Why don't we have Salesian Philosophers?

      It has been more than a century and a half that the society of St. Francis de Sales serving the world. The number of salesians worked for the betterment of the world is numerous in many fields of apostolate. Yet, one of the fields in which we, the sons of Don Bosco, have not shown much interest is the intellectual realm. For instance, there are various religious orders having prominent people in the field of philosophy. And so a simple question that came to my mind in this regard: Why there are no salesian philosophers? (I mean well-known philosophers). I received lot of ready-made answers for this simple question like: “that’s not our charism”, “basically we are youth workers”, “Don Bosco never wanted us to be walking encyclopaedias”, “we are not contemplatives to sit and reflect”. In addition, once a priest questioned about a salesian who is prominent in the realm philosophy all over the world: what is the youth work he does except taking class? It was also said jokingly that whenever there is a religious gathering for any purpose salesians are called neither for presenting papers nor prayers services but for family circles. It is also my opinion (which came to my mind during my masters in philosophy) that we hide ourselves in the name of family spirit from serious intellectual works.

     Is the identity of Salesians just having the guitar or a football at hand? Is serious study not our cup of tea? Of course, the guitar and football typical instruments that attract the youth. In fact, Don Bosco attracted so many youth with his music and games. However, it should be remembered that he was also a prolific writer. He has authored some books and prepared so many booklets and was also editor of the magazine 'the companion of youth'. 

     Now, how does the intellectual commitment also become our religious commitment or how do intellectual activities also become part of youth work too? I thank Fr. Sahaya Gnanaselvem SDB for giving the answer for this question. Our intellectual achievements can have a hold in the welfare of the youth especially to the problems of the youth. For example, the problems of gay marriage or abortion have been legally approved in some countries like the different states of USA. How is the government approval processed? Such proposals are discussed in the political forum and to validate their view they look for strong arguments from the intellectuals of the country. It is no wonder that the some states of the USA have approved gay marriage since most of the continental philosophers are non-believers and critical towards the religious norms. This can be applicable to India too in different cases. The legalized moral evils have roots in the intellectual works. It is kind of a fight or a game between the good and evil. Thus it is the duty of the youth works to eradicate these moral evils through our intellectual activities. We need to prepare ourselves to meet the challenges by updating ourselves intellectually; if not, we will be outdated in our arguments.

      Philosophers, according to Plato, should have a strong hand in political and legal arena. It is true even today as explained above. Why don’t we, youth works, take this task for the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls?

Saṃvāda: What is it in Philosophy?

       Saṃvāda is an ancient notion in Indian Philosophy. It is delicate to give the exact translation of the word ‘saṃvāda’, especially to translate it into a different culture and tradition. Yet, the general rendering of saṃvāda in English is ‘dialogue’ or ‘conversation’. This ancient term is found in the Upaniṣads. As a matter of fact, most of the Upaniṣadic texts are in the form of a dialogue; between master and disciple, or between father and son. Furthermore, the term is explicitly used in the Bhagavat Gītā. In essence the whole of the Bhagavat Gītā is in dialogue form. The word “saṃvāda” is found three times in the Gitā. 

      The term saṃvāda is the combination of ‘saṃ’ and ‘vāda’. The former is a pre-verb which means agreement or conjunction. The Latin equivalent for saṃ is ‘cum’ and is also found in English words like con-versation and con-junction. The latter refers to discussion or debate. Hence, the term saṃvāda can be understood as ‘dialogue’, although the term has a deeper meaning. 

        It is a ‘me-other’ or ‘self-other’ encounter. ‘The other’ in saṃvāda is not a mere hearer or listener but a pūrva-pakṣin (an interlocutor in a dialogue). Encountering ‘the other’ highlights new, different, hidden-between-the-lines aspects of oneself. In other words, it leads to an encounter with one’s own ‘inner other’. Thus in saṃvāda by meeting ‘the other’ one meets oneself anew. At another instance, in the same vein, It can be interpreted  as dialogical encounter, open discussion and even biting debate. It is a live dialogue where pūrva-pakṣins and siddhāntins (who hold their view as final and conclusive) both question each other in a dialogue.  The real  Saṃvāda can bring out the manifold aspects of truth. Thus all our endevours of Life and Truth should be based on Samvada.

