 So, welcome everyone again to the 10th So Ask What Philosophies lecture series. My name is Dr. Elvis and we've had some very interesting discussions and lectures in the last nine lectures that we've had. And it's interesting that we have Professor Richard King here because I think he began this, this series, and generate February 2021, and Richard King is now with us here so as we will store him and brought him here. So it's nice to have him here with us. The idea is basically to continue to explore thematic and theoretical issues in philosophy from a global perspective, allowing for a more inclusive and decolonial approach to doing philosophy. We've had very interesting themes in the last nearly two years from African perspective, Mexican perspective, and so on. And we've had some very interesting lectures on what philosophy is itself. So we're really looking forward to today's all as well. So my colleague, Dr. Andrew Hines is here and he will be the end command for this lecture, he will introduce our speaker, and also need us through the comments and questions session. Dr. Andrew Hines. Thank you so much Elvis. Hello everyone and thank you so much for coming today. Just again please mute yourselves when you're in the room, so that we can all hear the speaker. It's my enormous pleasure today to be here with you all, and to welcome Dr. Elise Kokaro Salma to speak to us today. Just a bit of information if you don't already know her work. She's the recipient of the Erwin Schrodinger Fellowship. She spends her time kind of, if I correct me if I'm wrong Elise but between Delhi and Massachusetts. She works on intercultural philosophy and in particular on contemporary Indian philosophy and is the co editor of the special issue of Sophia on the challenge of postcolonial philosophy in India. There are a few other things you can read about in her biography, but I'm really pleased to welcome her today. So I first encountered her work on a, on a now famous article about why should we take up the challenge of contemporary Indian philosophy. She was really drawn to the way in which she brings together intellectual history on the one hand and philosophical close reading argumentation on the other. So, I am excited and an honor that she's joining us today and she'll speak with us on humanism and contemporary Indian philosophy. I'm going to go over and I heard just a few ground rules. At least you can speak for the link we've agreed and then at the end of that time, we'll open it up to questions. So please everyone just hold on to your questions until the end, and we'll have a lovely discussion afterwards. So, without further ado, Elise over to you. Thank you very much for the nice innocent reduction. I'll start slowly first by sharing my screen. Okay. Is it fine. And can you hear me all right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, you'll have to be a little patient with me because I have a small screen today. So I'll have to adjust a little bit between you, my slides and my notes. But I'll start. So thank you so much for coming this morning or afternoon or evening. And I start without further ado. So, I'm working on humanism in contemporary Indian philosophy. And what I will do today is this reflection on what is humanism in contemporary Indian philosophy. So I want to start with a kind of introduction with a few points that are important to keep in mind during the talk kind of methodological and conceptual framework. The first is, of course, there are many Indian philosophies in the plural in different languages in different even regions in the world these days, in different institutional structures that are more or less traditional, more or less closely with Sanskrit sources in particular, more or less globalized. So this is one way, and there are other ways to do it and other authors, but I work with Indian philosophy in English in philosophy department of public Indian universities in the 20th century, mostly the second half but actually it, it starts also earlier. And so humanism in this talk, I'm not really trying to make a kind of descriptive view of humanism as if it was something that is already scholarly established like as if it were a movement or a school of Indian philosophy. But I'm trying to reflect about what it actually brings to our understanding of Indian philosophy to think who is the category of humanism. And since I don't mean and I don't imply that it's a standard category, but more like a walking hypothesis, and it does not need to be on standard category we can also discuss whether it is appropriate and whether it is useful to think of contemporary Indian philosophy in these terms. And so, following this point, this lecture and in general, the lectures that I have all in it's a global philosophy departments so outside India in particular, is always a place to reflect about what we do with Indian in a global world. And this lecture in particular means the idea of humanism. It's also a reflection I'm trying to have on compartments and borders involved philosophy and how to think and how to include more of Indian philosophy in this global departments. And in particular why it would be useful to renew a category in a ways to understand Indian philosophy in that case, not as something that stops at a pre modern time at a classical time. And something that is still living and as something that continue to evolve even after new advisor philosophy. But I'm trying a little bit to challenge the relations between classical and contemporary, like to challenge the requirements and the opposition that we often be between classical and contemporary or modern, and between those to be the latest kind of philosophy and the possibility of contributing in Indian philosophy today so these are kind of points that I want to make clear that remain valid for the presentation not today what I will do is simply I will argue that there is a shift conceptual shift that we are getting in the approximately mid 20th century in academic Indian philosophy in English. As I said mostly upper independence but actually the more I look at it and the more I see like kind of seeds that were planted before this. There's a kind of gradual continuation and evolution. I will try obviously to characterize the shift. And in particular I want to show some text and some philosophers and their idea of humanism. And I can already add now what it does not mean in this lecture. So in this lecture, humanism is not opposing human against nature. I think in the lecture itself, but humanism in this context is much more an opposition to transcendental idealism, or to an idea of cosmology and the solipsistic liberation than it is an opposition to nature. And the opposition to nature with the question of technology, or things that are related to that in high degree and in Western phenomenology are more reinterpreted