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In explaining the reasons for sustained existence of tolerance in Indian philosophical mind and continuation of tolerant practices in socio-political life, Amartya Sen argues that tolerance is inherently a social enterprise, which may appear as contingent, but for all intents and purposes is persistent. Basing his thesis that is opposed to Cartesian dualism, which makes a distinction between mind and body, Sen submits that Indian system of universalizing perception finds a subtle form of connection between mind and body. He expands the ancient core worldview, Vasundhara kutumbakam (entire world as one family) as a secular tolerant civil code,1which makes a connection between the transcendental and the pragmatic planes of consciousness, and reconstructs a thesis about tolerance around human consciousness, which is collectivized and anchored in an acknowledged public space in society that is joined together psychologically as well as philosophically. Tolerance as consciousness can be regarded a necessary condition for playing the role of intentionality as stipulated by classical philosophy (Advaita Vedanta; buddhi, or intelligence as in Samkhya and Yoga). Aware of this ancient wisdom that accepts relativism as an impasse over some evaluative matter, Sen avoids the pitfalls of cultural relativism in tolerance by offering an argument that is based on the metaphysics of Advaita Vedanta and other religious and secular * University of Mount Union; santosh.saha@gmail.com TattvaJournal of Philosophy ISSN 0975-332X 52 literature, and epitomizes an internationalizing virtue in tolerant traditions. I would examine some interconnected issues, such as the ethical “perimeter” of Sen’s philosophical observation of totalized value system and Indian tolerant attitudes in real life, etc., raising the broader question about the location of cultural identity in relation to supranational state organization. My chief argument is that Sen has been able to observe a connection between the Advaita Vedantic moral philosophy that informs that viewed from the Brahmanic perspective of absolute knowledge in unity, the apparent subject of duality is not the ultimate subject. My conclusion is that valuing of tolerance, individual liberty as well as civil rights is a particular contribution of Western thinking and philosophy; the Western advocates of these rights often provide ammunition to the nonWestern critics of tolerance and human rights. Tolerance and the Dualism Debate in Indian Literature The use of tolerance/toleration in its current form as diversity and openness to the life choices of others was presented by John Stuart Mill (On Liberty, 1859). Following this tradition, the value of tolerance as coexistence of faiths was developed within European religious debates that were at first completely separate from the elaboration of “rights.” On the other hand, characterizing Indian tolerance as “inclusiveness,” Paul Hacker (1913-1979) makes a distinction between “practical tolerance” and “doctrinal tolerance” to define rationality, knowledge, and philosophy, and recognizes the existence of tolerant attitude that has been common in Indian comprehensible expression of transcultural human ability, corresponding to reality.2 In this sense, Indian thought process in tolerance remains suspicious of the isolated self, because “I-maker” (ashamkara) is believed to be the source of all human conflicts. The problem of consciousness comes down to the problem of how to give an objective third person account of what is essentially a subjective, first person phenomenon. Thus, the noted Indian neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran recommends that there is a need “to reconcile the first person and third person accounts of the universe” as the “single most important problem in science” as well.3 Today, the problem of conscious perception marks the very Santosh C. Saha Tolerant Values and Practices in India 53 limit of human striving for tolerant understanding that discusses, among others, the usefulness of the non-dual perception of self. The Advaita Vedanta philosophy contends that with certain identifying marks (laksanas), the self may be distinguished from everything else that is not self. In this way, it adds, the referent (sakya) of the word “self” or “I” becomes mixed. In this instance, perception becomes our intentionality, subjectivity, sustained selfconsciousness, and our ability to form intentions, whereas in indeterminate perception, a qualifier is directly recognized, and thus, an epistemological regress concerning qualification is blocked. Indeterminate perception as awareness gives rise to determinate awareness through a natural process that has nothing to do with human desires, acts, or intentions. The relation between the two is not merely psychological, as the Dharmakiriti insists, confusing many Naiyayaikas of the earlier School, who submit that with justificatory grounds as casual instruments (pramanas), we can have “cognition”4 of the objects of the knowledge (prameyas).5 Advaita-Vedanta insists that in the reflective stage, the mind integrates the mental contents corresponding to the object with recognized precepts. Tolerance here forms part of his “capability” and assessment of “what a person can do in line with his or her conception of the good.”6 Awareness of plural truth and possibly a measure of existential perplexity constitute the seed which grows into tolerance, provided tolerance is “watered by inner freedom and nourished by truth as subjectivity and culture as historical contingency. Apathy is not any index of tolerance, but only unconcern for others. (Jamal Khawaja, Madras, 2007). Amartya Sen frames the ethical rules in Indian tolerance in general terms arguing that the concept of universal tolerance in the broad sense of norms of every human being is not a relatively new idea, but insists that the means to this knowledge has been different. In the West, dualism as divisive perception relates to the concepts of Kant, Hume, Berkeley, and Locke, to Descartes and beyond, but to Indian philosophical discourse it is more elaborative, because interactionism may not embrace a Hume-like account of causation.Thus, Sen argues that the “so-called Western values of freedom and liberty,” sometimes viewed as an ancient Western inheritance, “are not particularly ancient, nor exclusively Western in their inheritance.”7 This TattvaJournal of Philosophy ISSN 0975-332X 54 conclusion depends on accurate analyses. The mainstream Advaita School, for all its doctrinal commitment to defending a-conceptual reality, developed its own complex logical formalism as early as the 1000s. This so-called mahavidya mode of syllogistic reasoning even influenced the practice of dialecticians such as Shri Harsha, and became an object of debate in the Nyaya School before it elaborated its own roundabout methods in the form of Neo-Nyaya. Eventually, Neo Nyaya became like the European logical positivism of the early 1900s in its concern for extreme formalism.8 What is interesting is that this philosophical argumentation could not give up the overreaching bhakti-religion’s emotionalism that generated a new scholastic school to practice the value of universal acceptance of many values. Tolerance became ingrained both in concept and logic. Tolerance in India is an intrinsic value like love, whereas appeasement is a strategy for avoiding conflict and achieving success. The two broad, traditional and competing theories of mind are dualism and materialism (physicalism). The former holds that the conscious mind, or a conscious mental state is non-physical in some sense, whereas the second one holds that the mind is the brain, or is caused by neural activity. In this context, many answers are framed. Dualism faces the problem of explaining how a nonphysical substance or mental state can causally interact with the physical body. Unlike Cartesian dualism which involves a distinction between mind and body, mind in Samkhya philosophy, as in many other systems of Indian thought, has remained a subtle form of matter. Like others, the classical Nyaya-Vaisesika theory of mind and self also provides judgment that juxtaposes Western physicalist dualism and psychophysical dualism.Thus, the juxtaposition of at least two individuals, the dependence of one on the other, is the condition of possibility of all speech. Every time I take to speech, what I say depends on the other toward whom my language is directed: indifferent, adversary, or friendly, or ally. Meaning in any juxtaposition is always the fruit of collaboration, not conflict.9 Tolerance, combining mind and body in India, Sen posits, is inescapably plural in concept and hence in evaluation (Sen’s parameterization). Sen’s account, drawing our attention to the internal pluralism of the concept and practice, he then refracts the interpretation on our measurement through his economic and Santosh C. Saha Tolerant Values and Practices in India 55 philosophical account. His source is mostly ancient texts and logic. The Nyaya inter-actionists do not have Descartes’s interaction problem because they embrace a “Hume-like” account of causation. Hume introduces the causative factor in inter-action-ism. We know well that our knowledge and action are related. We expect mental states to occur significantly in causal explanations of actions, because otherwise postulating mind looks like redundant. But Hume assumes that attributes of knowledge in causal explanations of our action can be replaced without explanatory loss by corresponding elements of belief. This causal connection has another implication in explaining unification of diverse elements, despite apparent contradictions. Tolerance implies active participation and active participation in social interactions. Sen argues that if we express our tolerance as a subjective perception with our own situation or even personal preference then we ignore many variables that remain divisible. He recog

Tolerant Values and Practices in India: Amartya Sen’s ‘Positional Observation’ and Parameterization of Ethical Rules