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Consciousness and Śakti-based Vedānta cosmopsychism: A philosophical reconstruction of Jīva’s Bhedābheda Vedānta

Ricardo Sousa Silvestre

Religious Studies May 14, 2026 DOI: 10.1017/s0034412526101619 (opens in new tab)

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Characteristics Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed
Topics Philosophy of mind
Keywords Metaphysics Consciousness Individuation Philosophical theory Key lock Philosophical methodology Contemporary philosophy Epistemology Metaphilosophy Philosophy of language Term time Vocabulary Analytic philosophy Modern philosophy
Key points Argues that Jīva Gosvāmī's thought can be interpreted as a distinctive form of priority cosmopsychism, termed 'śakti-based Vedānta cosmopsychism', which offers insights into contemporary problems in the philosophy of consciousness.

Abstract

Abstract This paper explores the implications of Jīva Gosvāmī’s (sixteenth century) Bhedābheda Vedānta for the contemporary philosophical debate on consciousness, thereby contributing to the broader and growing interest in the insights that Indian traditions may bring to current discussions in the philosophy of mind. More specifically, I develop here a metaphysical, coarse-grained partial reconstruction of Jīva’s thought, arguing that it can be interpreted as a distinctive form of priority cosmopsychism, which I term śakti-based Vedānta cosmopsychism . Needless to say, this involves both a terminological and a taxonomical task, as I seek to clarify how key aspects of Jīva’s thought can be articulated through the conceptual framework and vocabulary of contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of mind. In the final part of the paper, I turn to a more fine-grained analysis, examining the implications of śakti-based Vedānta cosmopsychism for central issues in the philosophy of consciousness, including the causal exclusion problem and the explanatory gap problem, here framed as the individuation problem. I also address some few objections, among them a cosmopsychist formulation of the Vedāntic problem of imperfection.

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