NOTABLE PHILOSOPHERS/ PERSONALITIES

Nagarjuna (150-250)

Nāgārjuna was an Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist thinker who lived sometime between 150 and 250 CE. A scholar-saint and philosopher. He is widely considered one of the most important Buddhist philosophers. Furthermore, according to Jan Westerhoff, he is also "one of the greatest thinkers in the history of Asian philosophy." Some biographies also state, however, that he lived for 600 years, apparently identifying him with a second Nagarjuna known for his Tantric (esoteric) writings. Two of the works attributed to Nagarjuna are verses of advice to a king, which suggests that he achieved some fame during his lifetime. Nagarjuna wrote as a Buddhist monk and as a proponent of the Mahayana (Sanskrit: “Greater Vehicle”) school, which emphasized the idea of the bodhisattva, or one who seeks to become a buddha; in several of his works, he defended the Mahayana sutras as the authentic word of the Buddha. He compiled an anthology, entitled the Sutrasamuccaya (“Compendium of Sutras”), consisting of passages from 68 sutras, most of which were Mahayana texts. Nagarjuna is particularly associated with the Prajnaparamita (“Perfection of Wisdom”) sutras in this corpus. According to legend, he retrieved from the bottom of the sea a perfection-of-wisdom sutra that the Buddha had entrusted to the king of the nagas (water deities) for safekeeping. Nagarjuna also composed hymns of praise to the Buddha and expositions of Buddhist ethical practice.

CONTRIBUTIONS AND PHILOSOPHY

His philosophy of the “middle way” (madhyamaka) based around the central notion of “emptiness” (śūnyatā) influenced the Indian philosophical debate for a thousand years after his death; with the spread of Buddhism to Tibet, China, Japan, and other Asian countries the writings of Nāgārjuna became an indispensable point of reference for their own philosophical inquiries. A specific reading of Nāgārjuna’s thought, called Prāsaṅgika-Madhyamaka, became the official philosophical position of Tibetan Buddhism which regards it as the pinnacle of philosophical sophistication up to the present day.
To put it simply, one analyzes an entity by attempting to break it into its component parts, and if it cannot be broken down further, the entity is ultimately real. The traditional example, a water-jug, is not ultimately real because it can be broken down into more fundamental parts existing at discrete moments of time, and in order to truly know that there is no self in mind and body, one must be able to say what mind and body truly are. Since mind and body are just a bundle of elements, this comes down to knowing what the elements truly are. And in order to know what each element truly is, one must know what kind of thing it is—that is, one must recognize its true nature or essence (svabhāva ). Eventually, the analytical process reaches its conclusion: one discovers the irreducible elements that are the stuff of the mental and physical universe. Only these elements are ultimately or truly real.
For Nāgārjuna, the realization that all things lack essence is the cure for ignorance, which he construes as any "grasping" (grāha ) to essential, fixed identities, whether of persons or things. The realization that counteracts ignorance comes in the meditation on "emptiness," the metaphor that he uses to evoke this utter lack of essence. His detailed arguments for emptiness examine many forms of relationality. His best-known text, for example, begins with an analysis of causality which demonstrates that any entity produced by causes cannot be ultimately real because its existence depends on its causes. These arguments, however, are not themselves sufficient to eliminate ignorance because, as a deeply ingrained cognitive state, ignorance requires more than just argumentation for its elimination. Instead, the conclusion of the arguments—namely, that all entities are utterly empty of any essence must be cultivated in a contemplative experience through which one becomes fully absorbed in that emptiness.

“Just as it is known  that an image of one’s face is seen  depending on a mirror  but does not really exist as a face, so the conception of “I” exists  dependent on mind and body,  but like the image of a face  the “I” does not exist as its own reality at all.”
~ Nagarjuna

Ramakrishna (1836-1886)

Ramakrishna is the most famous Indian Philosopher. His biography has been translated into 77 different languages on Wikipedia. (18 Feb 1836 – 16 August 1886), born Gadadhar Chattopadhyaya, was an Indian Hindu mystic and religious leader in 19th-century Bengal.

He had no formal education. At the age of twenty, he became the Priest of the Dakshineswar Kali temple. He was very much devoted to Goddess Kali.

A religious leader in 19th-century Bengal.

His tolerance and simplicity attracted the Bengali middle class. His popularity can gaze from the fact that Narenath Datta, Swami Ramakrishna's humanism found an ardent advocate and exponent in his favorite disciple Vivekananda. In 1893, he went to Chicago in the USA to address the Parliament of religions where he projected the Indian spirit of universality and broad-mindedness. He stayed in America for some time and founded Vedanta societies. On his return to India, he organized the Ramakrishna Mission in a vigorous way.

CONTRIBUTIONS

For the first time in the modern age of India, he boldly proclaimed before the world the superiority of Hindu culture and civilization, the greatness of his heritage, and the hope for the future.
Ramakrishna Mission, Hindu religious society that carries out extensive educational and philanthropic work in India and expounds a modern version of Advaita Vedanta a school of Indian philosophy in Western countries
He anticipated that Hinduism was based on spiritual values while western culture and civilization were materialistic.
He believed that Indian Nationalism can be based on four pillars viz. Consciousness and pride in the ancient glory of India; Awakening of the countrymen, Development of moral and physical strength and Unity based on common spiritual ideas

GADIS ARIVIA EFFENDI

Arivia was born in the Indian city of New Delhi in the year 1964. She spent most of her youth overseas as the daughter of an Indonesian ambassador, residing in India, Ethiopia, and Hungary, where she attended the British Embassy School in Budapest. After spending some time in Indonesia, she finished her senior high school studies at McLean High School in McLean, Virginia, while her brother was stationed in Washington, D.C.

Arivia studied French in a certificate program at the University of Indonesia after finishing high school and then earned a degree in philosophy from the same institution. Arivia became interested in feminism while finishing her baccalaureate studies. She read various publications on the topic, including Toeti Heraty's essays and Barbara Smith's All the Women, Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies. Before enrolling at EHESS, the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, she began teaching at the University of Indonesia in 1991. She was in charge of the first Feminist Paradigms course before she enrolled at EHESS, the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, in 1992. Arivia received her DEA in social psychology two years later.

Arivia returned to Indonesia and resumed her teaching career. She began work on the country's first feminist journal with the help of Ida Dhanny, Asikin Arif, and Toeti Heraty, noting the difficulties of acquiring feminist literature in Indonesia and intending to boost democratic efforts to defend minority rights.

In 1995, she established the Jurnal Perempuan Foundation. And the first issue of the Jurnal Perempuan [id] (Women's Journal) was released the following years. Krishna Sen of the University of Western Australia described it as "Indonesia's first feminist theory journal." Because the journal had limited means for publication and social activities, Arivia did not receive a salary during her eight years as its director. She is still a member of the journal's editorial board.

Philosophies that served as her contribution to the Female society:

Feminism : A word from the heart

This book contains selected writings by Gadis Arivia during her ten years in the field of feminism from 1995 to 2005. This collection of writings has been distributed in various journals, newspapers, book publications, seminars, workshops and feminism teaching materials at various universities. She writes on many issues related to women's issues in Indonesia, from issues of culture, literature, politics, economics, education to the Miss Universe election. Arivia girl explores freely and women's thoughts in all fields both private and public.

Feminist Perspective Philosophy

Arivia wrote this book as her doctoral dissertation. I found it interesting because she tried to evaluate what is the meaning of Feminist Philosophy. She tracked back from ancient philosophers' thinking until the recent ones. Arivia did a good work, however in some places I found that she chased her dead line to submit it to her professor.

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