Divisions

When divisions arise against my desire, I have to find the courage to live them as lovingly as I tried to prevent them. (Henri Nouwen)

Recognition of Darkness

Nouwen writes in Sabbatical Journey: "I feel lonely, depressed, and unmotivated. The same old pain that has been with me for many years and never seems to go completely away. I realize that my busyness is a way to keep my depression at bay. It doesn't work. I have to pray more. I know that I need to just sit in God's presence and show God all my darkness. But everything in me rebels against that. Still, I know it is the only way out."

A Bullet

The heroine (Alia Bhatt), with a gun in her hand, asks the hero (Randeep Hooda) in the movie Highway, "A bullet can kill only one person, right?" The hero removing the weapon from her hand says, "It kills two persons, the one who is shot at, and the one who shoots."

The prayer of the humble pierces the clouds

The prayer of the humble pierces the clouds, and it will not rest until it reaches its goal; it will not desist until the Most High responds and does justice for the righteous. (Sir 35:21)

Light of Forgiveness

Forgiveness does not change the past, but it enlarges your future. You can't rid darkness by means of darkness. You can't overcome evil with evil. You can't wage a war against war or terror. Violence is not the solution to violence. You can overcome evil only with good. The solution for war is forgiveness, fraternity, compassion, love. To dispel darkness you need to bring light in. "O Lord, in your light, we see light." Let the God in me see the God in the world; let the divine in me meet the divine in the world.

What should I focus on?

The way for us to be in this world is to focus on the spiritual life - our own as well as the spiritual life of each one of the people that we meet. All the rest pales before these "spiritual events," which will become part of our enduring search for the truth of life and the love of God. (Henri Nouwen, Sabbatical Journey.)

“The Solitary Reaper” by William Wordsworth

“The Solitary Reaper” is a short lyrical ballad, composed of thirty-two lines and divided into four stanzas. As the title suggests, the poem is dominated by one main figure, a Highland girl standing alone in a field harvesting grain. The poem is written in the first person and can be classified as a pastoral, or a literary work describing a scene from country life. The eyewitness narration conveys the immediacy of personal experience, giving the reader the impression that the poet did not merely imagine the scene but actually lived it. However, Wordsworth’s sister, Dorothy, writes in her Recollections of a Tour in Scotland that the idea for “The Solitary Reaper” was inspired by an excerpt from Thomas Wilkinson’s manuscript Tours to the British Mountain: "Female who was reaping alone, she sang in Erse as she bended over her sickle, the sweetest human voice I ever heard. Her strains were tenderly melancholy."

“The Solitary Reaper” begins with the speaker (or it could be the author himself perhaps) asking the reader to “behold” the girl as she works in the field. The first stanza is a straightforward description of the scene. The girl is standing alone in the field, cutting grain, and singing a “melancholy strain (tune).” Wordsworth emphasizes the girl’s solitude by using words such as “single,” “solitary,” “by herself,” and “alone.” Solitaries are common figures in Wordsworth’s poetry and are usually surrounded by a natural environment. The act of reaping alone in the field binds the girl intimately to the earth. Also, as the girl sings and the melody fills the lonely valley, she becomes almost completely merged with nature.

The next two stanzas describe the speaker’s reaction to the maiden’s song. The words of the song are in a language unknown to him, but he remains transfixed by the melody, which seems to stretch the limits of time and space. He associates the sweetness of the reaper’s song with the beautiful cries of the nightingale and the cuckoo, both familiar images of transcendence in Romantic poetry. As he allows the song to engulf his consciousness, he envisions far-off places and times of long ago. His imagination transports him from the field in which he stands to the edge of infinity.

In the fourth stanza, the speaker abruptly shifts his attention from his musings to the scene before him. He continues to listen, but the transcendent moment is past. He again calls attention to the reaper, who is unaware of the speaker’s presence or the effect her song has had on him. As the speaker walks away from the field, the song fades from his hearing, but its plaintive (sad) melody echoes in his heart and his imagination.

Taken from: http://www.enotes.com/topics/solitary-reaper/in-depth, slightly edited.

Personal Encounter with the Lord

Life becomes an unbearable burden whenever we lose touch with the presence of a loving Saviour and see only hunger to be alleviated, injustice to be addressed, violence to be overcome, wars to be stopped, [problems to be solved, order to be achieved] and loneliness to be removed. All these are critical issues, and Christians must try to solve them; however, when our concern no longer flows from our personal encounter with the living Christ, we feel oppressive weight. (Nouwen)

Jubilee and Provincial Community Day Celebrations

We had the Jubilee celebration of the Salesians of Guwahati Province, and also of the Provincial Community Day at Provincial House, Guwahati. I thank the Lord for these confreres, and for Fr V.M. Thomas, our Provincial. May God bless them all!

Enhancing Teacher Skills

The four-day course "Enhancing Teacher Skills: Effective Communication and English Language Skills for Better Teaching" began today at Don Bosco College, Tura. There are 31 participants for this course from all over the Garo Hills. It is basically an English improvement course desgined for teachers. We can see a lot of interest and enthusiasm in these teachers who want to learn the language well in order to teach better, and thus inspire their students.

Most worth telling...

I believe what is most worth telling is always what cannot be told.  (Gadamer, "Die Kunst, unrecht haben zu können: Gespräch mit dem Philosophen Hans-Georg Gadamer," Süddeutsche Zeitung 34 [1990] 16; quoted in Jean Grondin, Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics 166 n. 37.) What we say always mean more than is actually expressed. "A meaning, an intention always goes above and beyond what is actually captured in language, in words that reach others. An insatiable yearning for the right word – that is what constitutes the genuine life and nature of language." (Gadamer, "Grenzen der Sprache," 99; quoted in Grondin 123.)

Consumerism = Consuming Desires?

The basic problem with consumer society is not that it makes us desire too much, but that it makes us desire too little. We are distracted from our true freedom. (Tony Kelly, Consuming Passions: Christianity and the Consumer Society [Sydney: Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, 1995] 11; quoted in Gallagher, Clashing Symbols: An Introduction to Faith and Culture, new and revised edition [London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2003] 129.)

Youth Ministry

The current challenge in youth ministry is not religious but anthropological: it is about who they are becoming. This question of identity requires a prior critique of the manipulative images in the dominant culture. (Riccardo Tonelli, unpublished paper on youth ministry, European Symposium, Rome, May 1994;  quoted in Michael Paul Gallagher, Clashing Symbols: An Introduction to Faith and Culture, new and revised edition [London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2003] 145.)

Cosmic Christ

Richard Rohr writes: Trinitarian theology offers us perhaps the best foundation for true interfaith dialogue and friendship we’ve ever had, because now Christians don’t have Jesus as our primary or only trump card. This makes mutual respect and intelligent dialogue with other religions easier and much more natural. Up to now, we’ve generally used Jesus in a competitive way instead of a cosmic way, and thus others hear our Gospel at a tribal, “Come join us—or else” level. This is a far cry from the Universal Christ of Colossians “who reconciles all things to himself . . . in heaven and on earth” (Colossians 1:20). In short, we made Jesus Christ into an exclusive savior instead of the totally inclusive savior he was meant to be. As my friend Brian McLaren likes to put it, “Jesus is the Way—he’s not standing in the way!”

Method of Philosophy

The method of philosophy is rational reflection. Philosophy starts with the experience of facts, events, or phenomena of matter, life and mind. In other words, philosophy employs not only data of sense but also data of consciousness. We can call this a generalised empirical method. (If natural and physical sciences use an empirical method consisting only of data of sense, philosophy uses a generalised empirical method that includes not just data of sense but also data of consciousness.) Philosophical method is not divorced from the world of our common experience, and so its method is empirical. Experience leads to a formulation of hypothesis, and a critical reflection and verification on it to give a satisfactory philosophical judgment. Here, verification does not mean an experiential verification by experiment or observation (as in the natural sciences). Philosophical verification should be consistent with the facts of experience; it must be able to harmonize the judgments of facts with judgments of values.

But what is a method? A method is a normative pattern of recurrent and related operations yielding cumulative and progressive results. It is not a recipe like for a cake or for making biriyani – yielding the same results again and again. Method is not a set of rules to be blindly followed. It is a framework for collaborative creativity.

Substance and Causality

Space, time, causality and substance are fundamental categories of knowledge. That is why a thing is defined as a substance existing somewhere in space and at a certain point of time having the power to produce changes in other things. Let us in this section try to understand what we mean by the notions of substance and causality.

Substance or Thing
(1) A substance or thing is that which is permanent in the midst of changes--that which remains essentially the same throughout all the successive changes of state which it undergoes in course of time, and sustains and holds these changes together, gives them a certain continuity, connection, and unity.

(2) A substance, regarded as a permanent entity amidst all changes, implies also the notion that it is a centre of effort, energy, and activity. For its permanence implies a continuous effort of self-assertion and self-preservation, which consists in resisting and overcoming the external forces acting upon it. By substances we mean the permanent principle of identity in the midst of change and difference. Qualities and activities exist in it.

(3) A substance has an essence and manifestations. Qualities are the manifestations of a substance. Without qualities it is a meaningless essence, just as qualities are meaningless without a substance.

(4) Things or substances have powers and capacities. They have powers of acting on other things. For instance, water can moisten the soil, fire can burn combustible things. Capacities are the passive, latent powers.

Descartes defines substance as what exits in itself and conceived by itself. For him, God is the absolute substance; mind and matter created by God are relative substances.

Causality
Cause and change are related notions. Why does a change happen? It is produced by its cause. Here we shall discuss only the notion of  causality. It shows that a cause produces an effect, and that a particular cause produces a particular effect. Cause, according to popular conception, can be thought of as a power or force which produces the effect. We are familiar with the dilemma, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Here is an effort to understand the cause-effect relationship. From the very beginning, the investigation of the natural world consisted in the search for the relevant causes of a variety of natural phenomena.

