Journal of the American Academy of Religion Advance Access published online on June 12, 2009
Journal of the American Academy of Religion, doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfp019
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Grasping at Ontological Straws: Overcoming Reductionism in the Advaita Ved
nta—Neuroscience Dialogue
Stephen Kaplan, Department of Religious Studies, Manhattan College, Bronx, NY 10471, USA. E-mail: stephen.kaplan{at}manhattan.edu.
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Abstract |
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Contemporary neuropsychology reveals that the parietal lobe contains neurons that are specifically attuned to the act of grasping and this act may be fundamental to the establishment of the phenomenal boundaries between subject and object. Furthermore, alterations to this process, such as the hypoactivation of this region during meditation or the hyperactivation associated with schizophrenia, may eliminate or confuse, respectively, the phenomenal boundaries between subject and object. Traversing disciplines, the Advaita Ved
nta school of Hinduism traces some of its key terms for subject and object to the verbal root grah, to grasp. The subject is literally the grasper. Furthermore, the practice of aspar
a yoga, the yoga of no-touch, is aimed at stopping, hypoactivating, the grasping process in order to transcend all subject–object boundaries. This paper will argue that while we have not uncovered an identity of thought, we have uncovered a confluence of ideas between these two disciplines. We will see that this confluence of ideas has not pitted the believer against the critic—not forced us into the great reductionism debate that has dominated so much of the interchange between religious studies and the sciences. This case study will illuminate some of the methodological ways around this reductionism battle and also the boundaries of both disciplines for the intellectual benefit of each.