This book explores dialogue as a transformative form of philosophical practice by unveiling the method behind the unique dialogue developed by mystic and thinker Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986). While Krishnamurti himself generally rejected the cultivation of systems and techniques, Shai Tubali argues that there are easily identifiable patterns through which Krishnamurti strove to realize his dialogical aims. For this reason, he refers to this method, whose existence has evaded Krishnamurti’s followers and scholars alike, as the Krishnamurti dialogue. He suggests that these discursive patterns serve to broaden our understanding of the possibilities of philosophical and religious dialogues and further illuminate established forms of dynamic discourse, such as the Socratic method.
Inspired by Pierre Hadot’s revolutionary reading of the classical Greco-Roman texts, the author centers his attention on Plato’s Socratic dialogues and the guru–disciple conversations inthe Hindu Upanishads, which fall within the scope of what may be termed ‘the transformative dialogue’: dialogues that have been written with the intention of bringing about a transformation in the mind of the interlocutor and reader and reorienting their way of life. This text appeals to students as well as researchers and suggests that the Krishnamurti dialogue is not only a continuation and development of the transformative dialogue, but that it also amalgamates ingredients of classical Western philosophy and South Asian mysticism. Moreover, this type of dialogue encourages readers to revisit the lost practice of transformative philosophy, in that it reveals new pathways of philosophical and religious inquiry that bear thought-provoking practical implications.
Table of Content
Chapter 1 Introduction.- Part I: The classical philosophical dialogue.- Chapter 2 ‘Know thyself’: Hadot and the conception of transformative philosophy.- Chapter 3 ‘You have dispelled my doubts and delusions’: Dialogue in classical India and classical Greece.- Chapter 4 ‘When people are questioned, and the questions are well put’: Transformative dialogue in the Upaniṣads and in Plato.- Chapter 5 Dialogues of life and death: Transformative dialogue in Plato’s Phaedo and in the Kaṭhopaniṣad.- Part II: The Krishnamurti dialogue.- Chapter 6 ‘We are inquiring together’: The dialogical nature of Jiddu Krishnamurti’s work.- Chapter 7 ‘Questions to which there are no answers’: The method behind the Krishnamurti dialogue.- Chapter 8 ‘The thunder of insight’: The final destination of Krishnamurti’s dialogue.- Chapter 9 ‘Come and join me’: Krishnamurti in dialogue with scholars.- Part III: Krishnamurti and the classical philosophical dialogue.- Chapter 10 Socrates, kōan, Krishnamurti: Questions as a spiritual exercise.- Chapter 11 Nāgārjuna, Śaṅkara, Krishnamurti: Negation as a spiritual exercise.- Chapter 12 Conclusions and Implications.About the author
Shai Tubali is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Leeds, UK. He has a doctorate in philosophy of religion from the School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science at the University of Leeds. He is the author of the monograph Cosmos and Camus: Science Fiction Film and the Absurd (Peter Lang) and a contributor to the upcoming Routledge Companion to Absurdist Literature and a prolific published author since 1996, who has written more than twenty books, including award-winning and bestselling titles, which have appeared in 12 languages. Among his diverse publications, one can find prose, poetry, practical books on meditation and self-development, as well as philosophical treatises on South-Asian philosophy and classical Greek philosophy.
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