Aristotle recognises four types of things that can be given in answer to a why-question:
(1) The material cause: “that out of which”, e.g., the bronze of a statue.
(2) The formal cause: “the form”, “the account of what-it-is-to-be”, e.g., the shape of a statue.
(3) The efficient cause: “the primary source of the change or rest”, e.g., the artisan, the art of bronze-casting the statue, the man who gives advice, the father of the child.
(4) The final cause: “the end, that for the sake of which a thing is done”, e.g., health is the end of walking, losing weight, purging, drugs, and surgical tools.

Causality, therefore, is the agency or efficacy that connects one process (the cause) with another process or state (the effect), where the first is understood to be partly responsible for the second, and the second is dependent on the first.

Space and Time

These notions are both puzzling and very interesting. To begin, let us define space as the ordered totality of concrete extensions and time as the ordered totality of concrete durations. (Space, time, causality and substance are fundamental categories of knowledge. That is why a thing is defined as a substance existing somewhere in space and at a certain point of time having the power to produce changes in other things.)

Space
It is characterised by relations like above, below, inside, outside, near, far, distance, here, there, right, left, in front, behind, etc. Space which is perceived is perceptual space; portions of space are perceived by means of vision, active touch, or movement. For example, our experience of the horizon of the sky as touching the ocean or the sea, or the convergence of a road or a highway are all perceptions of space. From the many perceptual spaces we may gradually frame a concept of space. It is perceived as shape, size, distance, etc. It is the ground of co-existence of things.

Therefore, we can say that the notion of space has the following characteristics:
(1) Space is one: particular spaces are all parts of one space.
(2) It is infinite.
(3) It is infinitely divisible.
(4) It is continuous.
(5) It has three dimensions: length, breadth, and depth or distance.
(6) Things exist in space.

Descartes identifies space with extension. It is not a real substance, but an attribute of matter. According to him, extension is the essence of matter.

Time
Now, let us discuss the notion of time. It is characterised by relations like now, then, soon, recently, long ago, today, after, etc. One can also think of time in connection with such questions as what is the time, what is the date, how soon, how long ago. On that basis one arrives at the Aristotelian definition that time is the number or measure determined by the successive equal stages of a local movement. It is a number when one answers three o'clock or January 26, 1969. It is a measure when one answers three years or 1969 years. One can push this line of thought further by asking whether there is just one time for the universe, or, on the other hand, there are many distinct times as there are distinct local movements. According to Einstein, there are as many standard times as there are inertial reference frames that are in relative motion.

Besides the above, there are other questions concerned with "now." Aristotle asked whether there is a succession of "nows" or just a single "now." It may be described as the meeting point of the immediate past and the immediate future; it emerges from the immediate past and grows/flows into the immediate future. It is not a mathematical instant but a duration filled with an event. There results what is called the psychological present, which is not an instant, a mathematical point, but a time-span, so that our experience of time is sometimes a "leisurely" now and sometimes a rapid succession of overlapping time-spans. The past is known by memory and the future is known by expectation. Only from such a perceptual time can we move to notion of time which is an ordered totality of concrete extensions.

The notion of time thus can be said to have the following characteristics:
(1) Time is one: particular times are all parts of one time.
(2) It is infinite.
(3) Time is also infinitely divisible.
(4) It is continuous.
(5) It has only one dimension. It is irreversible. The flow of time cannot be reversed.
(6) Time is filled with events. We cannot think of time apart from succession of events, outer or inner.

According to Henri Bergson, time is duration, or change, the continuous progress of the past which gnaws into the future. It is the vehicle of perceptual novelty. It is very heart of reality.

We become what we behold!

We always become what we behold. We become what we eat; we become what we read; we become what we take in; we become what we see. I am now a part of what I am trying to see. It’s exactly the principle: We know by what we are. Our perceptions are nothing but the projections of my depth – both conscious and “unconscious” (=twilight consciousness). I see what I project on to reality. Potentially, everything in the universe becomes a mirror.

The Village by the Sea by Anita Desai

The Village by the Sea is set in a small village called Thul, a village which is near to Alibagh. It is a story about the life of a family of six which consists of the parents and their four children; Lila, Hari, Kamal and Bela. Lila, the eldest child among four siblings, is thirteen years old, yet she already has the maturity of an adult. Lila’s family represents the typical lives of families in the small fishing village of Thul. While other children are fortunate enough to have parents or at least the fathers to go fishing and provide food for them, Lila’s siblings have to survive on their own since their mother is sick while their father has always been drunk. For that reason, Lila plays the role as the mother by doing the house work. Her brother Hari, just twelve, is the only person with whom she can share her troubles. He works in the field behind their hut.Their mother is ill and needs constant care and nursing. She is anaemic due to malnourishment and she grows weaker and weaker with each passing day. Their father, who has been out of work for months, is in a permanent drunken stupor. With two younger sisters to take care of as well as their mother, life for Lila and Hari is not easy. Their father is not very useful as he is often away at the local toddy shop, getting drunk. There is a constant need for money as the family is almost always in debt.

One day, Hari is being told by his good friend, Ramu that their fishing village is going to transform into an industrial place with many factories to be built. Since that, he keeps thinking about the idea that the factories would give the villagers new jobs. However, Hari is not sure about the idea since it seems to take long time for the transformation to happen that he should think of another way to earn a living. Then one day, Hari decides he has had just about enough and decides to leave for Bombay – the Bombay where dreams come true and ambition yields. Hari leaves for Mumbai secretly, leaving Lila the full responsibility to take care of the family. She is left alone to manage her sisters Bela and Kamal, as well as her mother, and somehow keep the family strings together. Help comes from an unexpected source, the rich de Silva's.

 There, Hari builds a strong friendship with Mr. Panwallah, the lovable watch repairer whose shop is just beside Jagu’s. Through his experience with Mr. Panwallah and Jagu and the chain of events that take place in Bombay, Hari realises that he should return to his village with savings and help his family overcome their hardships.

Meanwhile, in Bombay, Hari works at Sri Krishna Eating House owned by Jagu, a kind person, and he is also a watchman of the de Silva’s house in Bombay. Hari being new in the great city of Bombay, and all alone, Jagu takes pity on him and welcomes him to work in his restaurant. De Silva has a vacation house in Thul and he knows Hari since Hari used to help him to settle down in Thul. While working at the restaurant, Hari builds a good relationship with a watch mender, Mr. Panwallah who then teaches him watch mending. Hari acquires the skill that he manages to repair a watch of Mr. Panwallah’s customer and make money for that. Mr. Panwallah inspires Hari to learn the skill so that one day it could be useful for him to earn a better living.

Meanwhile, Lila and her sisters Bela and Kamal are doing well since the de Silva’s family come for summer vacation in Thul. They work for the family like Hari used to during his presence. Mr. de Silva is the one who sends their mother to the hospital in Alibagh when Lila asks for his help. Their father turns over a new leaf, and accompanies their mother throughout her seven month treatment without drinking and without having any debts. After that, a bird researcher Sayyid Ali replaces Mr. de Silva’s place to stay at the house but Lila and her sisters still continue their job at the house. 

It has been seven months since Hari left his village and it is right before Diwali that Hari goes back to Thul, surprising his sisters with the money he has earned. He eagerly tells them everything that has happened in Bombay and his dream of building better life for them in Thul. He plans to adapt with the transformation which is soon to take place by working on poultry farm first. His watch mending skill would make him money when the factories are built since people from town who wear watches will come and stay in Thul to work. Hari also has been told by Lila about their father’s change and their mother’s health condition. That year, their family celebrate Diwali much better than the previous years. Their mother has been discharged from the hospital and their father is not drinking anymore.

Anita Desai has explicitly described in her very own style of writing how Hari in the dilapidated conditions of the Sri Krishna Eating House finds warmth and affection through Mr Panwallah-owner and watchmender of the Ding-Dong watch shop. Mr Panwallah instills confidence in Hari and comforts him when he is terribly home sick. He even gives Hari a vivid and inspiring future and teaches him watchmending .This shows that even in one of the most busiest, rickety and ramshackled cities such as Bombay (now Mumbai) there is still hope, love and affection.

"The Relique" by John Donne

The Relique is a poem in which Donne makes fun of the superstitions attached to the 'purely' platonic ideas of love; he also manages to satirize the society's blind prohibition against the attachment between the sexes. (Satire = A poem or prose composition in which prevailing vices or follies are held up to ridicule or scorn; or a vein of such mockery found incidentally in many kinds of literary work, especially comic drama and fiction.) The persona addresses his beloved, with whom he has not yet been allowed to be intimate. They have only kissed out of the courtesy at meeting and parting, but not yet otherwise.

He has taken a strand of hair from the lady out of love; and he has bound it around his wrist. Now he imagines that after some centuries, when superstitious people dig up the grave in order to bury another dead body, they will find this strand of hair around his wrist (still not decayed!) and begin to make myths about it. The digger will interpret that the man (the speaker, when dead and dug up) had bound the strand of hair of his beloved so as to make it magically possible for him to meet his beloved (whose hair is magical). He will take that bone and hair to the king and the bishop and request them to declare the two as saints of love.

It is funny that the two have done nothing of the sort in reality. The speaker implicitly requests the lady not to worry because at least that kind of canonization might happen in the future. Those foolish people will regard the hair and bones as things for doing miracle by the lovers; to the man, however, the miracle is a different one. He does regard that his beloved is a real miracle. He is writing the present poem to tell the truth to those who will read and know the reality of those future times when people will make nonsense myths out of such incidents. In a sense, the poem is a satire on the superstitious ideas of love and magic, rather than believing in the actual contact and attachment between man and woman.

The 'relic' of the title refers to the hair and bone that people will declare relic out of superstitious belief. (A relic means 'a thing belonging to a person who is believed to possess saintly or magical power preserved for its religious or magical value'.) The poem is a pure product of fancy. The persona here comes close to being critical of the lady who seems to have allowed nothing more than formal kisses and a strand of hair a keepsake. We know that, physical contact, in Donne's philosophy of love, is essential even for spiritual love and physical contacts are not absent even from this admirable lyric. There is, to the man, first the bracelet of the beloved's hair tied round the lover's wrist, and thus uniting him physically as well as spiritually to her. Secondly, there are kisses which he could exchange. Further, the poet expressly states that a love which is purely spiritual is a miracle of nature, and not an ordinary human achievement. The lyric is based on a tension between spiritual and physical love and the tension is not resolved.

