Marxist critique of the Advaita school of Hindu philosophy as propounded by Śaṅkarācārya; contributed articles by E.M.S. Namboodiripad and others from Kerala; includes counter views.

How do we know the degree of imagination involved in knowing a reality? This is essentially an epistemological question. This essay discusses first the role of imagination in Polanyi’s epistemology since it is used here as the basis of integrative reality. The essay then discusses the degree of imagination involved in three types of integrative reality that are found respectively in technology, science, and humanities. It concludes with a discussion on the role of imagination in education.

Articles on Sikh philosophy, tradition, and history.

This article presents a Kuyperian critique of ideological uniformity and political integralism in Europe and Indonesia. The background of Kuyper’s articulation of the principle of sphere sovereignty was his struggle with the liberals, the French Revolution, and the German idea and application of state sovereignty. Kuyper struggled with the liberals because he rejected ideological uniformity. He struggled with the ideals of the French Revolution because he rejected popular sovereignty and, later on, political integralism. Kuyper’s rejection of ideological uniformity and political (...) integralism resulted in the articulation of the principle of sphere sovereignty. Such uniformity and integralism also characterized Suharto’s leadership in twentieth-century Indonesia, especially his doctrine of Pancasila as the only basis for the state and civil society and his ideology of the integralist state of Indonesia. I criticize those doctrines from the perspective of Kuyper’s principle of sphere sovereignty. (shrink)

We explore how one might respond emotionally to the eternal recurrence. Zarathustra himself serves as our central case study. First we clarify the idea of eternal recurrence and its role in Nietzsche’s philosophy, explaining why the eternal recurrence has the emotional consequences Nietzsche describes when he first introduces the idea in The Gay Science. Then we describe Zarathustra’s emotional journey from horror at the eternal recurrence to loving it, in the sections from “On Great Events” to “The Seven Seals, or: (...) The Yes and Amen Song.”. (shrink)