I hope that readers will bear with me while I keep on exploiting the metaphor of wrestling with the angel. There are a few more indications, in fact, we can take out of it. First, Jacob fights. He does not just encounter the angel, he fights with him. Similarly, in order for the encounter with another philosopher to be really transformative, one should not just engage with a restatement of one’s ideas, and rather look for points of difference and not just of harmony. One is not transformed with the encounter of the n-th philosopher who agrees with oneself.
How to make a reader? UPDATED
What is a reader? An anthology of texts put together because of a specific purpose, i.e., learning about a given topic (say “A reader on Sanskrit philosophy of language”) or gaining proficiency in a specific language (e.g., “A Vedic reader”). A reader is rarely a high scientific achievement, but it might be extremely useful for students and laypersons, hence I think it makes sense to give the genre some thoughts.
The last reader I used is Tamiḻ Matu, by Kausalya Hart, which is meant to be at the same time a historical anthology of Tamil literature and guide students in their learning of Tamil. It comprises a short text by K. Hart herself introducing a given period of Tamil literature and is followed by an excerpt of real Tamil literature of that time. After each text comes a glossary and a global glossary is repeated at the end of the book, together with some questions in Tamil about the content of each chapter. Apart from the short English equivalents given in the glossary, the book is entirely in Tamil. This has surely advantages, but if I were to write a reader, I would try to focus clearly on my readers. If my target readers are not proficient in the topic or in the language the reader is about, I will provide a TOC and all other auxiliary materials (e.g., index locorum) in English or in a language accessible to them (typically non-technical English). I would also:
- Provide a general glossary at the end of the book (not everyone would read the book in a short time and they might forget the words learnt in Unit 1 by the time they reach Unit 14). UPDATE: I would prepare both the general glossary and the glossaries of each chapter in alphabetic order and not in order of occurrence (I am grateful to Francesco for having pointed out this issue).
Next comes the nature of the reader. What does one exactly want to achieve through it? There might be multiple purposes, but one needs to be the main one. As much as you want to achieve them all, focus on one, or you will fail to achieve any.
- If, for instance, one wants to primarily teach a language, one should be sure to start with the easiest texts and move towards the most complex ones. One might also decide to oversimplify concepts (say, just saying that Govinda, Kṛṣṇa and Nārāyaṇa are names of the same God).
- If, by contrast, one wants to accompany intermediate students while they explore a given literature, one might prefer to go chronologically. (I really enjoy this type of readers, since they are an entertaining way to learn about the history of a given genre but can easily see why the first type is way more appealing to publishing houses).
- Again, if one wants to primarily introduce students or laypersons to a fascinating field, one might want to proceed thematically (e.g. “devotional literature”, “commentaries”, “epic”) and explain as much as possible of the culture involved.
What about translations? They are extremely useful for self-study (including both working on one’s own or in a group where no one is ufficially the teacher) and can make a reader a useuful tool for the purposes 2 and 3 above. But where to put them? Again, if one’s purpose is 1, then translations should be found in a separate section of the book, otherwise one would be constantly tempted to check them too soon. If one wants to achieve primarily 2 or 3, then translations can be printed as parallel texts.
In sum: Choose one goal (e.g., teaching a language) and focus on it. You can have a subsidiary one (e.g., introducing readers to interesting topics within that language), but no more than one. Be straightforward about what you are doing in your introduction and tell your readers what they will find in your book and how you conceived it.
What do readers think? Which readers did you use and appreciate?
From unfinished starting points to new balances
The common background of all Mīmāṃsā authors is based mainly on Jaimini’s Mīmāṃsā Sūtra (henceforth PMS) and Śabara’s Bhāṣya `commentary’ thereon (henceforth ŚBh). I refer to this phase in the history of Mīmāṃsā as ”common Mīmāṃsā”, since the authority of these texts was accepted by all later Mīmāṃsā authors.
Various later Mīmāṃsā authors rethought this inherited background, in particular, on two connected issues:
- How later Mīmāṃsā authors reconsidered the classification of obligations implemented in the early Mīmāṃsā
- What later Mīmāṃsā authors considered to be the real trigger for obligations
They will implement in both cases reductionistic strategies which, however, were based on very different presuppositions. They introduced to the background Mīmāṃsā new assumptions, although these were —according to the ancient Indian étiquette— concealed as (re)interpretations of the ancient lore.
As for No. 1, the Mīmāṃsā school operates presupposing that prescriptions could enjoin:
- nitya-karman `fixed sacrifices’, to be performed throughout one’s life, such as the Agnihotra, which one needs to perform each single day
- naimittika-karman `occasional sacrifices’, to be performed only on given occasions, e.g., on the birth of a son
- kāmya-karman `elective sacrifices’, to be performed if one wishes to obtain their result, e.g., the citrā sacrifice if one desires cattle
Here one can see already how the scheme offers the chance for different interpretations, precisely according to one’s interpretation of No. 2, namely of the understanding of what is the real motivator of one’s action, as below:
| elective | specific desire |
| occasional | occasion, generic desire |
| fixed | generic occasion (being alive), generic desire |
Should you upload your articles on Academia.edu, Research Gate, etc.?