The poem is perhaps one of the most subtle and implicit works in Donne's corpus.

Love and Failure

"If your only goal is to love, then there is no such thing as failure." (Richard Rohr)
Love doesn't expect the other to change; it changes you. Love changes everything.

Heidegger's Existentialism

Existentialism has the basic tenet that existence precedes essence. Soren Kierkegaard is the father of existentialism.

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) is one of the Big Four of the existentialists; the other three being Jean-Paul Sartre, Gabriel Marcel, and Karl Jaspers. Martin Heidegger was born in a devout Catholic family at Messkirch, Baden, Germany. He was so attached to his home soil, that he even refused lucrative offers at Bonn and Munich. At the age of seventeen, he read Franz Bentano's dissertation. This was one of his first awkward attempts to penetrate into philosophy. Bentano deals with the question "Ti to on" (What is being?) in this work.

In 1913 he completed his Ph.D. He then enlisted himself in the war though only for two months. Heidegger was a Greek scholary, an expert in medieval philosophy (especially Duns Scotus). He was also interested in mathematics.  In 1917 he was back in the army, then he married Elfride Petri. Between 1920 and 1923 he was assistant to Husserl in Freiburg. In 1927 he hastily published Being and Time, only to revise it in 1953. Heidegger succeeded Husserl in 1928, and became the Rector of the university in 1933.

One of the darkest and the most painful moments for many biographers is to deal with Heidegger's support of Adolf Hitler. Though his support of Hitler lasted only ten months, some can never forgive him that. Heidegger wouldn't dismiss the opposing professors in the university, he eventually resigned his post. In 1944 he was even sent to dig trenches by the same Nazi regime. After 1945 Heidegger retired.

Some of his notable friends were W.K. Heisenberg, Hannah Arendt, Rudolf Bultmann, and Viktor Frankl.

A major hurdle in understanding Heidegger would be his language - poetic, flowery, twisted, and even convoluted. Heidegger is difficult, often obscure. Even a fellow German would find him difficult. E.g., Die Welt weltet (= The world worlds); Things think; Blessing muses. Hannah Arendt calls him a "secret king of thought." Heidegger had an old eagle's mind.

Here we shall deal with the following four topics:
(a) Being
(b) Dasein: Understanding and Truth
(c) Being-in-the-World
(d) Authenticity

Being
Heidegger was concerned about the ontological question about the originary meaning of being and its main articulations. According to Heidegger, Nietzsche was the last great metaphysician of the West. He was pre-Socratic in his thought. In fact, Heidegger, along with Nietzsche, considers the pre-Socratic age as the golden age. The pre-Socratics, especially Parmenides, engaged in the study of Being, not beings. After that in the West, there has been a forgetfulness of Being. Heidegger says we have forgotten what it is to attend to Being, for we have lost our amazement at Being, our wonder. Being is a wonder, something wonderful, and yet we do not feel that wonder any more. Modern man does not understand the question of Being.

Therefore, true metaphysics should focus on existence, not existents or concretely existing things. Unfortunately in history we see metaphysics has been involved in distractions by abandoning the original quest to focus on Being, existence. (Let us not forget his attempt at understanding Franz Bentano's dissertation which dealt with the question "What is being?") So to correct this wrong approach, according to Heidegger, the conventional usage of words need to be broken.

Heidegger grew up not far from the centre of Black Forest and retained a deep love for earth and soil (Grund) of his native place.

We can never come upon pure existence as such.

Dasein: Understanding and Truth
Since Be-ing  (the to-be) does not manifest itself directly, we must settle for questioning it through a manifestation of it. This is best provided by the human person, der Mann. S/he is the best link between beings and Be-ing; s/he is the Dasein (there-to-be).

"Dasein" is a term coined by Heidegger. In German "da" means "there" and "sein" means "to be" or "Sein" means "being." So literally we can Dasein is "there-to-be." Dasein therefore signifies presence, thereness, thrownness.

The human person is the only being that questions Be-ing. S/he is Existenz; s/he ex-sists; s/he is the only being that has a greater role with regard to consciousness in this world.

The analytic of Dasein, therefore, is a central feature of Heidegger’s thought. Dasein becomes important because of its peculiar ontological structure. It is characteristically different from other entities, as it has an understanding of Being and can raise the question of Being. In other words, in its being, this being itself is an issue for it. Heidegger says that Dasein understands itself in its being. Another feature that distinguishes Dasein from other entities is the fact that it is a being-in-the-world. Dasein finds itself in the world, but in a very different way than other entities are in it. Dasein’s comporting to the world is different. It understands the world as a range of possibilities and it always has understood itself in terms of its possibilities.

This factor makes Dasein’s engagements with the world and its entities very different. It cannot escape from the world, as its facticity and throwness are inevitable and inescapable. But again, as mentioned above, its relationship with the world is also different. Unlike other entities it needs a world populated with entities for it to engage with.

Now, what is "understanding" for Heidegger? According to Heidegger, human understanding takes its direction from the fore-understanding deriving from its particular existential situation, and this fore-understanding stakes out the thematic framework and parameters of every interpretation. Rarely has anyone given much thought to the question of what this fore-structure is really “fore” to, and so (to put it awkwardly) the “wherefore” or “thereafter” of the fore-structure has remained for the most part in the dark. Forestructure is “fore” to assertion, if not language itself. Fore-structure means, then, that human Dasein is characterised by an interpretive tendency special to it that comes be-fore every statement. It has a fundamental character of care but very often concealed by the fact that propositional judgments tend to take centre stage.

For Heidegger, understanding should be divested itself of its purely "epistemic" character. Earlier, understanding had been understood as a theoretical intelligere that concerned itself with construing meaningful entities in an intelligible manner. But for Heidegger such epistemological understanding is secondary and derivative from a still more universal hermeneutical understanding. This understanding is "being at home with something" (sich auf etwas verstehen), which refers to a kind of understanding that is more like readiness or facility than knowledge. It is a "knowing one's way around." "To understand something" in this sense means to be equal to or master of it. This understanding is a mastery or an art. For instance, we understand how to get along with people, to care for things, to kill time, and so forth, without having any special knowledge at our disposal. This "practical" understanding Heidegger calls "existential" because it is a way of existing, a fundamental mode of being, by the power of which we deal with and try to find our way around in our world. This everyday understanding almost always remains implicit.

Being-in-the-World
A human individual is not solitary or alone, s/he is a being-in-the-world, i.e., s/he finds herself within a group of other men and women. Dasein is also "Mitsein" (being-with). Being in a group is always a mixed blessing - sometimes a blessing, sometimes a curse. That is, one could become one among the crowd, and abandon the quest. In other words, there is a possibility that instead of being der Mann, s/he could settle down to be an anonymous, impersonal "one," das Man. In other words, while Everydayness is the lived context of Dasein's being-in-the-world, ironically it also refers to the natural tendency of Dasein to conceal things, to regard them superficially often accepting what everyone say about them. This propensity of Dasein to dissipate itself in the crowd is expressed through Heidegger's notion of das Man (the 'They'). Das Man renders everything common, comparable, interchangeable. A levelling effect takes place; all that is unique and creative is stifled. A certain drive towards homogeneity takes place, which in turn encourages mediocrity and complacency. Because of Dasein's already constituted immersion in this they-self, Dasein automatically and unreflectively surrenders its own potentiality for being a true Self in order to dwell in tranquillized familiarity. In short, the they-self relieves Dasein of the burden of its own Being.

The human person therefore has two choices: either to take responsibility as der Mann (der Mann implies authentic Existenz) or surrender to anonymity and be lost in the crowed as das Man (das Man implies inauthentic Existenz). The former signifies personal conviction, the latter false security and assurance.

Sorge (concern, care) for the other is basic to man's being. According to Heidegger the very structure of Dasein's being is one of care. "Dasein's Being is care." Moreover, man is a care-taker, shepherd, and is thus open to Being. He has a vague notion of Being already. However hazy, he can develop and deepen this notion.

Throwness (Dasein's facticity) also implies finitude and abandonment. Being is therefore finite and temporal according to Heidegger. (Remember the title of his magnum opus: Being and Time.) This also signifies that man is destined for death, which creates an existential experience of Angst (dread). On the face of this experience, the human person has again two responses: to be authentic or to be inauthentic. Acceptance and recognition of his finitude is needed from the part of man. That is an authentic response.

Authenticity
It is Heidegger who is most instrumental in making the question of human authenticity prominent within and without philosophical circles. For Heidegger the importance of authenticity (conversio vitae) resides in the need to provide a foundation for fundamental ontology - the question of Being. We have already mentioned the dialectic of authenticity and inauthenticity in our discussion above. Authentic historicity is by overcoming such a dialectical relationship and thus bring to light the truth of human existence.

(Sources: Cyril Desbruslais, Western Philosophy Notes; Brian J. Braman, Meaning and Authenticity.)

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) written by Mark Twain is one of the most popular novels. It has proved significant not only as a novel that explores the racial and moral world of its time but also, through the controversies that continue to surround it, as an artifact of those same moral and racial tensions as they have evolved to the present day.

Author: Mark Twain
Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in the town of Florida, Missouri, in 1835. When he was four years old, his family moved to Hannibal, a town on the Mississippi River much like the towns depicted in his two most famous novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).

Clemens spent his young life in a fairly affluent family that owned a number of household slaves. The death of Clemens’s father in 1847, however, left the family in hardship. Clemens left school, worked for a printer, and, in 1851, having finished his apprenticeship, began to set type for his brother Orion’s newspaper, the Hannibal Journal. But Hannibal proved too small to hold Clemens, who soon became a sort of itinerant printer and found work in a number of American cities, including New York and Philadelphia.

