ON THE THEME OF LIBERATED LOVE AND GLOBAL FEMINIST DISCOURSE

Abstract

My exploration of the work of Pamela Sue Anderson focuses on what she calls “a philosophical imaginary” in her article “Towards a New Philosophical Imaginary,” in which she responds to Judith Butler’s theory of relational ontology and vulnerability. Anderson’s project is to recast the term vulnerable, which is often associated with feminine weakness, as a positive energy. Critiquing Western myths that portray women as less empowered than men, as in Mary Midgley’s reference to Minerva and Owl that denigrates women as other, according to the Lacanian imaginary, Anderson strikes at the root of Western patriarchy. In contrast, she adduces Michèle Le Doeuff’s contemporary myth on Dawn, adapted from the Spanish philosopher Zambrano’s figure of Dawn, and offers us a new paradigm where Dawn’s heart expresses a new framework of love that is liberated from sex/gender discrimination. Although Anderson believed in Kantian philosophy, she did not hesitate to question the limitations of it. In this context, I also discuss the modern Indian philosopher Sri Aurobindo’s theory of supramental consciousness, the French philosopher Henri Bergson’s theory of intuition, and the ways in which Anderson’s theory of love is grounded in spiritual transformative practice, following Paul Fiddes. Other attractions of Anderson’s essay are the nuances of postcolonial discourse. I explore ways in which the theory of relational ontology proposed by Judith Butler intersects with the Indian economist and philosopher Amartya Sen’s theory of capability/justice.

Keywords:

• vulnerability
• post-Kantian metaphysics
• Bergsonian intuition
• capability
• spirituality

disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The lines of Shelley occurred to me, because what is missing in this universe is the sense of cosmic love; let me ponder on the words of the Romantic poet: “The desire of the moth for the star, / Of the night for the morrow, / The devotion to something afar / From the sphere of our sorrow?” alluding to some intangible quality of love that rises with the conquering of sorrow (Shelley 683).

2 The great modern Indian philosopher Sri Aurobindo coined the philosophical term supramental consciousness, based on Indian Vedanta philosophy. It involves the processes of the Ascent, where mind goes through the process of ascent via various levels of mind like Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuition, Overmind, to the Supermind or the highest level of consciousness. The journey of Ascent does not stop there; mind, after reaching the Supermind or the highest level of consciousness, descends to the material plane. This is called the theory of supramental consciousness, and it is a spiritual philosophy. Reaching the supramental level of consciousness is also identical with transcending one’s ego and reaching the concept of the Brahman or the Absolute, according to ancient Indian philosophy. But we also need to bring down that consciousness to the plane of the body through its descent onto the body.

3 Intuition is one of the steps of Supramental Consciousness, and it comes after Illumined Mind:

Each level of mind possesses a different level of consciousness in this ascending order. In the Higher Mind, which transcends to a great extent the pulling of the half-light or half-consciousness […] It is a first step towards the Supermind […] After this one achieves the Illumined Mind which is “A Mind no longer of Higher thought but of Spiritual light.” The next is Intuition, a plane of the mind which is not only a step higher but also one that advances the senses. This stage is part of the Supramental light, but it is also a stage in which the spiritual evolution is still in progress. (Aurobindo Ghose 149)

4 I want to quote here from my monograph Negotiating Capability and Diaspora: A Philosophical Politics, where I discuss Amartya Sen’s reservation regarding John Rawls’s theory of the “First Original Position.” I write, interpreting Sen,

The “First Original Position” is problematic because it asks for inculcating the notion of the “veil of ignorance,” which means that no one will exactly know the value system of moral or political principle of the other member but will conform for the sake of political justice. (18)

5 Ricoeur says, in the Epilogue of Memory, History, Forgetting, interpreting Arendt,

The faculty of forgiveness and the faculty of promising rest on experiences that no one can have in isolation and which are based entirely on the presence of others […] On this point, Arendt uses to her own advantage the exegesis of the Gospel texts most favorable to her interpretation. These texts say that it is only if humans exchange forgiveness among themselves that they can hope to be forgiven by God as well: the power to forgive is a human power. (487)