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Munitz has been careful to disclaim apparent affnities between his ontology
and that of the Advaita Vedaata, thereby avoiding superficial and easy bridge-building between disparate traditions. However, we would not wish to err in a
contrary direction, that of denying affinities by failing to discriminate fundamental similarities when they can, in fact, be found.
On the one hand, Munitz is careful to avoid a pitfall of Vedaanta, the denial of
ultimate ontological status to plural particulars, on the grounds that the
universe is a whole of many parts each of which belongs to the universe and
without which there would be no universe at all. On the other hand, he nevertheless, develops a sense in which the term "the world" can be understood as
similar to the way in which "Brahman" is used in `Sa^mkara. Thus "the world"
for Munitz is used in two ways, as a whole made up of parts and as an "utterly
unique individual." To emphasize the second sense, the term "the world" is
replaced by the term "Existence." It is this second sense of "the world" as
undifferentiated, as without parts, that interests us in relation to Vedaanta.
It would be difficult to locate a substantial difference between this characterization and `Sa^mkara's: "The qualityless Brahman is devoid of all
difference,"[1] or "devoid of all form."[2] There could be no dispute between Munitz and
`Sa^mkara regarding Munitz' assertion:
Any attempt to explicate what [Existence] is in simpler terms or by finding what
it shares by way of resemblance with something else . . . must fail . . .. We have
used the analysis of "whole" and "part" as a ladder to climb to our awareness
of Existence. But once we reach it we can "throw the ladder away."[3]
In addition, there is a common understanding of the task of ontology:
both Munitz and the Advaita Vedaanta consider it to be the rendering of a
satisfactory account of Existence and entailing an "analysis of the relation of
the domain of existents to the transcendent One that is Existence."[4] The
relation of Brahman to determinate entities is the central problem of `Sa^mkara's
ontology: "Some indicate that Brahman is affected by difference ... others
that it is without difference .... Have we ... to assume that Brahman has a
double nature, or either nature, and, if either, that it is affected with difference,
or without difference?"[5] `Sa^mkara denies ultimate reality to the domain of
plural existents, but its central problem remains rendering a satisfactory
account of Brahman such that its relation to plural existents is explained.
Despite the similarity of aim and the sense in which Existence is understood
as the unique individual which the world is, it would be disingenuous to press
a claim for similar ontologies in their particulars. Munitz rejects the Vedaanta's
Illusionism, its denial of ontological status to the domain of plural existents.
While Munitz argues that the realm of existents is the foundation for Existence,
the Advaitin holds that Brahman (in this sense interchangeable with "Existence") is the basis for the domain of plural existents. The Latter proposition
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It should be pointed out, however, that the Illusionism of `Sa^mkara is a more
subtle position than might be supposed. `Sa^mkara argues not that the domain
of plural existents (of names and forms) must be annihilated, in the sense that
it ceases to be as the realm of common experience (as a common cosmos) to all
perceivers, but rather that as soon as Brahman is known by any given self the
perception of names and forms disappears. Thus the question is an epistemological one, a case of erroneous perception which is corrigible upon
Enlightenment. `Sa^mkara writes:
Of what nature is the so-called annihilation of the apparent world? Is it
analogous to the annihilation of hardness in butter which is effected by bringing
it into contact with fire? Or is the apparent world of names and forms which is
superimposed upon Brahman by Nescience to be dissolved by knowledge, just
as the phenomenon of a double moon which is due to a disease of the eyes is
removed by the application of medicine? If the former, the Vedic injunctions
bid us to do something impossible; for no man can actually annihilate the
whole existing world with all its animated bodies and all its elementary substances .... And if it actually could be done, the first released person would
have done it once and for all, so that at present the whole world would be
empty . . ..[6]
In addition `Sa^mkara's position ought not to be confused with the Idealism
of some Buddhist schools. While for these Buddhists the stream of cognition
has a privileged ontological status, for `Sa^mkara the cognizing subject together
with all its cognitive and volitional acts, their objects and consequences are
equally real. However it must be acknowledged that for `Sa^mkara neither the
stream of cognitions nor its objects can be said to "be" in the same sense as
Brahman.
Still another divergence between Munitz' position and that of Advaita
Vedaanta lies in the implications for moral choice entailed by any given ontological position. Munitz denies any relation of entailment between a given
ontology and particular moral choices. For Munitz, moral choices are made
on the basis of an assessment of a variety of alternatives presented by the
special circumstances, the context, in which the contemplated action is to take
place. Nevertheless, Munitz acknowledges (in his reply to Cua) that to arrive
at the discernment of Existence is itself a good.