While still in his early twenties, Clemens gave up his printing career in order to work on riverboats on the Mississippi. Clemens eventually became a riverboat pilot, and his life on the river influenced him a great deal. Perhaps most important, the riverboat life provided him with the pen name Mark Twain, derived from the riverboat leadsmen’s signal—“By the mark, twain”—that the water was deep enough for safe passage. Life on the river also gave Twain material for several of his books, including the raft scenes of Huckleberry Finn and the material for his autobiographical Life on the Mississippi (1883).

Clemens continued to work on the river until 1861, when the Civil War exploded across America and shut down the Mississippi for travel and shipping. Although Clemens joined a Confederate cavalry division, he was no ardent Confederate, and when his division deserted en masse, he did too. He then made his way west with his brother Orion, working first as a silver miner in Nevada and then stumbling into his true calling, journalism. In 1863, Clemens began to sign articles with the name Mark Twain.

Throughout the late 1860s and 1870s, Twain’s articles, stories, memoirs, and novels, characterized by an irrepressible wit and a deft ear for language and dialect, garnered him immense celebrity. His novel The Innocents Abroad (1869) was an instant bestseller, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) received even greater national acclaim and cemented Twain’s position as a giant in American literary circles. As the nation prospered economically in the post–Civil War period—an era that came to be known as the Gilded Age, an epithet that Twain coined—so too did Twain. His books were sold door-to-door, and he became wealthy enough to build a large house in Hartford, Connecticut, for himself and his wife, Olivia, whom he had married in 1870.

Twain began work on Huckleberry Finn, a sequel to Tom Sawyer, in an effort to capitalize on the popularity of the earlier novel. This new novel took on a more serious character, however, as Twain focused increasingly on the institution of slavery and the South. Twain soon set Huckleberry Finn aside, perhaps because its darker tone did not fit the optimistic sentiments of the Gilded Age. In the early 1880s, however, the hopefulness of the post–Civil War years began to fade. Reconstruction, the political program designed to reintegrate the defeated South into the Union as a slavery-free region, began to fail. The harsh measures the victorious North imposed only embittered the South. Concerned about maintaining power, many Southern politicians began an effort to control and oppress the black men and women whom the war had freed.

Meanwhile, Twain’s personal life began to collapse. His wife had long been sickly, and the couple lost their first son after just nineteen months. Twain also made a number of poor investments and financial decisions and, in 1891, found himself mired in debilitating debt. As his personal fortune dwindled, he continued to devote himself to writing. Drawing from his personal plight and the prevalent national troubles of the day, he finished a draft of Huckleberry Finn in 1883, and by 1884 had it ready for publication. The novel met with great public and critical acclaim.

Twain continued to write over the next ten years. He published two more popular novels, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) and Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894), but went into a considerable decline afterward, never again publishing work that matched the high standard he had set with Huckleberry Finn. Personal tragedy also continued to hound Twain: his finances remained troublesome, and within the course of a few years, his wife and two of his daughters passed away. Twain’s writing from this period until the end of his life reflects a depression and a sort of righteous rage at the injustices of the world. Despite his personal troubles, however, Twain continued to enjoy immense esteem and fame and continued to be in demand as a public speaker until his death in 1910.

The story of Huckleberry Finn, however, does not end with the death of its author. Through the twentieth century, the novel has become famous not merely as the crown jewel in the work of one of America’s preeminent writers, but also as a subject of intense controversy. The novel occasionally has been banned in Southern states because of its steadfastly critical take on the South and the hypocrisies of slavery. Others have dismissed Huckleberry Finn as vulgar or racist because it uses the word nigger, a term whose connotations obscure the novel’s deeper themes—which are unequivocally antislavery—and even prevent some from reading and enjoying it altogether. The fact that the historical context in which Twain wrote made his use of the word insignificant—and, indeed, part of the realism he wanted to create—offers little solace to some modern readers.

Overview
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn opens by familiarizing us with the events of the novel that preceded it, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Both novels are set in the town of St. Petersburg, Missouri, which lies on the banks of the Mississippi River. At the end of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, a poor boy with a drunken bum for a father, and his friend Tom Sawyer, a middle-class boy with an imagination too active for his own good, found a robber’s stash of gold. As a result of his adventure, Huck gained quite a bit of money, which the bank held for him in trust. Huck was adopted by the Widow Douglas, a kind but stifling woman who lives with her sister, the self-righteous Miss Watson.

As Huckleberry Finn opens, Huck is none too thrilled with his new life of cleanliness, manners, church, and school. However, he sticks it out at the bequest of Tom Sawyer, who tells him that in order to take part in Tom’s new “robbers’ gang,” Huck must stay “respectable.” All is well and good until Huck’s brutish, drunken father, Pap, reappears in town and demands Huck’s money. The local judge, Judge Thatcher, and the Widow try to get legal custody of Huck, but another well-intentioned new judge in town believes in the rights of Huck’s natural father and even takes the old drunk into his own home in an attempt to reform him. This effort fails miserably, and Pap soon returns to his old ways. He hangs around town for several months, harassing his son, who in the meantime has learned to read and to tolerate the Widow’s attempts to improve him. Finally, outraged when the Widow Douglas warns him to stay away from her house, Pap kidnaps Huck and holds him in a cabin across the river from St. Petersburg.

Whenever Pap goes out, he locks Huck in the cabin, and when he returns home drunk, he beats the boy. Tired of his confinement and fearing the beatings will worsen, Huck escapes from Pap by faking his own death, killing a pig and spreading its blood all over the cabin. Hiding on Jackson’s Island in the middle of the Mississippi River, Huck watches the townspeople search the river for his body. After a few days on the island, he encounters Jim, one of Miss Watson’s slaves. Jim has run away from Miss Watson after hearing her talk about selling him to a plantation down the river, where he would be treated horribly and separated from his wife and children. Huck and Jim team up, despite Huck’s uncertainty about the legality or morality of helping a runaway slave. While they camp out on the island, a great storm causes the Mississippi to flood. Huck and Jim spy a log raft and a house floating past the island. They capture the raft and loot the house, finding in it the body of a man who has been shot. Jim refuses to let Huck see the dead man’s face.

Although the island is blissful, Huck and Jim are forced to leave after Huck learns from a woman onshore that her husband has seen smoke coming from the island and believes that Jim is hiding out there. Huck also learns that a reward has been offered for Jim’s capture. Huck and Jim start downriver on the raft, intending to leave it at the mouth of the Ohio River and proceed up that river by steamboat to the free states, where slavery is prohibited. Several days’ travel takes them past St. Louis, and they have a close encounter with a gang of robbers on a wrecked steamboat. They manage to escape with the robbers’ loot.

During a night of thick fog, Huck and Jim miss the mouth of the Ohio and encounter a group of men looking for escaped slaves. Huck has a brief moral crisis about concealing stolen “property”—Jim, after all, belongs to Miss Watson—but then lies to the men and tells them that his father is on the raft suffering from smallpox. Terrified of the disease, the men give Huck money and hurry away. Unable to backtrack to the mouth of the Ohio, Huck and Jim continue downriver. The next night, a steamboat slams into their raft, and Huck and Jim are separated.

Huck ends up in the home of the kindly Grangerfords, a family of Southern aristocrats locked in a bitter and silly feud with a neighboring clan, the Shepherdsons. The elopement of a Grangerford daughter with a Shepherdson son leads to a gun battle in which many in the families are killed. While Huck is caught up in the feud, Jim shows up with the repaired raft. Huck hurries to Jim’s hiding place, and they take off down the river.

A few days later, Huck and Jim rescue a pair of men who are being pursued by armed bandits. The men, clearly con artists, claim to be a displaced English duke (the duke) and the long-lost heir to the French throne (the dauphin). Powerless to tell two white adults to leave, Huck and Jim continue down the river with the pair of “aristocrats.” The duke and the dauphin pull several scams in the small towns along the river. Coming into one town, they hear the story of a man, Peter Wilks, who has recently died and left much of his inheritance to his two brothers, who should be arriving from England any day. The duke and the dauphin enter the town pretending to be Wilks’s brothers. Wilks’s three nieces welcome the con men and quickly set about liquidating the estate. A few townspeople become skeptical, and Huck, who grows to admire the Wilks sisters, decides to thwart the scam. He steals the dead Peter Wilks’s gold from the duke and the dauphin but is forced to stash it in Wilks’s coffin. Huck then reveals all to the eldest Wilks sister, Mary Jane. Huck’s plan for exposing the duke and the dauphin is about to unfold when Wilks’s real brothers arrive from England. The angry townspeople hold both sets of Wilks claimants, and the duke and the dauphin just barely escape in the ensuing confusion. Fortunately for the sisters, the gold is found. Unfortunately for Huck and Jim, the duke and the dauphin make it back to the raft just as Huck and Jim are pushing off.

After a few more small scams, the duke and dauphin commit their worst crime yet: they sell Jim to a local farmer, telling him Jim is a runaway for whom a large reward is being offered. Huck finds out where Jim is being held and resolves to free him. At the house where Jim is a prisoner, a woman greets Huck excitedly and calls him “Tom.” As Huck quickly discovers, the people holding Jim are none other than Tom Sawyer’s aunt and uncle, Silas and Sally Phelps. The Phelpses mistake Huck for Tom, who is due to arrive for a visit, and Huck goes along with their mistake. He intercepts Tom between the Phelps house and the steamboat dock, and Tom pretends to be his own younger brother, Sid.

Tom hatches a wild plan to free Jim, adding all sorts of unnecessary obstacles even though Jim is only lightly secured. Huck is sure Tom’s plan will get them all killed, but he complies nonetheless. After a seeming eternity of pointless preparation, during which the boys ransack the Phelps’s house and make Aunt Sally miserable, they put the plan into action. Jim is freed, but a pursuer shoots Tom in the leg. Huck is forced to get a doctor, and Jim sacrifices his freedom to nurse Tom. All are returned to the Phelps’s house, where Jim ends up back in chains.

