|
 Philosopher
of the Month
February
2003 - Mahatma Gandhi
Douglas
Allen
Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948), better known as Mahatma ("Great
Soul/Self"), was arguably the most admired human being of the
twentieth-century. Not an academic philosopher, Gandhi was never
concerned with abstract philosophical analysis. When asked his philosophy,
he typically responded, "My life is my message." And yet
one could make a strong case that Gandhi is more philosophically
interesting and significant than at least 90% of what is produced
by professional philosophers.
Gandhi,
like Socrates, was a gadfly, and he was often an embarrassment and
an irritant, even to his friends and allies. He challenges unacknowledged
assumptions and uncritically accepted positions and allows us to
envision different ways of seeing things. He explodes myths and
arrogant provincialism and challenges power positions that pretend
to be based on sound knowledge and morality.
Best
known as a proponent of nonviolence (ahimsa), Gandhi challenges
our analyses of violence and nonviolence. Violence and nonviolence,
for Gandhi, include overt physical acts, but they include so much
more.
As
with Kant and many other philosophers, Gandhi focuses much of his
attention on motives and intentions. Violence is often equated with
hatred, and nonviolence with love. However, Gandhi goes beyond most
philosophical analysis by focusing on the violence of the status
quo: economic violence, cultural violence, psychological violence,
linguistic violence, and so forth. For Gandhi, if I am accumulating
wealth and power, my neighbour is in great need, and I do nothing
to help alleviate the suffering of the other, then I contribute
to and am complicit in the violence of the status quo.
Unlike
most philosophers, Gandhi, like Levinas, emphasises the primacy
of morality. Gandhi has little sympathy for detached epistemology
that is not grounded in morality or for theology and metaphysics
that pretend to transcend morality.
In
his approach to morality in general and violence in particular,
Gandhi is well known for his emphasis on the integral, mutually
reinforcing relationship between means and ends. One cannot use
impure or immoral means to achieve worthy goals. This is the major
reason he rejects utilitarianism. Although there may be short-term
desired results, violent immoral means inevitably lead to defective
ends. We fuel and become trapped in endless escalating cycles of
violence and mutual destruction.
Gandhi’s
approach expresses an activist philosophy, which he often relates
to the action-oriented philosophy of karma yoga in the Bhagavad-Gita:
Act to fulfill your ethical duties with an attitude of nonattachment
to the results of your actions.
In
this way, Gandhi experimented with ways to intervene nonviolently
to weaken endless cycles of violence and mutual destruction and
allow us to realise ethical goals.
Although
Gandhi’s emphasis on intentions and duties often allows us to relate
him to Kant, he is not really a Kantian. First, Gandhi describes
himself as a "pragmatic idealist." He focuses on results.
When he acted with good intentions and according to moral duty,
but did not succeed in resisting hegemonic British imperialism,
alleviating poverty and suffering, or overcoming caste prejudice
and oppression, he evaluated his position as a "failed experiment
in truth".
Second,
Gandhi opposes any abstract, formalistic, universal, decontexualised
approach which is then applied to particular situations. Gandhi
contextualises his analysis and is always experimenting with an
open-ended truth reflecting imperfect understanding.
In
this regard, Gandhi presents views that are relevant to recent philosophical
developments regarding pragmatism, phenomenology and hermeneutics,
relativism, anti-essentialism, and postmodernism. How do we deal
with the inadequate dichotomy of universal, absolute, essentialism
versus particular, relative, anti-essentialism? Gandhi, avoiding
a kind of facile relativism, embraces absolute universals, such
as nonviolence, truth and the unity of all life. But Gandhi also
maintains that as particular, relative, embodied human beings, none
of us fully comprehends the absolute. The unity is always a unity
with particular differences. The absolute may serve as a regulative
ideal, but at most we have "glimpses" of truth that is
always relative.
Therefore,
we should be tolerant of the other, who has truths that we do not
have, and we should realise that the movement toward greater truth
is an action-oriented, cooperative, mutually reinforcing effort.
This philosophical approach to truth necessarily involves dialogue,
recognition of integral self-other relations, and embracing an open-ended
process that resists the domination of false attempts at philosophical,
religious, cultural, economic, or political closure.
Suggested
reading
The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, ed. Raghavan
Iyer (Oxford University Press)
Mahatma Gandhi interactive multimedia CD, is available from
www.mkgandhi.org
Professor Doug Allen is chair of the Department of Philosophy, University
of Maine and president of the International Society for Asian and
Comparative Philosophy. His most recent book is Myth and Religion
in Mircea Eliade (Routledge, 2002).
A
new philosopher of the month will be featured early March 2003
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