Regarding the relation between the discerning of Existence and moral
choice, all the Eastern systems presently under consideration differ from Munitz. In each of these systems, the investigation of the problem begins from
the standpoint of an experienced discrepancy between the world of ordinary
experience and the world as it is and ought to become for us. Munitz' starting
point appears to be a concern with language, with the logic of terms. Thus his
inquiry proceeds by investigating what can meaningfully be predicated of
Existence and by discarding all alternatives considered. Thus, for example,
Munitz concurs with Aristotle that Being (Exisfence) is not a genus, even the
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most inclusive genus, since no genus may be predicated of its differentiae and
Being must be predicated of the differentiae. While Munitz' conclusion that
Existence is "unassimilable to any explanatory or descriptive characterization
whatever" is affirmed by `Sa^mkara, the latter's investigation begins from an
"interested" life standpoint. For Vedaanta "life" (ordinary experience) entails
suffering, an endless round of karman and transmigration so that of the two
possible gains derivable from an investigation of the ontological question,
cognitive clarity (in the sense of logical coherence) and transformation of the
moral subject, it takes the latter to be the greater.
But the question still remains: even if the inquiry is motivated by moral
concerns, what, if any, moral consequences can be said to follow from the
conclusions of the inquiry. If we mean: does a relation of logical entailment
obtain between a given ontology and a particular moral choice, we must
conclude with Munitz this cannot be the case. But may we not suppose the
relation between ontology and moral experience can be situated in a different
context, that of a broader notion of experience, one from which no single
element, particularly the cognitive, may be prescinded? We mean to put
forward a notion of experience in which what subsequent analysis separates is
given primordially in its wholeness. In John Dewey's view, for example, the
aesthetic cannot be sharply distinguished from the intellectual character of
experiencing. It would appear that the boundary which Munitz is asking us to
draw between kinds of experience (the experiences of ontological awareness
and of moral choice) may, in context, be inseparable. John Dewey argues: "One great defect in what passes as morality is its anaesthetic quality. Instead
of exemplifying wholehearted action, it takes the form of grudging concessions
to duty ...."[7] Similarly, Martin Heidegger claims that only a fundamental
change in the orientation of Dasein, the "anticipatory resoluteness" which
stems from a recognition of the power of death over Dasein's existence, enables
Dasein to make authentic choices. Heidegger writes;
If in the ontology of Dasein, we "take our departure" from a worldless "I" in order to provide this "I" with an Object and an ontologically baseless relation
to the Object, then we have "presupposed" not too much but too little. If we
make a problem of "life," and then just occasionally have regard for death too,
our view is too short sighted. The object we have taken as our theme is artificially
and dogmatically curtailed if "in the first instance" we restrict ourselves to a
"theoretical subject,"in order that we may then round it out "on the practical
side" by tacking on an "ethic."[8]
I do not mean to suggest similarities in the ontologies of the Advaita
Vedaanta, Heidegger, and Dewey, but only to point to the integral character in each of
ontology and moral experience. Thus, a fundamental alteration in ontological
suppositions such that the world as a unique individual is perceived as being
different from the world (in Munitz' terms) as a whole of parts, has value not
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merely as a singular type of experience or as a "supreme good" of life. But once
achieved, this new awareness alters the quality of experiencing as such, including the quality of moral experience, thus affecting the character of particular
moral choices. While Munitz cogently attacks the Illusionism of the Advaitin
on the grounds that "to deny existence to the domain of existents is tantamount
to removing the very ontological base for Existence itself,"[9] the interest of
Vedaanta for us lies elsewhere: in the urgency which a new ontological standpoint
is seen to have, in the attempted uniting of the question of Existence with what
Munitz calls the level of discriminative practical intelligence.
NOTES
1.The Vedaanta Suutras of Baadaraaya.na with the Commentary of `Sa^mkara,trans. by George
Thibaut, vols. 34 and 38 of Sacred Books of the East, ed. Max M<u>ller (Oxford: The Clarendon
Press, 1890 and 1896), III, 2, 12; hereafter cited as V.S.S.C.
2.Ibid., III,2,14.
3."Approaches to Existence," p. 13.
4.Ibid., p. 17.
5.V.S.S.C.,III.2.11.
6.Ibid., III,2,21.
7.Art as Experience (New York: Milton Balch and Company, 1934), p. 39.
8.Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), p. 367.
9."Approaches to Existence," p. 19.
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