tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674709389503889160.post7157836857526819668..comments2024-03-25T14:25:25.102+00:00Comments on Poetry as Socio-proctology: The Gita, Occassionalism and Deontologywindwheelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18099651877551933295noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674709389503889160.post-53709562816543487932011-08-03T00:14:32.464+01:002011-08-03T00:14:32.464+01:00'On the other hand, Hegel would have thought t...'On the other hand, Hegel would have thought that in the Gita ‘there is no distinction between religion and philosophy’ owing to the interpolations therein that were shelved in my ‘Treatise of self-help.’<br /><br />I'm not sure I understand the point being made here.<br /><br />My guess is as follows- you are saying some verses in the Gita are philosophical and some religious. The religious ones, in your view, are interpolations.<br /><br />Presumably these are the ones which refer to caste and duty to family and which mention specific Scriptures or Yoga and so on. The philosophical portions, I suppose, have to do with the dogma of God's impassability. Thus, nishkama yoga would be a sort of imitatio dei- God's actions are gratuitous and cause him neither pleasure nor pain, so to become more like God the devotee should act gratuitously and dispassionately.<br /><br />I suppose this is a coherent way to read the Gita. Certainly, one is entitled to dismiss the notion that one's duty is determined by one's caste. However, I don't believe that some venal priestly cabal interpolated verses so as to pervert the Gita. This is because the same purpose- viz. to show that casteist deontology is evil nonsense- is more effectually served by treating the Punditry as integral to the text. An added force is then given to the notion that casteism is silly because the message is delivered in a suave, sacerdotal, accent.<br /><br />The point I should have stressed is that Occassionalism is a way of reinforcing the Gita's status as epoche because it interposes something subtle between what is vulgarly perceived as cause and effect. In other words, Krishna's upholding of Occassionalism is part and parcel of the Gita's status as the epoche of the MhB.<br /><br />In other words, Krishna's Occassionalism is symmetric- the dual, so to speak, of Arjuna's vishada as giving rise to the Gita as phenomenological epoche or bracketing. This reveals its structure, by backward induction, as a balanced Gamewindwheelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18099651877551933295noreply@blogger.com