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1
1931-1999, Sen Pranab Kumar, Sen Prabal Kumar 1946-, Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy, and Culture, and Centre for Studies in Civilizations (Delhi, India), eds. Philosophical concepts relevant to sciences in Indian tradition. New Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 2006.
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2
Daya, Krishna, Lāṭha Mukunda, Krishna Francine E, Indian Council of Philosophical Research., and Seminar on the Intellectual Dimensions of Bhakti Tradition in India (1988 : Sri Caitanya Prema Sansthan), eds. Bhakti, a contemporary discussion: Philosophical explorations in the Indian Bhakti tradition. New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research, 2000.
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3
Mohanty, Jitendranath. Reason and tradition in Indian thought: An essay on the nature of Indian philosophical thinking. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
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4
Raju, P. T. The philosophical traditions of India. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1992.
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5
Jackson, David Paul. The entrance gate for the wise (section III): Sa-skya Paṇḍita on Indian and Tibetan traditions of pramāṇa and philosophical debate. Wien: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, Universität Wien, 1987.
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6
George, Thomas. Theology in the architecture of ancient churches in Kerala: Re-presents the philosophic, art & aesthetic dimensions focusing Vastu vidya in Indian cultural traditions. New Delhi: Christian World Imprints, 2018.
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7
The critique of Svatantra reasoning by Candrakirti and Tsong-kha-pa: A study of philosophical proof according to two Prasangika Madhyamaka traditions of India and Tibet. Stuttgart: Steiner, 1999.
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8
Chandra, Saurabh, ed. SOCRATES (Vol 3, No 2 (2015): Issue- June). 3rd ed. India: SOCRATES : SCHOLARLY RESEARCH JOURNAL, 2015.
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9
Mohanty, Jitendra Nath. Reason and Tradition in Indian Thought: An Essay on the Nature of Indian Philosophical Thinking. Oxford University Press, USA, 1993.
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10
Long, Jeffery D. Discovering Indian Philosophy. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2024. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350324800.
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With a history dating back at least 3000 years, the philosophical tradition of India is one of the oldest to continue to thrive today. Encompassing a wide variety of worldviews, Indian philosophy includes perspectives that have ongoing relevance to contemporary issues such as the nature of consciousness, the relationship between philosophy and the good life, the existence of a divine reality, and the meaning of happiness. Contrary to widespread stereotypes, Indian philosophy is not simply an extension of Indian religion. Scepticism is a pervasive feature of this discourse, and there is even a school of thought which affirms materialism. The idea of a divine reality is debated extensively, not only in terms of the existence of such a reality–“Is there a God?”–but also in terms of its nature–“What is God?” This book, drawing upon some of the latest research in the field, traces the history of the Indian philosophical tradition from ancient times to the present, outlining the views and major thinkers of such schools of thought as Vedanta, Jainism, Buddhism, and many more. Jeffery D. Long treats each system, however, not simply as an historical artifact, but as a living reality with important insights to offer our world today. It is essential reading for anyone interested in world philosophies and how they address the ‘big questions’ that have always engaged human beings
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Raju, P. T. Philosophical Traditions of India. Taylor & Francis Group, 2013.
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12
Raju, P. T. Philosophical Traditions of India. Taylor & Francis Group, 2008.
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13
Philosophical Traditions of India. Routledge, 2013.
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14
Raju, P. T. Philosophical Traditions of India. Taylor & Francis Group, 2013.
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15
Raju, Poolla Tirupati. Philosophical Traditions of India. 2nd ed. South Asia Books, 1998.
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16
Raju, P. T. The Philosophical Traditions of India. Routledge, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203706695.
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17
Bhushan, Nalini, and Jay L. Garfield. Minds Without Fear. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190457594.001.0001.
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This is an intellectual and cultural history of India during the period of British occupation. It demonstrates that this was a period of renaissance in India in which philosophy—both in the public sphere and in the Indian universities—played a central role in the emergence of a distinctively Indian modernity. This is also a history of Indian philosophy. It demonstrates how the development of a secular philosophical voice facilitated the construction of modern Indian society and the consolidation of the nationalist movement. We explore the complex role of the English language in philosophical and nationalist discourse, demonstrating both the anxieties that surrounded English, and the processes that normalized it as an Indian vernacular and academic language. We attend both to Hindu and Muslim philosophers, to public and academic intellectuals, to artists and art critics, and to national identity and nation-builidng. We also explore the complex interactions between Indian and European thought during this period, including the role of missionary teachers and study at foreign universities in the evolution of Indian philosophy. We show that this pattern of interaction, although often disparaged as “inauthentic” is continuous with the cosmopolitanism that has always characterized the intellectual life of India, and that the philosophy articulated during this period is a worthy continuation of the Indian philosophical tradition.
