Ramkrishna Bhattacharya The Jayarāśi Question The Lion Assailing the Verities (Tattvopaplavasiṃha), written by Jayarāśi probably in the ninth century, has been claimed by some scholars to be the only surviving Cārvāka work. Others have challenged this view[i]. Since there is no external evidence to settle the question, the debate continues solely on the basis of…
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya Cārvāka: The Base Text and Its Commentators from the Eighth Century We now come to the formation of the philosophical systems, each having a set of aphorisms or sūtras with commentaries and sub-commentaries. Broadly speaking, the brahmanical position was unsparing in denouncing all the three of its non-Vedic adversaries, while the materialists…
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya Besides the Upaniṣads, the origins of materialism in India can be traced to tales found in both Buddhist and Jaina works. One such tale, the conversation between King Pāyāsi (Paesi) and a Buddhist or a Jaina monk, has been cited as an instance of materialism[i]. The story, found both in Buddhist and Jain…
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya The word “materialism,” as the name of a distinct approach to nature, including human nature, in the context of philosophy is found only relatively recently. The first recorded occurrence of the term in English, presumably borrowed from French, dates from the mid-eighteenth century. “Idealism,” the contrary of “materialism,” is not found in English…
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya This is Part II of the essay “From Proto-materialism to Materialism: The Indian Scenario”. Part I can be accessed here. 6. Inventory of Sources for Studying Materialism in India What are the sources for studying the course of development from proto-materialism to materialism proper? A philosophical system in India implies…
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya In recent times all over the world there has been a revival of religious fundamentalism, bigotry and intolerance. In fact, the forces that sustain terrorism today are basically religious. Add to this the current crusade against reason that has been launched by some postmodernist thinkers. Reason is made to stand on the dock.…
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts Marx emphasized the fact that humans become truly human only when they can rise above consumption and set themselves to other kinds of activity excepting those meant to supply their daily needs, the means of subsistence. One of their objections against the capitalist society, nay of class…
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya Sebastiano Timpanaro believed that ‘the agreement between materialism and Leopardian pessimism had its basis in hedonism; and hedonism is the basis of all scientific systems of ethics’ (On Materialism p.66). I have already critiqued Timpanaro’s concept of ‘materialist pessimism’ (Psyche and Society 11: 2 December 2013, 7-15). Let us now turn to…
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya Sebastiano Timpanaro One of the novel and surprising concepts proposed by Sebastiano Timpanaro (1923-2000), the well-known Marxist philologist-cum-philosopher, is that of ‘materialist pessimism’ (p.66). His plea is to recognize this concept as a part of the Marxist worldview. Time and again he comes back to it in his book, Sul Materialismo (1970, translated…