchers Agape principle. Needless to say, this
condition cannot do justice to extreme versions of Casuistry or act deontologism.
But even they get taken care of, when we identify the second necessary condition. Consider an act or its
consequence that you would be willing to call immoral, whatever your own pet theory of moral phenomenon.
In the process of attributing moral responsibility, which involves identifying the moral agent, let us suppose
you are led to a computer or some sentient, but non-human being. As soon as this identification is made, you
would not be willing to consider the action as something that pertains to the domain of morality any more.
The reason for it is obvious: neither of the two are considered as moral agents. This provides us with the
second necessary condition: an action can be moral, either directly or derivatively, if and only if it emanates
from a moral agent.
What is it that makes some organism, any organism, into a moral agent? At a first level, the answer is
as obvious as it is inadequate: the ability to make choices. The inadequacy arises from the fact that other
organisms and systems, besides human beings, appear to make choices. Consequently, a second condition is
often imposed: ability to make choices based on moral principles. That is, that human beings have secondorder preferences is what enables them to choose between different principles. Choices made at this level
determine the object level choices made.
When put this way, two points spring to our attention. Firstly, second order choices, as choices between types
of choices, are not explained as causally determined ones. In some sense, such a choice is free. Secondly, this
ability to make second order choice is not what transforms some organism post factum into a moral agent.
That is, someone does not become a moral agent because he has exercised a second-order preference. Rather,
it is the case that someone can exercise second order preference, i.e., choose between moral principles because
he is a moral agent. That means to say that the status of moral agency is a precondition for performing a
moral action. Only organisms which are moral persons could possibly perform actions that are moral. Of
course, within the Western traditions it is only human beings who have the status of moral persons.
There is something extraordinary about this belief: in all other spheres of social existence, some human being
becomes someone or the other, be it an industrialist or a father, only if the necessary actions are performed.
But such is the definition of moral agency that your status as a moral agent is logically prior to performing
any action what-so-ever. Because the very possibility of executing a moral action depends upon whether or
not its origin is in a moral agent, being such an agent does not depend upon acting.
If we do not empirically become moral agents, by virtue of which property (or accident of birth) are we
moral persons? Even though there are several answers (including the one I mentioned earlier on about having second order preferences), they all follow the same structure: some property is shown to be the unique
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possession of all members of the human species. Human beings are self-conscious, or they have language,
or they are rational etc., and this is what makes them into moral persons.
This can hardly do as an answer. In the same way human species differs from other species, every single
species differs from every other species. An elephant differs from a gnat, the latter from a bird and the bird
from a human being. Why does the typically human transform us into moral persons, whereas the property
typical of the gnats do not qualify them as moral persons? That we cannot possibly say what the morality
of a gnat consists of is not an argument to believe that gnats are no moral agents. So, Why are we moral
agents?
From amongst all the non-answers that I know of, there is one that answers the question by side-stepping
this problem altogether. It makes discussion redundant by transforming the issue into a definitional one.
That is, a moral person/agent is defined as someone possessing some species-typical property. While this
move allows moral talk to appear liberal in some of its versions (because it is possible to ask whether human
creations, like corporations and intelligent computers, are moral persons but, never, whether animals are),
it does not make it any more obvious or intelligible. Nevertheless, this stratagem has the virtue of drawing
our attention to this empirical fact: by making an appeal to linguistic conventions, support is sought in the
linguistic practice that has established this convention. That is, one is indirectly referred to the way moral
talk has been conducted so far. This appeal to the history of linguistic practice is an appeal to the history
and tradition of the community that has spoken this way and not an other way. It is thus that we are led to
the source that makes this moral talk intelligible. Consider the simplest version of this tradition: it is only
because human beings have a soul, the rest of Nature lacking one, that they are moral agents. When this
talk gets fixed within the community, over a period of time it becomes obvious that only humans are moral
persons. What changes, as times and tastes change, is the nature of this property: it can now be self,
personhood, rationality or whatever else that takes your fancy.
In other words, that human beings are moral agents and that they are so before executing any moral action
is not true by means of definition. Nevertheless, it appears thus to those whose ground intuitions are
Christian ones. That the terms in which Christian religion and theology set the question have ended up as
things that are definitionally true or intuitively obvious to the practitioners of secular ethics merely shows
us the extent to which secular ethics in the West are merely dressed up versions of their theological original.
God and Morality
History of the West, however, is not just the history of Catholic Christianity; it is also one of countermovements, including the atheistic and Protestant challenges. (As I said earlier, the Greek, Judaic and
Islamic contributions and influences are totally ignored in this paper.) How is it possible, for instance, to
consider atheistic morality as dressed-up theology?
Forced to be teasingly brief, I can only gesture in the direction of an answer. Western atheism is a mere
negation of Western theism in exactly the same way Casuistry was the negation of Legalism in ethics. It is
the other doctrinal pole which emerges within the terms set by its counter-pole. (This would suggest that
atheism would be impotent when transported to a climate where its counter-pole has held no sway.) Here is
just one example of how the secular (atheistic) morality retains the ground intuitions of Christianity. (Most
of what is said in this entire section is also applicable with suitable modifications.)
One simply denies the existence of one Sovereign and speaks, instead, of indefinitely many sovereigns while
speaking about morality: each individual sovereigns will is the moral law to that individual. Consequently,
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each one of us follows his own morality; in this sphere, there is no one higher than the agent. At this
level, each individual is a God: not only because each of us is a sovereign, but because our nature becomes
identical to God. God is a creator not because He created the world; God created the world because He is
the creator. His action had its origin in Him; it was ex nihilo, as is ours. The totally secular moral theory
talks about a moral agent in such terms that it structurally parallels this notion of God. To understand this
kind of discourse about moral agency requires the presence of thinking thus of God. Atheism is intelligible
only in relation to a theism; equally, secular ethics of this type are intelligible only when modeled upon their
theological versions. Not all ethics would accept this form of extreme individualism or the capriciousness
generated by the presence of multiplicity of sovereigns. Preferring one Sovereign instead, they seek in their
morality the expression of the will of this sovereign. What does it matter what you call your God? Society,
Genes, Rationality...etc., can do just as well. A rose by any name as they say.
The Moral Domain
Even though what I have said so far hardly finishes the story, I can now afford to be briefer. Let us now
look at two other properties that are said to constitute the moral domain as well.
As we have seen, a moral law is binding upon all those who belong to the domain of that sovereign. If you
have one sovereign, it is obvious that His will binds the entire world to him. The cosmos is His domain
therefore, His law is universally valid. From here, how short a step it is to say that moral laws have the
following logical properties: they are obligatory, they forbid, or that they are universally compelling. A
Christian belief about the range and scope of the Sovereigns Will ends up as a logical property of moral
statements: moral laws are universalizable. Those who deny the existence of universal moral laws are not
denying the intelligibility of this belief: where one allows indefinitely many sovereigns, there the will of these
sovereigns cannot be extended to incorporate the behaviour of other sovereigns. Relativism in ethics is
another way of carrying on Christian ethics, not the denial of the nature of moral laws or the nature of moral
domain.
Consider, next, the belief that moral domain is about moral values. Why is it obvious to almost every
one in the West that morality involves ineluctable reference to values or norms? It could not be because it
involves judgements: judgements involving values are a special case within the class of judgements which
make no reference to values. Besides, to say that morality involves value judgements is not an answer to
the question raised. Again, the only intelligible answer that I know of is the one that refers to the linguistic
practice of the community, and thus to its history. In a later part (see the concluding section), I will come
back to this point in order to locate the theological source that makes this doctrine intelligible. For now, I
shall simply repeat what I have said before: this linguistic practice is the history of a religious talk.
Do not get me wrong: I am neither prejudiced against nor positively inclined towards the Christian religion.
The reason for harping on this matter so much is to suggest that the secularized versions of a theological
original will appear sensible within the framework of a culture that is shaped through and through by that
theology and faith. They are not a matter of linguistic stipulations that deal with the definitions of words.
Much less are they analytical statements that are true by definition. They appear so because the linguistic
intuitions have a cultural history and that, for the West, has happened to be a Christian one. Outside the
Christian world and religion, there obtain other worlds, other gods and, who knows, even other religions. To
people who inhabit such worlds and cultures, embracing other factual beliefs, morality itself could appear
differently. Dantos advice to the West suddenly seems less ludicrous when heeded to by the East. The
western notions of ethics and morality could be profoundly alien to them in the same way Christianity is.
Such meta-level statements as moral rules are essentially obligatory or that they are universalizable etc.,
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may turn out to rest not so much on what Ethics is about, but upon the tendency to universalize and make
obligatory provincial conceptions by simply decreeing universality. And that is indeed so is a claim I want
to make plausible by sketching elements from the experience of moral domain from another culture.
3. Appropriate Morals and the Morality of Appropriateness
I have already drawn attention to the notion of self in Indian culture. In this section, I shall explicate the
notion of morality as it is embedded in this tradition. A discussion and contrast between the civilizations
of the East and the West is dealt with in the next part.
3.1 Appropriateness as a Moral Category
The most fundamental category of moral judgement in the Indian traditions is that of appropriateness.
That is, some action is moral or immoral accordingly as whether it is appropriate or inappropriate. (For
the time being, I will use notions such as moral, immoral , moral judgement etc., in a loose way without
specific connotations.) What is it for some action to be appropriate then? There are several threads in an
answer to this question.
Consider a biological organism A interacting within the framework of a community B. This community
is the repository of various institutions that divide up an organisms life into easily recognizable gestalts:
that is, one is a son, a father, a friend, a householder, a pupil etc. To be a son, for example, is to give form
to a myriad of actions that is performed and these gestalts, in a first approximation, are preserved as a set
of types of actions. No human organism can continue to live without being several of these gestalts. It is
important to emphasize that these gestalts like a son, a father etc., are not pictures or roles of an ideal
son or an ideal father. Nor do they fully specify what it means to be a son or a father. They function, if
you like, as a minimum common denominator suggesting the types of action by virtue of executing which
some organism becomes a son or a father. Some organism A becomes a son by being so recognized by the
community B, and the latter does this in so far as A performs some kind of actions.
Two questions could arise at a meta-level regarding this situation: Why ought A perform these actions?
And What prevents the arbitrariness of the community B? The answer to the first question, applicable at
all stages of moral life is this: there are no reasons why A ought to perform this or any other action. I will
return to this point shortly. The most important element in the answer to the second question has to do
with the way in which the community judges the action of A.
In the previous paragraph, I said that gestalts are preserved as types of actions instead of saying that they
are preserved as linguistic descriptions of types of actions. This was deliberate, because, as a second approximation, what is preserved in the community is neither types of actions nor their linguistic descriptions,
but tokens of these types or models of these descriptions. That means to say, they are preserved as stories.
From this primary storehouse, descriptions of types of action can be generated; but the fundamental units
that divide up an organismss life are stories. To be a son, thus, is to perform an action for which there is a
model. The medium of education and socializing is, primarily and predominantly, that of stories. To belong
to a community, to be its member, is to share this basic repertoire. Over a period of time, one also learns
to generate linguistic descriptions of types of action which is a convenient shorthand to talk about actions.
But, actions are not judged as tokens of a type, but as those for which models obtain.
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It must now be obvious how the arbitrariness of the community is checked doubly: Firstly, there are no
justifiable reasons why A ought to perform any particular action; secondly, the resources that a community
can use to recognize an action are those which are modeled in stories. Stories are indifferently many; so also
are the states of affairs they depict. This enables any individual organism to challenge the judgement of the
community, within the resources available to the community of which it is member, by being able to provide
a model for its actions.
Descending from a meta-level, let us look at the stories themselves. As descriptions of states-of-affairs, they
are about real or fictitious sons, fathers, householders, kings etc., performing a wide variety of actions. These
stories set up situations and events where moral actions take place. By following the history of an action
through, these stories allow one to see how the agent gets constituted by the actions. (Remember, an
agent is the action and nothing more.) By placing one and the same type of an action in several contexts,
as performed by different people, it is shown that what in one context was an appropriate one is just the
opposite in another. What one learns when one is socialized through stories are not just these stories alone,
but the skill of being able to distinguish between them i.e., one learns to learn in a particular way. (How
stories can do this, what kind of a learning process it is etc., are questions that I cannot, unfortunately, treat
within the confines of this paper.)
The foregoing enables me to take the first tentative step towards answering the question raised at the beginning of this section viz., What is it for some action to be appropriate? When stories are used to recognize
an action, what is being done is the following: a state-of-affairs described by a story is being compared to
some current state-of-affairs. That which is being described in a story is necessarily more complete than
any given state-of-affairs for the simple reason that these stories have an end by virtue of having followed
the history of an action through. The story is no standard that embodies some value, whether absolute or
relative, using which some action could be branded defective in the moral sense. Rather, the story sketches
out an alternative action to the one actually performed. It could do this either implicitly or explicitly; that
depends on the kind of story chosen. The suggestion is implicit when the story traces out a similar action: in
such a case, it is like a thought-experiment. The suggestion is explicit when it describes an alternate action
performed by some figure who found himself in analogous circumstances.
Either way, the point is this: judging an action requires contrasting the state-of-affairs likely to be generated
by the action with another state-of-affairs that could have been generated by performing some other action.
That is, to say that some action is inappropriate (or immoral) requires that it be contrasted to some other
action that could have been performed, but was not. This suggests that the judgement about inappropriateness is always relative to being able to propose an alternative action.
There are several important things worth noting about this kind of judgement. Firstly, quite obviously, the
unit of appropriateness is the state-of-affairs. Even though it is convenient to speak about appropriate or
inappropriate action, because it brings forth a state-of-affairs, it makes no sense to ask whether the action
has the property of being appropriate. Therefore, it is not possible to request information about the
appropriate action for all contexts (except in one specific way, more about which later). Secondly, appropriateness is a comparative relation. This implies that any moral criticism must necessarily propose a concrete
alternative. Consequently, such statements as you ought not to have stolen etc., have no moral force. Moral
criticisms presuppose competence on the part of a moral critic which is one of being able to suggest a concrete
alternative. (Not an abstract one like, say, you ought to have starved instead of stealing.) Thirdly, this
further implies that with each moral criticism that you receive, you improve the ability to perform moral
actions. This is an obvious implication because any learning process requires mechanisms to localize errors,
as well the possibility of learning to avoid future errors. A moral criticism that primarily involves a proposal
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for an alternative a is an example par excellence of how learning occurs. Fourthly, absence of any suggestions to the contrary do not make the realized state-of-affairs the perfect one either. The ability to make
suggestions is limited by the state of knowledge, the absolute novelty of the situation, the resources of the
community etc. That means to say, what appears as the most appropriate action may later turn out to be
a very inappropriate action. The other way holds as well.
My claim is that these are some of the things one learns, when one learns through stories. Each of them has
profound consequences in the way moral domain is constructed and constituted in the Indian culture.
3.2. On the Nature of the Moral Domain
Moral Rules
If the justification for moral actions are the stories that model such an action, it is possible (over a period
of time) to generate some statements that would bear some similarity to the kind of moral rules that the
West is familiar with. But, here all comparisons cease. Because stories depict the fallibility of moral rules by
setting up moral choices as choices between moral principles themselves, i.e. where following some moral
rule is possible only by violating some other moral rule, the very notion of moral rule must incorporate its
essentially fallible character. That means to say, some rule is acceptable as a moral rule if it is neither obligatory, nor forbidden under all circumstances. These two properties (being obligatory and being forbidden)
are considered as the crucial properties of all moral statements in the West. An ethics that makes no rule
either obligatory or forbidden, it is said, allows for the statement that everything is permitted; that, it is
claimed, is the nihilist position.
Could we say that Indian notion of morality is a nihilist one? Of course, we couldnothing prevents us from
doing so. Such a characterization would merely tell us what moral rules in India are not with respect to the
western notion of morality; but it would tell us nothing about what moral rules are to the Indian traditions.
Therefore, let us look at the issue this way: an individual is faced with a variety of actions he could possibly
perform. None of these are either moral or immoral as such, but are susceptible to being ordered accordingly
as less moral, less immoral or whatever. In such a conceptualization, moral and immoral cease to be
classificatory concepts (as is the case in western moral theories). It is important to stress here that one does
not claim that because everyone is imperfect, no moral action is possible or that the moral ideal, alas, is
unreachable. Rather, it is a view that is recasting the very notion of what it is to be a moral ideal in the
first place.
The Moral Ideal
Here, I will simply make implicit what has already been said implicitly: some ideal is a moral ideal if it
is realized and is realizable. Or, to be moral means being exemplaryin the sense of being imitable. An
ideal son is one that any son can become; for this, neither moral virtue nor moral courage is required but,
simply, an ability to learn. Moral figures, when pictured this way, are not exceptional figures whom but a
few mortals can follow, but exemplary individuals whose path can be traversed by all. Given that we find
ourselves in different sets of situations, there would be, in a manner of speaking, as many moral ideals as
our stations in life differ. By the same token, what would be a moral ideal for a householder cannot be seen
as one by a student. In this sense, to speak of the moral ideal, the way one does in the West, is literally
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senseless when viewed from within the context of Indian culture.