in the Indian context as a distinction from Indian philosophy that is not an opposition to nature in these terms in technological terms. And at no moment, human means here, a radical opposition to nature. And two more small notes as an introduction, I chose not to focus on one philosopher because I'm trying to show you how I work in the kind of general shift that I see. And it means they have to isolate philosophers and ideas and so they are close contact ship exceptions I do not mean that all Indian philosophers of contemporary times are interested in humanism, but I see it as a general shift that there's something about Indian philosophy and the relation that Indian philosophy has with different traditions in its own Western tradition. And the last point that I want to announce, and I will reach I also think is, I'm not really interested, neither here nor actually in my work in characterizing humanism as something that is Indian or not Indian. I'm not really interested in defining it in a position on distinction, or even in similarity with European humanism Western humanities. They are explicit in clear influences from the political anthropological movement, or from the phenomenological movements and even inspiration from the humanism of the European Renaissance. It is clearly an explicitly a dialogue that includes non Indian sources. And from the perspective of an Indian philosopher in the 20th century, not including Western, like not being aware of Western development which is considered ignorance. So, you know, when it is not an option as we had in Europe. But the whole point, I think today is not anymore to compare in these terms to not try to essentialize humanism as something that comes from the Western European movement. And to which India responded and whether it's more or less the same or it's more or less authentic. And simply for the reason that these principles is always that we take as a paradigm to Western conception of humanism and it's not something that I'm really interested in doing. So, what is important, actually for me is to see how this category is relevant to think about compartment and to question the rupture of the radical rupture that we see between classical and modern and Indian in Western philosophy. So, one thing that we should emphasize in this context is the complexity of this identity. The dichotomies between India and Western classical and contemporary for the others in the 20th century simply does not operate because they are using Western concept to combat Indian orthodoxy at times. They are criticizing the predecessors of modern Indian philosophy to distinguish them philosophy to use classical Indian concept that resonates without feeling bound to be respected to a historically defined use of it. And they criticize Western Indian interpretation, Western interpretation of Indian philosophy. And so the hermeneutic structure, the dialogical structure is and remain complex and that's the interesting part of it. And I will continue. I will continue with this. Okay. I'd like to begin, especially in global philosophy departments. I like to begin with the problem of absence, the problem of absence of contemporary Indian philosophy in our global departments. But the fact that it's interesting that although more and more Indian philosophy is included in our departments including kind of renewal of interest in modern Indian philosophy, figures like Tagore or Obindo. Yet, unlawful contemporary philosophers of the Indian Academy remains quite absent. So for this, I made on this first. This first slide, a list of anthologies of contemporary Indian philosophy and I do not mean to say that these are the only ones that have been published like the only publications in contemporary Indian philosophy they are definitely not. And of course there are a lot of articles also and a lot of other books, but they are the most explicit ones, focusing on contemporary Indian philosophy. And if you look at the others there, you just need to zoom, I'm sorry. So you have Ramu Hanwai, Tagore, this is Tagore, I'm sure. Come on Krishna Vivekananda, day and under Gandhi Shri Eropindo. And then again, come on Krishna Vivekananda, Tagore Gandhi Eropindo, Radhe Krishna, Mariswami Iqbal. Iqbal is the only Muslim philosophers. And in all of them, if we look a little, a little bit quickly, but if we look at all of them, the list is more or less standard. And more importantly, academic Indian philosophers are very few and that is Keshavathacharya. And Radhe Krishna who was most public figure and also an academic Indian philosophers. And most of the other articles and I'm sure you all know that most of them are all of them are actually public figures, public intellectuals, political figures engaged in Indian independence that was for Gandhi. And also the spiritual figures that the case of Eropindo but also Vivekananda, Ramakrishna, Swami Dayananda and so on. And Iqbal as I said was the only Muslim Indian philosophers. But so the list, the list almost entirely excludes academic Indian philosophy. In case Iqbal who I follow for this analysis, comments that these books are actually the manuals that they use for teaching Ninja. And the criteria for including or excluding philosophers are not very clear. And there are of course you notice is also little academic philosophy. This is important for the way that we teach, think and write about contemporary Indian philosophy. It tells us that the selection and the exclusion of academic Indian philosophers operate and has long lasting influences. The reason is why I used to think that it's because we have less resources we have less manuals we don't have a lot of documents that are available. After researching in particular in India and more and more I think that's not the problem they are huge files of actually extremely good journals that have been published throughout the 20th century. The list of test-shift compilations with extremely well documented articles and a lot of monograph. So I think that Ramakrishna is right in that what is missing is the ready-made aspect that is the kind of inclusion of academic Indian philosophy in the larger framework that would be these anthologies with historical context, and ways to use this text. Importantly, or more philosophically, the question is how to put academic Indian philosophy together, how to think of Indian academic philosophy as a whole. And that's a bigger problem for, I'm sorry again for this slide, I'll have to switch back and forth. Satyadana Muti, who writes an excellent, actually, book that is called Philosophy in India, which is by the way the only book I found which explicitly mentions Muslim Indian philosophy, Christian Indian philosophy, past Indian philosophy, Sikh Indian philosophy that is different communities within the academic Indian philosophy. And so he writes on the