All Discussions Tagged 'Secular' - Integral Post-Metaphysical Spirituality2024-03-29T06:26:35Zhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topic/listForTag?tag=Secular&feed=yes&xn_auth=noA Secular Age? Reflections on Taylor and Panikkartag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2013-12-30:5301756:Topic:533552013-12-30T03:31:27.504ZBalderhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/BruceAlderman
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<p>Here's an interesting essay by Fred Dallmayr, comparing the thought of Charles Taylor and Raimon Panikkar (attached below).</p>
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<p>Michael Schwartz shared this on the Facebook IPS site. I wish I had read it earlier! Dipping in now, I find a lot of points quite resonant with, and relevant to, issues I addressed in a paper I just finished on Bhaskar, Wilber, and religious pluralism. It's too late to include these new references now, I expect, but this will be a great…</p>
<p></p>
<p>Here's an interesting essay by Fred Dallmayr, comparing the thought of Charles Taylor and Raimon Panikkar (attached below).</p>
<p></p>
<p>Michael Schwartz shared this on the Facebook IPS site. I wish I had read it earlier! Dipping in now, I find a lot of points quite resonant with, and relevant to, issues I addressed in a paper I just finished on Bhaskar, Wilber, and religious pluralism. It's too late to include these new references now, I expect, but this will be a great resource for a follow-up paper at some point.</p>
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<p>Here is an excerpt from Dallmayr's discussion of Panikkar's book, <em>The Rhythm of Being</em>:</p>
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<p>Along with other ruptures and dichotomies, The Rhythm of Being also refuses to</p>
<p>accept the split between the “vertical” and “horizontal” dimensions of reality. In fact,</p>
<p>despite its basically philosophical and meditative character, the book elaborates more</p>
<p>explicitly on present-day social-political ills than does the Canadian political thinker.</p>
<p>For Panikkar, dealing with the “rhythm of Being” cannot be a mode of escapism but</p>
<p>involves a struggle about “the very meaning” of life and reality—a struggle which has</p>
<p>to be attentive to all dimensions of reality, even the least appealing. “In a world of</p>
<p>crisis, upheaval, and injustice,” he asks, “can we disdainfully distance ourselves from</p>
<p>the plight of the immense majority of the peoples of the world and dedicate ourselves</p>
<p>to ‘speculative’ and/or ‘theoretical’ issues? Do we not thereby fall prey to the powers</p>
<p>of the status quo?” In language which becomes ever more urgent and pleading, he</p>
<p>continues:</p>
<p> </p>
<blockquote><p>Can we really do “business as usual” in a world in which half of our fellow-beings suffer from man-made causes? Is our theory not already flawed by the praxis from which it proceeds? Are we not puppets in the hands of an oppressive system, lackeys to the powers that be, hypocrites who succumb to the allure and flattery of money, prestige, and honors? Is it not escapism to talk about the Trinity while the world falls to pieces and its people suffer all around us? ... Have we seen the constant terror under which the “natives” and the “poor” are forced to live? What do we really know about the hundreds of thousands killed, starved, tortured, and desapericidos, or about the millions of displaced and homeless people who have become the statistical commonplace of the mass media?</p>
</blockquote>
<p> </p>
<p>For Panikkar, we cannot remain bystanders in the affairs of the world, but have to</p>
<p>become involved—without engaging in mindless or self-promoting activism. In a dis-</p>
<p>jointed and disoriented world, what is needed above all is a genuine search for the</p>
<p>truth of Being and the meaning of life—which basically involves a search for justice and</p>
<p>the “good life” (or the goodness of life). “We are all co-responsible for the state of the</p>
<p>world,” Panikkar affirms. In the case of intellectuals or philosophers, this responsibil-</p>
<p>ity entails that they “ought to be incarnated in their own times and have an exemplary</p>
<p>function,” which in turn means the obligation “to search for truth (something that has</p>
<p>saving power) and not to chase after irrelevant verities.” Genuine search for truth and</p>
<p>life, however, proceeds from a lack or a perceived need which provides the compel-</p>
<p>ling motivation for the quest: “Without this thirst for ‘living waters’,” Panikkar writes,</p>
<p>“there is no human life, no dynamism, no change. Thirst comes from lack of water.”</p>
<p>On this level, we are not dealing with epistemological, logical, or purely academic</p>
<p>questions. Quest for life and its truth derives ultimately from “our existential thirst</p>
<p>for the reign of justice,” not from a passing interest or curiosity: “We are dealing with</p>
<p>something that is more than an academic challenge. It is a spiritual endeavor to live</p>
<p>the life that has been given us.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The quest for life and its meaning, in Panikkar’s presentation, is not simply a human</p>
<p>initiative or an individual “project” (in Sartre’s sense); nor is it an external destiny or</p>
<p>a fate imposed from on high. The reason is that, in the pursuit of the quest, the human</p>
<p>seeker is steadily transformed, just as the goal of the search is constantly reformulated</p>
<p>or refined. This is where Panikkar’s “holistic” or non-dualistic approach comes into</p>
<p>play, his notion of a constantly evolving and interacting triadic structure. As he writes:</p>
<p>“I would like to help awaken the dignity and responsibility of the individual by provid-</p>
<p>ing a holistic vision,” and this can only happen if, in addition to our human freedom,</p>
<p>we remain attentive to the “freedom of Being on which our human and cosmic dignity</p>
<p>is grounded.” From a holistic angle, the different elements of reality are not isolated</p>
<p>fragments but interrelated partners in a symphony or symbiosis where they are neither</p>
<p>identical nor divorced. “Each entity,”Panikkar states, “is not just a part, but an image </p>
<p>or icon of the Whole, as minimal and imperfect as that image may be.” Holism thus</p>
<p>stands opposed to the Cartesian dualistic (subject/object) epistemology, without </p>
<p>subscribing to a dialectical synthesis where differences are “sublated” in a universal </p>
<p>(Hegelian) system. Importantly, holism does not and cannot equal “totalism” or</p>
<p>“totalitarianism" because no one can have a grasp or overview of the totality or the </p>
<p>“Whole.” “No single person,” we read, “can reasonably claim to master a global point of</p>
<p>departure. No individual exhausts the totality of possible approaches to the real.” For</p>
<p>Panikkar, the most adequate idiom in which to articulate such holism is the Indian</p>
<p>language of Advaita Vedanta: “Advaita offers the adequate approach ... [because it]</p>
<p>entails a cordial order of intelligibility, of an intellectus that does not proceed</p>
<p>dialectically.” Different from rationalistic demonstration, the advaitic order is</p>
<p>“intrinsically pluralistic.”</p>