Moral Agency
If both the ethically good action, and the ethically bad one are absent from the Indian conception of morality,
it would appear that there is no incentive to be a moral creature any more. And, by the same token, the
question Why ought I be moral? does not appear to elicit any answers. Would this not be a weakness in the
conceptualization of the moral domain?
Because moral domain encompasses all the actions of an organism, there is indeed no special incentive required to perform moral actions: one is in an ethical domain all the time. The incentive to execute actions
that produce the most appropriate state-of-affairs is the belief that the agent is constituted by the actions of
the organism. This incentive, as it is captured in the notion of rebirth, which is not quite as superstitious
as it is made to appear, replaces notions of moral responsibility, moral retribution and desert. It attempts
to accommodate two fundamental ideas: that an agent is his actions, and that the latter have long range
consequences stretching beyond the life-span of any single organism. It has as little to do with the idea
of transmigration of souls or with metempsychosis as the Indian notion of morality has to with Western
nihilism. No reason other than the belief about the nature of human self is required as a motivation to
perform moral actions. That means to say, the theory of karma emerges as a component in the theory of
personal identity. Where the self is constituted by the actions, there the Socratic question Why ought I be
moral? is a senseless one. There is no answer to it because the question is unintelligible.
Furthermore, as must be obvious from the foregoing, the judgement about appropriateness is not a value
judgement. Like all non-moral (in the Western sense of moral) comparative judgements, it is a claim about
the world. Consequently, the kind of relativism that is implied by this position has to do with the limited
knowledge we have of the world. Because moral judgements are factual claims and empirical discoveries, it
is possible that there obtains a learning process which is comparable to any other learning process we know
of. It is as difficult to speak of a terminus for moral learning as it would be to learning physics. If there
is no perfect moral knowledge to be had, it is not possible to execute either the good or the bad action
either. Therefore, all that can be said of any state-of-affairs is that it is both good and bad. Not that it is
good from one perspective and bad from another, but that if neither the appropriate nor the inappropriate
state-of-affairs obtain, any state of affairs that is likely to emerge will be a combination of the two (to the
extent it can be thus formulated). By saying this, one may appear to licence any action; to this constantly
recurring problem I shall return from another perspective, when I contrast the East and the West. Needles
to say, these beliefs do not stand isolated: the notion and perception of order that the universe is, the notion
of knowledge, truth and practice etc., form a mutually supporting network.
3.3. Detached Action as Moral Action
Let me address myself now to three kinds of meta-level problems all of which can be partially satisfied with
one and the same answer:
(a) First, a challenge.
If actions are indeed meaningless, what does it mean to choose between two courses of action? Even if the
desired state-of-affairs is the reason for the choice, to the extent it makes the action derivatively meaningful,
the agent allegedly constituted by the action is a creation of the organism itself and not the community.
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From here, it is but a short step to the West because one is endowing the organism a set of preferences.
Irrespective of how the organism acquires these preferences, it is after all the organism which exercises the
choice according to its values, norms or, if you prefer, some preference criteria. It is difficult to see why a
suitably modified rational choice theory cannot accommodate this description.
(b) Second, a query.
Even if moral judgement is comparative, surely it must be possible to formulate a general advice for those
who would like to perform the most appropriate actions at all times? Even if universally valid moral rules are
not available, without a general set of heuristics it would be difficult to learn/know what kind of action should
be performed. If there is no decision rule, is there a learning strategy? In other words, a trans-contextuality
appears necessary amidst the total contextualism.
(c) Third, a doubt.
To what extent is what is provided a description of Indian culture? Given the variety of religions and caste
groups in India and the absence of references in the article, it becomes difficult to assess the scope of the
claims.
I would like to begin with the doubt: if it is indeed possible to derive from my claims (in some quasi-sense
of the term) at least one doctrine central to all traditions in India, then my suggestions regarding Indian
culture would gain credibility. Secondly, in so far as such a common/core doctrine obtains, it establishes
the possibility of giving a general advice. The nature of this advice would give us clues about its transcontextuality or otherwise. To answer the first question, however, I need to go into the doctrine itself.
If, as I have said several times, actions are meaningless (outside of contextual interpretations) and moral
actions, as actions, become appropriate within contexts, then the desire to perform moral actions should be
identical to the desire of wanting to perform appropriate actions in all contexts. That is to say, the demand
would be to look for and propose some one kind of action that could be appropriate no matter in which
context it would be performed. Because actions are always performed in contexts, the task is to seek the
context of all contexts and for an action that is appropriate in that context.
There is one such context, which is the context of all contexts viz., the universe. Actions performed in
sub-contexts would inherit the property of being appropriate, if they instanced that action which, when
performed against the context of the universe, had the property of being appropriate. All organisms, however,
are always within some context or the other and, consequently, all their actions always have some meaning
or the other. Consequently, what kind of an action would be appropriate within the context of the universe
and in what way could we speak of such an action generating an appropriate state-of-affairs?
Let us begin at the other end, the one we know better, to see whether this question can be answered. Suppose
we look at human species as an individual with a history of actions. What significance does the universe
lend to this individuals actions? If one does not believe that we were created for fulfilling some divine
purpose or the other, then there is but one answer we can give to the question: viz., none! Actions have no
purpose, no meaning, no goal. If, in other words, you were to systematically abstract from the meaning that
the local contexts lend, and place l actions only within the master context, your actions would be totally
meaningless. At such a level, it makes no sense to ask whether some action is appropriate or not: all actions
are equally appropriate, none is and neither of the two. Any action that can duplicate or reproduce this
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property of total meaninglessness would turn out to be the most appropriate action in all contexts.
One of the characteristic properties of human actions, it has been maintained in the western traditions, is its
goal-directedness. Aristotle suggests that moral actions aim at eudemonia and, therefore, that the knowledge
of this good is required to achieve it. Kant, for instance, made this property the cornerstone of his ethics:
the sole motivation for performing a moral action should only be that of performing it because it is moral.
Needless to say, all varieties of moral traditions necessarily assume this goal-directedness one way or another:
a consequentialist focuses upon the consequences or desired state-of-affairs etc. Given this background, What
does it mean to perform meaningless actions? It is to perform an action without desiring, without wanting or
even without aiming at any goal whatsoever. One simply acts. In other words, an action that does not carry
the allegedly specifically human property of intentionality would be the same as performing a meaningless
action. Or, as all the Indian traditions put it, performing an action without any kind of desire, without
aiming at any kind of a goal, without attaching this intentionality to human action is the highest kind of
action that is appropriate all the time. Even though different traditions defend this doctrine in several ways,
they all agree that such actions, if performed, would constitute the most appropriate action in all contexts.
That is to say, a truly trans-contextual action can only be an action exhibiting the generic property of action:
goal-less, a-intentional.
This does not mean that the organism, which is always in some context or the other, chooses between two
alternatives: that of performing an intentional action and that of performing a meaningless action. It merely
means that the organism acts; it acts because as an organism it acts whether it wants to or not. It neither
desires to act this way, nor is it averse to acting the other way. To put it very crudely: if you are seen
as a son, perform the actions that are expected of you. You do not execute them because you want to be
a son, or because it is appropriate that a son does them, or because of anything else. You execute them
without any becausesyou just act, period. Or, if an organism acts without any kind of preferencessuch an
organism would perform appropriate actions all the time. There is no meta-preference of being indifferent
to outcomes or goals that characterizes such an action: all kinds of preferences are quite simply suspended.
But, it might be said, such a goal is a normative one: one ought to be a-intentional all the time, but it is
not the case that the organisms are in fact thus. One ought to perform goal-less action, but human action
is always goal-oriented. Consequently, in what way is this different from any other moral ideal that is current in the West? The answer is simple: one ought to be a-intentional simply because human action is a
meaningless action. Erroneously and acting under false beliefs, human beings think that action is always
goal-oriented. They do not see that the context lends purpose, goal or meaning to human action. Contexts
range from a local one of performing some specific action to the global one of being born into a network of
social arrangements. It is these that make human actions appear meaningful, when in fact none are. Why
ought one just act? Because that is in fact what is. To realize this truth about human action is to be
liberated from errors. When viewed this way, it is obvious that choice theories of any sort would not do to
express this notion of ethical and moral action. Total suspension of all choices is the first requirement to be
a moral (used in the sense of an enlightened or liberated) person.
Whether such a view can be maintained or not, I believe to have made a case for defending the description
that I have given so far as one that approximates the Indian notion of self and morality. It is not enough,
to be sure, but it is a beginning nonetheless.
4. Moralities: the East and the West in Contrast
All organisms act; their actions are meaningless and the self constituted by this set of meaningless actions
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is itself meaningless. The context lends meaning to actions and, thus, an identity to the self so constituted.
Therefore, some organism is a self as long as there exists a context (a network of social arrangements) that
continuously recognizes a self. An organism which sees this truth simply actsas all organisms do.
Let us now go to a meta-level. If actions are indeed meaningless, why call/consider this attitude that encourages one to act utterly oblivious to either the consequences or rules or to anything else a moral attitude
at all? One could, with equal justification, call such an uncaring attitude absolutely immoral as well. For
example, it allows you to carry out genocidesas long as you just do them and without caring. After all, it
is totally meaningless as an action! Surely, this consequence alone discredits any claims that such a theory
could make to being a moral theory?
But of course, it is logically possible to call it a thoroughly immoral attitude. You could, equally well, call
it an attitude that is beyond both good and evil. Danto, in the book from which I cited at the beginning of
this article, says as much:
Not to care, a problem with Gita as a moral tract, verges on not being quite human. There is something
chilling in the image that the Gita creates as we approach the end:..they move through the battle field with
that half smile of the inturned face of Indian art as they slay their way dispassionately across the field of
conflict, as though they were cutting their way with scythes through a field of wheat. It is not a pretty
picture. It is a picture, however, of a self that has located itself beyond good and evil. That is a dangerous
space. It has been occupied by Nietzsches superman and by those who thought themselves as supermen. It
is not a moral stand, but a stand outside morality... (p.98-99; all emphases mine)
Some relatively minor points require to be made regarding Dantos description, before I can address myself
to the question at hand. The above stance is not outside morality, but outside the notion of Western
conception of what it is to be moral. It is a moral stand, but these cultures differ with respect to the notion
of morality they use: it is not the case that Indian and Western culture have different moral rules such that
what we (in India) call moral is not considered so by the West. We are, in fact, talking about different
phenomena when we talk about morality. (I shall explore some of the implications of this last statement
later.) That some notion of moral behavior can be called both totally immoral and as non-moral should alert
us not to the undesirability of such a notion of morality, but to the possibility that something is wrong with
this kind of challenge. A moral practice, and notions about what it means to be moral, is interwoven into
and supported by other practices of a community: the notions of selfhood, the processes of learning, the
experience of body, space and time and all those others which support and sustain a notion of the moral
domain. Therefore, the challenge is not whether some notion is logically air-tight, but to understand how
this logical possibility fails even to be a logical alternative within the framework of a culture. How, while
appearing to license every action, does a culture manage to sustain itself? Why no genocides in a culture
that, logically speaking, should have no problems with it?
Let us array the historical facts to make this point. A culture obsessed with morality has been the author
of deeds that ought to chill any ones blood: Crusades, Jihads, inquisitions, witch huntings, colonizations,
genocide of the American Indians, Nazism, transforming a continent and culture (viz. Africa) into slaves...the
list is virtually endless. Cultures which absolutely forbid immoral actions appear to have brought forth such
immorality that it takes an enormous amount of good will to entertain the possibility that these cultures
are not intrinsically evil. A culture that apparently occupies a dangerous space, occupied by Nietzsche
