East-West Studies on the Problem of the Self: Papers presented at the Conference on Comparative Philosophy and Culture held at the College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio, April 22–24, 1965

247 Pages·1968·11.28 MB·English

by  F. S. C. Northrop (auth.)

THE PROBLEM OF THE SELF
East-West Studies
on
THE PROBLEM OF THE SELF
Papers presented at the Conference on Comparative
Philosophy and Culture held at the College of
Wooster, Wooster, Ohio, April 22-24, I965
Edited by
P. T. RAJU AND ALBUREY CASTELL
•
MARTINUS NIJHOFF / THE HAGUE / 1968
ISBN 978-94-015-0134-7 ISBN 978-94-015-0615-1 (eBook)
DOl 10.1007/978-94-015-0615-1
© I968 by Martinus Nijhott, The Hague, Netherlands
All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to
reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE CONFERENCE
1. Dr. Howard Lowry, President, The College of Wooster
2. Dr. J. Garber Drushal, Dean, id.
3. Dr. W. D. Anderson, Department of Greek and Latin, id.
4- Miss Mary H. Behling, Asst. Dean of Women, id.
5. Rev. Lowell B. Bourns, Director, Public Relations, id.
6. Dr. Alburey Castell, Department of Philosophy, id.
7. Dr. D. R. Mackenzie, Art Department, id.
8. Dr. James H. K. Norton, Department of Religion, id.
9. Dr. Harold B. Smith, Department of Religion, id.
10. Dr. P. T. Raju, Department of Philosophy, id. (Chairman of the
Excutive Committee and Director of the Conference).
INTRODUCTION
The general characteristics of the decades after the last World War, so
far as the human situation goes, include two phenomena: these decades
are marked by man's dissatisfaction with himself, his confession of
ignorance of himself, his anxiety about his future, and also his earnest
search for the ground of his being, which can give him a feeling of
security with reference to his life here and hereafter; they are also
marked by man's pride about his achievements in science and tech
nology, a hope of a better life on earth, and a faith in himself as capable
of engineering the individual and society for realizing peace, harmony,
and happiness for all men. The contemporary thinking man is conscious
of the predicament these two kinds of characteristics have created for
him, admits failures, hopes for improvements, and works for them. In
carrying out this work, he has to and wants to know what human life is,
what the meaning and purpose of life are, and why his struggles and
achievements have not succeeded in giving every man a reasonable
amount of comfort and happiness. He has come to realize also that the
accumulation of material comforts does not necessarily lead to happi
ness, although happiness for man - except for the monk, fakir, or
sannyiisin - is not possible without material comforts.
Here we have the problem. Control and conquest of the environment,
although necessary, are not sufficient for the happiness and content
ment of man. If some demands of man's nature are satisfied by ma
terial comforts, others are not. The many demands of man's inward
nature are coordinate to the different external forms of comfort and
happiness. So the question: "What is the nature of the external world?"
becomes a coordinate of the question: "What is the nature of man's
inward being or what is the nature of his self?" Paul Valery said: "It is
the same with our spirit as with our flesh: both hide in the mystery
VIII INTRODUCTION
what they feel to be most important."l Science has pushed our know
ledge of the external world, particularly towards the microscopic, to
the point, where Heisenberg says, we cannot go farther; and it is in
creasing our knowledge of the macroscopic world. But no corresponding
attempt has been made, in what can be accepted to be a scientific way,
to fathom the inward world of man, in understanding the nature of the
self. The Kalka Upani$ad says: "God created man with senses directed
outward; man knows, therefore, only external objects, but not his self;
only the brave one knows the self by turning the senses inwards."2 The
Dpani!?ad exhorts man to know the self also, not merely the objects
that can be known by the senses. Not merely for the individual, but for
the whole of humanity, knowledge of the self is as necessary as know
ledge of the external world for realizing human perfection. Similarly, a
culture that is either one-sidedly outward or one-sidedly inward can
hardly be adequate to the total life of man who seeks complete happi
ness.
