Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

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Volume 5 Number 2, August 2004

Special Issue: Jacques Derrida’s Indian Philosophical Subtext

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Editorial notes

by

Dimple Godiwala,

York St. John (A College of the University of Leeds)

and

William S. Haney II

American University of Sharjah, U.A.E.

In their preface to On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, Simon Critchley and Richard Kearney justify twinning the texts of On Cosmopolitanism and On Forgiveness by stating that they are bound by a common concept or ‘a common logic’. Describing Derrida’s recent work as a conceptual genealogy where he selects a concept from what Derrida himself describes simply as ‘the heritage’, they proceed to define this heritage as ‘the dominant Western tradition’.[1]

That Jacques Derrida’s commentators seldom link his conceptual genealogy to ancient Indian philosophy, from his work on the nature of writing, language, textuality to death, the self, the body, as indeed the more recently articulated concepts of forgiveness, justice, the gift and hospitality, is for the most part due to the western-centric attitudes of his commentators, who, at best, are ignorant of the connections with ancient Indian philosophy, and at worst perhaps, whilst claiming to write a comparative analysis, dismiss a scholarly, philosophical tradition which predates western thought, as mere ‘mysticism’. This hierarchization of western knowledge which dismisses Other knowledges as ‘backward’ or lacking the seriousness and logic of traditional Western enquiry, is not only characteristic of most of Derrida’s western commentators, but it directly contradicts the anti-hierarchical spirit of Derridean play (in its best conceptual sense). As for defining the extent of what he has subsequently called simply ‘the heritage’, Derrida, speaking of metaphysics, said as early as 1971:

Metaphysics -- the white mythology which reassembles and reflects the culture of the West: the white man takes his own mythology, Indo-European mythology, his own logos, that is, the mythos of his idiom, for the universal form of that he must still wish to call Reason.[2]

Thus, for Derrida at least, ‘the culture of the West’ consists of that thought which derives from Indo-Europe, and this is an early acknowledgement that ‘the heritage’ he picks his concepts from is certainly a tradition of Indo-European origin. Perhaps the fact that Derrida never actually speaks of the specific philosophical origin of certain concepts which would identify them as ancient Indian, or indeed as extant in both traditions thereby becoming a kind of universal (forgiveness, hospitality), has led to his commentators’ myopia to eastern philosophical links; but the same cannot be said when his philosophy evokes an ancient like Heidegger, whose thoughts or influence upon Derrida are instantly identified by those educated in a strictly western system which functions, though claiming to teach philosophy, on the basis of exclusion.

It is this ignorance, combined with the tendency, famously identified by the late Edward Said as orientalism, or the hegemonic classification of ‘oriental’ ideas by the west in order to assert a dominance and superiority especially in intellectual endeavours, such as discussed here, that pervades the commentary of the foremost Derridean scholars.

It is significant that a leading expert on Derrida’s work, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, has been able to use it conceptually for the purpose of postcolonial analysis and critique, especially in an Indian context. Although often critiqued for her bricolage of Marxism and Derridean deconstruction in the context of postcolonial theory by her, mostly Marxist, Indian commentators, Spivak is possibly putting a philosophy culled from a combined heritage to its best use. The concept of effecting change through deconstruction, though regarded by some of Derrida’s commentators as a deconstructive impossibility through impracticality, enables Spivak to combine this aspect of Derridean thought with the revolutionary aspect of Marxism. However, it is disheartening that even the Indian born and educated critic, Spivak, does not explore the specifically ancient Indian bases of the Indo-European concepts used by Derrida, as she is by far the leading expert on Derrida.

Harold Coward’s Derrida and Indian Philosophy, and Carl Olson’s Indian Philosophers and Postmodern Thinkers: Dialogues on the Margins of Culture are two of the only too few western commentaries which link the ‘Indo’ with the ‘Europe’ in the thought of Derrida and contemporary western philosophers. The first is a sound comparative study, whereas the latter aims to be more imparative, in a term which advocates an attitude of openness and learning across cultures without the hierarchizing tendency often witnessed in comparative studies.

One difficulty western commentators have had in understanding what the west classifies as ‘oriental’ ideas is that the core of Indian philosophy emerges not through logical discourse alone, as in Western philosophy, but in large part only after language and interpretation in the ordinary sense have run their course.  When Indian grammarians such as Bhartrhari expound on the nature of language in relation to the mind as first recorded in the ancient Vedas, they recognize that the full range of language can only be cognized through the experience of higher states of consciousness.  Unlike ‘the dominant western tradition,’ Indian philosophy has developed systematic mental techniques designed to enhance the natural tendency of the mind to move in the direction of pure consciousness or the source of thought.  From the perspective of the Vedic tradition, an enlightened self-interest that will allow one to perform right action with the greatest all-around life-supporting effect depends on gaining access to transcendental consciousness as an immediate experience rather than an intellectual concept.  Because such a direct experience is both immanent within yet beyond the reach of ordinary thought or mental computation, western commentators on the whole tend to dismiss it mere ‘mysticism.’  For practitioners of Indian and other metaphysical traditions, however, those who have the experience of transcending ‘ideas’ to their source in pure consciousness, the term mysticism, which refers to that which is unknown or mysterious, simply does not apply.  Indeed, the word mysticism can tell us more about the preconceptions of those who use it in an orientalist or hierarchical sense than about those who practice the science and art of being through a transcendence and reintegration of mental activity.