(speak of anachronisms!), appears relatively virginal by contrast. (Virginity, here, is relative: the claim is
not that Indian culture does not know of tortures, wars or crueltiesassuming, for the moment, that they are
chilling deeds. The suggestion is that they pale into insignificance when compared either in magnitude or
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in scale to the acts that the West has inflicted.) What are we to make of this empirical history of the last
two thousand years?
There is a reason to raise this question. The very fact that Danto advises the Western audience about the
impossibility of adopting the Eastern morality, but does not even as much as implicitly suggest that it goes
the other way as well, testifies to the strangeness of the situation we are in. Philosophers talk blithely about
the universalizability of moral rules, the is-ought problems, the nature of the good and what-have-you
without even pausing to reflect whether the very idea of the ethical domain itself varies across cultures. If
what we, in India, call moral is outside the moral space for you, How do we perceive/understand your
notion of morality? How must we (in Africa, Asia) perceive your understanding of morality, when you do
everything you preach ought not to be done? What are we to make of a debate when sanctions against
South Africa (to give just one example out of an infinite list) is defended by one group as a moral act, and
by those in power as an immoral one? There is but one conclusion possible: moral talk is pure rhetoric and
a total license to act immorally but feel sanctimonious at the same time. The white man, as the saying goes,
speaks with a forked tongue. Succinctly put, it would probably appear to us that Western morality (in all
its versions) is totally immoral and simply a stick to beat others with. The perusal of ethical literature that
the West has produced simply reinforces this impression. The standard ethical examples are so grotesque
(like the botanist Jim facing the dilemma of himself having to kill one Indian or letting the Captain kill
10 Indians in a Latin American town) that it is scarcely credible to see them considered as paradigmatic
examples of ethical dilemmas built to test the strengths of moral theories and ethical intuitions. But that
they are seen this way raises two questions: either ethical thinkers do not encounter moral problems in their
daily livesWhy else the paucity of examples and the starved diet?or their theories never help them solve
their moral problems. In both cases, they point to the irrelevance of morality to daily life in the West. This
is a problem not just of theories, but of a notion of morality. If such is the notion of morality that all you
could have is either an ethically good or an ethically bad or an ethically neutral action, the demand is
always to provide one of these. If it is the case that such neatly packaged actions do not come, What are
the consequences? There is only one answer: You do exactly what you feel like with the realization that you
could always defend the action as an ethically good one; or you do exactly what you feel like because you
do not believe that such neat packaging is possible; or you do exactly what you feel like while suggesting
that every one ought to do the same; or you do exactly what you feel like... An intuition that absolutely
forbids immoral action gives one no practical choice but to be totally immoral!
The knife appears to cut both ways: against the background of the western conception of ethics, Indian
traditions chill the blood. Against the background of Indian traditions, the West appears totally immoral:
Why does it appear so? What causes this perception?
5. In Lieu of a Conclusion
When we describe the moral domain of other cultures, the fundamental categories that organize this description are those from our cultures. Even though attempts are often made to depict the moral domain of
other cultures as accurately as possible, the terms that structure such a portrayal are drawn not just from
ones own moral domain. Implicit conceptions from and about various walks of life function as the backdrop
within which the others moral domain gets accommodated. It is almost as if one fits a partial description of
the moral domain of another culture within ones own world view. This procedure distorts such a description
beyond all recognition: no amount of good will prevents the other from appearing grotesque.
Consequently, given different supporting sets of social practices and institutions that are present in another
culture, what should appear as an intelligible way of life is presented not only confusingly, but also as a
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reprehensible form of life. More than little care, therefore, is required in describing the moral domain of
another culture. What, in any case, will not do are facile assumptions and cavalier attitudes like the one
Danto expresses when describing the possibility of existence of different moral ideals in India:
An Indian will always excuse the actions of a man belonging to a different caste if it is provided in the moral
beliefs that belong to define the mans caste, even though they are proscribed by his own caste...Imagine, for
example, that there is a caste of thieves. There is honor amongst them, to be sure. But are we required to
tolerate them on the mere grounds that they are thieves? There is no basis for moral discussion whatever
if there is no sense of everyone belonging to the same general community within which differences may be
tolerated.. (p.44-45)
Obvious as it may be to Danto, it is not so to me: What makes it so counterintuitive to the tradition,
which Danto is a part of, to tolerate the thieves and their morality on the grounds that they are thieves?
Secondly, what makes it equally obvious to him that in India there is no sense that everyone (the universal
quantifier) belongs to the same general community? When Indians say everyone, they literally mean
everyone; the quantifier includes in its scope such entities as birds, bees, insects etc. On the other hand,
when the West speaks of everyone, the term includes only those who are capable of behaving morally and
that, they believe, is what only human beings (not even all the members of the species) can do. Because we
have already seen the extent to which this is a typically Christian belief, there is no necessity to rehearse the
issue here. But this is the place, however, to redeem the promissory note about the relation between moral
domain and norms.
One of the vexing problems within Christian doctrine has been about human salvation: are only a few destined for it? Many? Or all? Religious figures were split on this issueraising as it did questions about the
nature of divine will. Splinter movements within Christianity have split according to the answers given to
this problem. Whatever the answers, it is important to note that this question did make sense, and continues
to do so. The minimal agreement among various positions appears to me, as a layman, to be this: some
exceptional act (or, at the least, some kind of an out-of-the-ordinary effort) is required to merit salvation.
For nearly 2000 years, the Christian faith has believed in this sentiment. My point, with respect to secular
theories, is this: the notion of moral individuals is isomorphous with this belief. One requires courage, virtue
or integrity (or whatever else) to be a moral individual. Moral figures are, somehow, exceptional; they are
what ordinary mortals can never be. As such, they embody an ought. A culture that believed and debated
about the nature of Gods will, which willed the salvation of the few, for thousands of years can hardly re
this belief when it takes to secular morality: it takes the form of exceptional individuals embodying an
ought; they are seen as being outside the is. To be moral requires some exceptional ability or the other.
It is this belief that makes Danto say the extraordinary things that he does say.
The problem is not merely one of presenting or studying another way of going about in the world as a form
of life to those who live it. There is a deeper issue involved, one which I can only touch upon.
Consider this compelling intuition that we all have when we study, say, another cultures conception of
morality (or self, or whatever): while ready to acknowledge differences, we believe that it is merely a different conception of the same domain. Our terminologies vary, our partial descriptions are different, but the
reference of these is assumed to be the same. However, when the intuition gets worked out in some detail, it
is not at all obvious that we (in these two cultures) are talking about the same domain. By taking this article
as a case in point, if we were to put the descriptions of moral domain next to each other, it is impossible
to avoid the equally compelling conclusion that they could not possibly be of the same domain. (Unless,
of course, one of the descriptions proves to be false. But, then, it is hardly clear how, and in what sense,
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culture-specific conceptions of ethics could be false.) Are the different words, different partial descriptions
indicative that the subject matter itself is different?
Both of these views, each pulling in opposed direction, appear to be true: the belief that there are different
conceptions of self and morality etc.; the belief that these could not possibly be different descriptions of
the same domain but of different domains.
An analogy might well help us here. Human beings could be studied differently by molecular biology, genetics
and microphysics. Psychology, Sociology and Economics claim to describe the same object as well. If we
take this analogy, the eastern and western conceptions of self and morality, say, would be as different
from each other as a sociological and psychological description of some human phenomenon would be. That
is, these culture-specific conceptions are appropriate at different levels. Should we look at it this way, neither
moral nor cultural relativism would be implied, much less the incommensurability of cultures. We would
then be advised to use different words when describing the moral domain of different cultures.
This would satisfy one intuition, but not the other. There are two reasons why it is so: firstly, what would
the upshot of following such an advice be? Are we to say that Indian culture is not moral, because morality,
for example, requires ineluctable reference to values? This language one that calls other cultures either
immoral or amoral is all too familiar to us; there is no reason to rehearse the problems involved in such a
talk, especially given the kind of dominance that the West intellectually enjoys. Secondly, the intuition is
that different conceptions of morality are not different from each other the way Psychology is from Sociology,
but that they are about the same domain and at the same level of description. Why, otherwise, would most
writings in Anthropology and Comparative Sociology continue to speak of different cultures having, say,
different categories of person, group etc.? Words like person, group do not function as place-holders
or variables, but as concepts with specific references. How are we going to make out whether or not we are
talking about the same domain, same object and at the same level of description? Does not this problem,
applicable to a whole range of other concepts, make the entire project even more complex? What are the
issues? How shall we proceed to solve them?
These, I believe, are the genuine issues that underlie much of the pseudo-debate around the problem of
cultural re We have, to this day, not laid relativism to rest, because we cannot formulate the issue (as yet)
that gave birth to relativism. This lack of success, as I see it, arises due to absence of the foundation required
to formulate the problems. And that foundation will not be laid unless as descriptions provided by other
cultures of both the West and themselves against the background of their cultures. It is only when that task
is accomplished will we know what the problems are.
I believe that it is time that other cultures do to the West what the West has done to them viz., study
the latter anthropologically. My paper expresses this belief. Like all first steps, it is hesitant, unsure and
imbalanced. Experience, no doubt, will bring the requisite skills. At the end of the day, when others learn
not only to walk but to run as well as their western counterparts, it is any bodys guess what social sciences
will look like. It is my hope to have shown that the prospects are daunting, but the possible results (should
the attempt prove successful) appear to make it all, oh so, worthwhile.
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Could religion be a neural disorder? (2011-03-05 22:51)
Religion lays claim to truth, both about itself and the Cosmos. It is true the way no other account (that we
know of) is. However, religion also generates (or brings into being) a configuration of learning. That is, it
enables a coordination of different learning process into a configuration. A culture is such a configuration of
learning.
Could religion be a neural disorder? I do not see how we could say any such thing unless we already presuppose (at a minimum) what we have to prove, viz., religion is untrue. One of the difficulties involved in
disproving the truth of religion has to do with the fact that religion is true in a way none of the human
cognitive products are. (Remember that its truth is founded on nothing else except itself.) Of course, we
are free to say that all believers have some kind of pathology. (Many accounts of religion have tended to say
this as well.) But this is an assumption that will not allow us to understand religion: we will see it either as
a human product or as some kind of virus that affects human brain. In both cases, it is an assumption that
begs the question.
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explanations
that
trivialize
experiences S.N.Balagangadhara
(2011-03-07 05:33)
1. In many cultures, especially in the Indian case, it is important to understand that stories are not explanations. They are neither true nor false because they do not describe factual events; they do not claim that
they do either. Unlike the Bible, the Puranas do not have to be true or known to be true for them to play
the role they do in the Indian culture. The Indian myths neither allegorize virtues nor are they disguised
histories. In other words, the presuppositions of your question (common ones in the western scholarship
since the Enlightenment) are false and based on ignorance about the genre of the myth and the roles they
play. (I can only assert these claims having argued them [1]elsewhere.)
2. As an example, consider a group performing a rain dance. When you ask them why, in all probability you will get to hear a story. The most frequent explication (whether given by anthropologists or from
philosophers or whoever) that one gets to hear is this: this group is providing an explanation about the
performance of their rain dance. Assume for a moment that this is indeed the case and see what happens
as a result: you are transforming the members of that group into a bunch of idiots. Is one to really think
that they believe that their jumping up and down in some specific manner is the cause of the rains? Do you
really think that if they were such fools, their culture could have survived at all? Ludwig Wittgenstein, in his
reflections on Sir James Frazers The Golden Bough, posed the same issue in the following way: why then is
the rain dance performed only during the rainy season? Perhaps, you would do well to think Wittegensteins
