LIVED ABSTRACTIONS

Abstract

This paper is part of a series of connected essays that examine the conceptual formation called ‘Sikh Philosophy’. The essay seeks to understand why ‘Sikh Philosophy’ may have been marginalized or excluded in conventional Sikh studies, and explores ways of expanding the boundaries of Sikh studies to include it as a valid mode of inquiry. The essay begins by positing some possible objections to the viability of ‘Sikh philosophy’ including a reconsideration of the notion of lived experience or the lived aspect of Sikhism in relation to the phenomenological doctrine of the ‘living present’ that holds sway in religious studies. The second part of the paper sets the ground for a more detailed future inquiry by presenting a loosely formulated thought-experiment on the initial task of ‘Sikh philosophy’, which would be to revitalize the Sikh concepts as the basic temporal components of a Sikh lifeworld.

Notes

1 The terms ‘lived religion’ and ‘everyday religion’ were prominent in the theme of the Call For Papers, 3rd Conference in Sikh Studies, University of California Riverside, 2013.

2 See, for example, my essay, ‘Postcolonialism’ (forthcoming).

3 The term ‘living present’ was popularized by Edmund Husserl in his early work on phenomonology. A good introduction to phenomonolgy in the context of religious studies by Flood (1999). Important critiques of the 'living present' have been made by Deleuze (1994), and Derrida (1989).

4 A discussion of this this circularity between critique, secularity and objectivity can be found in the exchange between Asad and Butler (2009).

5 It is hardly possible to do justice to the complex genealogies behind this brief analysis. There is now a growing mini-industry of literature around this topic. A few relevant ones might include: Taylor (2007), Asad (2003), Asad, Brown, and Butler (2010), and Dressler and Mandair (2011).

6 Biopolitics simply refers to the notion that political power now exerts power over the actual lives of individuals, or, conversely, that power over one's life has become a central focus for political action. Although the literature on biopolitics is vast and growing, it continues to evade an aspect that is intrinsic to ‘the political’ as it is understood today - namely the distinction between religion and the secular - indeed the very idea that modern politics itself is inseparable from the secular-religion opposition.

7 The idea that life in general can be connected to encounter is worked out by Deleuze in in his early works. As Francois Zourabichvili (2012) states, for Deleuze, an ‘encounter’ is the name of an absolutely exterior relation, in which thought enters into relation with that which does not depend upon it.

8 I have in mind here the now well-documented and mainly exegetical works by the Singh Sabha reformist movement: G. B. Singh (1989), B. V. Singh (1958–62), J. Singh (1932), T. Singh (1936–41), S. Singh (1962–64), and Nabha (1970a, 1970b).

9 The secondary literature is too large to mention here in detail, but representative examples might include: P. Singh (1930) 1976, D. Singh, I. Singh (1976, 1985) and K. Singh (1992).

10 For Plato there is an absolute proximity between the art of thinking and thinking about art.

11 The reference to the ‘charmed circle’ of language was coined by Dubuisson (2003).

12 The phrase ‘house of being’ belongs to Martin Heidegger and is responsible for his erroneous and deeply problematic conception of language as a bounded entity reflecting the nature of self. While Heidegger was correct to assume a relationship between language and self, his problem was that he reified it, thereby construing both self and language as relatively unchanging entities.

13 I am not suggesting an either or scenario, where Punjabi is replaced English or vice versa, but rather a constructive co-existence between the two languages (and why limit it to these two?) where at the very least English or any other dominant language (the language of Anglophone consciousness) is no longer seen as foreign, but becomes part of the domain of self-hood, even as one retains a proximity to the ‘original’ Punjabi.

14 In the first version of this paper which was read at the 2013 Riverside Conference on Sikh Studies, I used the term ‘devotional logic’. This is not a term that I particularly like or endorse. But at that time it served a useful purpose of designating a form of logic that operates on the basis of ego-loss as a natural counter to ego-construction. In this sense ‘devotional logic’ is totally incompatible with ontotheology which is grounded in the operations of an ego who delimits the very rules of thinking and therefore is geared towards the construction of ego-boundaries. Though rarely acknowledged, this definition of logic and of thinking in general in the West, is an outcome of the separation between State and Church and its manifold effects which marries an ancient strand of Greek (Platonic–Aristotelian) logic with medieval Christian theo-logic, thereby defining what counts as proper thinking and logic in the West. A term that is far more useful that ‘devotional logic’ is logic of sensation. For a brief elaboration of ‘logic’ in relation to Sikh practice and thought see my essay ‘Sikh Philosophy’ (2013). A more detailed treatment of logics appropriate to Sikhi and gurmat is carried out in the book I am currently working on, tentatively titled: Untimely Logics: Encounters Between Sikh and Western Thought.

15 This is the subject matter of one of the book projects I am currently working on.

16 There might be a temptation for some to think of this ability for ‘world-making’ as broadly hermeneutic in nature, but I want to make it quite clear that I do not have hermeneutics in mind for reasons that need not detain us here. I have long held certain misgivings about simply positing this interpretative ability as ‘hermeneutics’. These misgivings will be carefully explored in my forthcoming work Untimely Logics.