[Advaita-l] Fwd: [advaitin] Re: Release of My New Book - On the Existence of the Self

[V Subrahmanian]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Chittaranjan Naik <chitnaik at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Aug 7, 2021 at 7:08 PM
Subject: [advaitin] Re: Release of My New Book - On the Existence of the
Self
To: advaitin <advaitin at googlegroups.com>


Namaste,

This is the link to Indic Academy's release of the book:

https://www.indicacademy.org/new-book-release-on-the-existence-of-the-self-by-chittaranjan-naik/

Warm regards,
Chittaranjan



On Saturday, August 7, 2021 at 7:02:57 PM UTC+5:30 Chittaranjan Naik wrote:

> Namaste,
>
> I would like to inform the group that my second book has been published.
> It is titled '*On the Existence of the Self'*. A brief synopsis of the
> book is given below:
>
>
> BOOK SYNOPSIS  – ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE SELF
>
>
>
> The atman or the self holds central place in the Indian civilization.
> Indeed, the pursuit of *atma-jnana* or self-knowledge constitutes the
> highest goal of human life. Yet, in the modern and post-modern eras, the
> topic of the self has been relegated to the background with most scientists
> and philosophers regarding the notion of the self to be some kind of an
> illusion. The philosopher Daniel Dennett, for example, says that the self
> is a theoretical construct, just like the notion of center of gravity is,
> and he characterizes the self as a ‘*center of narrative gravity’*.
> Unfortunately, today these kinds of ideas have seeped into the soil of our
> country to an alarming extent and, even more unfortunately, Indian scholars
> have failed to respond to this pernicious onslaught on the most central
> feature of Vedic culture. The book *‘On the Existence of the Self’* seeks
> to make up for this neglect.
>
>
>
> The book takes up the question of the existence of the self from two
> perspectives. The first is the historical perspective engendered by the
> premise of the empirical sciences that all things in the universe can be
> explained solely from physical causes, an idea that has led to the belief
> that the physical world forms a causal closure, and the consequent dogma
> that has taken root that consciousness can be explained as an emergent
> property or epiphenomenon of brain processes. The second is the
> philosophical perspective, in particular the perspective that has gained
> ground from the arguments of David Hume and Emmanuel Kant against *substance
> ontology* and the consequent discarding of the idea of self as substance;
> the result is that the self has come to be treated as an illusion or a
> theoretical construct.
>
>
>
> The book ‘*On the Existence of the Self*’ confronts both these
> perspectives before re-establishing the existence of the self. The book is
> divided into two parts. The first part presents a fresh proof of the
> existence of the self. The book takes a different approach than the normal
> one towards proving the existence of the self. Normally, the proof of the
> existence of the self is provided on the basis of its witnessing power;
> there would be no awareness or knowledge of the world in the absence of a
> witnessing consciousness; thus the presence of the self would have to be
> accepted so that the existence of conscious experience may be made
> explicable. In this book, the proof of the existence of the self has been
> provided on the basis of a power that the self is recognize to have in
> Indian philosophy namely the self’s *kriya shakti* (along with its *ichha
> shakti* and *jnana shakti*). *Kriya shakti*, as a power of the self, is
> generally not recognized in Western philosophy. When we invoke our
> karmendriyas into action, as for example when we move our hands or legs,
> the origin of this action is the sentient self and not any physical
> activity or physical phenomenon in the body. But how can it be proved? In
> order to prove it, the unique characteristic possessed by the self’s
> actions become the focal point of the proof. This unique characteristic is
> goal-orientation. It is argued in the book that goal-oriented actions can
> never originate in purely physical processes acting solely under the laws
> of physics and that the presence of goal-oriented actions is evidence of an
> incorporeal entity residing within living beings. This proof, along with
> some supplementary matter, forms the first part of the book. (The approach
> of proving the existence of the self from its kriya shakti achieves another
> important objective: that of dismantling the Charvaka / Epicurean idea that
> the physical world forms a causal closure and thus laying the door open for
> a domain of knowledge beyond empirical science.) The second part undertakes
> a systematic examination of the arguments of three philosophers – David
> Hume, Emmanuel Kant and Gregory McCullock – from the perspective of the
> Indian philosophical tradition and shows that their arguments against the
> existence of the self are products of fallacious reasoning.
>
>
>
> *****
>
>
> The book is published by Indic Academy. For those interested in reading
> the book, it is available on the site of Notion Press and Amazon India. It
> will be available on Amazon USA & UK by next week.
>
> https://notionpress.com/read/on-the-existence-of-the-self
>
>
> https://www.amazon.in/Existence-Self-Dismantling-Physical-Argument/dp/1639976477/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=chittaranjan+naik&qid=1628338320&sr=8-4
>
>
> Warm regards,
> Chittaranjan
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
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