The goal of the panel, “Perspective and Choice,” is to examine the relationship between perception as a cognitive episode and freedom, or the way in which one can choose to see reality in some way or another. We want to bring the resources of dharma traditions to discussion in philosophy such as epistemology and the psychology of perception, showing how language, concepts, ideas, etc. construct the phenomenon within the individual.
What does it mean to be free? This question underlies longstanding debates about the nature of freedom and autonomy. In Western liberal traditions, autonomy is often understood as self-rule, the capacity to act without external coercion. This framework, however, tends to emphasize external impediments to freedom while neglecting internal constraints, such as undue desires, selfish motives, and egoistic views that inhibit an individual’s ability to exercise true autonomy.
This paper explores how a non-Western philosophy of the self—specifically, the Swaminarayan Hindu tradition—challenges and expands existing secular liberal conceptions of personal autonomy. Drawing on Hindu sacred texts, such as the Bhagavad Gītā and the Vacanāmṛta, and my multisited ethnographic fieldwork among Swaminarayan communities in India and the United States, I argue that autonomy is best understood as a synthesis of external freedom—freedom from social, cultural, political, and economic constraints—and internal self-formation, which involves ethical self-cultivation and spiritual discipline. Drawing on this study, I propose a theoretical model of autonomy that foregrounds the dynamic interplay between, and integration of, external and internal dimensions of freedom. It at once critiques and expands secular liberal understandings of autonomy by emphasizing the co-constitutive relationship between structural constraints and inner self-mastery.
Gandhi once wrote in a letter to a friend, “Philosophy to be worth anything has got to be applied in one’s own life.” In his life and works, he adopted various philosophical principles and creatively interpreted them to transform his personal life and affect socio--political change. Although Gandhi was not a philosopher in the Western academic sense, he drew from philosophical, ethical, and religious concepts for Sarvodaya (uplift of all). Gandhi made ahiṃsā central his life and work. He drew on the philosophy of anekāntavāda creatively in order to respect plural perspectives and religious freedom. This presentation will focus on the various resonances of this concept in Gandhi’s emphasis on diversity of perspectives, an individual right to practicing any religion, as well as positive interfaith relations. I argue that embracing plurality (many-sidedness) can offer a way forward to ensure harmony, individual fulfillment, and Sarvodaya (uplift of all).