Books of Daya Krishna

1955 The Nature of Philosophy.
1959 Planning, Power and Welfare. 
1965 Considerations towards a Theory of Social Change. 
1969 Editor. Modern Logic: Its Relevance to Philosophy. Social Philosophy: Past and                            Future.
1973 Editor. Indian Education Today: Prospects and Perspectives.
1977 Editor, with A.M. Ghose and P.K. Srivastava. The Philosophy of Kalidas Bhattacharya.
1978 Editor, with A.M. Ghose. Contemporary Philosophical Problems: Some Classical Indian 
                Perspectives
1979 Political Development: A Critical Perspective. 
1980 Gyāna Mīmāmsā, In Hindi.
1987 Development Debate: Fred W. Riggs and Daya Krishna.
        India’s Intellectual Traditions. 
        Editor. Paschimi Darshan Ka Itihas, Vols. 1 and 2 in Hindi.
1989 The Arts of The Conceptual: Explorations in a Conceptual Maze over Three Decades.
1991 Indian Philosophy: A Counter Perspective. 
        Editor, with K.L. Sharma.  The Philosophy of J.N. Mohanty.
        Editor, with M.P. Rege, R.C. Dwivedi and Mukund Lath. Saṃvāda – A Dialogue Between                   Two Philosophical Traditions.
1996 The Problematic and Conceptual Structure of Classical Indian Thought about Man, Society                 and Polity.
1997 Indian Philosophy: A New Approach.
        Prolegomena to any Future Historiography of Culture and Civilizations.
1999 Editor, with K. Sachidananda Murty. History, Culture and Truth: Essays Presented to                           Professor D.P. Chattopadhyaya.
2000 Editor, with Mukund Lath and Francine E. Krishna. Bhakti: A Contemporary Discussion –                   Philosophical Explanations in the Indian Bhakti Tradition.
        New Perspectives in Indian Philosophy.
2001 Developments in Indian Philosophy from the Eighteenth Century Onwards: Classical and                    Western.
2004 Bhārtīya Dars’ana: Eka Nayī Dṛṣṭi.
        Editor. Discussion and Debate in Indian Philosophy: Vedānta, Mīmāmsā and Nyāya.
      Nyāya Sūtras: A New Commentary on an Old Text.
2012     Towards a Theory of Structural and Transcendental Illusions.
     Civilizations: Nostalgia and Utopia.
Forthcoming Editor. The Jaipur Edition of the Ṛgveda. 

Love of God and Love of Neighbour in Indian Philosophy

Love of God and Love of neighbour are the two aspects of the Greatest Commandments given by Jesus Christ. These commandments are not meant only for his followers but for all human beings as these two aspects love belong to all human beings. In this article, I have tried to look at these two commandments in view of two instances in the life of the Hindu deity, Kṛṣṇa in Indian Philosophy.

Daya Krishna (1924-2007), a contemporary Indian philosopher, in his article Did Gopīs Really Love Kṛṣṇa?enumerates two interesting aspects of love. He mentions two episodes from the life of the Hindu God Kṛṣṇa. The first one is from the epic Śrīmad Bhāgavata where Daya Krishna takes the episode of Krishna with the gopīs (the young women in Vṛndāvana where he spent his youthful days). The gopīs deeply fell in love with Kṛṣṇa. These gopīs are shown as ‘living’ eternally in the memory of those days they had passed with Kṛṣṇa even in his absence. However, Daya Krishna shows that, the same gopīs never made the slightest effort to seek him out and meet him once more or even try to find where he is or how he is. The message of the gopī episode in Śrīmad Bhāgavata is that the ideal of love is the loving state of consciousness which can only be cultivated through a constant remembrance and dwelling in the memory of those moments when a person spent with the loved one. It is clearly said in ŚrīmadBhāgavata: “When her lover is far away, a woman thinks of him more than when he is present before her.” (10.47.35) On the contrary, this gives the impression that in the realm of feelings the imagined world is more real than the real world. The gopīs preferred to live with the mere feeling of love than the so-called real love (in action). In other words, they loved the feeling of loving Kṛṣṇa than loving Kṛṣṇa as a person.