When Tom wakes the next morning, he reveals that Jim has actually been a free man all along, as Miss Watson, who made a provision in her will to free Jim, died two months earlier. Tom had planned the entire escape idea all as a game and had intended to pay Jim for his troubles. Tom’s Aunt Polly then shows up, identifying “Tom” and “Sid” as Huck and Tom. Jim tells Huck, who fears for his future—particularly that his father might reappear—that the body they found on the floating house off Jackson’s Island had been Pap’s. Aunt Sally then steps in and offers to adopt Huck, but Huck, who has had enough “sivilizing,” announces his plan to set out for the West.

Critical Appreciation
[to be posted.....]

Love for Love by William Congreve

Love for Love is a Restoration comedy written by William Congreve, premiered in 1695. Restoration comedy refers to English comedies (plays) between 1660 and 1710. Another term used for the same is Comedy of Manners. Restoration is significant because it marks the reopening of theatre in 1660 after eighteen years ban by the Puritans. It is a renaissance (re-birth) of the English drama. It is also notorious for sexual explicitness. It introduced the first professional actresses (females on stage).

Author: William Congreve (1670-1729)
He was born in Bardsey, Yorkshire. In 1672 his family moved to London, and then in 1674 to the Irish port town of Youghal. Jonathan Swift (now well-known for his work Gulliver's Travels) was a few years ahead in college. At Trinity College Congreve became a devotee of the theatre. He moved to London, and soon became a member of one of the literary circles that met at Will's Coffeehouse; here he met John Dryden. Congreve's first play The Old Bachelor (1693) became an instant hit. His other works are The Double Dealer (1693), Love for Love (1695), The Way of the World (1700), this last being his masterpiece. But ironically The Way of the World did not meet with the expected success, because the audience thought the satire was too sharp, and they were not comfortable with it. After that Congreve didn't write. Congreve in his comedies gave new emphasis to sententiousness, feeling, and melodrama.

Love for Love
This play looks back in atmosphere and relative formal freedom to The Old Bachelor. The Double Dealer has presented an upper-class society, physically contained within a country-house. Love for Love is set within the middle and merchant classes. Love is more important than the legacy-intrigue in this play, unlike in the two earlier plays.

The play opens with Valentine imprisoned in his chamber by the heavy debts he has incurred in his attempts to win Angelica, a rich heiress. The first four Acts are taken up with Valentine's rejection of the earlier answers supplied by Restoration comedy for men in his dilemma. In Act I, Valentine tries out various role - that of the wise man scorning poverty, that of the poet, that of the railer. (To rail here means to utter bitter complaint against someone.) Debarred from all means of livelihood except inherited wealth, Valentine has only two alternatives. He first asks his father's mercy, but Sir Sampson's refusal brings about a struggle between father and son. Valentine is driven to his last resort, trickery. His feigned madness is the climax of his attempts to free himself from his debts in order to win Angelica. Only when such attempts have failed completely can the plot be resolved. Finally, convinced that Angelica really wishes to marry his father, he gives up his pursuit of her. Angelica now admits her love for him; she realises that, in signing away his inheritance , Valentine has performed a most generous act. Angelica's affectation of pretending indifference to Valentine until he has acted generously, re-defines the problems traditionally set by the comedy of manners. Her dominance and her persistent refusal of Valentine as long as he seemed to be worldly, conclude in the statement that love require love in return, and not a reconciliation between love and material interest.

Love for Love is in many respects more reminiscent of the Jonsonian comedy of humours than the Restoration comedy of manners; the devices of an impoverished gallant to avoid his creditors and restore his fortunes as well as to win the love of his mistress, the war between the generations represented by the conflict between Valentine and his unloving father, type characters such as the bluff sailor, the credulous astrologer, the witty and resourceful servant, the awkward country girl, the boastful beau - all this suggests not only Jonson but at time also Plautus. The element of satire in the play is not, however, truly Jonsonian: the exposure of sophisticated manner in the scene where Mr Tattle teaches Prue, the country girl, the importance of saying one thing and doing another brings into the open the contrast between public reputation and private behaviour which is implicit in so many of the Restoration wit-combats. Love for Love is the most satirical of all Congreve's plays: in the prologue Congreve deliberately stated his intention of lashing the age.

Plot Summary
Act 1
Valentine Legend, a gentleman without means, is in his chamber and is trying to avoid his many creditors. He tells his servant Jeremy about his desperate financial situation and his plans to become a playwright; he also confesses that he intends to court Angelica. Scandal, Valentine's best friend, enters and mocks both the resolutions of Valentine (to become a writer and to court Angelica). Then several creditors and Trapland enter; they demand to be paid but they only find Jeremy's false promises. At this point a message from Valentine's father, Sir Sampson Legend, offers a painful way out of his poverty: to hand over his rights of inheritance to his younger brother for four thousand pounds. (Ben, Valentine's younger brother, has recently returned from abroad.) Valentine complains but finally accepts the deal as the only possible way to get rid of his creditors and to continue his courtship of Angelica. The Tattle, a pretender to all ladies and a gossip, and Mrs Frail, a relative of Angelica, enter; they all engage in a witty conversation about female reputation and marriage. Scandal closes Act 1 by mocking Valentine's project of gaining back his mistress "with a losing hand."

Act 2
The action moves to Foresight's house. His niece, Angelica, asks him for his coach and horses only to find an angry refusal. He argues he must keep her at home on account of a prognostication he has read in the stars. Then Angelica threatens to expose him as a fake astrologer and runs away as Sir Sampson enters. He has come to pursue the marriage arrangements between his son Ben - now his official heir - and Foresight's daughter, Miss Prue. Valentine arrives expecting to find Angelical but meet, once more, his father's accusations. As they leave Mrs Foresight and her sister, Mrs Frail, arrive. They chide each other for their impudence but finally resolve to make peace and see to their real problems: Mrs Frail wants to marry Ben Legend, now a suitable wealthy match, but first she will have to break up his engagement with Miss Prue. In order to do so she has been fostering the young girl’s infatuation with Tattle. So as these two characters come on stage, the two ladies leave them alone. Tattle instructs Prue about the right attitudes of fashionable ladies when courted.

Act 3
Still at Foresight's house, Valentine accuses Angelica of inconstancy and leaves as his friend Scandal promises to help him. When Ben Legend arrives he proves a rude fellow without manners but Mrs Frail, who is ready to take advantage of the situation, praises his plain humour and flirts with him until Sir Sampson asks everybody to leave Ben and Prue alone. This encounter proves a complete disaster: Prue rejects him and confesses she is in love with Tattle, and Ben retaliates speaking of his admiration for Frail; after a strong argument they call off their marriage. Scandal enters to tell Sir Sampson and Foresight that Valentine has suddenly taken ill and has some secrets to reveal to both of them. Sir Sampson fears a trick but Foresight is too much intrigued by the prospect of Valentine's newly acquired visionary powers. As Mrs Foresight enters, Scandal flirts with her and she arranges to meet him later in her room; in the meantime, Frail and Ben agree to marry but she asks him to keep it secret until he secures his estate.

Act 4
Act four takes place at Valentine's lodgings. Angelica, who has heard news of his mental illness, feels guilty. Nevertheless she immediately suspects the truth and leaves. Sir Sampson comes in with a lawyer in order to make Valentine sign off his primogeniture rights; now Scandal's plan comes to the open: as Sir Sampson demands his signature, Valentine speaks and behaves madly. The lawyer consequently declares him non compos mentis and the legal transaction impossible. Sampson leaves in a rage as Foresight, his wife and Mrs Frail enter to pay a visit to Valentine. As they learn the latest news Frail reconsiders her marriage to Ben. So when Ben tells her he has informed his father he will marry for love, she accuses him of ill-treating his father and calls off her love promises. But she is determined to marry an estate and Sir Sampson's fury against his two sons looks like a potential path to get the old gentleman to marry her. But Mrs Foresight comes up with a better plan. Now that Valentine is insane but keeps his rights of inheritance, they will try to make him marry Frail. In the meantime, Tattle tries to court Angelica, but she manages to get rid of him and the rest of the company. When Valentine and Angelical are left alone, Valentine tells her the truth about his madness and about his renewed love for her, only to be challenged by Angelica's wit.

Act 5
At Foresight's house, Angelica meets Sir Sampson and tells him she is ready to marry and asks his advice to find someone who is neither "an absolute with nor a fool." She also confesses that Valentine is feigning his madness, and suggests a plan: to let Valentine know she and Sir Sampson are about to get married; this will force him to reveal the truth if he wants to stop them. Sir Sampson apparently agrees, but in fact has decided to marry her himself. Angelica asks him to provide a special settlement to secure an estate for her descendants instead of his two sons. In the meantime, Jeremy pretends to help Tattle meet Angelical and advises him to disguise himself as a friar since she will be dressed as a nun. The Foresight enters and informs the company that his daughter Prue will not marry Ben and has chosen Tattle; but Tattle refuses to mary her. Angelica, Sir Sampson and the lawyer enter and announce their engaement. Then Tattle and Frail enter and complain that Jeremy has tricked them into marrying each other. Finally Valentine, Scandal and Jeremy come in, and Valentine declares his ready to sign off his rights, as his counterfeited madness has proved useless to gain Angelica. At this point Angelica admits that she loves Valentine. Sir Sampson leaves in anger, while the rest of the cast join in a dance.

(Sources: Ramji Lall, introduction to the play [Delhi: Surjeet Publications, 2011] xix-xx, xxiii; and http://institucional.us.es/restoration/samples/love_for_love.pdf.)

Theories of Reality

What is epistemology? What is metaphysics? These two questions can be simplified by asking, What is truth? and What is real (reality)? Knowing is a complex process of experiencing, understanding, and judging through which we attain truth. Through our knowing we attain the known, i.e., being (= reality). (It is more proper to say that we know by what we are.) But what is the nature of being that is known? There are many theories of reality that answer this question, we shall deal with a few of them.

