Volume 12. December 2011 Transcendent Philosophy
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individualism of absurdism that rejects the renaissance and the
enlightenment ones. We can draw a general comparison stressing the points of similarity and difference between the two. Similarities: Both are man-centred. Man is the measure of everything. Both reject all that is not human and suprahuman. Reason or Human mind is the only mode through which knowledge is possible and all knowledge is essentially dual, divided into subject and object. Differences: the renaissance humanism was optimistic, theistic, objective, logical, reason and goal oriented while as the latter is pessimistic, atheistic, subjective, disjointed and nihilistic. As a reaction the modern humanism challenges and problamatizes the central doctrines of the renaissance in that it, in its quest for the absolute ground of man, finds the promising renaissance man as a myth dubbed to conceal the inherent loneliness with which men, in their essential selves, are born, live and finally die. The modern humanist is not at home in this world to enjoy the beauty and reason out new adventures rather is in alienation from the centre. He has witnessed the horrors of two world wars and inexpressible pain. All values and beliefs that hold man together are now shattered to dust. Disintegration and fragmentation have crept into the collective unconscious. Power, not beauty, is the object of modern culture. Loneliness of every individual is what characterises human consciousness as Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and Beckett show. Communication is now impossible as the logo of language is fallen apart. The plot of human history and life is no more progressive with a beginning, middle and a heroic end but aimless Foundations and Development of Absurdism in Western Thought: Reflections… 275 repetition of sounds and meaningless dialogues where nobody comes, nobody goes and everything is awful. Thus the modern man degenerated from man to his hidden animality, the libidinal drive of ruthless power and passion. The renaissance humanism placed progressive man in the position of stagnant God of the Christianity while as the modern one found the history of progress as a goalless journey from nowhere to nowhere. Where does historical notion of time finally takes man? Absurdists provide various responses: Nietzsche and Camus are driven towards the crushing burden of nihilism which they accept as the only worthy posture of human dignity. Nietzsche’s Superman’s ‘will to power’ and ‘innocence of becoming’ are two existential responses to the fundamental metaphysical question ‘what is God’ and ‘ what is our response towards history’ respectively. Camus prefers ‘metaphysical rebellion’, suicide, ‘will to life’ and human solidarity combined with a deep nostalgia and resentment for, like all other major absurdists, the lost home. Heidegger seeks refuge in ‘being’ which is in time and not in impersonal metaphysical realization. Sartre develops good faith and takes full responsibility of choices and decisions. Beckett finds nothing more real than anything. To him ‘nothing happens ever’ and the human condition remains irredeemable. Man, according to absurdists, is in eternal exile, damned to suffer forever without ever knowing why. What can be known is the limited knowledge that one gets through the senses and reflects in the time and space bound mind. And what an individual has experienced and known since centuries, regarding his final destiny in the universe, is the monotonous repetition and recycling of human life and pain and the hollow and abstract promises of various narratives ranging from the Christian salvation of soul, man as an enlightenment project in himself to Marxist emancipation of body and all slavery. However, man in flesh and blood has always found himself imprisoned in the mud of which he is made to witness the never ending drama of life, decay and ultimately death. He is damned to taste the tragedy of unfulfilled ambitions alone without any saviour. All the grand-narratives of human history fail to explain to him the ultimate purpose of living and useless suffering. All that an individual can do is that he can suffer with nausea, live in anxiety, play mind games to pass time, commit suicide as an act of man’s true freedom or he can indulge in masturbation, violent sexual 276 Bilal Ahmad Dar endeavours and drug addiction so that he can become unconscious of his imprisoned decaying self. Conclusion From its beginnings in pre-Socratic thinkers to modern times the history of development of Absurdism presents no consistent pattern of evolution. It appears that it has never been formulated into a coherent position – and perhaps it could not by definition be expressed as a system or consistent viewpoint for it denies order, consistency and meaning. The Greeks largely contained it and we find only fragmentary statements here and there and no such thing as absurdist school though ancient scepticism has some affinities with modern formulation of the problem and one can say anticipates it. The medieval Christianity absolutized ultimate meaning to the subordination of individuality and freedom. The renaissance humanism absolutized reason, freedom and individualism by inventing