The second episode is from the Bhagavat Gita. The whole Gita is the dialogue between Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna like the conversation between two friends. In this particular episode, Kṛṣṇa shows his viśvarūpa(the real form of Kṛṣṇa that contains the whole of the universe) to Arjuna. There Arjuna begs to be forgiven if he had said anything for fun or in jest or play, not knowing the real nature of Kṛṣṇa. But what is more disturbing for the Arjuna in this situation is that this ‘real’ reality, which is not possible to be seen through mortal eyes, is so frightening that Arjuna implores him to assume his previous form so that he can have normal feelings toward him as he had been with Kṛṣṇa just before the revelation. (XI. 44-46). Thus Arjuna preferred to the ordinary familiar form of Kṛṣṇa than the almighty form which is supposed to be the real form of Kṛṣna since the real form perturbed Arjuna. I would like to compare these two narrations with the Greatest Commandments given by Jesus Christ. Jesus reduces all the Jewish rules and regulations with two commandments namely: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” and “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” (Mt. 22: 37-39)

The first episode of Kṛṣṇa with the gopīs can be associated with the second Golden Commandment namely the ‘love for neighbour’. This command urges to love one’s neighbour as one’s ownself. There is no doubt that gopīs loved Kṛṣṇa. The problem with these women that Daya Krishna speaks of is that they only loved the feeling of loving Kṛṣṇa than the person of Kṛṣṇa himself. And so they stopped looking for him when he was absent from Vṛndāvana. On the contrary, the commandment given by Jesus calls for love in action i.e. to love the other as one’s ownself. In fact, Kṛṣṇa in his sermon to Arjuna emphasizes on the love in action with the duty conscience than in meditation. This aspect of love does not stop itself in the world of imagination but in the world of reality. Thus it is the real love for the other.

The second episode of Kṛṣṇa’s encounter with Arjuna can be associated with the first greatest commandment – the love of God. This commandment of love requires one to love God unconditionally; accepting God as the ultimate meaning of life. In other words, looking at everything from God’s perspective and doing His will at all time. On the contrary, in the Gita episode, we find when Kṛṣṇa manifests his godly cosmic form Arjuna could no longer accept his nature and begs him to come back to the normal form. This phenomenon takes place often in the present era. Human beings wish to restrict the form of God according to our own experience, taste, convenience, etc. than to accept the real manifestation of God. Only the wise have understood the real nature of God and they confess that they are ignorant this nature. The only valid means of knowing God, according to them, is the well-known neti-neti method in Indian philosophy i.e. we know only what God is not. Thus loving God without any restriction is equal to accepting God’s manifestation without any restriction. This is similar to giving oneself to God’s will by carrying out his commandments with no expectations which Gita calls as niṣkāma-karma i.e. action without the desire for its fruit.

These few paragraphs give us another way of looking at the greatest commandment of Jesus Christ in view of two narratives from Indian philosophy. The love of God is to prefer God’s will than one’s own in life and the love of neighbour is to love the other person than to love the feeling of loving the other.

Summary of the article - Introducing Levinas to Undergraduate Philosophers by Anthony F. Beavers

One of the important questions that philosophy addressed down the centuries is about the moral ‘ought’ which asks the question why one needs to be good. Emmanuel Levinas found the answer in the level of the individual i.e. in the level of person to person contact. For him the question of moral ‘ought’ becomes before reason and it is necessary to have at least two people when we talk about ethics. He establishes the source of contact in the interpersonal realm as the ethical.

Although it may sound superfluous it has a deep meaning in philosophy as it responds to the rationalistic tradition of philosophy especially of Descartes. The latter thinks of the other as the object of the creation of the mind and denies the existence of the extra-mental reality. Levinas calls this act as the violence of ‘totalization’. It reduces the individuality, difference and autonomy of the Other. This act is unethical for Levinas.

The above mentioned violence is due to the exclusive importance to the rationality while edging sensibility out. Sensibility is a lived experience rather than being understood with concepts. Moreover, it is enjoyed by the subject after being nourished by the objects of sensibility (e.g. bread to eat). This also shows the distinction between the subject and the object of enjoyment. Consequently, in enjoyment, the, self comes up as the subject of its need. Thus Levinas appreciates the subjectivity on the level of sensibility than rationality. In addition, the subject can find the Other easily and more clearly through sensibility than in the realm of consciousness. Here the subject finds that the Other cannot be made part of the subject like any other things as the Other resists consumption.

Levinas acknowledges the power of transcendence of the Other beyond the categories of the thought of the subject. It is accepted by the epiphany of Face that talks to the subject, “I am not yours to be enjoyed: I am absolutely Other.” This is a surprise to the subject since the arrival of the Face depicts the vulnerability of the subject. The solitude of the subject is invaded by the Other.  The surprise makes the subject being caught off guard. It indicates more about the presence of the Other than the perception of the Other. The presence of the Other is beyond the control of the subject as it is demanded of the subject.

