PHI 101 Lecture 10: PHI 101 Lecture 10

• School: University at Buffalo
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHI 101
• Professor: Lawler James

Document Summary

Teachings: leading advaitin: shankara, the indian thomas aquinas, blending scripture and reason like aquinas, accept the six doctrines of upanishads, main teachings, nothing is real except brahman, unitary. The great sentences of the upanishads: neti, neti, not this, not this, tat tvam asi (that thou art, you (as atman) are that (brahman, atman and brahman are identical, they are the same, one. Ishvara: no appeal to a god (ishvara) to coordinate can help, how such a god would coordinate two radically different realms is intelligible, ishvara is only a personification of brahman. Idealism: the idealist route for denying the material world, show that the material world in unreal, but for advaita, minds, feelings, and perceptions too are unreal, suffering does not really exist (shankara) Level two: no objects are real, the effects of the one cause (brahman) are merely apparent, no individual selves exist, even the true god is an appearance.