Rediscovering God with Transcendental Argument

A Contemporary Interpretation of Monistic Kashmiri Śaiva Philosophy

David Peter Lawrence

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780791440582, 9780791440575
• eBook ISBN: 9781438410203
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Provides a comparative philosophical study of the thought of the two principle theorists of monistic Kashmiri Shaivism, Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta, and also formulates a conception of the nature of philosophy as a means of intercultural and interreligious dialogue.

Rediscovering God with Transcendental Argument provides a comparative philosophical study of the Pratyabhijña system of the medieval Kashmiri ?aiva thinkers Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta. Beginning with intensive descriptive and prescriptive reflections on the nature of philosophy itself, the book examines the special characteristics of the Pratyabhijña discourse as both philosophical apologetics and spiritual exercise. Lawrence situates the Pratyabhijña speculation within the larger context of Hindu and Buddhist deliberations about the role of interpretation in experience, and gives a groundbreaking exposition of the epistemology and ontology of Shiva's self-recognition. He observes the similarities and differences of the Pratyabhijña with Christian understandings of the divine logos, and argues that the ?aiva philosophy elucidates a cogent way of demonstrating the reality of God against contemporary relativism, deconstructionism and other forms of skepticism.

Table of contents

• Rediscovering God with Transcendental Argument
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction
• The Problem of Interpretation as Cross-Cultural
• Transcendental Parameters of Cross-Cultural Interpretation
• Philosophy as Cross-Cultural Dialogue
• The Hermeneutic Circularity of Philosophical Inquiry
• The Pratyabhijfifi Philosophical Discourse
• A South Asian Epistemological Approach to Interpretation
• The Epistemology of Divine Self-Recognition
• The Ontology of Divine Self-Recognition
• Summary of Chapters
• 2. Interpretive Histories and the Scope of This Study
• 3. The Task of the Pratyabhijña System
• Religious Heritage of the Pratyabhij“a'
• The Mission of Universal Redemption and Its Preliminary Objectives
• The Pratyabhij““ Methodology
• Negations of Methodology
• Philosophical Rationalization with the Nydy Schema for Argument:Inference for the Sake of Others
• The Pratyabhijfifi Method in the Larger Context of Tantric Praxis:The SiktaUpaya
• 4. The Challenge of the Buddhist Opponents
• Buddhist Logic Skepticism
• Skepticism about the saliva Soteriological Recognition
• 5. A Summary of the Saiva Theory of Recognition
• Basic Vocabulary of the Saiva Theory of Recognition
• The Linguistic Monism of Bhartyhari
• Traditional Religious Understandings of Memory
• 6. Epistemological Applications of the Theory of Recognition
• Cognition as Sakti
• The Integrality of Vimars'a
• The Memory Sakti
• The Semantic Exclusion Sakti
• 7. Features of the Ontology of Recognition
• Mythico-Ritual Narrative Ontology
• Action as Emanating from Unity to Unity-in-Multiplicity
• Relation
• Mythico-Ritual Syntax
• The Orthodox Hindu and Buddhist Denigration of the Agent in the Syntatic Nexus of Action and Result
• The Saiva Grammar of Omnipotence
• The Saiva Syntax of Causation
• The Sai'va Epistemic Syntax
• Some Practical Implications
• 8. Conclusion
• Iacques Derrida’s Effort to Deconstruct Logocentrism
• The Pratyabhijfifi, Bernard Lonergan, and the Defense of Lagos as a Way of Affirming the Reality of God
• The Intelligibility of Reality and the Self-Contradictoriness of Skepticism
• The Idealistic Move: From Intelligibility to Intelligence
• The Tenableness of Idealism at the End of the Twentieth Century
• Divergences and Convergences: Monotheism and Panentheism
• Recognition and Retrieval
• Notes
• Introduction
• 2. Interpretive Histories and the Scope of This Study
• 3. TheTask of the Pratyabhijfifi System
• 4. The Challenge of the Buddhist Opponents
• 5. A Summary of the Saiva Theory of Recognition
• 6. Epistemological Applications of the Theory of Recognition
• 7. Features of the Ontology of R ecognition
• 8. Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index