There are two important steps involved in this act namely proximity and substitution. Proximity is the immediate contact of the Other with the subject. It is a responsibility laid upon the subject with the new characteristic given to the subject. The new subjectivity shows that social subject is to be for-the-Other. Thus subjectivity is subjection to the Other i.e. the subject is subjected to the Other who intrudes its solitude and interrupts the egoistic enjoyment. It is a command given to the subject to live ethically with the Other. In other words, it makes the subject to stand in the place of the Other.

The standing in the place of the Other leads to the second step of substitution.  It is the state, according to Levinas, where the subject is held hostage by the Other. Substitution is the sign of being an Other-directed human person. This also makes clear that the subject belongs to itself and subject is not ‘another’ but itself (I am not another but me).

Substitution is to acknowledge oneself in the place of the Other not with the conceptual recognition but in the sense of finding oneself in the Other as a hostage for the Other. This process gives more meaning that the above mentioned subjection by the Other becomes subjection for the Other as St. Paul says, “I have become all things to all people that I might by all means save some” (I Corinthians 9:22).  The mere desire to respond is already  responsiveness to the command of the Other.

Although the approach toward the Other as Levinas proposed gives more meaning for interpersonal relationship it was not well appreciated by some ethicists. A person responds to the Other because the person feels a personal need to do so in order to satisfy his/her need and this action has no true moral worth.

Levinas answers that the Other has a transcendence and the subject is already substituted for the Other. The subject is made to stand for the other, before freedom and reason in ethics. Consequently, there is an ethical responsibility with the Face-to-Face relationship. Thus responsibility is essential, primary and fundamental mode of subjectivity in ethical terms and precedes ontological and existential base. The mere node of subjective is knotted in ethics is the responsibility towards the Other. Responsibility is the link between the subject and the Other. This moral ‘ought’ is the acceptance of Other person as person which Levinas wants to emphasize in the history of philosophy. There is no true sociality away from ethics and vice versa. Furthermore, the meaning of Otherness is found in the responsibility given to me and not in the interpretation given by the subject.  Finally, any relation of the subject with the Other person gives the responsibility to the former. This is the source of the moral ‘ought’ in the philosophy of Levinas.

The End of Philosophy - The Only Solution of Postmodernism

 The following is the summary of the article:

Stanislaus Swamikannu. “A Postmodern Response to the Relativism Debate,” Divyadaan: Journal of Philosophy and Education 19, no.1-2 (2008): 193-211.

Self-questioning or self-criticism is considered to be hallmark of philosophy. However, this act itself could cause the recent phenomenon in philosophy called ‘end of philosophy’. On the one hand, philosophers who deem philosophy as natural kind take this phenomenon as a part of philosophical tradition where there is no complete rupture since the tradition remains. On the other hand, philosophers who consider it as a historical product regard it as a crisis and a failure. This article gives few salient notions of the end of philosophy incorporating both the views highlighting the postmodern philosophical approach.

            The end of philosophy can be spoken in terms of skepticism. This idea might have its origin in the ancient Greek philosophy itself. Against the platonic philosophy that was characterized by the desire for totalizing foundationalism, Pyrrhonian skepticism was raised. While platonic philosophy provided a link between contingent human reality and eternal divine realm, pyrrhonian skepticism showed that there is always a room for objections and difficulties in any philosophical position.

 The same procedure was repeated in the modern Western philosophy. The epistemology-centered philosophy was epitomized by Descartes, Kant and Husserl through the quest for indubitable foundation or the privileged starting point of reality. Richard Rorty says that it was the hidden agenda since Plato. According to Rorty, the whole epistemological activity is only the representation of the mind which acts as a mirror. He says that the modern Western philosophers were only trying to polish the mirror with various ideologies. These philosophers searched for a more scientific, rational and deeper position whereas Rorty trivialized the onus of philosopher as only to carry the philosophical enterprise to the future than to find the key to all the problems of philosophy. Taking inspiration from Dewey and James, he gives a pragmatic intent to philosophy that one can quit philosophy at any moment.

Another aspect of the end of philosophy is the paradigm shift from philosophy of consciousness to the philosophy of language; from transcendental subjectivity to grammatical structure which is known as the linguistic turn. It is farewell to the subject-centered philosophy and a departure from the idea of language as mere instrument. Rorty gives a different orientation to linguistic philosophy i.e. solving the philosophical problems by reforming the language or understanding the language we use.

