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Displaying: 1-8 of 8 documents


1. Journal of Indian Philosophy and Religion: Volume > 25
Kisor Kumar Chakrabarti, Tommi Lethonen

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The paper has two main parts. The first part is devoted to the traditional Hindu viewpoint on the existence and permanence of the self as an immaterial substance. Various arguments offered by Hindu philosophers against the materialist view that the body is the self as well as arguments against the Buddhist view of the self as a stream of constantly changing states are discussed critically with reference to recent philosophical perspectives. The second part is devoted to the doctrine of karma and rebirth. A number of traditional arguments for the doctrine are studied analytically and critically as well as relevance of the doctrine for addressing the problem of evil that for many is a serious issue facing the creationist position. Finally, the major arguments of Plato who also held that the self is eternal and goes through reincarnation are critiqued from a comparative standpoint.

2. Journal of Indian Philosophy and Religion: Volume > 25
Panos Eliopoulos Orcid-ID

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This paper focuses on a specific area of interest within the philosophical system of Schopenhauer and Buddhism which is human rights, the concept of compassion and the issue of the pure motive behind human action. Both theories express pessimism regarding the transitoriness of life and the pain caused, and how this deprives man of inner peace. The common acknowledgment of the fact that human life entails great suffering guides the two philosophies into an awareness of the need for salvation. In their metaphysics, there is a number of similarities that conclude to the point that moral truthfulness is a principal virtue in human life, practically indispensable for right living. In this particular context, while compassion is highlighted as the main ethical factor, it is a question of paramount importance in these doctrines whether the motive behind the action is a motive concentrated on the Self or purely on the Other.

collected works of katyayanidas bhattacharya

3. Journal of Indian Philosophy and Religion: Volume > 25
Katyayanidas Bhattacharya

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The basis of religion lies in the nature of man as a thinking self-conscious being. As a thinking being, I can make my individual self and the world, which is opposed to it, the object of my thought and have the capacity to transcend the opposition and rise to a higher unity in which both these -- the self and not-self are comprehended as elements. It is by thought that we transcend the limits of finitude and share in a life which is universal and infinite, in which religion may be said to consist. Thought or self-consciousness is a universal principle in us and being universal, enables us to rise above our particularity and participate in the universal and absolute life or God.
4. Journal of Indian Philosophy and Religion: Volume > 25
Katyayanidas Bhattacharya

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‘Necessity of Religion’ means that in the nature of man as an intelligent self-conscious being there is a necessary spiritual urge which forces him to rise above what is material and finite and to find rest nowhere short of an Infinite and Absolute Mind. This does not mean that each and every man is religious and the fact that there are men who are not religious does not disprove the necessity of religion. Rather in the very notion of a spiritual self-conscious being there is involved what may be called a virtual or potential infinite. True it is that Nature and man are both finite. But it is the characteristic of a spiritual intelligent being to transcend its individual limitations and realize itself in that which lies beyond itself.
5. Journal of Indian Philosophy and Religion: Volume > 25
Katyayanidas Bhattacharya

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In the view of Spencer, Hamilton, Mansel and others, while the province of science is the known, the province of religion is the unknown and the unknowable. Ever addition to the gradually increasing sphere of science reveals a wider sphere of nescience, the unknown and unknowable background of the infinite and the absolute. Since to think is to condition and since the infinite and the absolute is unconditioned, to think or know the infinite or the absolute is to think the unthinkable or know the unknowable though we are compelled to accept the existence of the infinite and the absolute. But this viewpoint is contradictory. It is self-contradictory to hold simultaneously that human knowledge is confined to the finite and that we can know of an existence beyond the finite and that all human knowledge is relative and yet that we can know of the existence of the absolute. Objections to the scientific study of religion based on arguments from intuitive character of religious knowledge and arguments from authoritative nature of religious knowledge are also addressed.
6. Journal of Indian Philosophy and Religion: Volume > 25
Katyaynidas Bhattacharya

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An issue in philosophy of life is what in nature can and what cannot be explained by physics and chemistry. The mechanical theory is the same as the physico-chemical theory and the mechanical explanation of biological phenomena amounts to the recognition of such phenomena as falling under the laws of physics and chemistry. Hobhouse points out that a living body acts in some respects as a mechanism while in other respects it appears to act differently. But where does the difference lie? One difference seems to be that a living organism, when out of order, struggles back to order and normal functioning in a structured way that a machine appears to be incapable of. Haldane asserts that a living organism can grow from within and give rise to another system of the same sort out of a tiny special itself as it happens in reproduction and that such reproduction belongs to a class qualitatively different from that of mechanical operation. The qualitative difference between life and matter is also supported in Alexander’s doctrine of emergent evolution.
7. Journal of Indian Philosophy and Religion: Volume > 25
Katyayanidas Bhattacharya

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In the view of Alexander Space-Time or Pure Motion is the basic stuff of the universe, for it is Space-Time or Pure Motion that remains if one thinks out all that can be excluded through a rigorous act of abstraction short of annihilation. Alexander subscribes to the doctrine of emergent evolution and holds that the empirical world in all its ascending levels emerges out of the primal background of Space-Time. The first ascending level of emergence is that of matter with primary qualities; the next ascending level is that of secondary qualities; life emerges in the next ascending level and mind emerges in the next ascending level. Reductive materialism must be rejected, for each new quality emerging in the ascending level is irreducible to the previous level and there is always an explanatory gap between the previous level and the ascending level. The highest of the empirical qualities known to us is mind or consciousness; there is an empirical quality which is to succeed the distinctive empirical quality of our level, that new empirical quality is God or deity. We cannot tell what the nature of deity is; but we can be certain that it is not mere mind or spirit, for no new emergent quality can be reduced to the previous level. Rather deity is what mind or spirit deserves in the ascending order.

8. Journal of Indian Philosophy and Religion: Volume > 25
Kisor Kumar Chakrabarti

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The Buddhist argues that when two cognitive states are different, their objects are also different. For example, awareness of a pot is different from awareness of a cloth and their objects are different as well. Based on the pervasion that no two different cognitive states have the same object the Buddhist claims that the objects of inference and testimony on the one hand are different from the objects of (indeterminate) perception on the other. That is, what is perceived is never the same as what is inferred or learnt from testimony. This lends support to the Buddhist position that only unique particulars that are grasped in (indeterminate) perception are real; what are grasped in inference or testimony are not unique particulars and, accordingly, are not real. Udayana’s critique of the above position is explained and analyzed.