Buddhist concepts of personal life and responsibilities.

The Reign of Quantity gives a concise but comprehensive view of the present state of affairs in the world, as it appears from the point of view of the 'ancient wisdom', formerly common both to the East and to the West, but now almost entirely lost sight of. The author indicates with his fabled clarity and directness the precise nature of the modern deviation, and devotes special attention to the development of modern philosophy and science, and to the part played (...) by them, with their accompanying notions of progress and evolution, in the formation of the industrial and democratic society which we now regard as 'normal'. Guénon sees history as a descent from Form (or Quality) toward Matter (or Quantity); but after the Reign of Quantity-modern materialism and the 'rise of the masses'-Guénon predicts a reign of 'inverted quality' just before the end of the age: the triumph of the 'counter-initiation', the kingdom of Antichrist. This text is considered the magnum opus among Guénon's texts of civilizational criticism, as is Symbols of Sacred Science among his studies on symbols and cosmology, and Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta among his more purely metaphysical works. (shrink)

QUALITY AND QUANTITY are fairly generally regarded as complementary terms, although the profound reason for their comple- mentarism is often far from being understood, this reason lying in the 'polar' correspondence referred to toward ...

A study of the constitution and development of the human being from the metaphysical point of view, with special reference to Vedantic doctrine.

The concluding chapter lays down the essential conditions for any genuine understanding between East and West, which can only come through the work of those who have attained, at least in some degree, to the realization of 'wisdom uncreate' ...

Description: Contents: Preface 1. General Remarks on the Vedanta 2. Fundamental Distinction Between The Self and the Ego 3. The Vital Centre of the Human Being, Seat of Brahma 4. Purusha and Prakriti 5. Purusha Unaffected by Individual Modifications 6. The Degrees of Individual Manifestation 7. Buddhi or the Higher Intellect 8. Manas or the Inward Sense : The Ten External Faculties of Sensation and Action 9. The Envelopes of the Self ; The Five Vayus or Vital Functions 10. The (...) Essential Unity and Identity of the Self in all the States of the Being 11. The Different Conditions of Atma in the Human Being 12. The Waking State or the Condition of Vaishwanara 13. The Dream State or the Condition of Taijasa 14. The State of Deep Sleep or the Condition of Prajna 15. The Unconditioned State of Atma 16. The Symbolical Representation of Atma and its Conditions by the Sacred Monosyllable Om 17. The Posthumous Evolution of the Human Being 18. The Reabsorption of the Individual Faculties 19. Differences in the Posthumous Conditions According to the Degrees of Knowledge 20. The Coronal Artery and the Solar Ray 21. The Divine Journey of the Being on the Path of Liberation 22. Final Deliverance 23. Videha-mukti and Jivana-mukti 24. The Spiritual State of the Yogi : The Supreme Identity. (shrink)

In this paper, an attempt has been made to examine some of the key concepts of Jaina religion from an environmental perspective. The paper focuses on Jain’s parasparopagraho jīvānām or interconnectedness. The common concerns between Jainism and environmentalism constituted in a mutual sensitivity towards living beings, a recognition of the interconnectedness of life forms and a programme to augment awareness to respect and protect living systems. The paper will also investigate how ahiṃsā or non-violence is understood in the Jain community (...) and also how this concept bears a positive influence in maintaining ecological balance. The paper aims to show that the practice of non-violence is limited not only to actions but extends to words and thoughts. In this process, I attempt to show the development of “intellectual ahiṃsā” where non-violence is rooted in Jain anekāntavāda that is in the tolerance of other religions, thoughts and believes. The Jain’s radical egalitarianism does away with the charges of anthropocentricism labelled against it. In fact, the Jain virtue ethics, compassion and tolerance are instrumental in creating an environment that was conducive to peaceful and productive multi-sectarian interaction both in society and ecology. (shrink)