question through.
3. Let me sketch you a context where the story about Shiva and his Linga would be told. Imagine, just to
anticipate a point I will shortly make, a family gathering in India, and a child asks this question: Amma
(mother), why is it that Shiva is worshipped (done puja to) only in the form of Lingam, Brahma not at all,
whereas Vishnu has so many different temples with so many avataaras? The mother, assuming she was at
home with her traditions, would tell her the exact same story you cite. She would perhaps use formulations
like Shiva mixed with the wives of the sages or some such thing. If the child wants to know what this
mixing entails, the mother would continue without embarrassment or without being perturbed: you will
know about it, when you grown up. If the child did not know what lingam meant, the mother would say
what your brother has between his legs. No one in the audience would either feel shame or embarrassment
with this story, my friend. I have been both the listener and the bard in my own family on many such
occasions that I am pretty sure that any number of others would resonate with this sketch. In other words,
there is no cultural forgetfulness involved, any more than not knowing that linga also means penis.
4. It is important to keep in mind the question to which this story is an answer: why is Shiva worshipped
in the form of Lingam, unlike Vishnu? It tells us how something came to pass, provides intelligibility to
doing the puja of lingam. The most important point here is this: this story is not censored in the Indian
traditions. This dovetails with an extremely important question: If indeed there exists a paradox between
the Bengali texts and the translation, how do you explain it? Why are the unspeakable secrets acceptable
in Bengali but not in English translation? Why censorship only in English? I leave it to you to ponder on
these questions. I cannot hope to provide you an answer in the confines of this post.
5. In other words, there is no cultural forgetfulness involved here. If the mother tells this story without
shame or embarrassment, the Victorian values are not involved in this situation. What are involved are
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questions like: what are stories in the Indian culture? How are they told? What do they do? Etc. To do
cultural hermeneutics, one needs to do this kind of research before writing books.
6. This story is known to many, but it does not embarrass them. My embarrassment with the explanations
that Jeffrey Kripals of this world sell tells something about my culture (i.e. what stories are, etc), something
about the inability to answer the trivialization, and so on.
1.
comparative-anthropology-and-action-sciences-an-essay-on-knowing-to-act-and-acting-to-know%e2%80%
94s-n-balagangadhara/
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Chapter-wise Questions and Answers to understand The Heathen in His Blindness: Asia, the West and the Dynamic of Religion (2011-03-07 21:25)
Each time I tell someone, whether in a one-to-one discussion or in a conference, there is no religion in India,
I get the following answer: Of course, that depends on how you define religion. I answer as follows: In
that case, here is my definition: Religion=what does not exist in India. Will that do? If it is really a
question of the definition of a word, why does one need to write such a big book?
There is something both irritating and understandable about this challenge. What is irritating is the lack
of goodwill and common sense among those who raise this challenge. Lack of goodwill: they do not grant
me that I am aware of this possibility and that, if despite that awareness I write a book, I must have answered this question; lack of common sense: no scientific theory ever makes claims about the world simply
by defining a word. It is also understandable because definitions have become fetishes; people think that
doing science requires giving a good definition first.
To show that such a definition is not required, the first seven chapters of the book tell a story without
defining the word religion. If people working with different definitions of the word understand my story, it
shows that the story is not dependent on any one definition of the word religion. In fact, we will see only
in the eighth chapter what definitions are and why they are required. So, my first request: try to read and
understand the story first. You will get the definition of the word religion, when it is truly necessary to
have such a definition.
The first chapter is actually quite important for yet another reason. The manifold citations and arguments
have one goal: to raise questions, which the book seeks to answer in the course of the ensuing chapters. That
is to say, I think that one of the most important aspects to being a scientific theory lies in its problem solving
capacity. In the first chapter, I want to suggest that there are some genuine problems confronting the field
of religious studies. To do this, I use citations and analyze them. By the end of the chapter, in principle,
the field of religious studies must begin to interest you.
None of the problems raised in the first chapter is formulated properly. We will see as the work reaches
its conclusion that we need to have some kind of theory about religion, if we are to formulate problems
adequately. But this is a lesson for later.
When you understand what the contradiction is, how and where it comes into being, you have grasped the
first chapter. It would be even better, if you can anticipate several obvious strategies one could use to confuse
the reader and convince him that there is really no such contradiction. The more insight you get into this
evasive strategy, the deeper your insight into the contradiction will be. You will understand the import of
the argument better, if you do this mental exercise.
Questions and answers to understand every chapter in this book
1.1. What is the contradiction in religious studies?
The contradiction in the religious studies can be put thus. The properties that make some phenomenon into
religion is said to be both necessary and unnecessary at the same time. This is best illustrated by the answer
to the second question.
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1.2. I claim that a sentence of the following sort is a contradiction: Even though Hinduism does not have
a holy book, a founder, a church-like organization, etc., it is still a religion. Could you reconstruct the steps
in the argument explicitly so that the contradiction becomes evident?
(1) Without the presence of some properties (say X, Y, and Z) Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, etc. remain
religions.
(2) Without X, Y, and Z, they are also distinguishable from each other as religions.
(3) Therefore, having the properties X, Y, and Z is not necessary in order to be a religion.
Now, we bring in an empirical premise, which is true. That is, we add a fact to this chain. (This does not
have any impact on the logical truth: a valid reasoning remains valid even when you add a true premise.)
(4) Islam, Christianity, and Judaism are religions.
(5) Without X, Y, and Z, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism fail to be religions. (This is the thought experiment we do.)
(6) Without X, Y, and Z, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism cannot be distinguished from each other as religions.
(7) Therefore, having properties X, Y, Z is necessary to be a religion.
(8) Having the properties X, Y, and Z is not necessary in order to be a religion (reiterating the third step).
(9) Both (7) and (8) are true.
The last statement is a contradiction.
It is important to keep in mind that X, Y, and Z refer to properties like: having a holy book, belief in god,
having a founder, having a church-like organization etc. They apply to the entities we talk about (Islam,
Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, etc) in exactly the same way.
Simply put: possessing some properties is both necessary and unnecessary for some entity to become a religion. This claim is a contradiction.
If you like, you can also use words like essential properties, determining properties or fundamental properties without losing sight of the contradiction.
Some of you might feel uneasy about this argument. Let me formulate the unease as a discussion question:
Would the following two statements adequately capture your unease?
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(a) X, Y, and Z are necessary for Islam, Christianity and Judaism to be religions; but
(b) X, Y, and Z are not necessary Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, etc to be religions.
(After all, as the saying goes, there could be different kinds of religions.)
There does not appear to be a contradiction between (a) and (b). But what is wrong with these two statements, in the context of religious studies?
Chapter 2
2.1. What is the ancient puzzle and how can it be solved?
The puzzle: how could the ancient Romans deny the existence of gods and still participate in their religio.
The solution: It was the Roman way to mislead the irrational masses, etc. Such solutions render the
ancients inauthentic. Religio is Traditio. This means that religio is practiced because it is passed on by the
ancestors, and not because of some theoretical argument. That is to say, one practices tradition because it
is tradition, and no further arguments are necessary.
2.2. What is the pagan challenge and why is it a challenge?
The challenge is that Christianity has to prove that it is a religio without it being traditio. Whereas the
Jews could claim an ancient tradition, the Christians could not. Thus, the challenge resides in the fact that
the Christian claim to be a religio, when it is manifestly not traditio of any group, cannot be justified.
2.3. What is the Christian solution to the pagan challenge?
Consider the pagan question: show, how Christianity can be religio when manifestly not the traditio of a
group? The Christians transform this question; the transformation consists in breaking the relation of identity between religio and traditio. That is, instead of the identity between one and the other (religio=traditio),
the Christians oppose one to the other: Christianity is religio precisely because it is not traditio. Traditio
becomes false religio.
2.4. What is false religion and how can religion be false?
A false religion is the worship of the devil. Religions could be false in so far they are expressions of false
beliefs.
Chapter 3: The Whore of Babylon and Other Revelations
3.1. Explain the title of the third chapter: Who is the whore of Babylon, and what are the revelations? (You
need to look into the New Testament Bible to figure out the answer.)
The Whore of Babylon and Other Revelations picks up the story around the sixteenth century. This is the
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second time that the European culture comes into contact with other cultures elsewhere in the world. The
first was during the Greek and Roman civilizations. Empirical investigations, if any, into the universality of
religion will have to begin here if anywhere. Indian culture is the other now.
The travel reports of this and the subsequent periods assume that religion exists in India too, except that
it is the religion of the heathens. Before long, in Europe itself, heathens and pagans were to become very
important. That is the first obvious reference to Protestantism in the title: we meet the whore of Babylon
in the book of revelations and the former, said the Protestants, is what the Roman Catholic Church is.
This leads to the second reference to the Bible: the schism within Christianity, between the Protestants
and the Catholics, determines the way the question of religion gets approached. The opposition between
false religion (i.e. Devils worship) and the true one the old drama from the times of the Romans gets
replayed with new actors.
The third, but not so obvious reference of the title has to do with the revelation that amongst these new
actors is also a group called the philosophes. The Enlightenment thinkers, it is argued, not merely reproduced the Protestant themes but did so with a vengeance. The secular sons of the Age of Reason extended
Christian themes under a secular guise.
3.2. Why the title of 3.1.1, i.e. What is modern about the sexual liberation?
It is meant to draw attention to the nature of modern scholarship regarding the early travel reports about
India. One simply assumes that whatever these reports say is a truthful description of what they observed;
one assumes that all one has to do is write down what one has observed for it to count as ethnography,
and so on.
These assumptions literally belong to the stone age of human knowledge: ones observation is deeply saturated with theories, ideologies and prjeudices. There is no neutral or pure observation: either good theories
guide ones observation or bad ones do. What is amazing is that these primitive claims survive as truths in
ethnography (of other cultures). The title ironically draws attention to the notion of sexual liberation by
pointing out that under certain interpretations, there is nothing modern about it: other cultures appear to
have practiced it centuries ago: only it was called immoral then.
3.3. Answer, in your own words, the title of 3.3, i.e. What has Paris to do with Jerusalem?
Everything: a whole series of beliefs typical for Christianity (Jerusalem) are secularized by the Enlightenment
thinkers (Paris).
The enlightenment thinkers accept the protestant amalgam of ancient and contemporary heathenism as
paganism. The amalgam is rendered unproblematic by positing a domain of religious experience that is
universal across cultures. This is the secularized version of the idea of an innate sense of divinity.
The universal human history in which the Christians appropriated the past of the Jews and all others nation
is secularized into a world history of Man (which is actually European history). And so on.
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3.4. What is the argumentative relevance of the opposition between primitive and abstract reasoning?
The concepts of primitive and abstract reasoning allow for a hierarchy of religions. The perception of the
order in the universe indexes the progress of Mankind. This perception of order is made possible only by
the awareness of a Divine Plan. The level of religious sophistication equals the level of abstract reasoning.
Primitive man was/is incapable of abstract reasoning hence his idolatry. The dichotomy abstract-primitive
reasoning is parallel to the dichotomy true-false religion.
3.5. Explain the sub-title: All roads lead to Rome
Ancient Rome (and Athens) always turns up in these discussions. Both ancient arguments are rearticulated
and the ancient religio serves as evidence in the Reformation debate on true religion and in the Enlightenment speculations on religion.
Chapter 4
4.1. What is the conceptual quandary?
When Europeans encountered other cultures, the concepts they could use to describe and to understand the
other were limited: few concepts such as heathens, idolaters, and zoolaters would exhaust their stock
of labels. Europe also lacked the tools to distinguish these traditions from one another: all heathenism
was one. Consequently, divergent traditions in Asia, Africa, and the Americas could only be described accordingly, i.e. as heathenism. Subsequently, whilst making an effort to better grasp such differences, the
Europeans were constrained, yet again, by their own, clearly religious understanding of traditions: they
sought to uncover the heathen beliefs behind diverse traditions, sanctioned in so-called sacred scriptures.
