Shaj Mohan is a philosopher based in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. His philosophical works are in the areas of

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

reason Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, ...

philosophy of technology The philosophy of technology is a sub-field of philosophy that studies the nature of technology and its social effects. Philosophical discussion of questions relating to technology (or its Greek ancestor ''techne'') dates back to the very dawn of ...

, philosophy of politics, and secrecy. Mohan's works are based on the principle of ''anastasis'' according to which philosophy is an ever-present possibility on the basis of a reinterpretation of

Biography

Mohan completed his early education in

Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala Thiruvananthapuram (; ), also known by its former name Trivandrum (), is the capital of the Indian state of Kerala. It is the most populous city in Kerala with a population of 957,730 as of 2011. The encompassing urban agglomeration populati ...

, and studied philosophy at St. Stephen's College, Delhi where he taught for some time. He has academic degrees in economics and philosophy. Mohan is originally from

Tirunelveli Tirunelveli (, ta, திருநெல்வேலி, translit=Tirunelveli) also known as Nellai ( ta, நெல்லை, translit=Nellai) and historically (during British rule) as Tinnevelly, is a major city in the Indian state of Tam ...

. His grandfather Nadaraja Pillai participated in the

Indian independence movement The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events with the ultimate aim of ending British Raj, British rule in India. It lasted from 1857 to 1947. The first nationalistic revolutionary movement for Indian independence emerged ...

with the congress party. He has published in the areas of

nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

, secrecy,

, and philosophy of politics. He has written philosophical essays against the rise of Hindu nationalism in

The Indian Express ''The Indian Express'' is an English-language Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932. It is published in Mumbai by the Indian Express Group. In 1999, eight years after the group's founder Ramnath Goenka's death in 1991, the group was split be ...

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Outlook Outlook or The Outlook may refer to: Computing * Microsoft Outlook, an e-mail and personal information management software product from Microsoft * Outlook.com, a web mail service from Microsoft * Outlook on the web, a suite of web applications ...

, La Croix,

The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American crime drama television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The Wire'' premiered on June 2 ...

The Caravan ''The Caravan'' is an Indian English-language, long-form narrative journalism magazine covering politics and culture. History In 1940, Vishwa Nath launched ''Caravan'' as the first magazine from the Delhi Press; it went on to establish it ...

Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...

and Libération. As per Le Monde he has faced difficulties due to his political writings. In 2021 the American critical theory journal Episteme published a special issue on the philosophy of Mohan and

Divya Dwivedi Divya Dwivedi is a philosopher and author based in India. She is an associate professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Her work focuses on ontology, metaphysics, literature, and philosophy of politics. Early life and education D ...

Philosophical work

Mohan's work shows a new possibility for philosophy which is neither metaphysics nor deconstruction, and its orientation was described as ''deconstructive materialism''. According to Counter Currents there is “something which can be called a revolutionary theory, but not under that name” in his work. His work combines the

formalism Formalism may refer to: * Form (disambiguation) * Formal (disambiguation) * Legal formalism, legal positivist view that the substantive justice of a law is a question for the legislature rather than the judiciary * Formalism (linguistics) * Scie ...

and argumentation of analytic philosophy with the intuitive exegetical style of continental philosophy. Mohan is credited with having "created a new voice in philosophy" resembling the style of

prophesy In religion, a prophecy is a message that has been communicated to a person (typically called a ''prophet'') by a supernatural entity. Prophecies are a feature of many cultures and belief systems and usually contain divine will or divine law, la ...

. Mohan said that it is possible to practice philosophy without anchoring it to any tradition. He argued that the ''principle of

'' has an important role in philosophy in spite of the criticisms of it in the 20th century. Reason exceeds mechanical thinking as it has a relation to "the obscure". This rethinking of the principle of reason is made possible through interpreting the philosophical tradition of faculties in a new way. His works are opposed to exceptionalist style of thinking, including

state of exception A state of exception (german: Ausnahmezustand) is a concept introduced in the 1920s by the German philosopher and jurist Carl Schmitt, similar to a state of emergency (martial law) but based in the sovereign's ability to transcend the rule of law ...