comments on four anthologies on contemporary Indian philosophy on academic Indian philosophy that have been published in the 20th century. And I am for your references, I put the bibliographical reference on the right, the ones that he's speaking about. And I will just leave it to give you an idea of the diversity of academic Indian philosophy, and why it is also a problem to find fitting description to talk about contemporary Indian philosophy. And so he writes for collections of papers by different professional philosophers, edited by Radhikishnan and Muirad, Satyadana Muti, and Ramakrishna Rao, Markovic Chatterjee, and Kedivaraj, give a quite comprehensive presentation of the kinds of philosophical thinking within Indian universities from the mid 30s to the mid 70s. For the first volume, there was not a single atheist over materialist among its 25 contributors. All of them except seven were predominantly influenced by Advaita Vedanta and 19 of them were idealists of some sort or other. This is the case in the intelligible Radhikishnan. In the second volume, the fare is varied. Among its 22 contributors, they are an economist trying to understand the philosophical task for humanists, Marxists, an empirical, an atheistic, dualist, an empirical, atheist, a pragmatist, and a robindo follower, two personalists, a phenomenologist, a language analyst, clear Advaita, a research advisor, an absolutist, an advocate of a worldview based on aesthetic experience, an analyst, metaphysician, and an axionoid exponent. So at least that, that sounds a lot, and that's precisely why I put it on the slide. It's not to make you tired already, but it's to show you the diversity of academic Indian philosophy in English. And to raise the question after that of how difficult it is to describe and then to include Indian, contemporary Indian philosophy in an anthology, in syllabus, in teachings because of its diversity and question how should we describe it, how should we understand it. Again, it continues. In the third volume among its 14 contributors, they are an analyst, metaphysician, three analysts, Thomas, the humanist, the shy, theist, an advaitin, a phenomenologist, a logician, an existentialist, and a logician, idealist, a personalist, theist, and an interpreter of aesthetic experience. And in the four volumes, he continues a little bit the same, except you have two experiments of anthropological standpoints, applied to philosophy, humanist, phenomenologist, existentialist, advaita, still there, an advocate for the autonomy of philosophy. And then one more remark that is also important in the last two volumes, no materialist or Marxist finds its place. In philosophy, she had a period that was lively in contemporary Indian philosophy, but it seems not to have sustained at least according to that she didn't get a motive. And so he also concludes that this gives kind of an idea, a snapshot if you want, or kind of a quick and condensed idea of the kinds of philosophies that were developed in Indian universities in the 20th century. Again, the question is, how, if you work with contemporary Indian philosophy, if you want to speak about contemporary Indian philosophy, how not to betray this diversity, how not to constrain it to some schools to say contemporary Indian philosophy is new and new advaita on contemporary Indian philosophy is only analytical Indian philosophy of the British influence. So how to retain its diversity and not to reduce it to Western categories or Western schools or Western understanding of the Indian schools and say this is Neyar, this is advaita. Can we define Indian philosophy in a way that does not freeze it into one idea. And so of course, and you probably can anticipate my response and my tentative answer is to try to look at it from a humanistic perspective or to try to characterize it as a shift in important shift. And towards humanity. And so this shift that is presented by Sachdenandamouti who was working in South India is, I think, described in philosophical terms that is in conceptual terms by Deyateshna who was in the Rajasthan University in the 10th year century. And so, I think the shift that Mouti in that paper is really kind of analyzing the production of philosophy in India and looking forward has been published and how we can describe it. So Deyateshna looks at it from a different perspective, that is from the perspective of conceptual evolution in a book that is called Developments in Indian philosophy from Indian century onwards classical and western. And so I will read this quote again I apologize for the silence is when I go back and post my PowerPoint. So Deyateshna writes to describe this period, the self with which the philosophical thought of India had been concerned, both in traditional and modern times, gradually takes a fuller content and becomes more disworldly as it moves into the later half of the 20th century. And the Banerjee had already cut off its moorings from the quest for immortality and relationships to other beings with whom one was or could be in possible communication. Earlier, the moral dimension seems to have been added to it right from the Ricananda onwards, bypassing the deep conflict between dharma and motion, which had characterized Indian thinking in this regard from the beginning. The new kind of anthropocentrism in humanism appears to have taken hold of Indian thinkers and have the interesting spectacle of the development of mind centered thought in different directions. Thus, we have the radical humanism of embroidery, the value center of thought of and the diverse and the anthropocentric and history center of thought of professor Deepic Chattupadell. I have to say, of course, that this Deyateshna's stake and Deyateshna himself was very interested in, let's say not producing the standard in the cliché idea that Indian philosophy is about liberation and attaining motion. So, of course, his interpretation is influenced by his own thinking. Nevertheless, I think the shift that he sees is, first, I agree that it's actually visible, but also it's very interesting in what it says about Indian philosophy. And it says first that indeed unlike what we usually read, the story does not end with new advice, as we often believe Indian philosophy stops there and it stops in a continental idealism and it stops with liberation and it stops with a focus on a self that is an absolute self. And it tells us, I think also that there is no radical epistemological rupture happening with colonization in the sense that this shift, I think, is not a radical shift that totally breaks away with Indian tradition and would only be a westernized Indian philosophy. There is a lot of interest and a lot of responses, not only to new advaita and to people like Urbindo and Vilkananda, but also a lot of reusing classical concepts with different meanings and with