The objective of this study is twofold: to examine the patterns that govern social reporting with reference to an Islamic framework and to identify the moral legitimacy factors that influence them. We select 146 publicly listed Sharia‐compliant companies and classify the disclosures in their annual reports according to an Islamic framework that categorises items as either Required, Expected or Desired to indicate the degree of importance each item carries from an Islamic perspective. Based on this framework, we then analyse moral (...) legitimacy factors, specifically the type of Sharia screening body and the proportion of Muslims in the population, that may influence the prioritisation of the different categories of social reporting. We find that disclosures that fall into the Required category of our framework—especially those that relate to companies’ involvement in “haram” activities (activities not permissible in Islam)—are still few among the companies studied. Our research also reveals that both moral legitimacy factors under investigation influence the three categories of social reporting, although in different ways. This research contributes to the existing literature by empirically examining how organisations prioritise their disclosure of virtues and the moral legitimacy factors that influence that prioritisation. (shrink)

Contrary to a pervasive presumption of anthropocentricism in African thought, I identify an emphasis on the interrelatedness or interconnectedness of everything in nature, and argue that this is best construed as a rejection of anthropocentrism, and as something similar in conception to, and yet distinct from, holist perspectives. I propose that this strand of African thought, suitably reconstructed, should be construed as providing the basis for a promising non-anthropocentric African environmentalism. I name this position 'African Relational Environmentalism', and suggest (...) that it is what distinguishes this position from holism that can most enrich environmental ethics. -/- . (shrink)

What if wilderness is bad for wildlife? This question motivates the philosophical investigation in Wilderness, Morality, and Value. Environmentalists aim to protect wilderness, and for good reasons, but wilderness entails unremittent, incalculable suffering for its non-human habitants. Given that it will become increasingly possible to augment nature in ways that ameliorates some of this suffering, the morality of wilderness preservation is itself in question. Joshua S. Duclos argues that the technological and ethical reality of the Anthropocene warrants a fundamental reassessment (...) of the value of wilderness. After exposing the moral ambiguity of wilderness preservation, he explores the value of wilderness itself by engaging with anthropocentricism and nonanthropocentrism; sentientism, biocentrism, and ecocentrism; and instrumental value and intrinsic value. Duclos argues that the value of wilderness is a narrow form of anthropocentric intrinsic value, one with a religio-spiritual dimension. By integrating scholarship from bioethics on the norms of engineering human nature with debates in environmental ethics concerning the prospect of engineering non-human nature, Wilderness, Morality, and Value sets the stage for wilderness ethics—or wilderness faith—in the Anthropocene. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on the figure of the ape in Nietzsche's texts, and how it fits into his putative naturalism. I examine the lowly status and ignoble qualities that he associates with this animal and argue that they betray a residual anthropocentricism profoundly at odds with Nietzsche's dehumanized conception of nature. Accordingly, I suggest a reading of Nietzsche's ape remarks that brings them more into accord with his non-teleological and non-hierarchical conception of species. Ultimately, I argue that (...) a robust, thorough going Nietzschean naturalism would require the affirmation of the ape, including everything it comes to represent for Nietzsche. (shrink)

This volume discusses the development of the dialogue between Tagore (1861-1941) and Gandhi (1869-1948) during 1915 and 1941, about many things of personal, national, and international significance---satyagraha, non-cooperation, the boycott and burning of foreign cloth, the efficacy of fasting as a means of resistance and Gandhi's mantra connecting "swaraj" and "charkha". The author, Bindu Puri, argues that the debate was about more fundamental issues, such as the nature of truth and swaraj/freedom and the possibilities of untruth that Tagore saw in (...) Gandhi's movements for truth and freedom. Puri shows that the differences between the two men's perspectives came from differently negotiated relationships to (and understandings of) tradition and modernity. Tagore was part of the Bengal renaissance and powerfully influenced by the idea that the Enlightenment consisted in the freedom of the individual to reason for herself. Gandhi, on the other hand, remained close to the Indian philosophical tradition which linked individual freedom to moral progress. Puri points out that Tagore cannot, however, be unreflectively assimilated to the Enlightenment project of Western modernity, for he came fairly close to Gandhi in rejecting the anthropocentricism of modernity and shared Gandhi's belief in an enchanted cosmos. The only single-authored volume on the Tagore-Gandhi debate, this book is a welcome addition to the existing literature. (shrink)