In this major turn of the philosophy of language, there are three turns involved namely analytical philosophy, pragmatic turn and rhetoric turn.  Firstly, the analytical philosophy played a role in solving the problems of the ordinary sentences with the help of formal logic. It was held that by analyzing the structure of the language one can find the structure of the reality as language is regarded as the mirror of reality. But soon this revolution also faced a counter-revolution. There was a division between the Ideal Language philosophy (that became the constructing model for other types) and Ordinary Language philosophy (in common people’s language where there is no philosophical problem). The ideal language philosophy, according to Rorty, can only describe the logical behaviour of the linguistic expression and in practice it was not shown fruitful. Rorty concludes that analytical philosophy is only the beginning of the epistemological problems.

Secondly, the idea of the pragmatic turn was explained by Habermas. He explains the limitation of semanticism that concentrates only on analysis and neglected linguistic context, speech etc. and the structured semiotics where there is an over-emphasis on anonymous structure in language. In contrast to this view, Habermas suggests pragmatic turn in linguistic philosophy that aimed at weakening the logo-centric claim in Western metaphysical tradition. This weakening consists not in autonomous subject but in intersubjective communication towards mutual understanding. It is to bring language from the private sphere (private language) to public sphere (multi-contexts of use). It brings the neglected aspects of the linguistic tradition into the formal analysis.

Thirdly, the importance is given to rhetoric over logic. The philosophy of language in the West was based on logic than rhetoric. It is due to the importance given to the study of logic and mathematics. On the contrary, Derrida proposed rhetoric over logic in philosophy of language. This notion of Derrida makes every text as secondary as it implies no original meaning to it. According to him, formula and context are meaningful only in convention; one cannot exhaust the context and contexts are changeable. Consequently, there is no such distinction like original-imitation, literal-figural, real-metaphoric, true-false, and reality-appearance. Thus relativism is the only way in interpreting a text according to the different strands of the linguistic turn explained in this article. This relativism brings the end of philosophy and the end of metaphysical tradition of the West.

Is Our God Selfish?

I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine of mine who is brought up in the catholic tradition but questions the facts of the tradition. She asked me, “Is not our God so selfish?” She gave me three reasons to support her view that God is selfish. Firstly, in the Old Testament, there are many instances, especially the first three of the Ten Commandments. God wants everyone to adore Himself and makes it a command. Secondly, in the New Testament, we see that loving God is projected as the greatest commandment. Thirdly, the greatest commandment has been made to be the meaning of human living. This is well expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Why did God create you? To love Him and serve Him.

All these instances impose that loving God is a mandatory act of life. Thus it is seen that our God is a selfish God who created beings just because He wanted to be loved and served. It seems to be a valid logical argument. It is expressed in the Bible explicitly. Our catechism message is often reminded though the liturgy. So God wants to be in the first place of our love list.

However, a simple fact is forgotten here. It is true that God wants to be in the prime place in our hearts. But if not who can replace God? In other words, what’s wrong if God wants us to have loving and serving Him as our meaning of living? God is the supreme good that a human can attain. He is the Summum Bonnum or Parama Puruṣārtha as it called in the Indian philosophical tradition. God wants everyone to obtain this supreme goodness who is none other than Himself. Hence nothing can be equalized with loving God for God is Love.

Moreover, God expects us to love Him but never enforces us to do so. The greatness of God is that He allows even the atheists and agnostics to express their view in the world. This is the supreme form of goodness we are talking about here. Thus love of God is not a selfish desire but a desire for the good of the human beings.

TWO TYPES OF RELIGIOUS IDENTITIES

Finding one’s own identity is a characteristic of human beings. Some identities are given and some are chosen by the individuals. However, there is another type of identity which has both the nature of being given and of being chosen. Thus for example, the ‘religious identity’ of a human being as an individual is given this identity by birth and at the same time he or she is free to choose the identity also. In fact, it is one of the major identities of a person in society. A religion of an individual gives identity to the person and in turn the individuals of a religion form their own identity as a society.  

            The religious identity itself has various expressions like various ways of rituals, worship, dress code, food habits and so on. All these expressions of a religious identity fall into two broad categories namely ‘Socio-centric religious identity’ and ‘Person-centric religious identity’. Each religion has these two identities as a religion is a ‘social’ structure made for ‘persons’. However, religions are regarded according to the predominant identity among these two present in them. Some explanation about these two may help us understand them in a better way.