different interpretations. But there is no radical rupture. And there is also no, I think, specific point from which it would radically become different and see it again more as a gradual evolution already in Urbindo. There is an engagement with sciences and evolution and just continues like it actually does also in the best is a kind of play of criticism and responses and an evolution. Of course, there are also very different and I mentioned this in a little bit. There are also different understanding of what is humanism that are more or less spiritual and more or less secular or politically critical. So, what is humanism in that sense at this moment or can we characterize it? I think, and it's also a comment by Ramakrishna that one of the major characteristic is the term from solipsism, which doesn't necessarily mean a secularism or a secular view of Indian philosophy as totally rejecting the idea of liberation, but in any case, it is a term from a solipsistic account of liberation. Liberation also, of course, influenced by the fact that India was struggling against colonization and so freedom and liberation became entangled in the mid-century. So, liberation is also connected to the idea of freedom and it is then a struggle in the world. It is not a struggle to reach a liberation out of the world, to be detached from the world, but to a liberation here and now engaged in political question, social question, historical question. So, just before I turn to the next, I want to add just a few notes on the people that the Krishna Evox there and their humanism in two three lines. In the Banerjee, he writes there, and cut off its moving from the quest for immortality and relationship to other beings with whom one was or could be in possible communication. And with Banerjee explores how the development of personhood from a stage of individual bondage to liberation as a kind of collective identity. And that's how it is interesting to see how they're reusing very contemporary ways classical Indian philosophy. And with Banerjee keeps the idea of reaching a liberation and that we are bounded when we are in the world. But the avidya and the ignorance, the nature of the primary ignorance that holds us to the sphere of the world and ignorance is the illusion of being alone in the world. So he develops a philosophy where gradually we have to detach ourselves from our self to realize the idea that I with others that I am primarily and essentially connected with others in a unity that is a we. And so we is the ultimate realization of philosophy that we always have been together. Before I won't speak too much here about him because I see him more as one of the influence on contemporary Indian philosophers in academia. He was a revolutionary interested in social progress and in the struggle for independence. And so he was, he developed an idea of radical to manage them, which is a quest for freedom that was really associated with freedom movement. And he was more politically grounded. So I think it's one influence and say what about it one influence on contemporary academic Indian philosophy. George Allen is the one who developed the idea of humanism, historically and philosophically, the most explicitly in all of his monograph in Indian philosophy in Western philosophy and we will see in the second one. He thinks it's momentum and deep into the body. That is mentioned as in the end is concerned with is challenging the universal and impersonal claims of scientific knowledge by arguing that science is essentially historical phenomenon. And does it's also subject to changes to historical changes. So his challenge of what he sees as a Western scientist. He is grounded in anthropology and anthropological view of sciences. And he's also extremely famous for being the editor of a huge project of history of Indian science philosophy and cultures that have so many volume and have in that project of wanting to develop a very grounded and scientifically grounded knowledge of Indian heritage and history, cultural flow. So that's for people mentioned by that reason. Now, very shortly, because diverage is the one who puts the most words on it. The definition of the name. I want to read everything but just the beginning of course first on the right. The symbolism adopts both theoretical instance with the significant difference that it installs the evolving cultural self in place of admin or towel and exorcist to live in and work for its enrichment and holds. It also declared declares itself as against the eternal admin of absolute of the Vedanta to be the object of philosophy analysis and knowledge. It is a clear view and it represents not only enter the barrage, but all I think generation of contemporary Indian philosophers, and it expresses very well how they keep a look at classical Indian sciences, but they refuse to see it is in a beginning less endless perspective to see it as a absolute conception of the self that is connected to cosmos so it's really a criticism of this idea of self as something that was there once in for all, and that we should engage outside of the common world. And so on the left, I just guys it in a different way creative humanism is a type of man centered philosophy, which takes creativity to be the dominant and most important characteristic of the human beings. Man centered has twofold significance. It implies that the proper object of philosophical inquiry is man himself. And then he continues. In today's the epithet man centered is intended to exclude superhuman reference from our view of the universe. So he chooses superhuman, and then he explains why supernatural, and just again refers to the explosion of trauma, or the, the will to have a set that is founded in the world. These are not the only authors, even that includes Sundara Rajan, Basankumar Malik, Sachin Dandamati himself, Sivajibhan Bhattacharya, Rajan Daprasad, a list of philosophers that in their own rights deserve to be there but I can't go on everything. So, what we should remember from this part is, I think, the main opposition, or the main difference, or the main shift from humanism at this point is in a position to solipsism, and an opposition to the idea that renouncing the world should be an ideal, and that reaching an absolute out of the world should be the aim of philosophy. There are two more characteristics that the question is, if you can see, I have a science of my screen, if you cannot read the PowerPoint, let me know. The second aspect of humanism in that sense is a return from the temporal, to the temporal historical living world of the embodied being, and it's connected to the first aspect of course, in Daya Krishna writes, the return to the temporal historical living world of the embodied being who is a member of society and polity and actively participates in the building of a common intersubjective