ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we shall investigate the topic of a representative Hindu account of metaphysics, which is an account of what philosophers converge on while they disagree about metaphysics, using Hindu resources. An investigation into the room for disagreement in metaphysics shows that it is a disagreement about two levels of facts. Metaphysical theories are second order theories (all hoping that they are factual) about first order facts, and in so far as we can disagree about the second order theories, we can converge on the objectivity of the debate as we disagree: this is our own Lordliness—the essence of disciplinarity. As the first order facts are ostensibly constituted by disciplinarity, they instantiate the essence of disciplinarity—the Lord—and at the second level of disagreement, we converge on the ideal of our own Lordliness as we disagree. The representative Hindu model that absorbs these features of metaphysical debate is Rāmānuja’s Viśiṣṭādvaita.