            The first, Socio-centric religions find meaning in religious activities as a community. The communitarian dimension is given much importance in these religions. The ultimate goal of life is regarded as a community endeavor. Religions like Christianity, Islam and Judaism are examples of socio-centric religions where the community aspect is given much importance. The faithful of these religions find God in a collective manner. It is the common worship that plays a vital role in these religions and charity is the important virtue in socio-centric religions. Since many factors are in common there is a need for rules, commandments, canons, etc. Exact observance of such rules is considered to be virtuous and the negligence of them is deemed as sins. However, there is a possibility of the danger that these rules and regulations become more important than one’s personal approach towards God. For example, missing the ‘Sunday Mass’ may be considered to be a grave sin in Catholicism and even while travelling the Islamic faithful are expected to perform their ‘Namaz’ (which I have noticed while travelling by train). Thus in Socio-centric religion the spirituality is a shared responsibility as a community. The words of Aristotle may be suitable for this aspect that, “A man outside a society is either a god or a beast”. The feature of fraternity is much valued in this religious identity and so the emphasis on their spirituality mostly lies on ‘action’.     

            On the other hand, there is also another group of religions which have Person-centric religious identity. Religions like Hinduism and Buddhism fall under this category of religious identity. In this type of identity, the importance is given to the individuals (more) than to  the religious organizations. Although there are moments of collective worship or festivals in these religions the primacy is given to the individual’s relationship with the Ultimate Reality called God. In these religions too we may find norms set for the better living as a community but ultimately they are meant for the individual persons. The notion of salvation or liberation (Moksha) from the worldly life is the merit of the individual. This merit, unlike the socio-centric religions, is obtained through consciousness. For example, the Vedas of Hindu tradition talks of this consciousness as ‘Brahman realization’.  Great sayings like “Aham Brahma asmi” (I am Brahman) or “Tat tvam asi” (That Thou Art) call for the realization that each one is God in disguise and this awareness leads to the final goal of one’s being. Even the words of Aristotle, which we have mentioned earlier, may not affect this type of religions as even away from the society one can realize that one is a god. And so there may be an attitude developed in this religious identity that society need not be valued in one’s spiritual quest. Thus, in the person-centric religion, human persons are more concerned about ‘consciousness’ than ‘action’.

The interaction between these two religious identities may bring the difficulty of perceiving each other as (an obstacle) a predicament in one’s own way towards the purpose of the religion. For the socio-centric religious person, mere consciousness or realization of God may not have meaning in his or her religious parlance. On the other hand, for the person-centric religious person, society is just a midway region that one has to pass through on in the spiritual journey. Thus there may be an intellectual conflict between them which may also lead to “inter-religious” disastrous results if the problem persists.

On the contrary, a fruitful dialogue may provide the awareness that ‘Reality’ has been or can be seen in different perspectives. Probably, the better understanding could be the integration of the attitudes of these two identities, incorporating consciousness into action or action with consciousness. While striving towards perfection it is important to realize the presence of God within oneself. When one realizes the presence of the Almighty within oneself, the person should extend the notion of realization to the other human beings who also bear God in themselves. Consequently, we all strive for our own perfection in our way by accompanying each other.

Objectivity - The Goal of Knowing

Q & A has become a well-known novel written by Vikas Swarup as it provides the plot for the Oscar winning movie Slumdog Millionaire. In this article, we see how the concept of objectivity is traced out in the novel. It is about a story of a street-boy named Ram Mohammad Thomas, who was able to win one billion rupees by answering all the twelve questions in the game show called ‘Who Wants to be A Millionaire?’(W3B) similar to the Indian reality TV show, ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’. The boy’s winning not only surprises everyone but it makes the producers of the show suspicious about his winning. And so they probe into the case in order to find out how he could answer all the questions against their script, the objective. Every TV show, including the so-called reality shows, would have a script to be followed. These game shows are only a means to increase the TRP rating and earn more revenue through advertisements. The producers would never intend that someone would win the whole prize-money and it is same in this TV show too.