world in cooperation with other human beings seems to be a common concern of most Indian philosophers who have written in the English language after their contact with the western world. But yet, while the emphasis in case but the child thought was primarily on the return from the identification of the self with each succeeding new level of activity. Being thereby the essential freedom of man as consisting just the identification so case but the child is still located in the transcendental absolute bone of philosophy. It is only later thinkers starting from in the energy that the isolated de-identified self is understood not in terms of freedom but as deprived and cut off from its relationship with the others which constitute according to him the essential reality of this death and in the fulfillment of this relational obligation lies its real freedom. And then Calidas by the chair who is the son of Casey by the chair lies in between indeed there are difference already with his father but he's still indeed conceiving to serve in isolation from other self or not necessarily at least related to other self in the sense of a fantasy. In Mohandian Sundar Rajan we find the impulse to return more self consciously and completely formulated a return which becomes even more and practically visible in the concept with historicity so explicitly manifest in the writings of the picture. So this is, I mean the expected counter movement to solipsism so if you choose solipsism and the idea of individual transcendental liberation out of the world, then of course you are looking at questions in the subjectivity at the relevance of the historicity to an extent question in harmonetics. And so there is here, of course an influence of concepts like being in the world concept like the life world that strongly phenomenologically influenced, but also in here again. The diversity of responses is interesting. It is also a challenge to what is felt as too much emphasis on sciences as something that is on the course of science and the universal course of sciences. And to pitch up to their comments on the, for example, the discussion between Tagore and Einstein, where Tagore emphasizes the subjective aspects in sciences and depicted by a says that I have to previous with the goal. So at the same time, borrowing and an influence of phenomenology into communion philosophy at that time, and at the same time they use this influence and this concept to return it against what they see is what they refute basically, which is too much emphasis on analysis and linguistic. I will, I will jump a little bit, but I want to show you this. This little bit of details of course to also show you what I understand as humanism from the brain and philosophy and how to define them. At this point, I also want to emphasize the complexity of this tradition, as I just said the complexity of how to reuse concepts from different tradition to give something that is very new. This is neither criticism only of Western philosophy, or neither criticism only of classical Indian philosophy, or neither criticism only of modern Indian philosophy, but the kind of navigating between philosophical words, because of a hermeneutic situation that cross culture, and how to think. At the same time, for these traditions. And this is an illustration by such an annamuti that illustrates it very well. He admits it in the very preface of his book Man with a physics and freedom. My thought is firmly rooted in Vedanta, and to some extent the teaching of the Buddha, but they have not been impervious to the contemporary philosophical situation. The writings of the existentialists, especially Yaspers, have much influenced me. There are many ideas and certain plans of thinking to Heidegger, Buber, Mastel, Nibur and others. But I believe the final outcome is not just the reinterpretation of Vedanta, a resume of existentialism, but one possible type of synthesis under two instances of psychology and cultural anthropology, without any specific analysis. Of course, this is both the reason why it's so difficult to describe contemporary Indian philosophy and to classify in one book, which we like to do when we teach academic Indian philosophy, or when we teach philosophy, because it's convenient to describe this as being continental analytical philosophy. And so Indian philosophy is received all these kinds of attempts and compartments. And at the same time I think it's precisely also why it is original and interesting because it teaches us a lot on the dialogical dimension of philosophy and of contemporary Indian philosophy. And it emphasizes both the way we do Indian philosophy from an ideology perspective as a kind of commentary interpretation or commentary idea of philosophy. And of course, from our mainstream Western philosophical departments where everything has to be fit in one classes on ethics and politics and be a realist or idealist and so on. So it kind of questions everything in a sense and in that sense, I find it radical. And after 10 minutes, so I want to stay just a few, a few things, finally on humanism to be a little on who show you also the ambivalence of the term and not to pretend that it works perfectly to describe contemporary Indian philosophy. So, reading more and more of the academic Indian philosophy. I find that they are the main lines of influence for intellectual influence on humanism that more often than not go together. When I see one line following I mean Roy, I mentioned as radical humanist, that is a kind of very affirmatively scientific, sometimes materialist, and in any case secular view of Indian philosophy with strong influence on freedom as individual freedom on social progress, political philosophy. On the other hand, and that's the part where it becomes problematic to work with humanism. There is a line by Radhakrishnan and Pitya Raju in particular, which at the same time so we are there. And these are the predecessors to my generation so it's the time where colonization was a reality and so Radhakrishnan's way on Pitya Raju's way of tackling Western colonization was to emphasize and argue on the spirituality of Indian philosophy and the kind of two positivistic and two scientific and two materialist view of philosophy of the West, and MNR of course is to India. And the third line of influence I think is by those who are inspired by Tagore. Tagore is a little in between. For him, at that point India had to avoid, I mean India vis-à-vis the West had to avoid the trouble of nationalism that he wrote about in the famous lecture. So his humanism is neither overly spiritual as to affirming the superiority of Indian philosophy because of its spirituality, but it's also not to follow the secularism and the materialism of the West and freedom in that sense because at his time he lived the first and second world war so the West was