Epistemology in the West is defined as the “theory of knowledge”, especially with regard to the methods of knowing and questions about whether these methods deliver truth. However, owing to numerous dualisms in Western philosophy, including the strict separation between the observer and the observed, it has never been clear if knowledge is possible. Even if we assume that reality is...
A few articles ago, I discussed the nature of Personhood as six traits—self-awareness, intention, emotion, cognition, conation, and relation. Then we discussed Personalism vs. Depersonalization: A person is governed by free will and the depersonalized is governed by laws. As a follow-up, in this article, I will discuss what I mean by a machine in contrast to a person. I will...
Śrila Prabhupāda described the Western worldviews as nirviśeśa and sūnyavāda, which are translated as impersonalism and voidism. This has always perplexed me because the West is rooted in Christian Personalism. How can a worldview based on Personalism be called voidism or impersonalism? The problem compounds with the Indian versions of nirviśeśa and sūnyavāda, called Advaita and Buddhism, because they too are...
Western philosophy has a famed distinction between appearance and reality. This distinction began with the idea that appearances are outward projection, while reality is the thing in itself. For example, consider a cheater, who talks suavely and pretends to have your best interests at heart, but in fact, he is trying to deceive you. Here, the bodily appearances (things that you...
In a recent conversation, many good questions about the problems of Advaita Impersonalism arose, which we could not cover during the conversation itself. This post tries to respond to these questions. For those who might be unaware, Advaita Impersonalism can be summarized into four claims: (a) Brahman is real or true, (b) the material world is false, (c) the soul or...
The following is an expanded version of the response I sent to someone after watching his debate with a Skeptic/Atheist. I had posted a critique of his approach on that video, which I have since deleted because I don’t want to be polemical about the efforts of people trying to do something. They are certainly to be lauded for their courage,...
The physical dogma about the world is that as you look deeper inside things, you get to know smaller and smaller parts of the world. As a result, by looking deeper, you lose the big picture. Thereby, there is a contradiction between depth and breadth. You can be a jack of all trades and a master of none. Or, you can...
It is well-known that the material energy is personified in Vedic texts as Durga. And yet, starting with Advaita, the Vedānta doctrines have designated matter as achit—inert, inanimate, or insentient. Descartes, of course, designated matter as being distinct from the mind in his famous mind-body dualism. Christian theologians have also treated matter as dead and inert. Since both science and religion...
There are occasional rumblings against my Vedānta Sūtra commentary entitled Conceiving the Inconceivable: A Scientific Commentary on Vedānta Sūtras. I understand that many people come to religion with a sense of finality: Worldly knowledge changes, but spiritual knowledge is eternal. In their view, a new commentary breaks that finality. They may view the commentary as breaking the tradition. They question my...
One of the key differences between quality and quantity thinking is that quality thinking breaks ordinary logic. In ordinary logic, there are always two opposites. Only one of these could be true, and one of them must be true. The former condition forbids both opposites from being true, and the latter condition forbids neither of the opposite being true. In quality...
In the last post, I described the sense in which Vedic philosophy is realist—a soul moves in a space of meaning-states called childhood, youth, and old age (higher) and hungry, thirsty, lusty (lower). All these states are fixed and eternal, but the soul’s connection to these states is temporary. Western material realism instead claims that there is a world of moving...
In the Vedic system, the eternal spiritual principles are often contextualized according to time, place, situation, and the people involved to assist their realization. This contextualization is often mischaracterized as pragmatism where the potential for successes (measured by the number of people who start following such contextualized principles) seems to naturally justify the adaptation of eternal principles. This post discusses the...