4.2. Let 100 flowers bloom. Explain.
The Protestant Reformation came to be divided into several factions itself. The title refers to the multitude
of denominations which subsequently came to effloresce. It is relevant to note that these religious groups
still exhibited the Protestant proclivity to refer to the heathen traditions, both Ancient and Indian, in order
to prove their point. Again, paganism was to testify in disputes about the religious truth. While these
Christian offshoots were caught up in discussions, polemics, and persecutions, many Christian intellectuals
began to seek commonalities among these Christian competitors. It was argued that there exist some common notions concerning religion, which are both self evidently true and innate in all men. (Notions such as,
existence and nature of God, connection of virtue and piety, reconciliation trough repentance &) Very soon,
not only Christian communities, but also Judaism, Islam, and, still later, different forms of Heathenism were
all absorbed in that one framework. This ecumenism did not, however, put a stop to Christianitys urge to
prove its superiority against other religions. Here Heathenism serves again as evidence evidence of a most
ambiguous kind.
4.3. Explain the title: Made in Paris, London, and Heidelberg.
Both Buddhism and Hinduism existed, not in the East, but in the libraries of the West. They were
constructed by the French Enlightenment thinkers in Paris, by the British in London, and by the German
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Romantics in Heidelberg.
4.4. With reference to the theme of the book, in what sense was Romanticism a continuation of the Enlightenment?
When the Enlightenment thinkers categorized the Ancient and Indian traditions, as well as the Semitic religions, into one and the same developmental scale, they continued what Early Christians, Protestants, and
Catholics had done before them. The Romantics accepted this history: the distinction between concrete
and abstract thought was simply replaced by childhood and adulthood in order to mould these phenomena, again, into one and the same category, i.e. religion. In addition, whilst emphasizing the close bond
with nature that such primal religions supposedly displayed, the Romantics reiterated the Enlightenment
explanation about the origin of religion. They strengthened the Biblical notion of an original religion by
depicting India as the cradle of it. The Enlightenment categorization of all religions into one developmental
scale (running from primitive to more abstract) is adopted by the Romantics with only slight alterations.
Although their evaluation of contemporary Heathenisms is more positive than that of their predecessors, they
still consider these as less evolved. Hence such concepts as childhood of Man and Cradle of Civilization.
Furthermore these concepts draw heavily on the Enlightenment idea of primitive man a concept that has
been discussed in the previous chapter.
4.5. On how the Buddha saved souls. Explain.
The religious notion about the corruption of religion also came to mould the creation-cum-description of
Buddhism. The latter was said to be a reformatory reaction against a degenerated Hinduism. Buddha was
described as the Luther of the East, and Buddhism was to Hinduism/Brahmanism, what Protestantism
had been to Catholicism. The theme of degeneration emerges a second time in this construction of Buddhism. Since only scriptural sources were used in the creation of Buddhism, this came to be seen as its pure
and philosophical core, while that what existed in reality was considered to be a degeneration (i.e. popular
Buddhism).
Chapter 5
5.1. What is a paradigm? What is the naturalistic paradigm about?
A paradigm is the model, constituted by a corporate body of background assumptions that lies behind and
directs the theories and practice of a scientific subject. The naturalistic paradigm underlies the set of
studies of religion which commonly refer to natural causes in order to account for the origin of religion. In
other words, instead of appealing to the religious belief that religion is not man-made and transcends human
causes, the theories within the naturalistic paradigm attempt to break free from theological explanations
and try to provide a secular, scientific account. They do so by appealing to natural grounds, such as factors
inherent to human nature and societies, the human psyche, etc.
5.2. What if there is no religion? What is the relevancy of this question?
If we come across some culture that does not know of religion the statement about the universality of religion
would be false. Nevertheless, we are not able to find any implications of the negation of this belief. In other
words, we are not able to spell out neither the false beliefs that were associated with it, nor the consequences
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of its falsity. Any theory has consequences. If these consequences are falsified, the theory gets refuted as
well. The absence of implications for our theories of religion hints at the fact that our theories presuppose
the universality of religion the explanans takes the explanandum for granted. Thus, the claim about the
universality of religion is not part of any theory of religion: it is pre-theoretical in nature.
5.3. What is an ad hoc explanation? What is wrong with it?
An ad hoc explanation is developed in order to explain one and one fact only. The explanation itself cannot
be tested by the explanandum, i.e. the empirical observation, since it was groomed in order to explain that
fact. A theory that cannot be falsified cannot be a scientific theory either. In the same way, the theories
on religion are not tested by the presence or the absence of religion. As noted in the above, we cannot spell
out the implications would religion be absent. This is problematic, because our theories have been groomed
especially to explain the universality of religion whilst they presupposed the veracity of this belief.
5.4. What are the weaknesses of our theories concerning the origin of religion?
Besides their ad hoc nature, their weakness lies in the fact that with equal possibility one could arrive at
exactly the opposite conclusions. For instance, many of the existing naturalistic theories can be easily encapsulated by the following idea: the primitive man, living in a chaotic world, was bound to create religion.
However, it is not clear at all why the primitive man was bound to do so, since all the evidence suggests that
the opposite was true: he or she would have never been compelled to experience the world as being chaotic.
In addition, there is no necessity for Early Man to create precisely religion in order to render his chaotic
world more orderly. Furthermore, these naturalistic theories use concepts such as scarcity, chaos, etc. as if
these were experiential states, while in fact they structure experience. These and other fallacies occur in the
naturalistic theories.
Chapter 6
6.1. What is the Christological Dilemma and when did it come into existence?
Gods revelation in Jesus Christ poses a serious problem to Christology. The emphasis on the uniqueness of
this revelation prevents it from becoming truly universal. On the hand Gods revelation is for the whole of
mankind. On the other hand the revelation is unique in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the way for humankind,
in Him humanity finds its oneness. But, this focus on the specific nature of Christianity renders its discourse
radically unintelligible to others. A way out of this quandary is to soften the emphasis on the figure of Christ
and focus attention on the One who reveals Himself. Thus, allowing for multiple revelations of the divine
in human history. This strategy has been employed since Early Christianity. From the moment it realized
that Judaism did not cease to exist, i.e. from the moment Christianity felt the need to incorporate the
histories of different peoples into its own story, attention shifted from the uniqueness of revelation in Christ
to God Whose revelation is universal. Thus, the Christological dilemma the impossible choice between
Christology and Theism- has been with Christianity from its beginning.
6.2. Why can the difference between the sacred and the profane not be used to distinguish the religious from
the non-religious?
Concepts such as sacred, holy, das Heilige do not depict experiences that are sui generis. Instead these
experiences are well structured. In the case of Schleiermacher, Sderblom, and Otto this is very explicit. The
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religious experiences they depict imply a well- defined object, and an arsenal of theological ideas. Furthermore they presuppose a thorough acquaintance with a specific religious tradition, viz. the liberal protestant
tradition. When being a part of a religious tradition is a prerequisite to have a religious experience, this
experience can hardly be considered universal. Therefore, the distinction between sacred and profane, which
draws on these experiences, is an intra-traditional difference and not one that cuts across traditions and
time. When secular authors such Durkheim and Eliade try to characterize religion using these concepts they
are actually smuggling theology into a scientific discourse, using religious categories as if they were neutral
or scientific.
6.3. Explain the title of 6.3: In what way does Christianity persecute Paganism?
Considering different religions to be different answers to the revelation of the divine seems to be a very liberal
and tolerant stance. But, on close scrutiny, even this liberal stance is a Christian persecution of Paganism.
After all, not every answer to the divine revelation is equally adequate. A (developmental) hierarchy of
answers to the divine can be established, with the (liberal) Protestantism as its summit. This is but a slight
variation to the well-known strategy Christianity has employed to attack and criticize different tradition.
Instead of considering other religions as false or inferior, they now are less adequate answers to the revelation
of God.
6.4. Theism is a solution for the Christological Dilemma. Explain.
In Christology the figure of Jesus Christ poses a particular problem: the uniqueness of the revelation of God
in Jesus Christ puts constraints on the universality of this revelation. It is very difficult to communicate
the exclusivity of an all-inclusive Christ. By shifting focus to the revelation of God (away from Christ) it
becomes possible to speak of several revelations, to incorporate different histories into one. But, this solution
also implies sacrificing its distinctly Christian character.
Chapter 7
7.1. Explain the title: what is the prosecution about? Who is the prosecutor and who is prosecuted?
The title of the sixth chapter refers to the fact that Christianity appears to be guilty for transforming the
world into a Christian world. From the second chapter onwards, it has become increasingly clear that the
world in which we live is still a religious world. Even the intellectual world of the heathens has become a
Christian world. This is the pagan or heathen charge to Christianity, from which even the so-called atheists
cannot escape. The prosecution, thus, is a heathen one, and those who are prosecuted are the Christians.
7.2. Why a process? And what is the prosecutions case.
As mentioned in the above, the so-called secular world in which we live is still a Christian world. Whereas the
previous chapter demonstrated that our theories of religion use concepts from a specific religious tradition,
the present chapter elaborates upon this point. The concepts which our scholars of religion make use of
appeal to a whole range of theological beliefs. In other words, Biblical themes have been constitutive for the
development of our scientific vocabulary: the religious belief that God gave religion to mankind has been
translated into the supposed universality of religion; that He revealed himself has been transformed in the
secular notion that in all cultures there is an experience of religion which is fundamentally the same, etc.
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In other words, when we talk about religion we cannot but use these themes in the absence of alternatives.
Thus, Christianity, in its de-Christianised form, makes all of us into Christians.
7.3. What is the linguistic inconceivability? Why is it inconceivable?
The linguistic inconceivability is that there could be cultures without religion. This is inconceivable to the
Westerners because the only way in which they can make sense of the practices of other cultures is by construing these as religions. The language the West uses to speak about other cultures is that of a secularised
Christian theology. Within this linguistic practice, the practices one encounters in other cultures threaten
to become radically unintelligible if they are not described as religions.
7.4. Which questions have been answered? Which have been postponed? Relate the questions and the
answers to the different chapters.
We started out with the following question: Do all cultures have religions? This question has not as yet
been answered, but we have seen that it is answered in the affirmative by the scholars and laymen of today.
This raised another question: What are the grounds for believing that religion is a cultural universal? In
Chapters 3 and 4, we saw that there are no empirical grounds for this belief. The belief in the universality
of religion never became the subject of an empirical investigation. Rather, all travelers and missionaries assumed that there had to be religion in India. In Chapters 5 and 6 it was revealed that there are no scientific
theoretical grounds for this belief. The speculations about the origin of religion presuppose either that all
human beings or all human cultures have religion. And the explanations that take recourse to religiosity or
religious experience do the same. Throughout Chapters 3 to 7, it has become clear that the only theoretical
grounds for believing that religion is a cultural universal are the tenets of Christian theology.
A third question was: What is involved in attributing religion only to some cultures? In Chapter 5, we saw
that we are not able to spell out the empirical consequences to our explanations of religion, if we discover a
culture without religion. This is the case, because all these theories hold the cultural universality of religion
as a pre-theoretical assumption.
A fourth question was: Is the existence question about religion susceptible to empirical enquiry? In Chapter
5, 6 and 7, we have seen that it is not. As the concept of religion itself precedes all theory formation about
religion, we have no theoretical criteria to decide whether or not some culture has a religion.
Finally, the following question is raised: Why have the scholars of the twentieth century kept on believing
that religion is a cultural universal? In Chapters III to VI, the historical aspect of the answer was spelled out.
The Enlightenment thinkers secularized the Biblical claim that religion is Gods gift to humankind into the
anthropological fact that all cultures have a religion. Consequently, the nineteenth- and twentieth-century
scholars adopted this piece of theology dressed up in secular garb. Chapter VII explained the linguistic
aspect of the answer. A de-Christianized Christian theology has become the only language in which we can
discuss the various practices of human cultures. This language compels us to conceive of these practices as
religions. The conceptual aspect of the answer remains to be spelled out.
Chapter 8
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8.1. What is the function of a definition?

