Kaustuv Roy - The Power of Philosophy : Thought and Redemption

Kaustuv Roy

The Power of Philosophy Thought and Redemption

Kaustuv Roy

Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, India

ISBN 978-3-319-96910-7 e-ISBN 978-3-319-96911-4

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96911-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018949901

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Preface

In old movie theaters, one could turn around in ones seat and see the hole at the rear wall through which the projector beamed, over the heads of the audience, torrents of colored light, hitting the screen out in front, creating scenes of wretched pain and intense Eros, of clichd tenderness and scripted horror. Rays of light passing through celluloid and captured on screen were able to arouse various sentiments depending on the times, culture, and reception. Dust motes swirled, casually drifting in and out of the beams, indifferent to the events. As a child one found the colorful proceedings overhead almost as intriguing as the colored effects on the screen, at times more so. Much later, the recollection of this would serve as a good model for reflection on the general nature of that in which we are absorbed most of the time. Representations fill our mental horizon, but the invisible ontological mix that is the background stuff of consciousness remains obscure. We are glued to the images, but unlike the child of curiosity, are not particularly interested in or concerned about their source. Clearly, there is no hole-in-the-wall from which images pour out in consciousness, nor yet beams of any discernible thing that visibly project thought. And yet the parallels are unmistakable. Somewhere in those similarities the idea of this book took birth. The human composite dances to the tune of thought, and yet has not the least idea of the true nature of its matrix. To claim that it originates in the chemistry of the brain or somewhere else is only to beg the question. It is not that the book attempts to discover the origin of thinking. Rather, it attempts to study thinking in a manner that philosophy has rarely done. Thought by itself cannot discover its own origin. But it can put itself under stringent observation such that gradually an intuition is developed toward a new perception and a readiness for disclosure. Thinking has been obsessed by the content of thinking; now thought is asked to look into its structure, which brings us to the door of origin. Then we can knock. And maybe the door is opened unto us. The book is an offering to the preparation for such a possibility.

Kaustuv Roy

Bengaluru, India

.

John 8:32

Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges institutional help received from Azim Premji University, Bangalore, in the production of the book. Acknowledgment is due to Chitra L. who has worked as research assistant on the project, read, and offered valuable suggestions.

Contents

Index

This book attempts a special kind of eidetic reductiona phenomenological effort that goes beyond the epistemic and affective content of thought toward the singularity of its essential-embodied movement. The suggestion is that such reduction constitutes a unique form of philosophical praxis inducing a trans-historical relation with all that is. Praxis here refers not to the transformation of cultural content in thinking but in bringing about an inward mirror to thought with regard to its structural movement. The thesis proceeds from the observation that thinking takes itself for granted, and, for the most part, is focused on outer phenomena, rarely interrogating its own origin and character. This self-disclosure is vital if thinking is to recover its true bearing and potential, freeing itself from the limitations and one-sidedness that has become attendant upon it through history. For the accomplishment of this philosophical task, together with the building of an observation point from where to scrutinize the process of what is called thinking , the book turns selectively to the works of four major thinkers namely Heidegger , Schelling , Goethe, and Heraclitus , across a vast expanse of time, to carve out the vision of a transformative praxis beyond historical totality. The thread that links the above thinkers is their skepticism with regard to the conventional operation of thought and its implicit taken-for-grantedness. Each in their own way discovers something that would challenge the basic pre-suppositions, dualities, and limits within which thought operates. Each attempts to free thought toward attaining its true potential . The book proposes the notion of philosophical bilingualism as a way to take into account what is disclosed regarding the ontological character of thought alongside its representational or symbolic content. The simultaneous consideration of these two aspects brings about within thought a new alignment with what is. Moreover, conditions press upon us to consider this not as an idle question but as an existentially urgent one, for thought in its conventional operation has brought about unending planetary crisis, even as it chanted of freedom, progress, and other talismanic incantations. Philosophy cannot remain silent to this spectacle, nor can it absolve itself of responsibility, since the problem of thought-made suffering must also be the central philosophical problem. It is against this mandate that the present attempt is made toward praxis .

The alpha and omega of all philosophy is freedom . Thus wrote Schelling in a letter to Hegel in 1795. Freedom is thus trans-historical and it is ontological . It is not the attribute of something pre-existing, but the phenomenological composite awakened to its own temporal and spatial composition. It is not the mere product of social conditions or privileged epistemic content of thought, nor is it a function of the politics of time . The postulation here is that this redemption is realizable not as experience but as transpersonal turning-toward-being by anyone and no-one, implying that anyone who dares approach this becomes no-one in the process since s/he goes to the (spatio-temporal) root of experience itself. Thus is philosophical potential realizable in its most radical and acute form .