/lit/ - Literature

>>13801435
Stirner and Nietzsche are nothing more than manifestations of the profound intellectual degeneration that characterizes the Kali Yuga

>>12413485
>I'm looking to understand the core concepts or earliest developments of Vedic thought from a philological, phenomenological, and hermeneutical perspective.
The academics take a different view from that of the Hindu tradition itself, the Hindus regard the principal Upanishads (and the pre-Upanishad portions of the Vedas) as essentially all being a consistent body of revealed texts describing the same teaching from different angles while most academics think that the principal Upanishads to some extent contain different understandings which changed over time. The Hindu analysis and commentaries on their own texts are generally more in-depth and interesting than academic summaries written from the anthropological perspective by modern scholars, although there are occasional exceptions who have insightful writing on Hindu philosophy published by academic presses. You can read different academic works on the Upanishads but many academics will just push their own views and often disagree with each other, there is no consensus. The work of early orientalists like Muller and Duessen can be interesting but they are also somewhat superseded by later research. If you want to develop the most in-depth and insightful understand of what the Hindus consider to be the metaphysical doctrines revealed by the Upanishads I would just recommend reading through the Vedanta commentaries supplemented by a few academic works.

I'm assuming you aware of the different schools of Vedanta, Advaita Vedanta is one of the more influential schools, has the most texts translated to English, is the one most written about by academics and is most often the focus of books comparing Hindu philosophy to other schools and so unless you have a specific reason not to than I'd generally recommend studying that school (you can go and read the works of other schools afterwards to see where they differ, as Advaita developed into a formal school first they often show significant influence from it, even in their rejection of it). Shankara himself analyses the Upanishads from all those perspectives you mention, at times discussing ontology, epistemology, and also the philological such as when he discusses how we can infer the meaning of certain Upanishads passages from the grammer and conjugations of verbs and so on.

>>12043401

The goal of liberation is a non-dual realization of emptiness, and emptiness is just dependent origination
b-b-but.. I looked on w-wikpieda and it said nn-nagarjuna was i-important .. i-in Mahahahayana s-s-so I r-read him and accept e-everythinig he said on faith?!??! No the goal of liberation is not realization of emptiness, that only is accurate when describing one aspect and level of it and not in it's totality.True non-duality is distinctionless and there is neither being nor non-being, neither emptiness nor content, but this non-duality is experienced by a pure awareness which is non-different from the non-duality itself and that this pure awareness is in it's totality not a void or empty in an absolute sense but just is and this is-ness is itself not empty (btw it's a source of endless amusement to me how posters like you cite various Buddhists who say this kind of stuff and assume it references emptiness when it applies equally to pure being which simply is). Nagarjuna overly focused on negation and in doing so itself lost sight of the forest through the trees. True non-duality would not be experienced as having attributes or the negation of such attributes as fullness and emptiness; any attempt by the founder of a major doctrine (not including Nagarjuna here) emphasizing either fullness (such as Abhinavagupta) or the negation of the conditioned (Buddha) does so for the purpose of arriving at that which is beyond both. People who sperg out over Nagarjuna are like people who get stuck at Stirner, Kant or Wittgenstein not realizing they are not the end-all be-all of everything and are forever left in that method of consideration, endless posting in threads 'hey guys don't you get it this was already refuted ages ago by X' because you can't think yourself out of the box you formed with them.

>>11548693

Hmm. Unless you had specific questions about them that you wanted answered, I wouldn't really know how to clear up your misunderstanding other posting a mini-essay consisting of everything I know about them which would be pretty time-consuming. Certainly, I would recommend reading primary texts in conjunction with his works. Not only does he help you understand the primary texts better, but when you read primary texts and than go back and read his works it makes Guenon's books make more sense because you know from experience what ideas and concepts he is talking about. 'Studies in Hinduism' would definitely help you understand Guenon's ideas and his view of Hinduism better although from what I remember of reading it the book does not focus much on the Darshanas, its a collection of essays on random aspects of it like Tantra, Kundalini, the Hindu theory of elements, caste etc but the Darshanas are not featured much.

>The only ones I felt that I understood in any capacity were Nyaya, Yoga, and Vedanta

Vaisheshika is similar to Nyaya in that it is a way of classifying and studying phenomena, although where Nyaya concerns itself with the nature of logic, perception, experience etc Vaisheshika focuses mainly on studying natural phenomena, or in the Hindu view various aspects of the divine manifestation that have to more with exterior phenomena and not mental things like logic. It's similar to the Greek naturalistic philosophy like Parmenides or Heraclitus, although that comparison should not be taken too literally as Vaisheshika largely took place within the context of the Vedic teachings and in interaction with other Darshanas, it does not rely on or heavily involve empiricism.

Mimansa explores the more Confucian aspect of the Vedas, it mostly revolves around correct understanding of and the correct practicing of the Vedic rituals, understanding what the Vedas have to say about codes of conduct, rules, jurisprudence, how one should conduct life and so on. In addition to exploring the correct ceremonial methods it also involves studying dharma and what the Vedas teach about the results of rituals, i.e. about using them to dissipate accumulated karma, to prepare oneself for or to help one attain moksha or heavenly realms etc. Both Mimansa and Vedanta focus specifically on studying the Vedas, although Mimansa concerns itself with the exterior aspects while Vedanta concerns itself with the internal realizations that the Vedic texts (which includes the Upanishads) discuss; hence why Vedanta is sometimes referred to as Brahma-Mimansa (study of/contemplating god).

>>11342497

>Basically, I am interested in forms of advaita vedanta that don't assume the complete ephemerality of the self, as compared to the original ground of everything. I am especially interested in the possibility of higher selves, above the empirical/psychological self but still constituting a distinct "soul."

Not sure what you mean or whether you misunderstand Advaita.

In Advaita it divides the being into the Atma and the non-Atma. Atma is the eternal witness, forever unconditioned, eternally at peace and at rest. This in considered the only real aspect of being. The non-atma includes personality, the mind, memory, emotions etc. These are illusionary in the sense of being Maya playing itself out upon manifestation. The non-Atma portions of the being are only given meaning insofar as it is Atma itself observing them and aware of them. Without Atma though would have no reality to them but it is only through the unchanging Atma witnessing all aspects of the being that any of it is given meaning..

So Advaita affirms the ephermerality of the conventional self but teaches that underlying that is the Self which is pure awareness and is Brahman itself. The various sub-schools of Advaita mostly disagree over various implications of minor aspects of the doctrine but this understanding is present in all of them and is fundamental to Advaita Vedanta.

>>11315323

I'm not super familiar with Liebniz, I do remember that in his book 'East and West' Guenon criticizes him but I forget what the exact criticism was. There are a few similarities that I could pick out between Leibniz's ideas and the Advaita Vedanta that Guenon extolls as being the purest expression of Metaphysics. Leibniz's optimism that the universe is the best of possible worlds is in accordance with the view that Brahman is perfect, His theory of pre-established Harmony is in a way similar to Dharma. Obviously Leibniz's focus on logic differs greatly from Guenon who viewed logic as only being a secondary and derivative application of intelligence.

His theory of Monadism, like all monistic theories is closer to non-dualism than any sort of dualist or materialist worldview. His view that space and time were illusions and everything consisted of Monads is in a way describing the non-dualist view of Brahman but it falls short of actual non-dualism like most monist theories. Anything that devotes itself to analyzing a single substance as the basis of everything falls short of understanding the absolute non-dualistic unity of everything with the accompanying consequences that any sort of multiplicity is only illusionary and so on.