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Dalton, Dennis. Hindu Political Philosophy. Edited by George Klosko. Oxford University Press, 2011. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199238804.003.0050.
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The long tradition of Hindu philosophy in India had several distinct peaks of systematic thought. The apogee of its political theory developed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as a response to the British imperial authority, commonly known as the Raj. This article describes modern Hindu political philosophy's admixture of its classical tradition with contemporary Indian nationalism as it encountered British theories of freedom, equality, power, and social or political change. The result was an original and cogent system of ideas that at once responded to the British intellectual challenge and reconstituted key elements of the classical Indian philosophical tradition. The leading formulators of this formidable project were four major Hindu theorists: Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo Ghose, Rabindranath Tagore, and Mohandas K. Gandhi. These four are intricately connected by a logical nexus of concepts derived from their common religion, their interpretative intellectual project of reforming Hinduism in the face of British colonialism, and their significant commitment to the cause of Indian independence.
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Datta, Krishna. A Goddess from Bengal. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198767022.003.0012.
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Feared as the ruler of snakes, Manasā, a late entrant to the pantheon of Hindu deities, is a fiercely partisan goddess who is vengeful to her adversaries and bountiful to her adherents. Legends of her origin and history vary but her cult has roots in pre-Hindu religious beliefs absorbed through time into the Hindu tradition, though she has remained outside the circle of the major Hindu goddesses and exercises only regional, not pan-Indian, authority. She is worshiped, often by Hindus as well as Muslims, mainly in the more snake-infested regions of India, particularly eastern India and part of South India. In Bengal her cult has produced a popular narrative tradition in her praise called maṅgalakāvya that has deeply influenced Bengali literature. With little or no philosophical underpinnings, the cult of Manasā has historically arisen and flourished out of a simple binary of fear and expectation of gain.
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Carpenter, Amber D. Illuminating Community. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199375967.003.0005.
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This chapter presents a discussion of the rich tradition of reflection on animals in ancient Indian philosophy, which deals with but is not restricted to the topic of reincarnation. At the center of the piece is the continuity that Indians saw between human and nonhuman animals and the consequences of this outlook for the widespread idea of nonviolence. Consideration is also given to the philosophical interest of fables centrally featuring animals, for example the Pañcatantra. In general it is suggested that ancient Indian authors did not, unlike European counterparts, focus on the question of what makes humans unique in contrast to all other animals, but rather on the ethical and metaphysical interconnections between humans and various kinds of animals.
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Ganeri, Jonardon. Freedom in Thinking. Edited by Jonardon Ganeri. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199314621.013.48.
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The brilliant philosopher Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya (1875–1949) powerfully argued for freedom from the intellectual slavery brought by colonial occupation of India. He called on philosophers to show reverence for the classical Indian philosophical traditions. Yet reverence for him was not a nativist, uncritical return to the past but an attitude combining aesthetic sympathy for the living fabric of a philosophical outlook with openness to enrichment from metaphors from without. For him this formed the basis of an Indian notion of the classical that provincialized European classicism. The chapter argues that Bhattacharyya develops a powerful alternative idea to gloomy traditionalism and radical modernism: that of an immersive cosmopolitanism, which explains why he took such a keen interest both in Indian aesthetics and in the pluralist Jaina theory of standpoints, combined with detailed interpretations of several Indian philosophical systems and Indian commentaries on Kant, all in the service of a theory of subjective freedom.
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Adamson, Peter, and G. Fay Edwards, eds. Animals. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199375967.001.0001.
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It is commonly assumed that serious philosophical reflection on animals goes back only a few hundred years, to the Utilitarians or to the rise of Darwinism. This volume shows that, to the contrary, animals have been a subject of controversy and reflection in all periods of the history of philosophy. We trace the story from Greek and Indian antiquity through the Islamic and Latin medieval traditions, to Renaissance and early modern thought, ending with contemporary ideas about animals. Two main questions that arise throughout the volume are: What capacities can be ascribed to animals, and How should we treat them? Notoriously ungenerous attitudes toward animals, for instance in Aristotle and Descartes, are shown to have been more nuanced than often supposed, while remarkable defenses of benevolence toward animals are unearthed in late antiquity, India, the Islamic world, and Kant. The book also includes philosophical exploration of such topics as cannibalism, animal instinct, and the scientific testing of animals. A series of interdisciplinary reflections sheds further light on human attitudes toward animals, looking at their depiction in visual artworks from China, Africa, and Europe, as well as the rich tradition of animal fables beginning with Aesop.