(a) Monism, Dualism, and Pluralism

Monism
Monism comes from the Greek term monos meaning one, oneness, single, or without division. It is the metaphysical or theological view that all is one, that there are no fundamental divisions, and a unified set of laws underlie all of nature. That is, the universe at the deepest level of analysis is one or composed of one fundamental kind of stuff. Monism is against the views of dualism (that reality is two) and pluralism (that reality is many).

Monism is also based on the concept of monad, derived from monos. The pre-Socratic philosophers describe reality as monistic, i.e., consisting of a monad, or one substance. For Thales reality is made of water; for Anaximander reality is made of apeiron (the undefined infinite); for Anaximenes reality is composed of air; for Heraclitus fire; and for Parmenides the reality consists of One (an unmoving perfect sphere, unchanging and undivided).

There are many types of monism. One way to divide monism is into (1) abstract monism and (2) concrete monism. Another way to divide is into (1) substantial monism [one thing], (2) attributive monism [one category], and (3) absolute monism [one being]. Yet another way to classify monism is into (1) idealistic monism or mentalistic monism [mind is all that exists], (2) materialistic monism [one reality is matter], (3) neutral monism [one primal substance is neither mental nor physical], and (4) reflexive monism [one basic stuff manifests both physically and as conscious experience].

Abstract Monism
Benedict (or Baruch) Spinoza (1632-1677) is a typical exponent of abstract monism. For him the One Substance is God. In other words, God is the only reality according to Spinoza. Spinoza accepts Descartes’ definition of substance “as that which exists in itself and is conceived by itself.” God is the only being that exists in Himself and is conceived by Himself. Therefore, God is the only substance.

Though Spinoza accepts Descartes’ definition of substance, he does not recognise matter and mind as substances, because they do not exist in themselves.

God or substance is an absolute indeterminate being. Determination implies negation and limitation. To ascribe some some qualities is to deny other qualities of it. God is infinite, absolute, unqualified, attributeless. He is both unqualified substance, and also infinitely qualified substance. (This is how the human intellect understands this, as having an infinite number of attributes.)

God, according to Spinoza, has infinite thought and infinite extension. In Him modes are infinite: motion, intellect, and will are without beginning or end. Moreover, God is the causal chain or process, the law and structure of the world, the underlying condition of all things. He is the immanent cause of all things, not extraneous. “All is God; all lives and moves in God.”

In our evaluation, Spinoza lands into pantheism which in turn leads to acosmism and illusionism. Such a thought denies human freedom and saps the very foundation of morality. Furthermore, religion thus becomes a myth because God is just Substance without knowledge or will or purpose, or love or grace.

Spinoza’s monism is right insofar as it recognises the reality of one substance or God. It is wrong insofar as it denies the reality of many objects and minds.

Concrete Monism
G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) is a typical exponent of concrete monism, which regards both One and many as real. He identifies God with the Absolute Mind. God is an identity-in-difference, unity-in-diversity, one-in-many.

Hegel considers Nature, Finite minds, and God to be all real. According to him, Nature or the world is the externalization of the Absolute Mind. There is no world without God, and no God without the world. God is both immanent in and transcendent of the world.

Secondly, Finite minds are the finite reproduction of the Absoulte Mind through the medium of human organisms. They share in the thought and freedom of the Absolute Mind; they have relative and limited freedom but genuine. This entails spontaneity and creativity. The human person, moreover, can have communion with God. So prayer and worship become possible.

Thirdly, God is the Supreme Person. He is not an impersonal force. He is the Absolute Spirit, the source and goal of finite minds and nature. He is not an abstract One, but a concrete unity which is expressed in different objects and minds.

According to Hegel, matter is the lowest degree of God’s manifestation. We can see an increase in gradation with regard to the manifestation of the Absolute Spirit. If matter forms the lowest rung of such an evolutionary stage, life, animal mind and human mind form the successive stages.

Individual mind is the subjective mind; society is the objective mind; God is the absolute mind.

Hegel, in our evaluation, is right when he considers God as real, and also many as real. Finite minds and nature (as many) are real. We need to appreciate Hegel in explaining the relative freedom of the finite minds, their morality and religion. Other positive points are evolution, teleology of nature, transcendence and immanence of God in relation to the universe and finite minds.

However, an overemphasis of the immanence of God in nature and history minimizes the relative freedom of finite spirits and seems to regard them merely as His puppets in the world drama.

The elements of chance, contingency, freedom, creativity, disorder, evil, change, progress, and values all need to be explained better in Hegel’s thought.

Dualism
Now, let us move on to our second topic: dualism. Dualism implies there are two fundamental kinds or categories of things or principles. If monism talks of “one,” dualism talks of “two.”

Plato advocated dualism and believed in two fundamental realities, viz., God and matter (hyle). The Creator, or God, creates the world according to the Idea as the pattern which He follows. The God of Plato is the Idea of the Good, the highest in the hierarchy of Ideas. The Idea of the Good is the absolute Idea, the One, the Lord of the spiritual world, as the sun is the lord of the visible world. So it is identical with God. He is the most real, because the Idea is supremely real. God, or the Idea of the Good, is the absolute Idea, pure reason free from matter and evil. He is supreme wisdom beyond human understanding. He is eternal source of truth, good, and beauty. He is the supreme good. God therefore cannot create evil; He is the highest law, supreme law-giver, supreme justice. Thus the Idea becomes the formative principle, a creative being.

Matter or hyle, in comparison to the Idea, is non-being. In fact, out of the matter the Idea forms the sensible, material world. Matter is the primal, original matter but it is not corporeal. It is capable of becoming corporeal through the action of the Idea. It is indeterminate, unlimited, qualified. It is indefinable, formless, imperceptible matrix of sensible objects through the plastic action of the Idea of the Good or God, the Creator.

Critical Evaluation of Dualism
If there are two co-eternal realities of equal strength, conflicting with each other, one will ultimately overpower the other and rule over the universe. If God overpowers matter, then evil and imperfection will be eliminated, and good will prevail. If, on the other hand, matter overpowers God, then good, truth, and beauty will be eliminated; and moral evil, error, and ugliness will prevail. But both these contingencies appear to be improbable. Therefore, we cannot accept dualism as a theory of reality. Dualism, ditheism, or dualistic theism is an unsatisfactory metaphysical position.

Pluralism
Pluralism is the anti-thesis of monism. It is a theory that states reality is manifold, plural, many. Monism starts with One, and derives many from it. But pluralism starts with many, and derives unity from them. In other words, monism derives plurality from unity, whereas pluralism derives unity from plurality. Pluralism, therefore, stresses on the individuals and their functions in the organisation of the world. It stresses its manifoldness and variety, its infinite diversities and novelties. Pluralism formerly took two forms: materialistic and spiritualistic. Materialistic pluralism regards the individual entities as material; spiritualistic pluralism regards them as spiritualism. Atomism is materialistic pluralism; monadism is spiritualistic pluralism.

Greek Atomism
Democritus, an ancient Greek philosopher and disciple of Leucippus, propounds the theory that the world is composed of material atoms. These atoms are endowed with perpetual motion; motion is their essence. They do not receive motion from any external agent; they move about, combine with others, and form physical objects as a result of the combination. They have no design or purpose. Democritus also states that the atoms are eternal. The world was not created by God. Rather, the atoms combined to form the world. Mind and soul are made of finest, smoothest, nimblest atoms. Brain is the seat of thought; liver is the seat of desires; and heart is the seat of feelings and emotions.

Another exponent of atomism is Epicurus. According to him, the world is neither created nor destroyed; it is composed of atoms moving in empty space, which have weight. Mechanical causes explain the world. Final causes are not necessary to account for its unity. The soul is material and composed of exceedingly fine matter. It is destroyed with the body.

Monadism
Leibnitz is the father of spiritualistic pluralism which assumes the form of monadism. According to him, the ultimate units of the reality are are spiritual atoms or forces called "monads." Monads are unextended, immaterial substances, spiritual atoms, which are essentially self-active in nature: they are metaphysical points as opposed to physical and mathematical points. Monads are self-active and develop from within. They are self-existent and self-centred entities. They are "windowless": no influence can come into them and no influence can pass out of them. They were created by God, the Monad of monads, and pre-adjusted to one another. This pre-established harmony accounts for correspondence among them and correspondence between body and mind.

(b) Realism and Idealism
There are various types of realism that answer the questions: What do we know? What is the nature of the being that is known? Do we know external objects or subjective ideas? Let us now discuss a few types of realism and idealism.

Realism
Realism is the doctrine which recognizes the reality of the external world independent of minds. We shall here discuss two types of realism: naive or popular realism and scientific or critical realism.

Naive or Popular Realism
According to naive realism, our ideas are exact copies of the external real things and their qualities. All the qualities of matter are real and objective existences in nature; they exist in things themselves. Thus colour, taste, smell, heat and cold are as much absolute and objective qualities of things as extension, impenetrability, motion, rest, solidity and the like are. Extension, solidity, etc., are called primary qualities, while colour, taste, etc., are called secondary qualities.

Primary qualities are thought to be properties of objects that are independent of any observer, such as solidity, extension, motion, number and figure. These characteristics convey facts. They exist in the thing itself, can be determined with certainty, and do not rely on subjective judgments. For example, if a ball is spherical, no one can reasonably argue that it is triangular.

Secondary qualities are thought to be properties that produce sensations in observers, such as color, taste, smell, and sound. They can be described as the effect things have on certain people. Knowledge that comes from secondary qualities does not provide objective facts about things.

Primary qualities are measurable aspects of physical reality. Secondary qualities are subjective.

Scientific or Critical Realism
John Locke advocates scientific or critical realism, which draws a distinction between primary qualities and secondary qualities of matter. He regards the former as real and objective qualities of matter, whereas he regards the latter as only subjective states or ideas of our mind. For example, what is sweet to one is bitter to another. Heat and cold are very subjective. Therefore, secondary qualities are not objective qualities, rather they are subjective modes of our sensibility. Colours, sound, odours, tastes, temperatures, etc., cannot exist apart from our sensibility. They are sensations. They do not belong to the objects themselves. But, on the other hand, primary qualities of motion, solidity, etc., belong to the physical objects themselves. They are universal and permanent. Therefore, according to scientific realism (also called empiricism by some) our ideas are representations of actual realities only in respect to secondary qualities of matter.

