Advaita and Neoplatonism. A Critical Study in Comparative Philosophy

Description

This is a study in comparative philosophy. The systems selected for comparison are Advaita and Neoplatonism. The author of this work, Dr. J.F. Staal, came from Holland as a Government of India scholar in 1954 and worked in the University Department of Philosophy for three years, registering himself as a candidate for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The present publication constitutes the thesis which he wrote in part fulfilment of the conditions for the degree which was awarded to him. The present study does not conform to the usual type of comparative philosophy which contents itself with comparing two or more systems as object-philosophies. Dr. Staal, as a Westerner, approaches Advaita through a comparable tradition in the West - the tradition of impersonalism - which is to be found in Neoplatonism. And, his approach, further still, is from the standpoint of existentialism cum phenomenology which is a dominant contemporary trend in that part of Europe whence he hails. The experience he gained in British and American Universities subsequent to his stay in India, he says, has somewhat changed his perspective. The pages of this work will speak eloquently to the great change which India has evidently made in his outlook.