Many people at present see similarities between Abrahamic monotheism and Vedic personalism and contrast these two philosophies to impersonalism and voidism. Personalism is similar to monotheism in some superficial ways but different from it in essential ways. Likewise, personalism is different from impersonalism in one way—accepting or rejecting an eternal personality of a person—but in many other ways, personalism is similar...
Hegel is credited to have been the first in the Western world to bring the study of history as a subject of philosophy proper. He did so by creating the thesis-antithesis-synthesis framework for history. Hegelian philosophy became the foundation of Marxism that saw society in terms of dualisms of antithesis and thesis. Their conflict led to a revolution in which both...
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...
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...
In Indian philosophy, the voidism of Buddhist philosophy is seen as the opposition to the materialism of demigod worship and rituals. Then, classical impersonalism or Advaita is seen as the opposition to voidism in Buddhist philosophy. Finally, classical personalism or Vaishnavism is seen as the opposition to the impersonalism of Advaita. However, Sri Chaitanya’s philosophy reconciles the reality of the material...
The laws of nature in current science are mathematical formulae that predict the behavior of objects deterministically, which precludes any role for choice and morality in nature. Therefore, if nature permitted choices, how would we reconceive natural laws? In Vedic philosophy, the law is a material entity called a role which defines the expected behaviors but doesn’t preclude choice. The interaction...
There is one fundamental cultural difference between the West and India—the West is a flat, egalitarian society, while India is still, to an extent, a hierarchical society. In the stereotyped view of the West, children do not respect parents, students do not respect teachers, and citizens do not respect politicians. In the stereotyped view of India, children respect their parents, students...
