Monday, January 5, 2009

Caravan


Thursday, January 1, 2009

Eastern philosophy

The philosophical tradition - India

Globalization in the perspective of a Mimamsak

Globalization is a concept that encapsulates the growth of connections between people on a planetary scale. Globalization involves the reduction of barriers to trans-world contacts. Through it people become more able—physically, legally, culturally, and psychologically—to engage with each other in “one world”.
Mīmāṃsā, a Sanskrit word meaning "investigation" is the name of an astika ("orthodox") school of Hindu philosophy whose primary enquiry is into the nature of dharma based on close hermeneutics of the Vedas.
On explaining how a mimansak would take globalization as, with some similarities in the ideas of mimamsa and the result of globalization, it can be claimed that they have similar direction and so a mimamsak would support globalization.
A more interesting feature of the Mimamsa school of philosophy is its unique epistemological theory of the intrinsic validity of all cognition as such. It is held that all knowledge is ipso facto true . Thus, what is to be proven is not the truth of a cognition, but its falsity. The Mimamsakas advocate the self-validity of knowledge both in respect of its origin and ascertainment. Thus Mimansa philosophy believes in not being fixed to any concept in blind way but in giving validity to all the ways of life thus in giving options and diversity which one of the main feature of globalization.
Dharma as understood by Mimamsa can be loosely translated into English as "virtue", "morality" or "duty". The Mimamsa school traces the source of the knowledge of dharma neither to sense-experience nor inference. By this we can understand that the philosophy believed in working hard and having opportunities for the ones who work hard which is much similar to the wide and global market the globalization gives in the economic aspect.
Mimamsa is essentially ritualist, placing great weight on the performance of Karma or action as enjoined by the Vedas. In this sense, it is a counter-movement to the mysticism of Vedanta, rejecting or de-emphasizing moksha or salvation. To a certain extent, Mimamsa is atheist, placing all importance in proper practice as opposed to belief. Here we can say that it doesn’t believe in having salvation just by not doing anything but praying. And the globalization which has also being spreading the sense of self dependency and encourages on being the fortune teller of self, here also it resembles with mimamsa philosophy.
Thus the freedom of speech and trade beyond any country boundaries that globalization emphasizes on correspondence to the philosophy of mimamsa. So, if I was a mimamsak I would be supporting globalization.