Report R2.6 Knowledge and Human Liberation: Jürgen Habermas, Sri Aurobindo, and Beyond Seminar Leader: Ananta Kumar Giri, MIDS, Chennai, India and Aalborg University, Denmark aumkrishna[at]yahoo.com The centrality of knowledge in research has always been a dominant theme in academic conversations. This is particularly true in the current context where we are continually being invited to be part of a knowledge society. Philosophical discourses have explored this through a variety of approaches. Foucault links power with knowledge. Aurobindo urges us to understand the integral bond of knowledge and love. Habermas identifies knowledge with human interest and distinguishes four elements of this. These are cognitive interest, practical interest, emancipatory interest and the interest of reason to protect itself from unreason. Knowledge is usually understood to include knowledge of self, society, and nature. Knowledge of the self emerges through a variety of practices that may not always be reducible to social processes. Self is understood as a techno-practitioner (social/economic agent), as the unconscious, or with a transcendental dimension. However at the root of all these approaches is a dualism that emphasizes the boundaries between the organism and its environment. Thus they fail to illustrate the comprehensiveness of knowledge by not going beyond the boundaries of anthropocentrism. Social movements are important agents in knowledge creation. Recent protests against institutions of global hegemony are examples of this. Some of these strive to augment our knowledge about the fragility of our environment through stories and songs. These convey meanings at a deeper level, rising above the limitations of cognition to touch emotions. The realms of public conversation are also changing. Cafés and saloons have given way to a transnational public sphere. The idea of the nation as the dominant mode of self and group identity is increasingly being disputed. Practicing dialogue beyond confrontation, realizing the importance of listening and moving beyond political issues to moral and spiritual questions continue to be challenges for our times. Public dialogue contains within it, the seeds of critical self-knowledge. Conversation is simultaneously a participatory process and an autonomous practice. Self-reflection is at the core of human interest and the tendency to accentuate societal processes of knowledge and communication above other practices of self-cultivation such as listening, silence and self-emptying is erroneous. Here, the limits of language to capture one’s ideas of self also need to be recognized. Though emancipatory in nature, language can be enchaining if we are not careful. This is one reason why silence is profoundly valued in India. Discourses on emancipation have primarily focused on social emancipation. Liberation should also imply freedom from our constant urge to control – a tendency that both natural and social sciences have nurtured for long. The challenge lies in re-evaluating this unquestioned urge for domination over nature and to realize the limits of control. There is a need to broaden our understanding of liberation to embrace the emancipation of the Self from the Ego. Knowledge tends to be deeply rooted in its own particular contexts and freeing it from these often seems impossible. Even intuition, though not determined by contexts, emerges out of particular contexts. How can we achieve true trans-contextual knowledge? Comparative studies attempt to do this by seeking to open up contextual closure to construct conceptual connections between different contexts. By transcending beyond individual contexts, they forge a more general platform of meaning from which each context becomes recognizable. This leads us to the question of border-crossing in knowledge. The design of an enquiry often consists of attempts to create borders for knowledge whether disciplinary or methodological. However, the danger lies in the fact that these divisions can turn into beliefs and guides for practice. Thus it is essential to emphasize the limits of knowledge. Though protecting reason is central to the creation of knowledge, an uncritical defense of reason itself could be dangerous. The role of knowledge in facilitating oppression and injustice also needs to be examined. Sometimes knowledge takes on a post factum justificatory role. The purposeful avoidance of contentious issues in public discourses is another area of concern. The commodification of knowledge especially in the context of recent legislations regarding intellectual property rights also needs to be critically examined. Reference Giri, A. K. (n.d.). Knowledge and human liberation: Jürgen Habermas, Sri Aurobindo, and beyond. Unpublished manuscript.
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