the ideal of ‘progresses’ by displacing the ultimate meaning by the immediate ones. Finally absurdism affirmed in absolute terms the notion of nothingness and irrationality. These developments echo Hegel’s dialectics of thesis, antithesis and synthesis; although after absurd ‘logic’ or ‘illogic’ synthesis seems impossible. Friedman notices this problem precisely: For modern man meaning is not accessible either through the ancient Prometheanism that extends man’s realm in an ordered cosmos or through the Renaissance Prometheanism that makes man a little world that reflects the great. Still less is it accessible through the modern Prometheanism that defies what is over against man while striving at the same time to control, subdue, or destroy it…Today, meaning can be found, f at all, only through the attitude of the man who is willing to live with the absurd, to remain open to he mystery which he can never hope to pin down. 31 Thus we see the absurdism has been always with man as an attitude but very few subscribed to it. It has been formulated as a comprehensive philosophical viewpoint only recently in Western history. Enlightenment and Christian reaction against it both seem inadequate to Foundations and Development of Absurdism in Western Thought: Reflections… 277 contain this ultimately pessimistic attitude. Modernity has been decisively coloured by absurdist theses formulated across disciplines in different forms. The question is: can we fully comprehend its historical genesis, attempt to rewrite history from a more life affirming melioristic if not optimistic viewpoint that religious/mystical traditions have advocated. Theologies need to be understood at metaphysical plane in order to make sense of their central claims against fundamentally unwarranted excesses and slanders of absurdists against life and its potential to be a fount of joy and beauty. References 1 Nasr, Syed Hossein, Islam and the Plight of Modern Man, London: Luzac, 1979, p.39. 2 Cited in Qaiser,Shahzad, Metaphysics and Tradition, Lahore: Gora Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 1998, p. 95. 3 Cited in Roochnick, David, The Tragedy of Reason: Towards a Platonic Conception of Logos, New York: Routledge, 1990, p. 46. 4 Quoted by Burckhardt, Jacob. 1951. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Itlay.London: George Allen and Unwin. P.185. 5 Hughes, Glenn, Transcendence and History: The Search for Ultimacy from Ancient Societies to Postmodernity, Columbia & London: University of Missouri Press, 2003. p. 4. 6 Rene Guenon. 1975. Crisis of the Modern World, London: Luzac, 1975. P.7. 7 Camus, Albert, The Rebel, trans., Anthony Bower. Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1953, p. 20. 8 Bush, David, “The Renaissance and English Humanism,” Twentieth Century Interpretations of the Book of Job: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed., Paul Sanders, New York: Prentice Hall Inc., 1957, p. 30. 9 Al-Naquib Al-Attas, S M, Islam and Secularism, Delhi: Ruby Printing Press, 1984. Pp. 33-34 10 Geering, Lloyd, Faith’s New Age: A Perspective on Contemporary Religious Change, London: William Collins Sons & Co., 1980, p. 52. 11 Haas,William S, The Destiny of the Mind: East and West. London: Faber and Faber, 1953. p. 142. 12 Ctd. in Paul Davies, “Three novels and four nouvelles: giving up the ghost be born at last”, The Cambridge Companion to Beckett, ed., John Pilling, London: Cambridge University Press, 1994, p.45. 13 Geering.1980. p. 68. 14 Macquarrie, John, Existentialism, London: Penguin Books, 1987, pp. 51-52. 278 Bilal Ahmad Dar 15 Albert Camus, The Rebel, trans., Anthony Bower. Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1953. Pp.59-60. 16 Ctd. in Macquarrie, Existentialism, 1987, p. 55. 17 Ctd. in Geering, 1980, pp.309-310. 18 Ctn in Geering, 1980, p.316. 19 Roochnik, 1990, p. x. 20 Camus, 1953, pp.157-158. 21 Ctd. in Flynn,Thomas R, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 9. 22 Gaur, Dr Ved Prakash, Indian Thought and Existentialism, Delhi: Eastern Books Linkers, 1985, p. 7. 23 Flyn, 2006, p.37. 24 Camus, 1953, pp.61-62. 25 Ibid., p.19. 26 Ibid., p. 20. 27 Ibid., p. 34. 28 Ibid., p. 38. 29 Ibid., p. 55. 30 Ibid., p. 34. 31 Friedman, Maurice, Problematic Rebel, Chicago & London: Chicago Press, 1970, p.490. Transcendent Philosophy © London Academy of Iranian Studies Religious Studies and the Question of Transcendence Muhammad Maroof Shah Rajbag Colony, Nagbal, Ganderbal, Kashmir Abstract Modern discipline of religious studies is facing a series of problems on both conceptual and methodological grounds due to lack of rigour in defining and conceptualizing some fundamental notions. Due to ignorance or partial oblivion of metaphysics as averred by perennialists modern scholarly understanding of transcendence is problematic. Lacking solid empirical grounding that is the prerogative of a saint and predisposed to question the received understanding of the sacred modern scholar of religion is not adequately trained to appreciate subtleties of traditional metaphysics and science informed by transcendentalist viewpoint. I propose to provide a brief glimpse of these notions in world traditions as understood by the perennialists. It questions some key formulations in the discipline of religious studies globally. It seeks