The function of a definition is to provide a reference to what one is talking about.
8.2. What issues are at stake in the dispute concerning the definition of religion?
There is a referential as well as a classificatory issue. By means of referring one establishes the identity of an
object or phenomenon. The definition operates to avoid any dispute concerning the identification of what we
talk about. The current definitions of religion, however, are used to classify certain phenomena as religion.
Yet in the absence of a theory, classifications are arbitrary and do not provide us with knowledge about the
world.
8.3. Why are the discussions about definitions sterile?
Though the discussions about the definition of religion start as a referential problem, they end up as classificatory issues. For these classificatory disputes, however, there is no possible solution in the absence of a
theory. In order to classify certain phenomena as religion, one has to know what religion is. The definitions
are groomed merely as an answer to the pre-theoretical intuition of the author. Hence, the definitions vary
according to their tastes. Discussions about preferences and tastes are never-ending.
8.4. Is it possible to provide counter-examples to a definition? Explain.
No, because definitions do not have consequences, only theories do. A definition merely associates a particular term with a given phenomenon (what is one talking about?) but they do not provide knowledge about
the world. For example, suppose that one defines grass as everything that is green. Could the yellow grass
that is found beneath a stone be a counter-example to this definition? No, it could not, because according
to this definition this yellow grass is not grass at all, because it is not green.
Now take the example of a theory of photosynthesis which explains why grass is green. Contrary to definitions, this theory has consequences or implications, one being that if grass is not exposed to sunlight for
a longer period of time, it will not turn green. Hence, the example of the yellow grass under the stone
confirms the theory. Suppose that one does find green grass in a dark cave, this grass would indeed be a
counter-example to the theory of photosynthesis.
8.5. What is the potential contradiction in the story?
To claim that religion is both pre-theoretical and theoretical. In other words, to claim that religion (both
the concept and the claims associated with it) exclusively belongs to a religious language and theory, while
simultaneously insisting that the concept and the claim are pre-theoretical in nature. The challenge will be
to demonstrate that both claims are true.
8.6. What is the definition of religion? Is it a satisfying definition? What kind of a definition is it?
Religion is what (at least) Christianity is. This definition answers to the qualifications a definition has to
meet, i.e. to fix a reference. This definition of religion picks out an exemplary or prototypical instance of
religion. This allows us to study the object religion. Picking out Christianity as a prototypical instance of
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religion is sensible both from a historical and linguistic perspective. If Christianity would not be a religion,
what else could be? Denying that Christianity is a religion involves making an epistemic decision which
requires a good theory. Furthermore, to accept that the term religion at least refers to Christianity is to
begin a pre-suppositionless enquiry into the nature of religion. It does not make any domain-specific presuppositions; it merely accepts our linguistic practice. This is an ostensive definition.
8.7. What is the problem at the end of this chapter? Why is it a problem?
To use Christianity as the sole example of religion might well result in an ad hoc theory of religion, in which
certain characteristics of Christianity would singled out as the necessary characteristics of religion. Hence
limiting the scope of the theory to Christianity alone. Only when it has been demonstrated which characteristics Christianity has by virtue of being a religion, the danger of becoming ad hoc is neutralized. This is
one of the important requirements the theory of religion faces.
Chapter 9
9.1. What is the characterization of religion?
Religion is an explanatorily intelligible account of both Cosmos and itself. This means that the two explanations, the causal and the intentional, fall together. The cause of the Cosmos is the Will of God. All
that was, is and will be is an expression of His Will. We can know Gods intentions by studying the Cosmos and His revelation. This hypothesis has to pass certain adequacy tests, which are both historical and
phenomenological. Can the hypothesis explain Christianitys inclination to religious rivalry and the mutual
misunderstanding between religions and heathen traditions (historical)? Can the hypothesis explain the
necessity of faith, worship, truth & (phenomenological)?
9.2. What is the relationship between religion and the meaning of life?
A religious person experiences the Cosmos as both a (causally) explainable and an intelligible entity. Hence,
he experiences his life as a part of a bigger plan. To be religious means believing that human life and death
have a meaning and a purpose. Religion makes it possible to ask these questions, but it does not provide
specific answers to them. Religion was not invented to answer questions about the meaning and purpose of
life, but these questions come into being within the framework of religion. These problems do not antedate
religion, religion generates them.
9.3. What is the relation between faith and intolerance?
Having faith means accepting that one is part of the intentions of God. Faith has two dimensions. Firstly,
faith is internal to religion. Believing (in God) implies a certain attitude of piety, certain practices, a dedication and an understanding of what it means to be a religious person. Within a religion, having faith
distinguishes the truly religious person from the person who merely accepts God as an explanation for the
creation of the cosmos and adheres to religions ethical rules. Secondly, faith sets the boundaries between
religion and other religious traditions. The truth of the explanatory intelligible account that religion is
becomes important when religion finds itself confronted with other traditions. Faith allows of a distinction
between those who do and do not adhere to the religious truth. To have faith is to be intolerant. That is,
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the believer cannot possibly accept that other religions are equally true. Of course, this does not entail that
a believer is either a missionary or a persecutor. The link between faith and intolerance draws our attention
to the fact that these two are related to each other the way two faces of a coin are related to each other.
9.4. What is the relation between faith and truth?
Faith and intolerance are two faces of the same coin only because truth is so important to religion. Being
an explanatory intelligible account of the cosmos, religion has to be true and there can only be one truth,
hence its intolerance. Heathen traditions, on the other hand, are neither true nor false. These notions do not
apply to them by virtue of being practical systems, developed and adopted by men as means to the truth.
Religious truth, though, is God-given. This truth is not tentative, hypothetical, perspectival (as is human
knowledge) and has to be accepted independently of all the knowledge we already have.
9.5. What is atheistic religiosity? Why would it be possible/impossible for human beings?
Someone who claims to have religious experiences but denies the existence of God can be called atheistically
religious. Instead of feeling completely dependent upon God, this person (for example) could claim to feel
dependent upon the Cosmos. Although atheistic religiosity is not impossible, for human beings it is. For an
explanatory intelligible account to exist and thrive in a human community, certain conditions must be met.
How do human beings come by such an account, how can it be transmitted uncorrupted? For more than
one reason, an entity such as God is necessary for an explanatory intelligible account to exist in a human
community.
Hence, the idea of atheistic religiosity harbors a linguistic distortion. How can one feel dependent upon the
cosmos i.e. everything that ever was, is and shall be? How is it possible to feel deeply dependent on
the future? As an explanatory intelligible account of the Cosmos, religion however, claims that we are all
dependent upon an entity that was, is and shall be and whose intentions are embodied in the world. Hence,
a religious experience involves eschatology. Atheistic religiosity, therefore, is impossible for us human beings.
9.6. What are the cognitive moments within religious conversion? What is the fundamental mechanism for
the spread of religion?
An individual within a tradition has no certainty that he is continuing the tradition. In the first moment,
religion strengthens this notion of uncertainty: it refers to the inconsistent myths and legends that surround
the tradition. However, the individual does not need these stories to continue the tradition: as a set of
practices, tradition does not ascribe to the predicates true or false. As such, it is the other of religion. Religion, however, offers theoretical foundations to the practice, excavated from the set of stories that surround
the practice. In the second moment, religion transforms the tradition into a variant of itself; into another
religion, albeit it a false one. The falsity is expressed by the false beliefs (the stories and legends) which the
practices are now said to express. In the third moment, not only ones own set of practices is identified with
the predicate false but other traditions are also experienced as false. In order to recap: religion spreads by
effacing the otherness of the other. The other is transformed into yet another religion.
9.7 Why is the heathen blind? How would he be able to see?
The heathen is blind to the truth. A religion is not just the practice that is suited for a given people:
religion is the divine truth that God gave to humanity. Neither the Romans, nor the Indians understood this
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notion and argued along the lines of tradition and ancestral practices. Since religion generates an experience
in which the world is experienced as revealing that universal truth, the heathen, outside the sphere of a
religious world, cannot grasp this. In other words, in a non-religious world, the world is not experienced
as explanatorily intelligible. The heathen, therefore, could not grasp an EI-account of the Cosmos and of
itself. By entering the process of conversion, the otherness of other traditions comes to be the same kind of
anotherness he finally recognizes that his tradition or set of practices was an instance of false religion.
9.8. What are the contingent characteristics of religion? Why are they contingent?
Since for human beings, only accounts that appeal to reasons or purposes can provide intelligibility, and
since religion makes both itself and the Cosmos intelligible, both need to embody the purposes of some
entity or Being. This is what is called God. Hence the first contingent characteristic for religion in human
societies: God. Secondly, humanity is part of the purposes of God. Some claim or the other must refer to
those to whom Gods message is addressed. Thirdly, religion must postulate a relation between humanity
and God. In other words, the message has to tell humankind what Gods purpose is and hence, what the
purpose of humanity is. Accepting Gods purpose lends explanatory intelligibility to human life. Fourthly,
an EI-account of the Cosmos must identify the manner in which this goal can be achieved. An EI-account
speaks of the purposes of God and hence of the goal of humankind. This makes the world of the believer
explanatorily intelligible. In order to retain this explanatorily intelligibility it must also refer to the means
in which it can retain this. All this results in the fifth property: the doctrines in which all the above is
expressed.
9.9. What is worship? Can we maintain that the heathen bows down to wood and stone& ?
Worship is the means through which an EI-account retains its character. That is, it sustains a particular
experience of the Cosmos. (It is also the manner in which faith is sustained.) To suggest that The heathen
bows down to wood and stone&, we need to believe that the heathen does really think that the particular
idol, the particular crow or cow, do make the cosmos (all that was, is and shall be) intelligible. Of course,
to believe this fantastic story, we need more than the assurances of a hymn: we need to have an explanation
of the psychology of the heathens that tells us how such a thing is psychologically possible. Until such
stage, we cannot plausibly maintain that the heathens bow down to wood and stone, if by bowing down,
one means that heathens worship wood and stone.
Chapter 10
10.1. What is the relation between religion and worldview?
Studying religion as religion forces us to accept what religion says about itself, and, hence, to practice theology. Can we solve this
problem, by studying religion not as religion, but as something else, for example, as a worldview? However,
religion is not only an example of a worldview, it is the only example we have of worldview. Hence, to study
worldviews, we have to study religion. It is quite possible that religion is something more than a worldview,
but the epistemic/epistemological differences between on the one hand worldview and theory and on the
other hand between religion and theory, show us that the epistemic status of religion and worldview is the
same. The minimal argument that religion is the only example of a worldview is that for over 1600 years
the only thing that could possibly pass for worldview was religion. The maximal argument: It is generally
accepted that worldview answers the deep questions meaning of life, etc. These questions as has been
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shown before- are not the precondition of religion but rather the product of it, i.e. the deep question can
only be posed within a religious framework. If worldview provides answers to such questions it can only do
so by either being a supplement to an existing religion but then it is not a worldview- or by becoming a
rival to religion. In this last case it has become an alternative religion. Worldview is the secularization of
religion.
10.2. Why is it metaphysically impossible for religion to exist in India?
There is a multiplicity of creation stories and claims in India. Not only within each tradition several stories
persist, it is even quiet
normal for one and the same person to refer to different ideas about the origin of the cosmos in different
contexts. Creation seems to be neither a unique, nor a radical occurrence, since all these stories are equally
true and true at the same time. Furthermore, the truth of such stories does not depend on their being
knowledge-claims. They are not accounts of the world, as for example the story of Genesis is. Since religion
is an explanatory intelligible account of the cosmos and itself, it implies a cosmogony. This means there must
be a creation story that explains the coming into existence of the world (or the cosmos) as the expression of
the will of God. Moreover; this story has to be true. This means that this story tells us something about
the world. Since these two conditions are not met in India, it is metaphysically impossible that there exists
religion in India.
10.3. Why is it sociologically impossible for worldview (or religion) to exist in India?
For a worldview to exist and keep on existing in a human society 5 conditions have to be met. These are the
conditions of transmission.
1. There has to be a worldview. This worldview must exist in a textual form and members of the community
have to be familiar with worldview that has been written down.
2. There has to be a standard worldview in order to limit transformations of it.
3. There has to be an authority that decides in disputes over this standard worldview.
4. There has to be an authority that exiles those that adhere to the non-standard worldview.
5. There have to be organizations that transmit and propagate the standard worldview.
Chapter ten shows us that neither of these five conditions have been met in India. In the case of the first
condition there seems to be only ignorance: ignorance about a worldview, ignorance about the content of
the so-called sacred books. The second condition is not met because the variety of stories is regarded as
a strongness rather than as weakness. Concerning the remaining three conditions it suffices to say that no
such institutions exist in India.
10.4. Is it possible to build a scientific worldview?
It is very unlikely to build a scientific worldview because a worldview is a view about the world and science
as we know it gives only a view of a slice of the world. However, if it were possible to construct a scientific
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worldview, then it would cease being science and would become religion.
10.5. What is the double dynamic of Religion?
The double dynamic of religion is the dynamic of universalization by both proselytization and secularization.
Religion is an explanatory intelligible account of the cosmos, including itself. However, in the world we live
in, we encounter religion as different religions, i.e. as specific entities. Proselytization is how religion universalizes itself as a particular religion, i.e. by gaining converts. At the same time, religion tries to universalize
itself, by secularizing itself, i.e. by losing its particular forms.
10.6. Why is question 10.1 such an interesting question?
This is one reason: It turns out to be impossible to study religion without practicing theology since religion
is also what it says about itself. Even the attempt to study religion as a worldview does not help us to avoid
that. The only path open to us is to study religion as something that brings forth a specific culture. This,
though, is but one characteristic of religion&
Chapter 11
11.1. What are learning configurations?
A configuration of learning is a culture-specific way of learning. In this configuration one way of learning is
emphasized and others are subordinated. This emphasis entails that one kind of learning to learn (or metalearning) dominates all other learning process (with their respective meat-learning). Consequently, typical
to each configuration of learning is a type of learning to learn, which is the characteristic meta-learning of
the kind of learning that dominates the configuration.
For a human being to survive in the world, he/she needs to learn to go about with his/her environment. This
environment consists both of the natural environment at larch as of the social environment in particular.
Therefore, in order to survive, a human being needs to master several goings-about, to which pertains a
learning process. By means of a learning process an individual can both learn to master a particular goingabout as learn to teach that going-about. Hence, there is a specific learning process, covering a learning
and meta-learning, for each going-about in particular. A configuration of learning is the way the several
goings-about are related to one another. In other words, in a configuration of learning the one learning
process is dominant and the other learning processes are subordinated to it. The dominant learning process
structures, by virtue of its meta-learning, the other learning processes.
11.2. What is the relation of religion to a learning configuration?
By its presence religion has generated a particular configuration of learning where theoretical learning has
become dominant and where theoretical learning has subordinated the other learning processes. Religion is
the root model of order. I.e. by being an explanatory intelligible account, religion itself exemplifies the order
the universe is posits. Furthermore, it is the best example of what an explanation is. By its sheer presence
religion stimulates the quest for answers to (meaning) questions.
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11.3. How do learning configurations help to conceptualize cultural differences?