Although Derrida in his early, philosophical texts does not address consciousness as a legitimate firsthand experience, his work in general exemplifies the tendency of the mind to move beyond the boundaries of rationalizations toward a state that suggests the experience of pure consciousness as described in Indian philosophy.   In the past, commentators like Coward have focused on the logical, theoretical similarities between Derrida and Indian philosophers, especially on the idea of difference, rather than on any relation to the experiential aspects of Indian philosophy.  An early exception to this is Robert Magliola.  In Derrida on the Mend, while arguing that logocentrism is purely logical and leads to the entrapment of logic, Magliola does confirm that deconstruction is ‘on the verge’ of another way of ‘knowing.’[3]    One reason western commentators have not given more emphasis to direct experience, of course, is that ‘the dominant Western tradition’ in which Derrida works does not provide a systematic experiential means to acquiring knowledge beyond the mediation of reading and writing.  As we hope this CLA special issue on Derrida’s Indian Philosophical Subtext will illustrate, however, western critics are beginning to see analogies between deconstruction as something not completely logical, and transcendence or the experience of pure consciousness described in Indian philosophy.  They are also beginning to suggest how the movement of difference can help to induce an experience of liberation from logical boundaries, an initial step in the expansion of consciousness.

In Derrida and Indian Thought: Prospects for an East/West Dialogue? (A conversation between Alison Scott-Baumann and Christopher Norris), Scott-Baumann finds suggestive parallels between Derrida’s philosophy and Indian philosophy, but Norris remains highly sceptical of any attempt to affiliate the two.  Their conversation leads to a series of creative digressions that focus mainly on the dominant western tradition, with only occasional yet courageous inroads to Indian philosophy by Scott-Baumann.  Norris, always faithful, and perhaps rigidly so, to his western heritage, finds that although Derrida disrupts binary oppositions, he does not come ‘out altogether on the far side of such binary pairs’—in other words, he does not transcend duality.  In comparing Derrida to Nagarjuna and Bhartrhari, Scott-Baumann finds him more ‘like’ Bhartrhari, ‘in so far as he uses deconstruction to dismantle difference, to show us the flux that underlies certain metaphysical dualisms, concepts, and categories.’  Despite their differences, Norris and Scott-Baumann agree that further exploration of the creative tensions between Derrida and Indian thought would have definite advantages for western philosophy.

In Derrida, A Renunciant?  The Gift of the Bhagavad Gita in The Gift of Death, Peter Huk suggests that dharma (duty) and the gift in the Bhagavad Gita ‘prefigure Derrida’s ideas on responsibility, duty, and gift in his The Gift of Death.’  Through a close reading of each text, Huk explores the possibility that Derrida may be indebted to the Bhagavad Gita, but questions whether this debt is ever payable given the unrecognized tradition of ‘pure gift’ that seems to underlie both Derrida and the Gita.  As a reader, Huk in his conclusion ingeniously sidesteps the historical issue of indebtedness by showing how both texts allow him to transcend the debt/guilt binary through a process of deconstruction.

Leena Taneja, in Tracing Difference: The Subtext of Derridean and Gaudiya Vaishnva Theology, argues that the similarities between Derrida and Indian medieval philosophy are too frequent to be coincidental or ‘merely interesting correspondences.’  She illustrates that Derridean thought ‘can be traced to originary sources in Indian thought’ via the German philosophical tradition.  Focusing specifically on the concept of supplementarity, Taneja reveals striking parallels between the Vaishnavic and Derridean perspectives regarding principles of difference and non-identity—similarities more profound than originally suspected.  She suggests that such a comparison has the potential to inspire cross-cultural and inter-disciplinary dialogue, but recommends more historical research to disclose further links between Indian and German thinkers and their conspicuous, if unacknowledged, influence on Derrida.

In No Views is Good Views: A Comparative Study of Nagarjuna’s Sunyata and Derrida Différance, Lara Braitstein first reviews and then compares a specific aspect of Derrida’s différance with Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakarika, or what he called sunyata.  In the process she also discusses the work of three commentators of Derrida’s work, Robert Magliola, David Loy, and Harold Coward, each of whom has discovered a similar connection between sunyata and différance.  Braitstein strongly suggests that ‘Derrida ought to feel compelled to explore in detail and to acknowledge’ the parallels between these principles.   To refuse would constitute ‘an inappropriate deferral,’ for which she indicates two possible causes, one more likely than the other.  She concludes by urging that—as a prominent Western philosopher working within the ambience of prominent and perhaps intellectually superior Indian philosophers, such as Nagarjuna—it is ‘now time for Derrida to put his “presence” at risk.’

William S. Haney’s Derrida’s Indian Subtext and Literature directly explores the links between Derridean deconstructive thought and its roots in ancient Indian philosophy.  Haney finds links between Plotinus, the Buddhist Vijnanas, and the Brahman-Atman of Shankara's Advaita (nondual) Vedanta, Husserlian phenomenology and  panentheistic thought (the doctrine ‘that all things are in the ultimate, that is, all things are made up of one single principle, but that one principle is not limited to those worldly phenomena’) and Derridean deconstruction. ‘To understand the full implications of aconceptual concepts like the trace and difference’ Haney uses the Indian theory of language. Significantly, the Germans appreciated Indian philosophy as obvious in the phrase which describes a tradition:  ‘Indo-Germanic thought’, and, as Haney points out, ‘To make a viable contribution to individual and social development, therefore, western philosophy would do well to consider the advantages of complementing the rational mind with the experience of pure consciousness, as so many people […] around the world already seem to be discovering, partly through the influence of Indian philosophy.’

The editors hope that this issue of CLA will lead not merely to debate and discussion on Derrida’s conceptual debt to Indian philosophy but will also spur western scholars to take a deeper interest in eastern philosophy to explore the links between east and west in conceptual thought.