This knowledge of the self was traditionally given by religion both
in the East and the West. But now during our times, when science and
philosophy have tended towards developing an indifference to religion
- such indifference is on the increase even in the East in the name of
modernization, science, and technology - it is only depth psychology
that becomes the source of our information about the self. But depth
psychology is not so much concerned with the inner nature of the
normal man as with that of the abnormal. For the sciences, whose main
concern is with externality and with the methods derived from the
study of externality, the study of man's inner life lies beyond their
scope. Descartes separated mind (self) from matter, and the latter was
made available for scientific study, which developed its methods during
the process. Mind then was left for religion and faith. But now if we
recognize the coordinateness of the inner and the outer nature of man,
we have to make a rational study of the former also, instead of leaving
it to faith. What methods then do we have at our disposal for the
purpose? Should we regard the methods given by existence philoso
phies and psychologies as both necessary and sufficient? They may be
necessary, but very few people would say that they are sufficient; for
they cannot go deep enough into the inner nature of man, i.e., to the
point beyond which human reason cannot go and at which a new
Heisenbergian principle can be significantly and experientially enunci-
1 Quoted in H. Zimmer, Philosophies of India, p. 3, Meridian Books, New York, 1964.
2 A free translation of the passage II, iv, i.
INTRODUCTION IX
ated. There seems to be much in the inner nature of the self to be
grasped and utilized for making man fully happy, if we accept the
truth that the inner and outer natures of man are coordinate. Our
complex and confusing world outlook, in which science and technology
have thrown up more human problems than ever before, makes the
problem of the self important and pressing. As the problem is left out
side the scope of the special sciences, it is only thinkers in the fields of
religion, philosophy, and psychology who can now elucidate the nature
and structure of the inner self.
It was for this reason that the problem of the self was suggested to
President Howard Lowry as worth a conference on comparative phi
losophy and culture. There was another reason also. The College is a
liberal arts college. Its aim is to train young men how to be complete
men. They can be complete men when they are well-informed and
educated in terms of the knowledge accumulated by man up to the
present, and keep their minds open and alive; they can then react
rightly and adequately, with courage and moderation resulting from
understanding, to the problems that may arise in the slowly developing
world outlook appearing in the horizons of our knowledge. And this
outlook, in which science and technology, philosophy and culture have
to find a common basis or denominator for living together and for
adjusting themselves to one another in its light, is bound to be general
and universal. To give young men such training, knowledge of the self
is as necessary as knowledge of the external world. The problem of the
self is, therefore, a fitting problem for a conference sponsored by a
liberal arts college.
But the self is differently understood or at least taken to be different
ly understood by the different philosophical traditions of the world.
Every tradition may think that it possesses the final answer to the
problem. But in our times it is now seriously felt that, even when some
traditions give an apparently same answer, they have significantly
different approaches, significantly different elements or factors in
seemingly same concepts; and certainly all traditions do not give the
same answer. And we have to note also that the same tradition contains
different answers. Because of the admitted imperfection of the know
ledge of the self - at least in the academic, if not in committed religious
circles - in anyone of the traditions, it becomes important to know for
every tradition what the other traditions say about the self. Hence
comparative philosophy becomes enlightening and informative. Goethe
said that one who knows only his own language does not really know it;
x INTRODUCTION
we may add that one who knows only his own philosophical tradition
does not know it. This is the reason for making the conference on the
problem of the self a conference on comparative philosophy and culture.
The classifications of cultures have been various. Some say that the
Western is composed of the Greek and the Christian, - thereby treating
the Jewish as a forerunner of the Christian, - and the Eastern of the
Indian and the Chinese, assimilating the Islamic to the Christian. Some
maintain that we should not ignore the Egyptian and Mesapotamian
contributions to the Jewish and, through it, to the Christian and that
they also should be added. Some point to the Jewish as the source of
both Islam and Christianity and speak of the three religions, including
the Jewish, as Israel-born; they hold that we should have them added
to the Greek, Indian, and Chinese cultures and civilizations. Others,
taking the common features of the Greek and Indian cultures, speak of
them as forming one cultural unit, of the Israel-born world outlook as
the second, and the Chinese as the third. There are still other classifi
cations of cultures and world outlooks given by Spengler, Toynbee,
Sorokin, Northrop, etc., made from different points of view - religion,
geography, social forms, history, science, epistemology and so forth.
These criss-crossing divisions show that any pigeonholing of cultures
and even of religions becomes arbitrary and that dispersion, if not
mutual influence, of different ideas and the resulting penetration by
them of religions and cultures were more wide-spread than we gener
ally think.
