Reviews for The philosophy of religion and Advaita Vedanta

The average rating for The philosophy of religion and Advaita Vedanta based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-04-02 00:00:00 Bevi Cummings 020417: this is an interesting text, for i have low expectations, low education, low interest, in any sort of religious philosophy, so i was not expecting to be engaged. reading this concurrently with an advaita-vedanta/phenomenology work. i have read 141 phenomenology. surprised that it is actually this one that i find easier to read. i have read 157 religion. so, not too surprised... this is a text which investigates, interrogates, what is called religious philosophy in the 'west', and what is advaita-vedanta (kind of hinduism) in india. this is well organized, direct, using only a few unfamiliar indian terms. as sharma notes, explication of each approach, west and east, will insure neither side is short-changed at the cost of redundancy and over-teaching. there is a lot to study here. it would work as an undergraduate text, inspire further study, certainly useful to note essential differences in attitudes to religion/philosophy indic and western... chapters are: 1) advaita (hereafter av) conception of god, 2) grounds for belief/disbelief in god, 3) problem of evil in av, 4) revelation, faith, epistemology, 5) revelation in av, 6) faith in av, 7) religious language, 8) av and religious language, 9) verification problem, 10) existence, reality, factuality, 11) human destiny- resurrection, immortality, 12) human destiny- karma, reincarnation, 13) conflict of truth claims in different religions... there are the typical axioms of all indic philosophy that are not argued but assumed: karma (determining action), rebirth (endless cycle of birth and death, 'samsara'), moksa ('liberation' from samsara)... rather than sum it all up, i will try to address 4) above, problems i have always had with religious thought, but all from a (phenomenological) rather than religious pov. in this, in revelation, there is an inverse of descarte's 'methodological doubt', that is, i doubt everything i can until i reach the fact of my doubting i, the famous 'cogito ergo sum', the first logical move to rationalism. on the other, in av, perhaps in all idealism, there is instead something like 'methodological certainty', in which what is thought, sensed, felt, is by definition 'self-illuminating', that is, 'without error' (merleau-ponty's 'perceptual faith'?), and only after this is it distorted/false/error, though there is no 'suspension/bracketing' (husserl's epoche?), but an absolute, definite 'idealism', in identity, with no qualifiers, in brahman.... and an essential point is this is not 'subjective' idealism that trends towards solipsism, but 'objective' idealism that involves perception of all possible (husserl's 'pairing'?)... this move thus leads to an epistemology whereby thought of individual 'atman' (soul/self/dasein?) is ideal in brahman, which of course is av- 'non-dual', there is no subject/object conflict (noumena/phenomenon in kant?) because there is only immanence of brahman... i look at this review, i look at all the extensive philosophy reviews, i wonder: do i actually know all this stuff? well at the moment of writing, somewhat. by the next day, not so much. but this speaks to 'why' rather than 'what' i write here, and this 'why' is for myself, if no one else, to recall this text or that text and maybe decide to ever read again... to decide if the ideas here can link up with ideas there. i still have trouble with the idea 'all is brahman' and so av, but this is a different sort of indic philosophy and i enjoy these ideas...

Review # 2 was written on 2016-10-20 00:00:00 Shigeru Sashikata A very basic introduction but accessible, easy to read and balanced.