Cultural differences are experienced at an individual level. This means that whenever we meet someone
from another culture we will notice differences in how the other goes about in the world. The hypothesis
of configurations of learning allows of seeking the distinctions in the different ways our goings-about are
structured. Consequently, a comparison of cultures no longer consists of an enumeration of the elements
culture A holds, and culture B lacks. In each culture we will find the same elements, their structure differs
and the way in which they are passed over from generation to generation are different.
11.4. What are the consequences of conceptualizing cultural differences in this manner?
The hypothesis of configurations of learning allows of scientific study of cultural differences. It is now possible
to pose cognitively productive questions that can be answered and tested. It becomes possible to distinguish
the real issues from the pseudo-issues (e.g. the universalism vs. relativism debate) The story that the hypothesis of configuration of learning offers us, is not the definitive story it can be ameliorated. This is one
of its facets that makes it a scientific story.
11.5. How to explain cultural similarities?
Since every learning process is present in every culture, it should not surprise us there exist similarities between cultures. The hypothesis of configurations of learning allow of a description of the differences between
cultures, and also of a description of the similarities between cultures.
11.6. What is the dynamic of religion?
The dynamic of religion is one of both proselytization and of secularization. By means of proselytization
the account that a particular religion is gets dispersed. Hereby the cosmos is made into an explanatorily
intelligible entity. Secularization does the same thing but without taking recourse to a specific account. &it
is like possessing the structure of an account without oneself accepting some particular interpretation of the
variables.
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From Blog to Book.