But for philosophical purposes, taking both geography and ideas into
consideration, we may say that China, India, Israel, and Greece stand
out as conspicuous originators of thought. But the Greek and the
Jewish traditions merged in what is now called the Western. Then we
have the Western, Indian, and the Chinese. Just as Christian thought
in its development became a combination of Greek and Jewish thought
with the teachings of Christ - in fact Jewish thought itself absorbed
many elements of Greek thought - Islamic thought also, apart from
the orthodox standing aloof from all philosophy, became Islamized
Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Neo-Platonism, with this difference
that in Islam philosophers did not fare as well as in Christianity. Yet
there were men in Islam who devoted considerable thought to the
problems of self, God, and nature. In spite of its treatment of its phi
losophers, Islam need not be excluded from philosophy; for it is still a
great living force, a living culture and civilization. Philosophy may still
have a ~ew future in its lands and is bound to have a future if the
INTRODUCTION Xl
Islamic countries absorb and assimilate the new rational and scientific
outlook and make it a factor of the growth and development of their
culture in the changing world that is becoming more and more close
knit.
Now, which of the traditions can be represented in a conference on
comparative philosophy and culture? Indeed, the answer can be: All
the living and the non-living. But there were limitations, financial and
otherwise, imposed on the organizers. The Conference was organized as
a pre-centennial event of the College and as inaugurating Indian and
Islamic studies. So in addition to the Western, only the Indian and
Islamic representations were arranged. Even then it was not possible
to have a representative of every school of every tradition. It was
thought useful, of course, to have some contributors show how the
ideas of two traditions could be brought together in significant and
critical comparisons, as otherwise the impression created would be that
each tradition stood alone by itself and no bridge could be built from
the one to the other.
That comparative philosophy and mutual philosophical under
standing are desirable for the present age, in which men of differing
cultures have to live together, is accepted by many leading thinkers,
particularly in America and Germany. But the task cannot be ac
complished by a single conference. The papers of this Conference may
be regarded as a sample of what has to be accomplished. The problems
concerning the self are many - spiritual, ethical, social, political, eco
nomic, and biological- even if we leave out those which science, tech
nology, and industrialization have created. But the aims of this Confer
ence had to be limited. Apart from recognizing the importance of the
problem, they are: (r) To promote mutual understanding of the phi
losophies and cultures of the East and the West; (2) To show, as John
Dewey said using the term coined by William James, that there are no
cultural "block universes," but only one universe in which cultures
have significant common areas and significant differences; (3) To dis
cover what is permanently significant in each of the thought-patterns
and what can be of importance to every culture and philosophy,the
non-recognition of which makes our cultures lop-sided and harmful;
and (4) To contribute to the discovery of what is significant in the
differences, the non-recognition of which prevents proper East-West
understanding and communication.
The attempt was made, within limits imposed on the organizers, to
secure papers from scholars belonging to the traditions themselves. It
XII INTRODUCTION
is only recently that the principle has been accepted that the philoso
phers of the tradition itself should present its philosophies. This helps
to avoid wrong interpretations by people of a different tradition, who
may not only be ill-acquanted with alien traditions, but also prejudiced
and unreasonably self-assured. It is not meant that the eastern philoso
phers themselves will give an absolutely clear and correct presentation
of their philosophies. It is to be remembered that they have to use a
foreign language, choose a foreign technical terminology; they have to
be capable of not only grasping and presenting the philosophical in
sights of their own traditions, but also have a reasonable acquaintance
and grasp of the fields of thought in the West similar to the ones in
their own tradition. They need also academic detachment in inter
preting their own schools other than the one to which they belong
either by birth or conviction. Yet in spite of such difficulties, their
interpretations can be expected to be more authentic than those given
by men who look at the culture from the outside.
The reader, it is hoped, will find much material for reflection in the
papers. He can see some common features: for example, that the self
was not understood by the traditions without reference to an under
lying transcendent ground called the Supreme Spirit, Absolute, God,
etc., however its nature was conceived; that the self's relation to the
transcendent ground raises problems of ethics, which the philosophies
attempted to handle in different ways; and that this relationship
creates problems of personality, whether it can have its distinctness,
what it is in this world and the next and so on. Not every paper dis
cusses all the questions. But the reader can see that these questions are
present in the traditions, even if differently answered. He can ask him
self what significance and importance these differences can have. This
asking might interest him in traditions other than his own, stimulate
him to study and understand them further, and prevent him from
treating them as outlandish and opaque. The result could be a deeper
awareness of his own culture and philosophy and a more valuable
mutual understanding of East and West.
The Executive Committee decided that the opening address of the
General President of the Conference and two subsequent lectures should
be for the general public. The Committee was fortunate in obtaining
F. S. C. Northrop of Yale as the General President, a philosopher who
is internationally known for his writings on East and West. One public
lecture, "Love, Self, and Contemporary Culture," was given by Richard
McKeon of Chicago, who is also an internationally known philosopher.