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Linder, Silvia Schwarz. Goddess Traditions in India: Theological Poems and Philosophical Tales in the Tripurarahasya. Routledge, 2022.
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24
Goodman, Charles, trans. The Tattvasaṃgraha of Śāntarakṣita. Oxford University Press, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190927349.001.0001.
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The Tattvasaṃgraha, or Encyclopedia of Metaphysics, is the most influential and most frequently studied philosophical text from the late period of Indian Buddhism. This edition includes verses by Śāntarakṣita (c. 725–788 CE), which are clarified and expounded in the commentary of his student Kamalaśīla (c. 740–795 CE); both of these authors played crucial roles in founding the Buddhist tradition of Tibet. In the Tattvasaṃgraha, they explain, discuss, and critique a vast range of views and arguments from across the whole South Asian philosophical and religious spectrum. The work deals at length with ideas drawn from Buddhism, Jainism, and a variety of traditions now incorporated within Hinduism, including Mīmāṃsā, Nyāya-vaiśeṣika, and Sāṃkhya; it also includes the earliest discussion of Advaita Vedānta in any Buddhist text. The chapters selected for translation from Sanskrit and Tibetan deal with fundamental philosophical issues such as the existence or nonexistence of God and the soul; the nature of matter and of causal relationships; the connection between words and their referents; the rules of logic; the sources of our knowledge; and the compatibility of beliefs about karma with Buddhism’s fundamental claim that there is no self. Introductory chapters discuss translation choices and explain the forms of argument and methods of reasoning employed by Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla.
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Linder, Silvia Schwarz. Goddess Traditions in India: Theological Poems and Philosophical Tales in the Tripurārahasya. Taylor & Francis Group, 2022.
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26
Linder, Silvia Schwarz. Goddess Traditions in India: Theological Poems and Philosophical Tales in the Tripurārahasya. Taylor & Francis Group, 2022.
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27
Goddess Traditions in India: Theological Poems and Philosophical Tales in the Tripurārahasya. Taylor & Francis Group, 2022.
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28
McDaniel, June. Hinduism. Edited by John Corrigan. Oxford University Press, 2009. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195170214.003.0004.
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Emotion is viewed in both positive and negative ways in the Hindu religious and philosophical traditions. In those traditions that are more ascetic and emphasize mental control, emotions are distractions which need to be stilled. In those traditions that emphasize love of a deity, emotions are valuable—but they must be directed and transformed. However, in order to study emotion in the Hindu tradition, we must first look at the meaning of the term “Hinduism.” There are at least six major types of Hinduism: Hindu folk religion, Vedic religion, Vedantic Hinduism, yogic Hinduism, dharmic Hinduism, and bhakti or devotional Hinduism. All of these involve emotion in various ways, but two traditions—those of Bengali Vaishnavism and raja yoga—have written about emotion in greatest depth. This article examines what the term “emotion” means in India, and then describes the beliefs about emotion in Vaishnavism and Yoga in greater detail. In discussing the nature of emotion, it considers bhava and rasa. Finally, the article discusses the literature on emotion in Hindu tradition, focusing on religious poetry.
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Smith, Justin E. H. Philosophy as a Distinct Cultural Practice. Edited by Jonardon Ganeri. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199314621.013.46.
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This chapter analyzes the cultural features in the ancient world that led to the emergence of philosophy as a distinct cultural activity and examines the way in which Indian philosophy, in contrast to the cases of Greece and China, may be understood in relation to these cultural features. It examines the influence of the technology of writing, as well as of natural-scientific inquiry, especially in the domain of health and medicine, and the transregional importance of literacy and science for the project of philosophy, while also showing that Indian philosophy functions throughout the classical and into the modern period as a relatively discrete intellectual activity. Finally it shows, by comparing the French materialist philosopher Pierre Gassendi with Indian philosophers in the mid-1660s, how differences in the two philosophical traditions’ relationships to literacy and science continued to play a role in the perception of a philosophical divide between these two traditions.
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Progressive Traditions: Identity in Cherokee Literature and Culture. University of Oklahoma Press, 2014.
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31
Nelson, Joshua B. Progressive Traditions: Identity in Cherokee Literature and Culture. University of Oklahoma Press, 2014.