not near something to follow. And so yeah so humanism in this literature can mean then several things. And at the end I think that it's precisely because it could mean different things and it was encompassing enough that Indian philosophers were attracted to humanism because within this humanistic idea they could use reinterpret and challenge wide range of ideologies. So I think that it, I think that it's because the meaning is wide that it was actually used and reused and taken up in contemporary Indian philosophy. But it's true that the problem remains that there is an ambiguity between those who use the term humanism with a spiritual sense. In particular those who followed in your writer and who confront Western philosophy with it, and those who use humanism as radical humanism as a materialist opposition to Vedantin influence and then just have a very quick look there. So this is also an anthology of contemporary Indian philosophy by Bikil, I'm sorry DL Kumar which is also very reduced in India. And for him, it's very it's written still in the 70s but it's the opposite of what I said. All humanist Indian philosophers, some of them combine both humanism and humanitarianism, but their philosophical humanism is of a particular type. Humanism these days has come to acquire a definite import it is scientific humanism. It is based on the realization that is man itself can shape is on destiny. And then he says this kind of humanism becomes positivistic secular and this world in its outlook, obviously this doctrine is not compatible with the standpoint adopted by the contemporary Indian thinkers. This is an inflinging phase in the intimacy of spiritual process and ideas. And indeed in his anthology, he wrote the list in means with a kind of that Tagore Gandhi or Bindo, because he but the chair had a Christian and Iban the earlier figure. So he is using a spiritual humanism to distinguish himself probably also from MN Roy and people following radical humanism. So there is even there in general debate and possible disagreement. So this concludes and I'll go a little quickly on the last thing. So, of course, this is not the whole of contemporary Indian philosophy. I think it says something important that man. It expresses something that was missing for contemporary India for independent India. That is the emphasis on the human self, the human self in the plural, the human self that is intersubjectively intersubjectively connected the human self that is historically grounded in philosophy in India at the time, which has historical reasons for conceptual reasons for sure and which is deeply engaged in a very complex and multidirectional dialogue with modern sources that are just before them, including the debate on freedom and the time of Indian independence, including spiritual figures, including classical Indian concepts, including Western development of phenomenology existentialism and philosophical anthropology at that time. I think there are three directions which I want to develop now which are important for philosophical development one is epistemic pluralism and how it started a debate actually on pluralism which was an epistemological necessity at that time to understand different framework and meet different standpoints to understand the plurality and different views on science and hermeneutics. That's one debate. I think another one, but I think it's clear is the subjectivity to question also the idea of human rights, the social idea, political idea of India at independence and so philosophically how we connect to others, how we are related with others. And in Indian philosophy it's also there are a lot of criticism of course shorter as a, as a hierarchy of values that is questioned at that time. And the last one is liberation and freedom and liberation out of the world. This is, this is a freedom in the world that is in particular important at the time of Indian independence. So, finally, and I'll conclude again. Why is it important, I think, to include this view of contemporary Indian philosophy and why should we not stop at, I don't know Tagore or Gandhi of every commander. I try to show and I hope that they manage that much to show that the dialogue that Indian philosophy never stopped and is just continuing in the 20th century and first it's an injustice to decide that it, it's classical and dead or just modern and it is new advisor. And so, because it gives us lively and a very complex understanding of what is dialogue in philosophy and in philosophical developments, and how to think of classical contemporary Indian and Western, not as dichotomies but as continuous responses and philosophical responses that continue Indian philosophy. And, and the last point is I did not include here. The question has different. So another problem I really mentioned Muslim philosophies, this diversity in India and something that people often ask me and it's true. The diversity of contemporary Indian philosophy is not the whole picture and it should go and can discuss about it, but it should include also different communities and different philosophical developments in contemporary Indian philosophy. And that's for sure. And that's also why I mentioned such a lot of people actually made an effort to include different communities, and they are also dialogical experience in that sense. So I'll stop here and I'll just finish our time. And thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much, Dr. Kukro Selma. It was a very, it was a lovely mixture of erudition and really, really insightful and thought provoking so thank you. Just for everyone knows here's how questions are going to work. If you can please use the raise hand function, and then I'll kind of try to keep an eye on who's hand goes up first and call you in order. So just to start with, with one question. I was definitely convinced by, you know, you highlighting that, you know, we, in order to not betray or reduce the fundamentally dialogical dimension of all the different diverse diverse strands, contemporary Indian philosophy. And yet at the same time to have a grouping under this word humanism that that convinced me. However, I just wondered if you kind of began to hint at this towards the end but in your view what are some of the limitations of that word humanistic or humanism with this grouping are there any limitations you can think of. That was just one thing I was curious about so yeah. For sure. One is, honestly that, of course, it limits the philosophers I include and I do it knowing and admitting that it doesn't encompass the whole of contemporary Indian philosophy at that time. And so there is a whole other development in logic, analytical philosophy, philosophy of mind, which partly some of them fit in epistemological pluralism, because some of them were interested in thinking epistemologically the question of