Should you upload your articles, presentations and further material online?
Reasons for not doing it:
- People might criticise you because they read your unfinished stuff (this of course only applies if you are considering to upload unfinished articles).
- It takes time, and you should rather use your time to write or read.
- Academia.edu, etc., are for-profit and one should rather not help them (however, they also retain a free version and moreover see No. 3 below).
- Are there other arguments I forgot?
Reasons for doing it:
- You can reach more people.
- You can interact with more people, especially scholars you would not meet at your usual conferences.
- You can reach people who would not be able to read your articles because they are not affiliated to a university and/or their university does not possess a library and/or their university’s library does not have access to the journals where you published.
I think that especially No. 3 is relevant and cannot but lead one to conclude that the ethically correct choice involves uploading one’s work. What do you think?
“Wrestling with the angel”
Intercultural philosophy is based on a dialogue, i.e., not just on a sheer juxtaposition of monologues, since such a juxtaposition would not lead to any new result and both partners would not be able to gain anything out of it. In order to achieve this result, one needs to be able to engage in a real dialogue. This is a less trivial issue than it may look like at first sight and in fact thousands of pages, from Plato to H.-G. Gadamer, have been dedicated only to the topic of how can dialogues and especially philosophical dialogues take place. The situation becomes even more difficult when in addition to the normal boundaries between people one needs to cross the additional bridge of cultures and of time. How can such a dialogue look like?
A.L. Leloir from render.fineartamerica.com
Against “boxing”
Is there an “Italian mind”? Does one react in a certain way “because one is a woman”? Do “Westerners” exist?
The unavoidability of comparisons
What to do with comparisons? They are always risky, insofar as one risks to style oneself as an impartial observer while being in fact part of the discussion. Hence, should not one avoid them altogether?
(Aadam Aziz tries to pray again after his returnal from Germany to Kashmir, but memories of his friends keep on popping up in his mind:)
‘… You alone we worship, and to You alone we pray for help…’ –so here he was, despite their presence in his head, attempting to re-unite himself with an earlier self which ignored their influence but knew everything it ought to have known […] And my grandfather, lurching upright, made a resolve. Stood. Rolled cheroot. Stared across the lake. And was knocked forever into that middle place, unable to worship a God in whose existence he could not wholly disbelieve. Permanent alteration: a hole.
Salman Rushdie
Midnight's Children (Picador, 1981), 11--12
Midnight's Children (Picador, 1981), 11--12
A prescription with two goals is meaningless?
According to the Mīmāṃsā school, especially in its Bhāṭṭa sub-school, each prescription needs to have a goal, which is independently desirable. Without a goal, a prescription is purposeless and meaningless (anarthaka). Does it also mean that it must have only one goal?
Within the discussion on the need to study Mīmaṃsā, Veṅkaṭanātha discusses the prescription which would promote such duty. He discusses at length whether the injunction to learn by heart the Vedas (svādhyāyo ‘dhyetavyaḥ) could be considered responsible also for the duty to study Mīmāṃsā or whether it stops its functioning at the learning by heart of the Vedic phonemes, without the need to undertake a systematic study of its meaning, as it happens within Mīmāṃsā. This leads to further discussions about the purpose of the injunction to learn. Can it really aim only at learning by heart the phonic form of the Veda? How could this be considered to be an independently desirable goal? By contrast, grasping the meaning of the Veda could be a goal in itself, because it enables one to perform useful Vedic sacrifices. In this connection, Veṅkaṭanātha notes that learning by heart the phonemes cannot be a goal and adds a cryptic remark:
svādhyāyārthabodhayos tu bhāvyatve vidhyānarthakyaprasaṅgāt (Seśvaramīmāṃsā ad PMS 1.1.1, 1971 p. 21)
Because, if both the [learning by heart] of one’s portion of the Veda and the understanding of its meaning were the goal to be realised, the prescription would end up being purposeless
What does this mean? Is a prescription meaningless when it has two purposes?
How much should you explain in an article?
Suppose you spent a long time (weeks, months, perhaps even years) understanding a complicated topic. You then write an article or a book about it. Where should you start from? Should you explain all or just assume to have readers who more or less share your expertise?
The question is certainly relevant for all philosophers, but perhaps even more for people working on niches, such as the history of Mīmāṃsā deontic thought or the early developments of the Maṇipravāḷa soteriology in South India and so on. Sure, it would be nice to speak with people who shared out interest and to whom we did not need to explain all, but these people are very few.