In this Chapter (ch 5 of Strong Evaluation without Moral Sources), as well the following chapters, I defend a hermeneutical but nevertheless non-relativistic moral theory, taking Charles Taylor’s writings on this topic as my guide. Taylor is a realist concerning natural sciences, the ontology of persons and the ontology of goods (or meanings, significances or values). Yet, his realisms in these three areas differ significantly from one another, and therefore one has to be careful not to presuppose too rigid views (...) of what “realism” must be like. Taylor’s moral realism can be called engaged, cultural, phenomenological, hermeneutical or even “expressivist” in a sense to be clarified. According to such value realism, cognitivism is the correct view of our ordinary moral and evaluative reactions and responses to situations. In the realm of evaluative judgements, genuinely correct and incorrect (and better and worse) judgements are possible. These judgements can be implicit in our moral emotions and tacit agent’s knowledge, or more explicit in different articulations. What makes evaluative judgements correct are evaluative properties or “imports” of the situation, and both the evaluative features of situations and our correct responses to them can be further understood in terms of a plurality of (conflicting and incommensurable) goods, ideals or values (section 5.1). In 5.2 I discuss some motivations for non-cognitivism, and try to show that cognitivism can preserve these motivations. I then ask whether value-properties are metaphysically “queer” and what the perspective from which goods are accessible is. I argue for a lifeworldly, engaged access. The evaluative realm is not accessible from a disengaged perspective, but only from within an engaged, lifeworldly perspective. Evaluative properties are not merely a matter of subjective projection nor merely a matter of objective properties independent of valuers. Evaluative properties are relational, and neither the objective nor the subjective pole has priority (5.3). Then I clarify the meaning of “good” and “value”, especially in relation to the central idea that each qualitative distinction of worth expressible in thick, strongly evaluative terms specifies a “value” or a “good” or a “good-making property”. I contrast this with other meanings of “good”. (5.4) After that, I defend the irreducible plurality of such goods against more uniform principles and value monism on the one hand, and I defend their generality against more radical particularisms on the other. Further, I discuss the “lumpy” character of the evaluative realm in relation to incompatibility, incommensurability and conflicts of goods. (5.5). These theses are reconstructed from Charles Taylor’s writings, but authors like John McDowell and Joseph Raz hold similar views. Not unimportantly, Charles Taylor would add a further thesis claiming that there are “constitutive goods” which constitute the goodness of “life goods”, or which in other words bring about the fact that evaluative properties have value. I try to defend the coherence and appeal of engaged, lifeworldly moral realism without taking at first any stand on this further claim about constitutive goods. J. Schneewind (1991, 422) writes in his perceptive review of Sources of the Self that Taylor does not really pay attention to the metaethical debates of 20th century value-theorists. While Taylor’s contribution could have benefited from the work already done in the field, and while Taylor’s philosophizing often leaves it open how his views relate to the views of others, his approach manages to be remarkably original. One might add that due to the theoretically “rhapsodic” nature of Taylor’s work, his theory has received criticism from opposing directions. He tries to defend several theses, which many critics seem to think cannot be held together. Taylor seems to be both communitarian and expressive individualist stressing authenticity; both historicist and universalist; both anthropocentricist and deep ecologist; a realist and a cultural relativist. In this work, some of these seemingly contradictory combinations are defended, while some of them are criticized. (shrink)

Intuitively, the knowledge of one’s own intentional actions is different from the knowledge of actions of other sorts, including those of other people and unintentional actions of one's own. But how are we to understand this phenomenon? Does it pertain to all actions, under every description under which they are known? If so, then how is this possible? If not, then how should we think about cases that are exceptions to this principle? This paper is a critical survey of recent (...) attempts to answer these questions. I consider views under three headings: "special source" views, which hold that the knowledge of one's intentional actions has a non-perceptual source; "special domain" views, which hold that some but not all aspects of one's intentional actions are known in a special way; and "special character" views, which hold that the knowledge of intentional actions is special not because of where it comes from, but because of some other respect in which it is different in kind from the knowledge of other things. (shrink)