plurality. So in that sense, they have a humanistic dimension, but I mean they are also just philosophers interested in in logic, and in either in Western logic, or in kind of translating Indian logic into Western logic. And this is not necessarily related to to humanism so they are some philosophers that I live aside, they are, they are lucky they have had a better reception that's why I allow myself to leave them inside became a total in particular, played a major role in, in including analytical Indian philosophy into the panel so I think they are better off in that sense. But yeah, and that's one limit the other limit I talked about is that humanism is not a homogeneous concept. And so of course, it can mean, not exactly one thing and it's opposite, but it can have very different connotations, which, which I think are interesting to show its development but of course you could also say then can put everything into it. It's not cool you cannot put everything into it but it's true that it has internal tensions, and I don't want to even try to erase that it's part of the, of the concept. Brilliant. Thank you so much for that reply. I'm going to go now to Professor Richard King. Thank you, Andy. Thank you, Elise. I really enjoyed your talk and, and I particularly liked the conclusion in the sense that the idea that one of the ways in which humanism. This is my reading tell me if I've done this wrongly but because humanism can cover a variety of slightly different metaphysical commitments. So you can have a if you like a more secularist version or one that that combines other, or one of a better word spiritual or supernaturalist elements within it. That, but it works as a discourse for recognition and representation of Indian philosophy and it's that recognition and reputation that I wanted to ask you about. Because I think I'd like to make a distinction between the fact that we can recognize that because Indian philosophy is so rich and diverse that there is indeed much going on in that tradition, which could be classified under the root this this particular rubric this construction of humanistic in the way that you describe. But how, but we can still distinguish that from the fact that why, why is this discourse emerging. And for me, and I'd like your views on this. It relates to what we might call the elephant in the room, which is that many of these thinkers are writing in a context of duality and in a situation where something you've written about yourself about the, the kind of exclusion the classification and the kind of personalization of Indian philosophers so you have like the pandemic communities who have been much reduced. You have academic institutionalized philosophers. And then of course you have a whole gamut of, as you rightly pointed out political public figures who are thought of as philosophers but might not be thought of as academic philosophers in the in the strict sense. And so in that context, Indian characterizing it modern Indian philosophy is quite difficult because you could be too narrow. If you just focus on the academic philosophers, but the, but the issue there is gatekeeping or part one of the issues isn't it it's what what is allowed to go into this space, this global space called philosophy. And the fact that in this period of time, the shift in modern Western philosophy is very much towards a kind of secular self understanding of itself. And so do you see this discourse of humanism and humanistic reflections, which I accept is coming out of Indian traditions but do you see it at all as a response to Western hegemony coloniality and if you like knocking on the door have philosophy to get into the into the debate. Thank you. It's a question about which we could I think speak one more hour, because there are many gatekeepers of different kinds. So it's hard to restrict I mean the role of Indian philosophy in the way does not receive the place it and deserves. It is true for philosophy in Sanskrit, including contemporary philosophers in Sanskrit in more traditional communities who have usually restricted with very restricted access to the global discourse. It is true of vernacular Indian philosophies in Bengali in Hindi in South Indian languages, which are very difficult to access and to receive in the global discourse. It's true of my English writing Indian philosophers. And the question indeed that I asked myself earlier was why because they write in English so that should be easy. And it's not. Of course so it's a response to colonization yet. I was focusing on only on this earlier in the sense on emphasizing the colonization or post-colonial response which you see you have even in case about the Charya and Sparagine IDs, you have early texts that are like text literally fighting colonization in India. I have a lot of that during the period preceding independence of philosophers engage in the idea of thinking freedom for India thinking political freedom for India thinking the nation for India and independent nation. And so you have a lot of political social philosophy that emerges. Today, it's not that I don't think it's important. It is there the whole time. But I think in India, if we only focus on post-colonial dimension of English Indian philosophy at that time, we also tend to miss the internal debates. Because at that time, there is also a lot of political philosophy for reforming Indian orthodoxy. There are also a lot of debates engaging with classical Indian philosophy to detach it from its psychology or the felt security of the world and difficulty to criticize the idea of Moksha as a goal of Indian philosophy. So internally also between the pundits and this English more secular philosophers and tension in trying to combat a certain sense of orthodoxy within the Hindu philosophies. So today, I don't mean that post-colonial is not important, but I don't want it to hide much more diverse and in a sense in an Indian context, more urgent kind of debate, including on the diversity on what of Indian philosophy, including women, including, you know, the problem of caste and why we have only Bengali Brahmin's hiding philosophy in the 20th century. So I totally agree with you, but I don't want to celebrate lectures according to this so as not to miss extremely important internal debates and the volition of Indian philosophy also. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thanks. Thank you so much for your advice. I'm going to go next to Abhishek Mal. Yes, my name is. So much first I want to thank you that you are doing some sort of an applied integral philosophy. And this I like personally very much. Now I just would like to have a few sympathetic critical comments. I mean, Buddhism on the one hand and the Hindu philosophy on the other hand, whether I mean Buddhism is a Buddha was a heretic Buddhism has an ethics without theology and Hinduism has both with theology and without theology. The definition is how to how to get the overlap between these different concepts definitions of humanism, because without some sort of an overlap, it's going to be a fight endless. The overlap more or less has to be found, even if God is the source or say in the philosophy of Kant is some sort of transcendent reason. So I would have liked you to talk about a bit because humanism, which is humanism par excellence. You just imagine. I mean, he me on a Mahayana Bajrayana, and now I know that is the Hinduism is the fourth Buddhism. It is humanism purely Buddha is just on the ground. No, and of course, he won maybe a Buddhist in believing Nirvana as a category outside. I feel that this should be taken as a very powerful concept of humanism, which has more overlaps with any tradition all over the world. And then I would like to say that somehow Indian epistemology always says that is Indian epistemology. That means we get knowledge, and we also act according to this knowledge. So in this full property acquisition of results. And ethics, and her area here is one of the philosophers he says Indian philosophy is not only a way of thought, but at the same time, it is also a way of life, and this way of life may be met with metaphysically ontologically or just humanistically ethically grounded. And at this point should be made clear in talking with the European philosophers, you know for the last nearly 35 years, I'm fighting here with many colleagues. And all of them, they say you Indians do philosophy. But if you don't do philosophy that you do philosophy, then of course it is no philosophy. I've been here for the last 50 years, then I say, but for, for, for shopping hour, Hegel's philosophy is the word he use Hegel I, you know, I mean, it's just a very negative word for Hegel. Hegel's philosophy by Bertrand Russell is myth. So at, at home, they have the same trouble, but the moment European philosophical thinking faces Africa, Latin America, India, then all of a sudden they think we have one voice of European philosophy. And I'm so happy that we are doing this intercultural philosophy. We did so you did so much for the intercultural philosophy here in Germany and Europe. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. And, and you are very right. And to question Buddhism, you are absolutely right that I focus too much on Advaita Vedanta and responses to Advaita Vedanta and I did not give I do not give in general enough importance to contemporary interpretation of Buddhism. But I do some bet now and interestingly, if you see the list on bet is not included in all these anthologies of even perfect figures next to Gandhi, and father and Nehru, and although today, I mean in place like in India it's too large but in places like where he is very much considered as a philosopher. So there is a problem is embedded in academic Indian philosophy. And that's for sure. But for Buddhism before I forget, I want to add he's not the only one actually even in academic Indian philosophy and Vibhanu has a book on Marx and Buddhism, in which he sees the he explored this idea of intersubjective, essential intersubjective relation with others. And Sachin Anandamurthy also mentions Buddhism so you are very right that it, it plays a role because of the lack also of God for this humanist it's like an inspiration for this contemporary humanist because we avoid the problem, the theological problem. And for a bet guy is sure and he, I should, I think, include him as an influence, because I'm interested in academic Indian philosophy in departments but it's true that they should maybe add the force line of influence following a bet girl, and that I will keep in mind. And the second question is theory and practice, basically, and again you are very right there is a lot also of writings on practice and humanistic practice. These are the theory, and this is in response indeed to the Western other emphasis on theory and theories and ways of theorizing. I think that there is a kind of parallel so Krishna Chandra Bhattacharya, for example, is very much inspired by the Tagelian model, and builds an extremely difficult abstract theory, and that after him as in Western developments where there are reflections on the life world and practices and ethics and all. So I think Krishna Chandra Bhattacharya the same happens in contemporary philosophy with them, with an emphasis on practice that comes back or you actually participate the chair it's more ambiguous than this. I mean, it's part and it's often part of the responses to Western philosophy and the critic to Western philosophy that even humanism remains a kind of theoretical idea, and that in Indian philosophy they are concepts like practice that now that can ground humanism to ethics and practical questions so you're absolutely right I think it's a different way to put it it's a different line of the dialogue between India and the West and you're right but it's very difficult to make it. I'm admissible to the Western discourse. I have. I mean we all try to do as you said I have no magical response to include it to the Western discourse, but yeah you're right it's one more line of the of the dialogue that I could definitely include in the. Thank you for both of them I will write them down. Thanks again. Elise. We have time for one more question I see Richard did you want to ask a follow up is that right. I just wanted to quickly make the point that I think that including Ambedkar is also important in relation to at least his earlier point about the radical domination of Indian philosophy and so that's why I think that's also an important voice. Thanks. Sure, sure. And between. I want to see who is directly influenced because for me he's still part of my public figures individual figures. So the question that is really interesting for me now is who is directly influenced by him and takes up his voice into the academic philosophical discourse and that's harder question. Fantastic. Thank you. We're close to the end now but is there any is we have time for one last quick question if anybody else has any thoughts or questions. Okay, well, on that note then do you have any final thoughts you want to share Elise or we happy to close. I'm very thankful for all the remarks and the points and discussions and I'm sincerely thankful because I will item down and think further about it so it's. It helps me to continue thinking about about the topic and so thank you so much for your engagement in your question. So thank you so much for such an interesting talk and I wish everybody a lovely weekend wherever you are and thank you again. Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm going to close the meeting now but please look out your emails for the updates from Elvis about future, future events so bye everyone. Thank you.