University of Georgia Spring 2002

RELI 4510/6510 M/W/F 2:30-3:20

Instructor: Glenn Wallis Office: 21 Peabody Telephone: 583-o309

e-mail: gwallis@uga.edu Office Hours: M/W 10-12

The aim of this course is to acquaint the student with the basic concerns and forms of practice that lie at the intersection of Indian philosophical thought and religious action. We will explore foundational themes concerning the relationship between self, cosmos, and ultimate reality underlying several traditions. These traditions range historically from the archaic period (ca. 1500 B.C.E), through the medieval (sixth-tenth century C.E.), to the present. Our approach will involve continual movement between the thematic, historical, and sectarian aspects of our subject. As the terms "philosophy" and "religion" suggest, there must also be a degree of cross-cultural (Indian-Western) and cross-temporal (past-present) consideration. Oscillating between here and there, this course will enable you to become familiar with, and critically evaluate, the variety of religious and philosophical questions raised, and solutions offered, by one of the world’s major civilizations.

1. Attendance and participation. Regular attendance is required. The course will be conducted as an interactive lecture seminar. That means that class time will be spent primarily in discussion with one another about the material. So, it is expected that you will consistently come to class, and that you will do so well prepared. If you miss more than three classes, your grade will be lowered. Class incantation: Discourse cheers us to companionable reflection. (Martin Heidegger) 2. Papers and assignments. There will be a 15-page research paper due at the end. You will choose a topic early on in the course, and revise this as we progress. Every few class periods you will write a one-page report on your thinking towards this final paper. 4. Exams. There will be a mid-term and final.

Religion? W. Braun, "Religion"

Jan. 7-11

Jan. 14-18 +text: Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. (L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations #109)

Emergence Hopkins, 1-16

PÒrvam¹m›ªsa Sourcebook, 349-355; The M¹m›ªs› SÒtra (486-498) • King, 42-46, 52-53

Feb. 6-11

C›rv›ka Sourcebook, 227-235; 247-249 • King, check index

March 11-15

Thoughts that are at peace. That is what the person who philosophizes yearns for.

--Ludwig Wittgenstein

"The true life is absent." But we are in the world. Metaphysics arises and is maintained in this alibi.

----Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity

As far back as human history goes these two fundamental attitudes can be distinguished: that of the metaphor and that of unequivocality.

----Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities

Where water, earth, heat, air find no footing,

there burns no lighting star, nor shines the sun;

the moon does not shed her radiant beams -- but yet

the home of darkness is not there.

When in the deep and silent hours of thought

the holy sage attains truth,

then s/he is well released from joy and pain;

From form and from the formless he is freed.

----Ud›navagga 1.10

Knowing time in its very ordinary way,

when you nakedly yourself regard yourself,

your looking is transparent, nothing to be seen.

This is naked, immediate, clear intelligence. . .

Why do you say, I do not see the actuality of the mind" --

since the thinker in the mind is just it? . .

Why do you say, "I do not know this"?

--Padmasambhava, Natural Liberation through Naked Vision

Religion? Here and now, this very day . . . Religion, in the singular? Response: ‘Religion is the response.’ Is it not there, perhaps, that we must seek the beginning of a response? Assuming, that is, that one knows what responding means, and responsibility. Assuming, that is, that one knows it — and believes it. No response, indeed, without a principle of responsibility: one must respond to the other, before the other, and for oneself. And no responsibility without a given word, a sworn faith, without a pledge, without an oath, without some sacrament.

--Jacques Derrida, "Faith and Knowledge"