. Mohan wrote the book '' Gandhi and Philosophy: On Theological Anti-politics'' published by Bloomsbury Academic, UK with the philosopher

Jean-Luc Nancy Jean-Luc Nancy ( , ; 26 July 1940 – 23 August 2021) was a French philosopher. Nancy's first book, published in 1973, was ''Le titre de la lettre'' (''The Title of the Letter'', 1992), a reading of the work of French psychoanalyst Jacques Laca ...

wrote the foreword to ''Gandhi and Philosophy'' and described the originality this work in terms of the relation shown by it between

truth Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as belie ...

and suffering. Nancy wrote that this work creates the new beginning for philosophy following the end of

,Rachel Adams and Crain Soudien assert that Mohan's "thought is increasingly becoming one of the most radical and important contributions to the philosophy of the world, today".

''Gandhi and Philosophy: On Theological Anti-politics''

According to

''Gandhi and Philosophy'' leads to a new orientation outside of the

theological Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the s ...

, metaphysical and nihilistic tendencies in philosophy.

Bernard Stiegler Bernard Stiegler (; 1 April 1952 – 5 August 2020) was a French philosopher. He was head of the Institut de recherche et d'innovation (IRI), which he founded in 2006 at the Centre Georges-Pompidou. He was also the founder in 2005 of the polit ...

said that this work "give us to reconsider the history of nihilism in the

eschatological Eschatology (; ) concerns expectations of the end of the present age, human history, or of the world itself. The end of the world or end times is predicted by several world religions (both Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic), which teach that nega ...

contemporaneity and shows its ultimate limits" and offers a new path. ''Gandhi and Philosophy'' calls this new beginning ''the anastasis of philosophy''. Robert Bernasconi said that the inventiveness and the

constructivism Constructivism may refer to: Art and architecture * Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes * Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia in the 1920s a ...

behind the concept of ''ana-stasis'', or the overcoming of stasis, has a relation to the project of ''re-beginning of philosophy'' by

Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...

. ''Gandhi and Philosophy'' proposed that parallel to the metaphysical tendency in philosophy there is ''hypophysics''. Hypophysics is defined as "a conception of

as value". Mohan said "This non-philosophical system, which we call hypophysics, is necessarily interesting for philosophy. " The distance from

that human beings and natural objects come to have through the effects of technology lessens their value, or brings them closer to

evil Evil, in a general sense, is defined as the opposite or absence of good. It can be an extremely broad concept, although in everyday usage it is often more narrowly used to talk about profound wickedness and against common good. It is general ...

. Gandhi's concept of passive force or nonviolence is an implication of his hypophysical commitment to nature. Livio Boni in Le collectif de pantin noted that the concept of hypophysics is influenced by Kant. Hypophysics enables a rational reading of Gandhi’s works to learn from it without falling into the errors of mysticism. The philosophical direction outside of metaphysics and hypophysics is created through the invention of a new conceptual order. It is meant to enable philosophy to step outside the regime of sign,

signifier In semiotics, signified and signifier (French: ''signifié'' and ''signifiant'') stand for the two main components of a sign, where ''signified'' pertains to the "plane of content", while ''signifier'' is the "plane of expression". The idea was f ...

, and

text Text may refer to: Written word * Text (literary theory), any object that can be read, including: **Religious text, a writing that a religious tradition considers to be sacred **Text, a verse or passage from scripture used in expository preachin ...

. The Book Review said that the philosophical project of ''Gandhi and Philosophy'' is to create new evaluative categories, "the authors, in engaging with Gandhi's thought, create their categories, at once descriptive and evaluative" while pointing to the difficulty given by the rigour of a "A seminal if difficult read for those with an appetite for philosophy". Some of the conceptual inventions have been noted to have come from mathematics and biology. The constructionist tendency of ''Gandhi and Philosophy'' places it between the dominant philosophical styles of continental philosophy and

analytical philosophy Analytic philosophy is a branch and tradition of philosophy using analysis, popular in the Western world and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the contemporary era in the United Kingdom, United Sta ...

. The conclusion of ''Gandhi and Philosophy'' emphasizes the construction of a new dimension in philosophy.

