Comment on Sri Aurobindo on Nationalism by Sandeep February 4, 2013
The Uttarpara speech was
made after deep God-realization, although it has been misinterpreted and
appropriated for sectarian purposes by those who do not understand the
universality of Sanatana Dharma. I don’t think he ever rejected the speech,
because the same theme is repeated in the “five dreams” message he gave when India
became free in 1947.
Jabberwock: Divine savages and “real” truth 17 Oct 2011 [Did
a shorter version of this for my Sunday
Guardian books column]
There is no such thing as an “objective”
reader or reviewer – our feelings about a book are shaped by many things
working in conjunction: personal experiences, biases, genetic makeup, level of
engagement with a subject, and so on. The best a reviewer can do is to admit
the necessary subjectivity of his perspective and then tackle a book as
honestly as possible.
The
Other Tale of Indian Modernity: Savita Singh by Pratilipi Blog January 30, 2013
As an interpreter invariably does while
understanding the truth, I too do not presume that the entire truth
lies in the text itself. For, after the truth has been communicated to the
readers, and some clarity has been brought to the text compared to its
previous reading, the truth still remains. Truth perhaps is a remainder. In the
light of this position on ...
It was Freud, Nietzsche, and Marx who taught
us that the subject is split or barred, and that our relationship to ourselves
is characterized by a fundamental meconaissance. In the
Freudo-Nietzschean constellation, this split is between the conscious ego that
takes itself to be the one calling the shots, and those acephalous unconscious
desires or that unconscious will of which we are but an effect. It is this
unconscious desire or will that is calling the shots, not the sovereign ego. In
the case of Marx, this split nature of the subject is located in the way we are
caught up in social relations that exceed our conscious intentionality,
functioning as determinants of our action…
Hume begins with an obvious “common sense”
thesis about how we come to know– “all knowledge originates in sensations” –yet
in holding fast to this thesis he unsettles all our common sense about
knowledge and the world. Husserl begins with an obvious thesis– “look at the
things themselves!” –yet in executing this project he unsettles our assumptions
about what it is to experience the world and objects, opening a vast domain
that continues to challenge central assumptions in cognitive science, psychology,
the social sciences, etc. 5:27 am
Great Moments in the Classroom from Larval Subjects January 31, 2008 Students shuffling
out of the classroom after a discussion of Platonic realism and the possibility
of transcendent, objective values independent of culture, history, and
individual determination.
STUDENT: “This class is impossible.”
ME (Alarmed): “Why?”
STUDENT: “We come in here thinking we understand the world and now we discover that everything we think might be mistaken.”
ME (Alarmed): “Why?”
STUDENT: “We come in here thinking we understand the world and now we discover that everything we think might be mistaken.”
I think what was most important in the
comment was the statement that “everything we think might be
mistaken”. That is, the conditional. The world becoming questionable or
mysterious is a condition, I think, for practicing philosophy. In the
philosophy classroom– especially at the introductory level –I believe the
production of this space of the question is the most important and significant
thing to be accomplished. That is, the teaching of philosophy shouldn’t be
about demonstrating a particular doctrine, nor is it simply about acquainting
students with a variety of different philosophical positions (though that’s
important), but is rather about opening the space of questionability as such.
I go back and forth on the question of
whether anything should be pushed in the classroom. In part I think about
Socrates and how you can never pin down what his position might be or if he
even has one. In part I think about the nature of the analyst’s position in the
analytic setting, where the analyst sets his own desire to the side so that the
analysand might discover his or her own desire. It seems to me that this
opacity of the professors own positions can function as a sort of productive
principle where the students progressively discover their own thought as they
try to figure out what it is that the professor thinks or wants. I guess in my
own teaching I try to advocate fully for whatever material it is I’m teaching.
One moment I’ll be vigorously defending Kierkegaard or Augustine, only to shift
to Lucretius or Nietzsche. I’ll bring critical tools to bear on one tradition
from another tradition, and so on. I can’t decide whether there’s a principle
behind this or not. I would like to think that part of the aim is to undermine
attachments to the professor as “master”. Here I always think back to Deleuze’s
remark that “the best teachers are never those who say ‘do as I do’
(representation), but who invite to ‘do with me’”.