to clarify the terms for interfaith dialogue, a subject that suffers from a lot of conceptual confusions and operational anomalies. Keywords: Religious Studies, Transcendence, interfaith dialogue, reality, metaphysics, realization Introduction Despite the huge proliferation of religious studies many questions about the more fundamental issues continue to generate debate and heat. What is God or Transcendence? What is the world and what is its ontological status? What is the status of thought and its demand to be provided answers to theological/metaphysical questions? Here I 280 Muhammad Maroof Shah propose to provide a brief glimpse of these notions in world traditions as understood by the perennialists. It questions the terms and pleads for rewriting of much of what is being marketed in religious studies globally. It sets the terms for interfaith dialogue, a subject that suffers from a lot of conceptual confusions and operational anomalies. We need to be clear about the fundamental notions in theology and what is called as philosophy of religion. According to the perennialists nothing is more misunderstood than religion and metaphysics of which it is a symbolic expression. No age has been more misinformed about the meaning of fundamental claims of religion than the present one that prides itself on its secularism and humanism, that outlaws religion from its public life, that believes that religion is a problem or merely a matter of academic interest or phenomenology. The Question of Transcendence I start first by remarks on the First Principle and its transcendence. The Supreme Principle, whether we call it as One or Godhead or Absolute is transcendent. This is the unanimous proposition of all traditional mystical philosophies. The Platonists as well as the Semitic mystics in lieu with the orthodox Eastern approach place the One, the Absolute beyond existence. Existence can’t be predicated of the Absolute. The notion that God is evolving with His universe, realizing Himself or emerging is an offshoot of modern evolutionist heresy. Certain panentheists have supported this idea. There can be no process of the Absolute, no progress, no change, no temporal manifestation. The Absolute stands outside history. It is a fatal error, according to perennialists, to subordinate the Eternal or divinize the temporal (time) in metaphysics and we can see it in process theologians and many modern philosophers. It is another fatal error to confound transpersonal Absolute with personal God or even lower hypostases of the Divine exemplifying the lack of rigour in ontological reflections. In fact we need to transcend ontology altogether when speaking about the Absolute. It was Aristotle’s error, aver the perennialists, to reduce pure metaphysics to ontology, to define metaphysics as the science of Being. The Ultimate Reality is Beyond-Being. Religious Studies and the Question of Transcendence 281 In Islamic mysticism the Supreme Principle or Absolute is designated as a hidden treasure in an oft quoted prophetic tradition which even if not authentic for scholars of hadees (prophetic traditions) expresses something which plainly follows from the Quranic emphasis on divine transcendence. And hidden He remains even now. Absolute in itself has really never manifested and can't manifest. It remains unknowable. The Absolute in its absoluteness is Nameless and It has no signs by which It can be approached. It is beyond all perception, conception and imagination. No qualification or relation (even such a category as existence) can be attributed to It for It even transcends transcendence. No linguistic category can describe It. It lives in permanent abysmal darkness and is ‘‘the most unknown of all the unknowns” (Qaisar, 1998:132). It is Gayyibul-gayyib. None can have, in principle, access to It. The Pure Absolute or Essence (Dhat) in its fundamental aspect is beyond the insatiable human quest and all attempts to reach It, track it, pinpoint it, catch It in the net of language or realm of the finite or time, to conceptualize It, to imagine It, to speak about It, to affirm anything of It are doomed. Before the Ipseity or Dhat one can only be bewildered as Khaja Gulam Farid says. To quote him: Where to seek! Where to find You Friend? All the fiery creatures, human beings, forces of Nature and the entire world is amazingly drowned in the sea of bewilderment. The Sufis, devotees, men of wisdom and learning have ultimately lost. Arshi and Bistami while embracing each other cry in vain…saints, prophets, mystics, poles and even messengers and deities incarnate proclaim weepingly that He is beyond the reach of vision. Scientists, erudites, gnostics and professionals in all humility have admittedly resigned. Ask Farid naive and simple: where do you find” (Qtd. in Qaisar, 1998:133). Rumi encountering the Absolute and dissolving in It makes the same point in the his Diwan-i- Shamsi Tabrez. When God is spoken as the Mystery, the Mystery of existence, it is a reference to this Essence as Stace has pointed out. The Spirit that transcends phenomena and yet does everything and makes possible manifestation is a mystery. The secret of things has never been, and 282 Muhammad Maroof Shah never will be revealed at the rational plane. The demand for rational comprehension of everything, the