Shaj Mohan is a philosopher based in India. His philosophical works are in the areas of metaphysics, reason, philosophy of technology,

philosophy of politics Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics ...

, and

secrecy Secrecy is the practice of hiding information from certain individuals or groups who do not have the "need to know", perhaps while sharing it with other individuals. That which is kept hidden is known as the secret. Secrecy is often controvers ...

. 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 reason.

Biography

Mohan completed his early education in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, and studied philosophy at

St. Stephen's College, Delhi St. Stephen's College is a constituent college of the University of Delhi, widely regarded as one of the oldest and most prestigious colleges for arts and sciences in India. It was established in 1881 by the Cambridge Mission to Delhi. The college ...

where he taught for some time. He has academic degrees in economics and philosophy. Mohan is originally from Tirunelveli. His grandfather Nadaraja Pillai participated in the Indian independence movement with the congress party. He has published in the areas of metaphysics, reason, nature,

, philosophy of technology, and philosophy of politics. He has written philosophical essays against the rise of

Hindu nationalism Hindu nationalism has been collectively referred to as the expression of social and political thought, based on the native spiritual and cultural traditions of the Indian subcontinent. "Hindu nationalism" or the correct term ''Hindū rāṣṭ ...

in The Indian Express, Mediapart, Outlook, La Croix, The Wire, The Caravan, Le Monde and

Libération ''Libération'' (), popularly known as ''Libé'' (), is a daily newspaper in France, founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Initially positioned on the far-left of France's ...

. 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.

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 Counter may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Counter machine, a subclass of register machines * Counter (digital), an electronic device, mechanical device, or computer program for counting * Loop counter, the variable that controls the ite ...

there is “something which can be called a

revolutionary A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective, to refer to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor. ...

theory, but not under that name” in his work. His work combines the formalism and argumentation of

analytic 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 ...

with the intuitive exegetical style of

continental philosophy Continental philosophy is a term used to describe some philosophers and philosophical traditions that do not fall under the umbrella of analytic philosophy. However, there is no academic consensus on the definition of continental philosophy. Pri ...

. Mohan is credited with having "created a new voice in philosophy" resembling the style of prophesy. Mohan said that it is possible to practice philosophy without anchoring it to any tradition. He argued that the ''principle of reason'' 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. Mohan wrote the book '' Gandhi and Philosophy: On Theological Anti-politics'' published by Bloomsbury Academic, UK with the philosopher Divya Dwivedi. Jean-Luc Nancy wrote the foreword to ''Gandhi and Philosophy'' and described the originality this work in terms of the relation shown by it between truth and suffering. Nancy wrote that this work creates the new beginning for philosophy following the end of metaphysics,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 Jean-Luc Nancy ''Gandhi and Philosophy'' leads to a new orientation outside of the theological, metaphysical and nihilistic tendencies in philosophy. Bernard Stiegler said that this work "give us to reconsider the history of nihilism in the eschatological contemporaneity and shows its ultimate limits" and offers a new path. ''Gandhi and Philosophy'' calls this new beginning ''the anastasis of philosophy''.

Robert Bernasconi Robert L. Bernasconi (born 1950) is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University. He is known as a reader of Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Levinas, and for his work on the concept of race. He has also written on the ...

said that the inventiveness and the constructivism behind the concept of ''ana-stasis'', or the overcoming of stasis, has a relation to the project of ''re-beginning of philosophy'' by Heidegger. ''Gandhi and Philosophy'' proposed that parallel to the metaphysical tendency in philosophy there is ''hypophysics''. Hypophysics is defined as "a conception of nature as value". Mohan said "This non-philosophical system, which we call hypophysics, is necessarily interesting for philosophy. " The distance from nature that human beings and natural objects come to have through the effects of technology lessens their value, or brings them closer to evil. Gandhi's concept of passive force or

nonviolence Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to others under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosoph ...

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, and text. 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

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

Reception

Jean-Luc Nancy,

, Bernard Stiegler and

Robert J. C. Young Robert J. C. Young FBA (born 1950) is a British postcolonial theorist, cultural critic, and historian. Life He was educated at Repton School and Exeter College, Oxford, where he read for a B.A. and D.Phil., taught at the University of Southa ...

said that his work creates new possibilities for philosophy beyond the impasse of metaphysics and

nihilism Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. The term was popularized by Ivan ...

. American critical theory journal Episteme published a special issue of critical assessments of the philosophy of Mohan and Divya Dwivedi 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 The Indian Express 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", especially when Gandhi's goal was to create an alternative to Eurocentrism. '' EPW'' said that his work may be of interest only to

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 Jean-Luc Nancy and Shaj Mohan. * �
On the Bastard Family of Deconstruction
��, ''Philosophy World Democracy, 2021.'' Text of public seminar in École Normale Supérieure 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 Bernard Stiegler'', réunies par Jean-Luc Nancy, Editions Galilée, 2021.
L’esperienza oscura
in ''European Journal of Psychoanalysis''
"Nous sommes en état de stase"
in France Culture
„Aber es gibt nichts außerhalb der Philosophie“
* "The Obscure Experience", ''Coronavirus, Psychoanalysis, and Philosophy'', Ed. F. Castrillón, T. Marchevsky, London: Routledge, 2021. * “On the Relation Between the Obscure, the Cryptic and the Public”, in ''The Public Sphere From Outside the West'', London:

Bloomsbury Academic Bloomsbury Publishing plc is a British worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. It is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index. Bloomsbury's head office is located in Bloomsbury, an area of the London Borough of Camden. It has a ...

, 2015. * "What Carries Us On", ''Coronavirus, Psychoanalysis, and Philosophy'', Ed. F. Castrillón, T. Marchevsky, London: Routledge, 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 ''Les Chemins de la philosophie'' (the ways of philosophy) (previously entitled ''Les Nouveaux Chemins de la connaissance'' (The new ways of knowledge) until 2017) is a French philosophy radio program broadcast daily on France Culture and present ...

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

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 Divya Dwivedi at '' The Wire''.
On Pandemics: Nancy, Dwivedi, Mohan, Esposito, Nancy, Ronchi
Compendium of articles by Divya Dwivedi, Roberto Esposito, Shaj Mohan, Jean-Luc Nancy 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