Monthly Archives: February 2019

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Engaging classes on South Asian philosophy

If you have a small group, it is relatively easy to activate your students, who will anyway not be able to hide in the last row of a bigger class. Symmetrical reasons may make it easier to engage a class of undergraduates on a topic they have already discussed, say, vegetarianism, abortion, foreign policy… But what about bigger classes focusing on a non-mainstream topic? In order for students to make interesting contributions, they need to prepare. But, in order to decide to prepare, they need to be motivated. How do you solve this Catch-22?

I, for one, often try a combination of the following methods:

  1. I start each class (including the first one) with 2–3 questions to be answered in written form. The first two questions give them the chance to get back to what we did in the previous unit and to see what remains unclear. The last one is a thought-provoking question which is meant to show a connection between the topic of the present unit and some broader issue they might already be familiar with. The last question does not need, therefore, to be answered “correctly”. The point is just to stimulate critical thinking.
  2. By the way, on the first class I present a longer list of basic questions on topics which look easy (say, what was the Buddha’s full name? In which language did he write?). This gives me the chance to clear the ground from basic misunderstandings and offers to the students some insight in how much they do not know. They are usually quite happy when at the last unit they realise they can now answer all questions.
  3. When I cannot presuppose any knowledge of South Asian thought, I often mix small lecturing units (say 5–10′) to “whispering groups”. In the whispering groups students are invited to just spontaneously form small groups of 3–4 people, discuss what I said and find possible objections and weak points. They are also allowed to formulate questions in case they did not understand. These moments of critical reflection are, as a matter of fact, way more productive when students do their readings in advance and they usually realise it soon enough and start preparing.
  4. For each class, I select some readings of pre-modern sources and during class I ask students to read parts of the texts and explain them. Again, they soon realise they need to prepare and start preparing.
  5. Something I did only twice was to have open a wiki on the topic of the class (say “Linguistic Communication as an instrument of knowledge”). Students were divided into bigger groups (5–6 people). After a short introduction to each unit they would be asked to sit together in such groups and contribute to a certain part of the wiki (say, “Thomas Reid’s approach to testimony”). Again, it works smoothly if they are well-prepared. But even if they are not, they can do their homework during class after having assigned different duties to each member of the group. The results were qualitatively mixed, but the students liked it.
  6. Then, there are the usual suspects, Socratic dialogue, thought-provoking questions, short presentations in class, reading together.

  7. What about you? What works with your students?

    (So far, I taught in various universities in Italy, Hungary and Austria.)

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Why bother to look at material from South Asia, when there is so much interesting stuff in “our” tradition?

From time to time and never by scholars, I am confronted with some variant of this question: “Why bother to look at material from South Asia, when there is so much interesting stuff in “our” tradition?”. As examples for the richness of “our” tradition the Bible, the Ancient Greek and Latin classics, European philosophy etc. are mentioned.

Once again, let me repeat that I never received this question from scholars,

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Introduction to South Asian Philosophy

Did you ever teach an Introduction to South Asian Philosophy? Did you focus on what your (Euro-American) students expected to be part of philosophy (metaphysics, ethics…) or did you manage to convince them that Vyākaraṇa, etc. should be part of Philosophy?
The timeline below is my tentative proposal, please feel free to compare it with yours.

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Emotions in Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta: the role of poems

As discussed in previous posts, emotions are intrinsic to the soul according to Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta and will therefore remain with them forever, including in the state of liberation. Moreover, emotions are also instrumental to reach liberation. Therefore, emotions are also part of an emotional pedagogy which is instrumental to the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta soteriology. How can this happen? Viśiṣṭādvaita philosophical treatises can speak about the importance of loving God, feeling desparate about one’s condition, etc., but this is not enough to induce such emotions. Therefore, at this point key authors of the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta change role and start using poetry. Poetry is meant to induce, e.g., awe and love, for instance, through detailed descriptions of the beautiful body of God. In this sense, poetry is not a substitution of philosophy, but a continuation of philosophy on a level which would not be reached by philosophy.

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3:AM interviews on South Asian philosophy SECOND UPDATE

Most readers will already be familiar with the deep and entertaining interviews of the 3:AM Magazine. Here I would like to express my kudos to Richard Marshall and the 3:AM project for their inclusion of scholars working on South Asian philosophy within their interviews.
Unless I missed someone, here is a list of the interviews relevant for South Asian philosophy (broadly conceived):

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On the nature of emotions in Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta: cognitions or volitions?

Are emotions (proto)-cognitive acts? We need to have already cognised a given thing in order to have an emotional response about it, but isn’t emotion itself also some sort of underdeveloped judgement about the thing? Isn’t a positive emotional response, for instance, a form of knowledge about the goodness of the thing it is about?

By contrast, one might argue that emotions are (proto)-volitional acts. After all, emotions often motivate one to act and in this sense, they seem to be strongly linked to volitions.

Or are they something completely different than cognitions and volitions? And which part, function or organ of the self is responsible for emotions?

What would be the “standard” South Asian view about emotions? And how does the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedanta view differ from it?

Well, the first thing to say is that there is no “standard” view, but at least two. The Sāṅkhya model is very authoritative and has emotions as cittavṛtti `affections/perturbances of the mind’, completely distinct from the self, which is a pure observer, unaffected by emotions. The Nyāya and the Advaita Vedānta model inherit the basic idea of the self as a pure observer and therefore imagine that in the state of liberation, no emotion is experienced. This stage might be nonetheless described by Advaita Vedānta authors as blissful since bliss would be the inner nature of the self.

By contrast, the Mīmāṃsā model sees the self as inherently an agent and a knower. It acknowledges the sequence, originally discussed by Nyāya authors, moving from cognitions to volitions and then to efforts and actions, however it considers that one and the same actor is responsible throughout the process. Volitions are described as having the form of desire to obtain or desire to avoid, thus including an emotional colouring. In this sense, one would imagine that emotions are implicitly considered to be (proto)-volitional acts. This point is particularly explicit whenever Mīmāṃsā authors make fun of the claim of “desireless actions” and claim that in order to undertake any action one needs desire (rāga) or aversion (dveṣa). The term desire (rāga) has a strong emotional connotation and includes one’s strong attachment to something or inclination towards it, and the same applies to aversion (dveṣa).
Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta authors inherit the Mīmāṃsā model and can therefore state that the liberated subject will continue to experience emotions.

The picture is however further complicated by the fact that Viśiṣṭādvaita authors need more emotions than the couple desire-aversion. Since they do not find in Mīmāṃsā the conceptual resources to deal with complex emotions such as desperation, which is essential for their soteriology, they turn to aesthetics. This discipline had evolved complex theories of emotions based on its original link to theater and to the psychology of actors and audience. Already in its foundational text, the Nāṭyaśāstra, there was a clear distinction of fundamental emotions, linked with their physical epiphenomena (such as goose bumps or blushing) and with the kinds of auxiliary emotions for each of them. Since the Nāṭyaśāstra is meant for theater professionists, it also discusses how to solicit such emotions —something of key importance for thinkers aiming at using emotions for soteriological purposes. The interaction of aesthetics and soteriology is paramount in another school of Vedānta, namely the Gauḍīya Vedānta founded by Caitanya and developed by Jīva and Rūpa Gosvāmin.