demand to reduce everything in terms of thought necessarily results in the discovery of absurdity. Essence isn’t absurd to reason but reason can’t appropriate the Essence. The sacred is something set apart, something that defies human categorizations, something mysterious that refuses to give its secret to ratiocinating faculty. Nothing can be done to do away with the mysterious ground of all existence. Rationalism can’t but be ever inadequate and in fact it is clearly refuted in its attempt to comprehend Reality at all planes. Absurdists such as Camus and Beckett are rationalists who find reason finally impotent to solve the problem, the mystery of life or existence but as they acknowledge no other faculty of knowing than reason and senses they are lead to declare that reality is absurd. The Real as Infinite Absoluteness in its absoluteness, the highest metaphysical stage of Reality, is undifferentiated. It is Infinite. So nothing from the world of relativity, no categorization, no definition, no conceptualization is relevant. Wahdatul wajud (Oneness of Being), as a nondualistic metaphysical doctrine that is to be found at the heart of all revelations and traditions according to perennialists, envisages the idea, that the Supreme Reality is both absolute and infinite. The absolute allows of no augmentation or diminution or of reality or division. As Qaisar, a Pakistani perennialist, explicates: The infinite as another fundamental aspect of the Real is limitless for it isn’t determined by any limiting factor. It has no boundary. The true infinite is the metaphysical “Whole” which can in no way be limited. There is nothing outside it for then it would not longer be the whole. The metaphysical “Whole” is “without parts” for these parts of necessity being relative and relative have no existence from its point of view. This true Infinite or the metaphysical “Whole” under a certain aspect is understood as universal possibility. “There are no ‘distinctive’ or ‘multiple’ aspect existing really in the Infinite, it is our limited determinate and individual conception which makes us conceive like that. That limitation comes from the human side to Religious Studies and the Question of Transcendence 283 make the Infinite expressible. The imperfection of a definite and conditioned existence mustn’t be transferred to the unlimited domain of universal Possibility itself” (Qaisar, 1998:134). Many modern philosophers and postmodernists are right in emphasizing these limitations and denying rational knowledge of the whole. In fact the whole can't be spoken at all. The doctrines of Infinite and universal possibility in Sufi metaphysics appropriate all postmodern critique. He explains why the Ultimate cannot be discussed about, conceptualized and thus why reason can have no jurisdiction in the realm of religion. The idea of the infinite can be neither discussed nor contradicted. Since it can contain no contradiction, since there is nothing negative about it. This is all the more necessarily so, logically speaking, since it is negation that would be contradictory. If, in fact, one envisages the “whole” in an absolute and universal sense, it is evident that it can in no way be limited. It could only be limited by virtue of something outside itself, and if there were anything outside, it would no longer be the Whole. It is important to observe, moreover, that the Whole in this sense must not be assimilated to a particular or determined whole which has a definite relationship with the parts of which it consists. It is properly speaking “without parts”, for these parts would be of necessity relative and finite, and could thus have no common measure with it, and consequently no relationship with it, which amounts to saying that they have no existence from its point of view. This suffices to show that one should not try to form any particular conception of it” (Guenon, 1988: 31). In this context how problematic is the rationalist’s attempt to scan God, to drag Him to the human court of reason, to question God and seek an explanation from Him. Nasr has remarked that there would be no atheists around if metaphysics were correctly understood or were accessible to all. I wish to add that there would be no such thing as the problem of evil if metaphysics were correctly understood. In fact this is the underlying assumption of Pallis’ essay “Is there a Problem of Evil?” 284 Muhammad Maroof Shah in his Buddhist Spectrum. Much of modern criticisms against religion are directed against a certain construction of the latter that supposes it is something emotional (“piety with emotion”) and has something to do with individual and his needs/prejudices. However, the perennialists make it clear, that metaphysics (of which religion is a reflection or translation though not an exact one) transcends individuality. In the act of metaphysical realization individual domain is altogether left out. There is no room for feeling and sentimentalism. The mind or everything that contributes to a separative distinctive selfhood or subjecthood has to be transcended completely in order to experience the divine in the fullest sense of the term in the Eastern context and thus Download 5.01 Kb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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