How to go about developing an alternative to the so-called social sciences? S.N.

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Does Shivalinga mean phallus? A theoretical dispute

India and Her traditions: A Reply to Jeffrey Kripal

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Simulation of social and cultural changes? S.N. Balagangadhara (2011-03-01 03:10)

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Is Rain dance superstitious? Willem Derde (2011-03-01 04:00) . . . . . . . . . .

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Vacuity of Essentialism? S.N.Balagangadhara (2011-03-02 03:40) . . . . . . . . .

Criticism: you are Westernized ! (2011-03-02 07:11) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Criticism: you are not studying Ancient India! (2011-03-02 07:14) . . . . . . . . .

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Criticism: one need to be Indian to study Indian culture (2011-03-02 07:20) . . .

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Is every description knowledge? (2011-03-02 08:10) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

On Lorenzen s Who invented Hinduism?

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Knowledge and objectivity (2011-03-02 19:39) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Criticism: What s with Behavioral Psychology? (2011-03-02 19:45) . . . . . . . .

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Colonial Experience: Normative Ethics 101

On Colonial Experience and the Indian Renaissance: A prolegomenon to a

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Intentional operator and inconsistent reasoning (2011-03-03 20:10) . . . . . . . . .

Religious intolerance vs. civic intolerance I (2011-03-03 20:45) . . . . . . . . . . .

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