Panentheistic Cosmopsychism: Swami Vivekananda’s Sāṃkhya-Vedāntic Solution to the Hard Problem of Consciousness
Panentheism and Panpsychism April 29, 2020 DOI: 10.30965/9783957437303_015 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Citations | 4 |
| Key points | Argues that Vivekananda's panentheistic cosmopsychism, which posits Divine Consciousness as the sole reality, offers a distinctive and potentially advantageous framework for understanding consciousness that merits attention from contemporary philosophers. |
Abstract
This chapter provides the first detailed examination of the views on consciousness of Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), the famous nineteenth-century Indian monk who introduced Hinduism and Vedānta to the West. First, I present Vivekananda’s metaphysical framework of panentheistic cosmopsychism, according to which the sole reality is Divine Consciousness, which manifests as everything in the universe. As we will see, his panentheistic cosmopsychism combines elements from the classical Indian philosophical traditions of Sāṃkhya and Advaita Vedānta as well as the teachings of his guru Sri Ramakrishna (1836-1886). Then I reconstruct his sophisticated arguments in favor of panentheistic cosmopsychism. I argue that Vivekananda’s panentheistic cosmopsychism, in light of its distinctive features and its potential philosophical advantages over rival theories of consciousness, deserves to be taken seriously by contemporary philosophers of mind and religion.
Comparable studies
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| Psychosis as a state of aberrant salience: a framework linking biology, phenomenology, and pharmacology in schizophrenia. | 2003 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| From dopamine to salience to psychosis--linking biology, pharmacology and phenomenology of psychosis. | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How do the brain's time and space mediate consciousness and its different dimensions? Temporo-spatial theory of consciousness (TTC). | 2017 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The phenomenology of deep brain stimulation-induced changes in OCD: an enactive affordance-based model. | 2013 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Looking for the Self: Phenomenology, Neurophysiology and Philosophical Significance of Drug-induced Ego Dissolution | 2017 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cited by 3
Cites 3
- Beyond Combination: How Cosmic Consciousness Grounds Ordinary Experience Journal of the American Philosophical Association 2018
- Connecting Consciousness to Physical Causality: Abhinavagupta’s Phenomenology of Subjectivity and Tononi’s Integrated Information Theory Religions July 1, 2016
- A Cognitive Science View of Abhinavagupta’s Understanding of Consciousness Religions August 13, 2014