Idealism
According to idealism, the ideal is the real and the real is the ideal. Idealism denies the reality of external objects independent of the knowing minds. The mind is the primary reality. According to idealism, reality is the projection of our ideas / our mind.

Subjective Idealism
George Berkeley is the advocate of subjective idealism (also considered by some a type of empiricism). According to him, esse est percipi (Existence is perception). Berkeley states matter is a cluster of qualities (primary and secondary). Both primary and secondary qualities, for him, are subjective ideas of the mind. Thus the world is just a projection of our ideas or perceptions. Now,  according to Berkeley, these ideas or perceptions are not created by ourselves, but are communicated to us by God. God is the cause of our sensations. Berkeley, moreover, denies the existence of the external world. But is he a solipsist? (Solipsism means: I don't know anything beyond myself and my ideas. Each person is shut up to herself alone, souls ipse.) Since Berkeley at least maintains that it is God who creates the sensations in us, we can say that he does not deny the possibility of objects or being outside one's own mind. Thus Berkeley is not to be considered a solipsist.

Critical Idealism
Here we shall discuss the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. He divides reality into phenomena (things-as-perceived) and noumena (things-in-themselves). According to him, we can only know phenomena. Though noumena exist outside and are independent of the mind, they are unknown, they cannot be known. We know only phenomena or appearances, through pure reason or theoretical reason.

According to Kant's critical idealism (also called transcendental idealism), our mind has categories of understanding. Category for him does not mean a classificatory division, but a pure concept of understanding, it is a condition of possibility of objects (knowing them). Therefore our mind is not a tabula rasa (blank slate). It has categories like substance, causality, number, reality, sensation, etc., within a framework of space and time. Hence we can only know impressions and sensations (phenomena), not reality in itself.

Moreover, it also implies that there is no mind-independent world. The order we see, the world we experience are all dependent on our mind. There is not order out there, but it is I who give order. For example, if I talk of planetary "system," such an order or system is imposed by my mind onto reality. Co-existence, succession, substance, quality, cause, effect, unity, plurality: all these do not exist in things themselves, they are contributions of the mind. (Two people meet with an accident in the same place and at the same time. One becomes bitter about that experience, the other becomes better, positive, etc., as a result of the same accident which has made the first one bitter. How is this possible?)

Idealism of Absolute Identity
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775–1854) is, along with J.G. Fichte and G.W.F. Hegel, one of the three most influential thinkers in the tradition of ‘German Idealism’. Schelling was born in Leonberg near Stuttgart on 27 January 1775. He attended a Protestant seminary in Tübingen from 1790 to 1795. For some time, he was a close friend of Hegel. He changed his thinking so often, that it is difficult to attribute one specific philosophic conception to him.

Though influenced by Fichte, Schelling was more interested in Nature than Fichte himself. Schelling therefore propounded a theory of Absolute Identity of Subject and Object (Nature). On the one hand, the Absolute as Subject gives rise to finite subjects with human consciousness. On the other hand, the Absolute as Object gives rise to finite objects which in human consciousness move towards the Spirit.

Schelling’s standpoint is more pantheistic than Fichte’s, since he upheld the ultimate Identity of subjects in a Subject, of objects in an Object, and of Subject and Object in an Absolute Identity. And more importantly, he landed into an eclecticism: he tried too many disparate views, that not even the mysticism of St. John could provide him with the platform to realise his eclectic dream. Hegel’s criticism is that Schelling’s Absolute is like a dark night in which all the cows look black. Hegel in his turn will try to show clearly all the distinctions within the Absolute.

Objective or Absolute Idealism
The thought of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)  can be termed as objective idealism or absolute idealism. Hegel can be considered as “The German Philosopher.” The greatest German philosopher since Kant. The most systematic of the post-Kantian idealists, Hegel attempted, throughout his published writings as well as in his lectures, to elaborate a comprehensive and systematic ontology from a “logical” starting point. He is perhaps most well-known for his teleological account of history, an account which was later taken over by Marx and “inverted” into a materialist theory of an historical development culminating in communism.

Born in 1770 in Stuttgart, Hegel spent the years 1788–1793 as a theology student in nearby Tübingen, forming friendships there with fellow students, the future great romantic poet Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843) and Friedrich von Schelling (1775–1854), who, like Hegel, would become one of the major figures of the German philosophical scene in the first half of the nineteenth century. First, he was a journalist, then a principal of High School, finally a Professor of Philosophy and Rector of the University of Berlin. Some of his works are: The Phenomenology of the Mind (1807), The Science of Logic (1812-1816), The Philosophy of Right (1821), The Philosophy of History (posthumous).

His Triadic Division of Philosophy
Hegel divides philosophy into: Logic, the Philosophy of Spirit and the Philosophy of Nature. His vision of reality envisages an Absolute (Logos or Idea) which manifests itself in a triadic process of dialectic: Nature (the World) and the Finite mind or spirit (in effect, the human spirit) are the fields in which this Absolute unfolds or realises itself. We need to realise that all these divisions are for unity and unification. “Philosophy is concerned with the whole and the true is the whole.”

Consequently, Hegel criticises Kant for having encouraged too many divisions in philosophy: phenomenon and noumenon, sensibility and understanding, and so on. Moreover, Hegel envisaged the Absolute not as the vanishing-point of all differences, not even an impenetrable something existing above and beyond all differences but something constructed out of the reconciliation of them all: identity-in-difference.

His Philosophy of God
Hegel does not hesitate to speak of the Absolute as God. The Absolute, according to him, is “self-thinking thought.” These are the words of Aristotle for God. This Absolute is dynamic: it is being (thesis), non-being (antithesis), and also becoming (synthesis). That is, it is in a process of self-development. “The real is the rational, and the rational is the real.” Reality is dynamic. If Absolute is God, then Nature is Creation.

For Hegel, Christianity is the highest level of religious awakening. The first stage of religious awakening is the moment of “natural” religion, where the divine is seen in the sensible things of nature - in plants, trees, stones, and animals. In the second stage, the divine is seen in anthropomorphic statues, as in Greek religion. Finally, in Christianity, the “absolute religion,” the Absolute Spirit is seen and recognised as the pure Spirit. Religion, even Christianity, is in the second stage. Christianity must shed its pictorial language and be elevated into the still higher sphere of philosophy.

The Absolute is Spirit. Hegel states this is the highest definition of the Absolute. All religion and science have striven to reach this point. Now, Nature in itself is divine but its being does not correspond with its concept. It is self-alienated spirit, or God in his otherness.

Hegel often writes of the State in the most exalted terms. More than once he explicitly hails it as God. It is the highest manifestation of the objective spirit, also expressed in the two inferior movements of the family and civil society. But this is the State in its ideal essence and is in no way ever immune from error. At the same time, private freedom was important for Hegel.

His Philosophy of the World
Though there are texts in Hegel to suggest that Nature is the free creation of a personal God, we must claim that according to Hegel the Absolute manifests itself in Nature necessarily, not freely. There are three stages of Nature, of which one proceeds necessarily from the other. They are: Mathematics/Mechanics, Physics, and Organics (Organic Physics). As we move from mathematics through physics to organics, we move from space to organism. In animal organisms, the subjectivity is not yet self-consciousness.

His Philosophy of the Human Person
Hegel makes a distinction between the following: subjective spirit, objective spirit, and absolute spirit. The first two are finite, the last is the Absolute Spirit. (“Geist” can be translated as either “mind” or “spirit.”)

The emergence of freedom is of key importance for the philosophy of Hegel. In fact, the basic difference between Nature and Spirit is that while necessity reigns over the former, Spirit is the sphere of freedom. As the Absolute Spirit objectifies or expresses itself in Nature, so also the human spirit expresses itself in the world--again, in three stages. First, there emerges the notion of right, whereby the individual expresses her awareness of freedom with regard to material things. Second, is the notion of contract, whereby an individual can enter into an agreement with others to buy or sell property.  Third, there emerges the notion of wrong (or crime), for free beings can dishonour or break contracts that they have made.

Next, Hegel makes a distinction between morality and ethics. He looks into the interior of the human person and asks which actions of hers are to be considered morally imputable to her. There are three aspects here again: past purpose and intention and conscience. This last stage leads us to ethics. And ethical substance is made up of three concrete moments: family, civil society, and the state.

With regard to Hegel’s political thought, we can reiterate again his deification (divinisation) of the State, which is the highest expression of objective spirit. But even this must be interpreted within the context of his metaphysics. Moreover, the State is the objectification of a people’s culture and values--in short, its spirit. Hegel also saw war as a justifiable and necessary means, when treaties (contracts) between states have been broken. War, for Hegel, was also an inevitable moment in the dialectic of history: a necessary means to rejuvenate the spirit of a people and to remove dead systems.

Another important point here is Hegel’s conception of history. Perhaps no contemporary thinker has done so much to advance the cause of the philosophy of history as Hegel. He recognises three basic ways of writing history: original history (first-hand account of events), reflective history (presentation of events outside historian’s experience), and philosophical history (thoughtful consideration of history). Hegel’s philosophy of history, in sum, bears out the truth that world-history is but the self-unfolding of Spirit.

The divine Spirit is manifested in history as World-Spirit (Weltgeist). And the encounter with the World-Spirit must be sought through an examination of the spirt of a people (Volkgeist). Hegel’s philosophy of art is part of the last stage in the dialectic of the spirit.

Social and Political Ideas

In this unit we shall deal with the following topics:
(a) Liberty and Equality
(b) Fraternity
(c) Justice

The four concepts given above are democratic ideals. With the French revolution (1789) arose the idea of a people's reign (a democracy) with the triad "liberty, equality, and fraternity." This revolution meant an end to monarchy and the birth of a democracy (though it took many years to establish the same in practice). And we need to remember that democracy is still a work in progress. The Preamble of the Indian Constitutions the above four democratic ideals, besides others. These four seem to be fundamental values that have become the political constructs of many a nation, but also they have become essential social movements throughout history.

