Sambodhi 1989 Vol 16

SR No.: 520766
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Ramesh S Betai, Yajneshwar S Shastri
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1989
Total Pages: 309
Language: English, Sanskrit, Prakrit, Gujarati
Classification: Magazine, India_Sambodhi, & India
File Size: 10 MB

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Derrida writes: "To write is not only to know that the Book does not exist and that for ever there are books, against which the meaning of a world not conceived by an absolute subject is shattered, before it has even become a unique meaning... It is not only to have lost the theological certainty of seeing every page bind itself into the unique text of truth...(to write) is also to be incapable of making meaning absolutely precede writing, it is thus to lower meaning while simultaneously elevating inscription." For Derrida thus, writing is inauguaral and the absence of the Jewish God, the absence and haunting of the Divine Sign regulates all modern criticism and aesthetics.
For Derrida, the mysticisms of the Plenum, of the Void and of the Unity of opposites are logocentric mysticisms i. e. focussed, framed or centered. 23
Radhakrishnan's mysticism is based on the foundational nature of Being which is felt in the spiritual experience. For Radhakrishnan, the validity of such an experience is self-certifying. Derrida's differential mysticism involves a joyous affirmation without nostalgia, "with a certain laughter and certain step of the dance.25
IV
Logocentrism:
If we apply Derrida's criteria, Radhakrishnan's foundational philosophy of Being is logocentric. Derrida finds that the philosophical discourse from Plato to Austin is logocentric.
'Logos' is a term for absolute or foundation, the self-certifying presence of which is assumed to be given directly'. Such a foundation constitutes trancendental signified which is "unaffected by signifying system which. represents it."26
Every notion of an Absolute as origin, as end, as centre, as circumference i.e. every sense of Absolute as an all-inclusive frame accounting for everything derived from it is logocentric according to Derrida." All forms of Vedanta are logocentric in this sense according to Magliola. Passages on intuition, Absolute, God, religious experience and mysticism in Radhakrishnan's texts would also illustrate the kind of logocentrism highlighted by Derrida.