Reception

, Robert Bernasconi,

and Robert J. C. Young said that his work creates new possibilities for philosophy beyond the impasse of

and nihilism. American critical theory journal Episteme published a special issue of critical assessments of the philosophy of Mohan and

in 2021. Mohan's work on Gandhi was criticised from the point of view methodological and stylistic difficulty. Robert Bernasconi noted that ''Gandhi and Philosophy'' is a difficult book and it is "not a book that you will understand at first reading". The difficulty due to the constructivist style was noted by other authors as well. ''Gandhi and Philosophy'' was criticised from the point of view of the recent mounting criticisms of Gandhi in India and internationally. It was said that ''Gandhi and Philosophy'' might be exalting Gandhi while being very critical of him at the same time. The ambiguous approach to Gandhi was described in one of the commentaries in

as "Mohan and Dwivedi have done a masterful job of avoiding the binary fork – hagiography or vituperation – as much of Gandhi and hagiography comes from a need to spiritualise Gandhi". ''Economic and Political Weekly'' pointed to Mohan and Dwivedi's participation in the paradigm of "

western philosophy Western philosophy encompasses the philosophical thought and work of the Western world. Historically, the term refers to the philosophical thinking of Western culture, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophy of the pre-Socratics. The word ' ...

", especially when Gandhi's goal was to create an alternative to

Eurocentrism Eurocentrism (also Eurocentricity or Western-centrism) is a worldview that is centered on Western civilization or a biased view that favors it over non-Western civilizations. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire Western worl ...

. '' EPW'' said that his work may be of interest only to continental philosophy as he does not participate in ''Indic'' discourses.

Bibliography

Books * '' Gandhi and Philosophy: On Theological Anti-politics'', Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. Articles * �
And the Beginning of Philosophy
��, ''Philosophy World Democracy'', 2021. * Deconstruction and Anastasis, Qui Parle (2022) 31 (2): 339–344. * �
Be Held in the Gaze of the Stone
��, ''Philosophy World Democracy'', 2022.
Our Mysterious Being
by

and Shaj Mohan. * �
On the Bastard Family of Deconstruction
��, ''Philosophy World Democracy, 2021.'' Text of public seminar in

École Normale Supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, S ...

on 23 November 2021https://savoirs.ens.fr/expose.php?id=4041
Teleography and Tendencies: Part 2 History and Anastasis
, ''European Journal of Psychoanalysis'', 2022. * �
The Noise of All Things
��, ''Philosophy World Democracy, 2021.'' * "«Une Bonne Nuit pour de Longues Promenades »: pour Bernard Stiegler", ''Amitiés de

'', réunies par

, Editions Galilée, 2021.
L’esperienza oscura
in ''European Journal of Psychoanalysis''
"Nous sommes en état de stase"
in

France Culture France Culture is a French public radio channel and part of Radio France Radio France is the French national public radio broadcaster. Stations Radio France offers seven national networks: * France Inter — Radio France's " generalist" sta ...

„Aber es gibt nichts außerhalb der Philosophie“
* "The Obscure Experience", ''Coronavirus, Psychoanalysis, and Philosophy'', Ed. F. Castrillón, T. Marchevsky, London:

Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law ...

, 2021. * “On the Relation Between the Obscure, the Cryptic and the Public”, in ''The Public Sphere From Outside the West'', London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015. * "What Carries Us On", ''Coronavirus, Psychoanalysis, and Philosophy'', Ed. F. Castrillón, T. Marchevsky, London:

, 2021. Interviews
“But, there is nothing outside of philosophy”
''Positions Politics''.
‘I take, and I am taken, by what belongs to philosophy’: Philosophy and the redemption of democracy
South African Journal of Science, vol.118 spe 2 Pretoria 2022.
Une nuit de philosophie (1/4) : Philosopher en Inde
Interview with '' Les Chemins de la philosophie'' at the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

Headquarters Paris, available as Podcast.
Hindu nationalism and why 'being a philosopher in India can get you killed'
Interview at ''

References

External links

Critical assessment of the works of Shaj Mohan and Divya Dwivedi
in the special issue of the journal ''Episteme''
The Resurrection of Philosophy
Biographical essay on Shaj Mohan and

at ''

''.
On Pandemics: Nancy, Dwivedi, Mohan, Esposito, Nancy, Ronchi
Compendium of articles by

Roberto Esposito Roberto Esposito ( Piano di Sorrento, 4 August 1950) is an Italian political philosopher, critical theorist, and professor, notable for his academic research and works on biopolitics. He currently serves as professor of theoretical philosophy at ...

, Shaj Mohan,

and others. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mohan, Shaj Deconstruction Heidegger scholars Ontologists Philosophers of nihilism 21st-century Indian philosophers Philosophers of technology Philosophers of art St. Stephen's College, Delhi alumni Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Rationalism