The first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights contains the democratic ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another is a spirit of brotherhood."

(a) Liberty and Equality

Liberty
The rule of monarchs (kings and queens) and emperors sometimes meant the sacrifice of personal freedoms. To correct this democracy as system was ushered in to bring about order in society where personal freedoms are preserved. Liberty is the first democratic ideal. Other terms for liberty are freedom, independence, liberation. Liberty or freedom means freedom for all, not just for an individual.  It does not mean licentiousness, or doing whatever one wishes to do. It is not an encouragement of laissez-faire attitude. (Or one may say that social and political freedom is greater to individual freedom.) Freedom therefore entails responsibility; they should go hand in hand as rights and duties should go hand in hand to ensure order; otherwise there will be only chaos. The individual and the society (state) are mutually interdependent on each other, they help each other; otherwise the relationship will be parasitic. A wrong understanding of liberty may lead to liberalism and individualism.

Now freedom regards both the external and internal aspects of the human person. External freedom signifies giving freedom to people, and not keeping them under the yoke of slavery or oppression. For instance, giving freedom to scientists would mean that they have their freedom of research; similarly with teachers, universities, etc. Internal freedom, on the other hand, concerns the free will of the human person. Atoms, animals, plants don't have this freedom. Only humans can talk of a free will, where s/he can choose what she wants, s/he has the capacity to opt in or opt out when faced with two or more alternatives.

Similarly, we can speak of a freedom from and a freedom for. Freedom from would signify freedom from slavery, oppression, torture, unjust treatment, etc. Freedom for indicates a freedom for making oneself; it is self-constitution, self-determination. Freedom is for achieving one's dreams, to grow, to develop, to progress, to decide for oneself, to actualize oneself -- it is for one's free development of capacity and talents, self-actualization.

Equality
Remember the humorous statement of the pigs in George Orwell's The Animal Farm: "All animals are equal, but some are more equal." Equality is one ideal that needs a lot of our understanding. Some say that equality is the most controversial of all the political ideals. Let us try to grasp the basic meaning of equality.

Equality is the state or quality of being equal. Social equality, in particular, would imply that all people have the same status. In the context of the Indian constitutions, technically there is no difference between the President of India and the last man on the street with regard to their rights; both are equal. "Equality" signifies, as in the name itself suggest, a "quality"; it signifies a qualitative relationship.

Therefore, it should not be confused with identity. When I say "All are equal" it does not mean that "All are identical" or "All are same." Equality entails similarity and not sameness. If I say the morning star is equal to the evening star, it means (and I'd better say that) they are identical to each other; it is the planet Venus that I will be talking about. Here it is a case of identity, not equality. The social and political idea of equality rather implies that there are differences (cultural, social, religious, etc.). The idea here is not descriptive but prescriptive. Descriptive use of equality is when one says, "You are thin; she too is thin" or "Two people weigh the same." The example of a prescriptive use of equality is "People are equal or have equal rights before the law." Finally, our idea of equality also involves a proportional equality. For instance, the rich are taxed more than the poor according to their incomes. Here equality doesn't mean that the rich and the poor pay taxes alike, but each according to this income. That is the idea of equality, being proportional; not a blind application of principles to achieve uniformity.

Liberty vs Equality
So can we say that complete liberty logically leads to inequality? Are these two values opposed to each other? As pointed out earlier, as freedom go hand in hand with responsibility, in the same way liberty and equality need to go hand in hand. They do complement each other. As the individual and the state/society are mutually interdependent, in the same way liberty (or freedom) and equality balance each other.

In fact, in the absence of political liberty, equality cannot be established. It is impossible to make a reasonable statement of the meaning of equality except in terms of freedom. Both are complementary to each other. Liberty thus implies equality; they are not in conflict nor even separate but are different facts of the same ideal. All individual liberties are related to the basic equality of all people.

(b) Fraternity
The battle cry of “liberté, egalité, fraternité” represented for the French revolutionaries a break from the existing political order. For some of the revolutionaries, the words represented a complete rejection of the existing Christian-dominated culture. For still others, the word “fraternity” was simply a means of expressing solidarity. Over time, fraternity has meant many things to many people. Some have thought fraternity to be subsumed into concepts of communalism or socialism. Others have interpreted fraternity to represent an expression of Christian values—to love one’s neighbour. Rawls thought fraternity to encompass the “difference principle” that one should not have greater advantages unless this is to the benefit of the less advantaged. Still others find fraternity to be subsumed within the concepts of liberty and equality. [Charles D. Gonthier, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: The Forgotten Leg of the Trilogy, or Fraternity: The Unspoken Third Pillar of Democracy,” McGill Law Journal / Revue de droit de McGill 45 (2000) 567-589 at 572.]

The other terms for fraternity, the third political ideal of democracy, are brotherhood, sisterhood, and solidarity. Fraternity speaks of unity, and not uniformity. It proclaims that “All human beings are sisters and brothers. We all belong to one human family.” In social terms it is not enough to allow a person to be free and have equal rights with others, but it is necessary to help the person to develop herself/himself. For example, when slavery was abolished in Brazil, the former slaves were free but did have jobs or food to feed themselves, they didn’t have a place to stay. As Hobbes says, “What good is freedom to a starving person? S/he cannot eat freedom or drink it.” Therefore, fraternity or solidarity means helping those in need.

Fraternity presupposes the democratic values of freedom (liberty) and equality. It implies respect, dignity, and compassion. (Compassion means feeling with others, suffering with others.) Even though we may always talk of liberty and equality in a democracy, the third essential pillar of fraternity may be forgotten. When a society forgets this important value of solidarity of fraternity, we may see an increase in indifference, greed, selfishness, misery, utilitarianism or profit-making, and also a widening gap between the rich and the poor. In order to avoid all these social evils, we need to recognise and practise the value of fraternity.

The full spirit of fraternity acknowledges the just pride of others and anticipates other’s self-respect. It entails the values of empathy, cooperation, commitment, responsibility, fairness, trust, and equity. Though fraternity is not about friendship or intimacy, it certainly advances the values of courtesy, fair-mindedness, and admission of one’s own limitations. It must be extended to the broader and less personal relations of fellow citizenship and fellow humanity. Such a spirit is vital to a democratic community.

If the ideals of liberty and equality concern the individual directly (and the society indirectly), the ideal of fraternity concerns the community directly. It emphasizes the rights of the community, by advancing the goals of commitment and responsibility. Thus, fraternity is essential to the well-being of liberty and equality, because only with shared trust and civic commitment can one advance these goals of liberty and equality.

Another aspect of fraternity is cooperation. The difference between liberty and equality, on the one hand, and fraternity on the other, is that the former values promote the free association of individuals, whereas the latter promotes the cooperation of individuals in the community. Cooperation is inspired by the commonality of interests and gives rise to the pooling of resources in pursuit of a common goal. Association per se connotes a simple fact: people are connected with one another. Cooperation connotes something more: people who are connected can work together to advance common interests. [Gonthier 574.]

(c) Justice
Human rights is the minimum, but all need to get justice. What is justice? It is nothing but giving someone her/his due. The word comes from the Latin "jus," meaning right or law.  The Oxford English Dictionary defines the “just” person as one who typically “does what is morally right” and is disposed to “giving everyone his or her due.”

The 18th century architecture of Lady Justice at Castellania (Italy), built during the Order of St John, stands as a symbol of justice. There are three symbolic items: 1) sword - coercive power of a court/institution, 2) scales - competing claims are weighed, and 3) blindfold - justice should be impartial, objective, without fear or favour or bias, regardless of money, power, and identity.

Justice is fairness (John Rawls and Amartya Sen). It can thus be defined as a legal or philosophical theory by which fairness is administered. An ancient theory of justice can be got from Plato's The Republic. A just person, according to Plato's discussion, is one who does his/her best wherever he/she is; such a person gives the precise equivalent of what he/she has received. This applies both at the individual level and at the universal level.

In his A Theory of Justice, Rawls used a social contract argument to show that justice, and especially distributive justice, is a form of fairness: an impartial distribution of goods. Rawls also says that justice is the first virtue of social institutions.

The concept of justice differs in every culture. Besides the above-mentioned theories, there are others who deal with this concept. Advocates of divine command theory argue that justice issues from God. In the 17th century, theorists like John Locke argued for the theory of natural law. Thinkers in the social contract tradition argued that justice is derived from the mutual agreement of everyone concerned. In the 19th century, utilitarian thinkers including John Stuart Mill argued that justice is what has the best consequences. Theories of distributive justice concern what is distributed, between whom they are to be distributed, and what is the proper distribution. Egalitarians argued that justice can only exist within the coordinates of equality. Property rights theorists (like Robert Nozick) take a deontological view of distributive justice and argue that property rights-based justice maximises the overall wealth of an economic system. Theories of retributive justice are concerned with punishment for wrongdoing. Restorative justice (also sometimes called "reparative justice") is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of victims and offenders.

Matthew Robinson states: Social justice is defined as "promoting a just society by challenging injustice and valuing diversity." It exists when "all people share a common humanity and therefore have a right to equitable treatment, support for their human rights, and a fair allocation of community resources." In conditions of social justice, people are "not be discriminated against, nor their welfare and well-being constrained or prejudiced on the basis of gender, sexuality, religion, political affiliations, age, race, belief, disability, location, social class, socioeconomic circumstances, or other characteristic of background or group membership" (Toowoomba Catholic Education, 2006).

To Rawls, social justice is about assuring the protection of equal access to liberties, rights, and opportunities, as well as taking care of the least advantaged members of society. Thus, whether something is just or unjust depends on whether it promotes or hinders equality of access to civil liberties, human rights, opportunities for healthy and fulfilling lives, as well as whether it allocates a fair share of benefits to the least advantaged members of society.