Philosophy

It's proper to understand the difference between "Philosphy of..." and "...philosophies". For instance, philosophy of religion refers to the philosophical study of the epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical aspects of the phenomenon and concept of religion, including questions raised by it; whereas a religious philosophy is a particular philosophical viewpoint of a particular religious tradition--examples include samkhya, yoga, advaita, shunyavada. There are religious philosophies in the same manner that there are secular philosophies. While the start point of the former is revelation, tradition, or faith, the start point of the latter is reason. Following are some examples of the above distinctions: 1. Philosophy of Religion - Existence of God, Essence of Divinity, Death and Afterlife, Knowlege of God, etc. Religious Philosophy - Calvinist Epistemology, Advaita, Yoga, Zen 2. Theology of Religion - Essence of Religion, Goal of Religion, Salvation Religious T...

The Enlightenment thinkers felt that reason had come to age and elevated it above faith. But, mathematics is not the book of life. It is impossible to expel faith. As the wise sage Pascal observed, reason has to be find support on something, and that something can't be reason itself, to avoid circular reasoning. Reason is also based upon faith. Again, he showed that reason cannot irrefutably prove God, but it can neither disprove His existence. It proves nothing. Spiritual skepticism is the willingness to concede that our minds cannot have certainty alone by themselves. This is not to deny certain certainties that are axiomatic and undeniable. For instance, one can't contradict the law of non-contradiction. However, it certainly means that one has no confidence in his own reasoning and wisdom. Only this form of skepticism regarding self can truly set us free to find our fullness and certainty only in Him.

The third criterion of Revelation in Indian philosophy is Rational Anticipation (Hiriyanna: Indian Philosophy); the first two being the principle of not-this-worldly (alaukika) and the principle of non-contradiction (abadhita; i.e. revelation must not contradict known facts). The question is whether the doctrine of Trinity meets the principle of Rational Anticipation? We'll quickly look at two arguments to check out the same. 1. The Argument from the Possibility of Knowledge a. If God exists, He must be an intelligent being (or else, intelligence is an accident and truth is impossible- but, to say truth is impossible is to contradict self; therefore, truth exists and has its eternal ground in God). b. Intelligence involves Knowledge and Knowledge involves a Subject-Object distinction. c. Eternal intelligence must involve eternally a Subject-Object distinction. d. This distinction must be internal and eternal (since, nothing can be infinite and eternal outside the Godhead - God is ...

1. Informative (Revelational) 2. Inductive (Empirical) 3. Indefinitive (Skeptical) 4. Interpretive (Hermeneutical) 5. Integrative (Synthetical) 6. Inferential (Rational) 7. Intuitive (Mystical) © Domenic Marbaniang, 2000, 2012.

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An interesting example of contradictory interpretations is borrowed by G.P. Deshpande [1] from Indian philosophy to evaluate the ambiguous nature of the play and its production. "There are two texts by Shankaracharya: one is called Sarirakabhasya while the other bhasya is a commentary on Gaudapadakarika . There is a basic contradiction in both.... drishti-srishtivada and sristidrishtivada .... These two terms represent the schools within which the Vedantins are divided. The problem is whether what you see defines reality ( drishtisrishtivada ) or whether what exists defines your vision ( srishtidrishtivada ). "It is a typical theatre problem.... Suppose you take that text to be a srishti . Then the director looks at it in a particular way, and the actor looks at it in a particular way. When happens next is the case of drishtisrishtivada . The vision or the way the text is looked at ultimately decides its character. And that is why you have different productions of the same...

Pre-Reference : Anthropic Principle, Wikipedia The New Oxford American Dictionary defines the Anthropic Principle as "the cosmological principle that theories of the universe are constrained by the necessity to allow human existence. In its ‘weak’ form the principle affirms that a universe in which living observers cannot exist is inherently unobservable. ‘Strong’ forms take this line of reasoning further, seeking to explain features of the universe as being so because they are necessary for human existence." In this note, I would like to just highlight the chief epistemic issues associated with this Principle. Related Topics:  Hegelian Dialectical Idealism (the Phenomenology of the Mind: Evolution of Consciousness); Schopenhauer's philosophy of the Will, Advaitin Philosophy, Madhyamaka (Sunyavada), the Heisenberg Principle and Consciousness, Naturalism, Determinism, Aristotelian Logic, Process Philosophy, Creationism, Cosmological Argument, Teleological Argument, Intelli...

Excerpt from Epistemics of Divine Reality , p.227, 2007 Metaphysical sensations involve the accompanying sense of the paradoxical, which gives rise to metaphysical emotions. The various paradoxes are the paradoxes between reason and experience, viz ., transcendence-immanence, infinity-finitude, immutability-mutation, necessary-contingent, and unity-plurality. The inability of reason and experience to solve the paradoxes generates negative emotions. As has been already seen, neither reason nor experience, which are in reality, by combination, the source of the problem, can bring about a solution. For that would mean in each case to lift oneself by one’s own bootstraps. The only solution reason brings in is the rational which nullifies the empirical, ultimately leading to non-dualism. The ultimate that experience can do is the relativizing of truth to the chagrin of reason. The dissatisfaction of any such solution is bound to generate emotions that are negative; for man is not just consc...

COURAGE ( andreia ) is one of the virtues extolled by Plato in his writings; the others are reverence or piety ( eusebeia ,  to hosion ), wisdom ( sophia ), temperance or sound-mindedness ( sophrosune ), and justice ( dikaiosune ). In both Laches and Protagoras , Plato investigates the meaning of courage. While in Protagoras , he concludes that courage is the knowledge of what is good and evil in the future, in Laches he expresses doubt over this conclusion. Certainly, courage must not be separated from wisdom. It would be foolish for someone who didn’t know how to swim to jump into a current trying to show courage there. One also doesn’t put his hand in fire claiming that he or she doesn’t fear anything. Courage must be combined with wisdom, specifically the knowledge of what must inspire fear and what must not – in other words, the knowledge of good and evil of the future. But, knowledge of good and evil cannot be divided into past, present, and future. The definition of good is ...

In the Foreword of his book Jesus Rediscovered , Malcolm Muggeridge , referred to the French philosopher Simone Weil (1909– 1943) as "the most luminous intelligence of our time". Despite her brief life, much constrained by ill-health, she made important contributions to the field of philosophy and philosophical theology. One key concept of Weil's philosophy of God was "Absence". I quote from Wikipedia: Absence is the key image for her metaphysics , cosmology, cosmogeny, and theodicy . She believed that God created by an act of self-delimitation—in other words, because God is conceived as a kind of utter fullness, a perfect being, no creature could exist except where God was not. Thus creation occurred only when God withdrew in part. This is, for Weil, an original kenosis preceding the corrective kenosis of Christ's incarnation (cf. Athanasius). We are thus born in a sort of damned position not owing to original sin as such, but because to be created at ...