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Global Philosophy Research Interest Group Talk (Marcus Schmücker, Austrian Academy of Sciences)
Friday November 28, 2025, 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm
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The Global Philosophy Research Interest Group is delighted to welcome as guest speaker Marcus Schmücker, a senior researcher at the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia (IKGA) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Dr. Schmücker has been a research fellow at the IKGA since 1996. In addition to interdisciplinary work in the fields of theology and philosophy, his research interests focus on the traditions of Advaita Vedānta and Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta.
This is an in-person event, but those who cannot come to campus may join the talk on Zoom.
In addition to this lecture, Dr. Schmücker will be holding a workshop Friday, November 28, 9 AM-3 PM, and Saturday, November 29, 9 AM-5 PM.
Talk Title
World-, Self-, and God-Relation according to the Indian Tradition of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta
Talk Abstract
The question of how we relate to the world, how we relate to ourselves, and how God relates to us—are philosophical themes that the tradition of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta has developed extensively from its beginnings up to its most renowned exponent, Veṅkaṭanātha. It is primarily in light of his teachings that we aim to uncover the structure and the underlying presupposition common to these three forms of relation, which I would like to examine from an epistemological perspective.
We begin with Veṅkaṭanātha’s analysis of our everyday relation to the world. How is this relation expressed when our cognition is directed toward something? For Veṅkaṭanātha, such a relation is bound to a linguistic judgment that irreducibly takes the form: “This is in such-and-such a way.” With the word “this,” we refer to something worldly, objective, and self-subsistent—a substratum to which we could not refer unless we already perceived it as something determinate (for instance, through its properties). Between “this” and “such-and-such,” a prior unity of reference and determination underlies the very act of cognition.
Veṅkaṭanātha thus presupposes an underlying unity (aikya) that we must take for granted if the external world is to be intelligible to us through our linguistic judgment. This structure of unity, however, is not limited to our relation to the external world; it also concerns the structure of cognition itself. Cognition does not merely happen to have an object or not by chance—it consists essentially in a prior unity with its determinable object of reference. Otherwise, cognition of anything at all would be impossible.
Again, this prior unity underlies not only object-directed cognition but also self-directed cognition, since our reference to our self always occurs in a determinate way—we never encounter a pure, undetermined self. If this unity always constitutes a necessarily determined ground, then the question finally arises as to its ultimate ground, which, for Veṅkaṭanātha and his tradition, is God. How, then, does he characterize God’s knowledge of the world?