However, in the case of Ram the script fails. No one could find the truth, not even Smita Shah, the lawyer of the boy, his own boyhood friend who came to help him. Everyone is perplexed with the absolute right answers of the boy. It seems impossible even for a well-educated man to have the objective knowledge in all the fields, at least the different fields that the questions pertain to in the show. Hence it is incredible that a street-boy is able to answer the questions such as the sequence of letters inscribed on the Cross or to choose the right meaning of the term persona non grata in the government foreign policy or to name the person who invented the revolver or to answer the right key that Beethoven used in his famous musical piece ‘Hammerklavier Sonta’. The question that remains here is “how could the boy have objective knowledge?”

Human knowing is not a single activity. Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984), a Canadian Philosopher, presents the process of knowing as a structured set of different activities. The process of knowing contains experience, understanding and judgment that happen in a cumulative and cyclic manner. The process does not stop here but moves towards objectivity what is called really real or objectively real. It can be achieved only by an authentic subject. The criteria for authentic subject are to be attentive, intelligent, reasonable and responsible. To make it clear Lonergan distinguishes principal notion of objectivity and constitutive notions of objectivity. He explains the principal notion of objectivity, the patterned context of judgments, in this way: “through a true proposition you can arrive at an objective world.” Lonergan also provides three constitutive notions of objectivity namely Absolute objectivity, Normative Objectivity and Experiential Objectivity. Let us discuss about them briefly.

Absolute Objectivity:

Absolute Objectivity is the knowledge about something which is unconditioned by anything namely the subject, time and space. “The ground of absolute objectivity is the virtually unconditioned that is grasped by reflective understanding and posited in judgment.” A judgment or a proposition is absolutely objective in as much as its content is absolute.  All the answers given by the boy were unconditioned and were gained through his reflective understanding on his own experience. For instance, he was able to answer the question of the meaning of persona non grata in the government foreign policy, he reflects on his understanding about the term. Through his experience with a foreign ambassador who was declared persona non grata and was sacked due to the guilt of unreliability, Ram gives the meaning “that the diplomat is not acceptable”. Thus his answer gains Absolute objectivity with the absolute content.

Normative Objectivity:

This sense of objectivity is directly opposed to subjectivity. By subjectivity Lonergan means that of wishful thinking, of rash or excessively cautious judgments, of allowing factors like joy or sadness, hope or fear, love or detestation to interfere with the proper cognitional process. “Normative objectivity is constituted by the immanent exigence of the pure desire in the pursuit of its unrestricted objective.”  Moreover, the process of cognition that carries inquiry, demand for intelligibility and demand for unconditioned has ‘norms’ immanently. Therefore, Normative objectivity is to proceed in the cognitional process with the norms without any bias. In the case of Ram, the normative objectivity is the script of the producers which is inherent in the whole show. “Shows like W3B cannot be dictated by chance, by a roll of the dice. They have to follow a script …. But now this fellow Thomas [Ram] has wrecked all our plans”, complaints the producer.

Experiential Objectivity:

The third constitutive element of objectivity is experiential. Any inquiry or insight presupposes something that is given, the material about which one inquires is given to experience. Experience is the first stage in the cognitional process in fulfilling the conditions of the virtually unconditioned. As the object of cognition is a given reality it is unquestionable and indubitable in itself. The given is not an answer to any question and, in fact, it is prior to questioning and independent of answers. Hence this objectivity is opposed to what is produced at will. Givenness is extrinsic, outside the agent. While everyone was suspicious about Ram’s intrinsic knowledge about the answers, in reality he could find the answers from the facts of his own life-experience, events and struggles. One such example would be how could an ordinary street-boy name the smallest plant of the solar system? He learns the name from his astronomer neighbour. The latter names his cat as Pluto since he deems the pet as very small. The answer is given to him in this sense.

Conclusion:

He could arrive at the objective knowledge through the true propositions, the answers, which were the result of his authentic subjectivity through attentive, intelligent, reasonable and responsible process. The novel consists of all the three constitutive notions of objectivity namely Absolute, Normative and Experiential which we try to explain in this article.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Pen, Robert. Communication for Communion: Communication as Mutual Self-Mediation in Context. New Delhi: Intercultural Publications, 2011.

Swarup, Vikas. Q&A. London: Black Swan, 2006.

Lonergan, Bernard. “The Apriori and Objectivity.” Understanding and Being. Edited by Elizabeth A. Morelli and Mark D. Morelli. Toranto: University of Toranto Press, 1995: 156-180.

Lonergan, Bernard. “The Notion of Objectivity.” Insight: A Study of Human Understanding. Edited by Fredric E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran. Toranto: University of Toranto Press, 1992: 394-409.