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32
Siderits, Mark. Comparison or Confluence In Philosophy? Edited by Jonardon Ganeri. Oxford University Press, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199314621.013.5.
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This chapter examines the project of fusion or confluence philosophy: philosophizing that draws on resources from both Indian and Western philosophical traditions in seeking solutions to philosophical problems. A distinction is drawn between the confluence project and the project of comparative philosophy. Various challenges to the project are addressed, among them the criticism that the two traditions are incommensurable, and the charge that such a project is politically problematic. There is also discussion of some ways in which projects of this sort can go astray. Representative samples of the genre are discussed, and areas that might prove promising for future research are identified.
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Garfield, Jay L. Buddhist Ethics. Oxford University Press, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190907631.001.0001.
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This volume is one of a series of monographs on Buddhist philosophy for philosophers. It presents an outline of Buddhist ethical thought, presenting Buddhist ethical reflection as a distinct approach, or rather set of approaches, to moral philosophy. The book draws on a range of Buddhist philosophers to exhibit the internal diversity of the tradition as well as the lineaments that demonstrate its overarching integrity. This includes early Pāli texts, medieval Indian commentarial literature and philosophical treatises, Tibetan commentaries and treatises, and contemporary Buddhist literature. It argues that Buddhist ethics is best understood not as a species of any Western ethical tradition, but instead as a kind of moral phenomenology, and that it is particularist in its orientation. The book addresses both methodological and doctrinal issues and concludes with a study of the way that Buddhist ethical thought is relevant in the contemporary world.
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Medhananda, Swami. Swami Vivekananda's Vedāntic Cosmopolitanism. Oxford University Press, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197624463.001.0001.
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Swami Vivekananda, the nineteenth-century Hindu monk who introduced Vedānta to the West, is undoubtedly one of modern India’s most influential philosophers. Unfortunately, his philosophy has too often been interpreted through reductive hermeneutic lenses. Typically, scholars have viewed him either as a modern-day exponent of Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta or as a “Neo-Vedāntin” influenced more by Western ideas than indigenous Indian traditions. Swami Vivekananda’s Vedāntic Cosmopolitanism rejects both of these prevailing approaches to offer a new interpretation of Vivekananda’s philosophy, highlighting its originality, contemporary relevance, and cross-cultural significance. Vivekananda, the book argues, is best understood as a cosmopolitan Vedāntin who developed novel philosophical positions through creative dialectical engagement with both Indian and Western thinkers. Inspired by his guru Sri Ramakrishna, Vivekananda reconceived Advaita Vedānta as a nonsectarian, life-affirming philosophy that provides an ontological basis for religious cosmopolitanism and a spiritual ethics of social service. He defended the scientific credentials of religion while criticizing the climate of scientism beginning to develop in the late nineteenth century. He was also one of the first philosophers to defend the evidential value of supersensuous perception on the basis of general epistemic principles. Finally, he adopted innovative cosmopolitan approaches to long-standing philosophical problems. Bringing him into dialogue with a galaxy of contemporary philosophers, the book demonstrates the sophistication and enduring value of Vivekananda’s views on the limits of reason, the dynamics of religious faith, and the hard problem of consciousness.
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Nair, Shankar. Muḥibb Allāh Ilāhābādī on Ontology. Edited by Jonardon Ganeri. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199314621.013.1.
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This article reconsiders the debate among Indian Muslim intellectuals regarding the philosophical doctrines of waḥdat al-wujūd (“unity of being”) and waḥdat al-shuhūd (“unity of witnessing”). With a view to reconstructing some of the broader Muslim scholarly networks that characterized the early modern subcontinent, I turn to Muḥibb Allāh ibn Mubāriz Ilāhābādī’s (1587–1648 c.e.) Arabic treatise on ontology, al-Taswiya bayna al-ifāda wa’l-qabūl, and the series of commentaries attached to it. An analysis of this treatise allows for the exploration of one of the foundational topics in Islamic metaphysics: the conceptual distinction between “quiddity” (māhiyya) and “being” or “existence” (wujūd). Through surveying the rival philosophical views given voice in the treatise—hailing from the Peripatetic, Ash‘arī, Illuminationist, “wujūdī,” and other traditions and involving such important Indian Muslim thinkers as Mullā Maḥmūd al-Jawnpūrī and Khwāja Khwurd—I hope to offer some early steps toward a fuller appreciation of the diverse currents of premodern South Asian Islamic philosophical debates, which extend far beyond the mere wujūd-versus-shuhūd dichotomy that has problematically preoccupied modern historians.
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Rivett, Sarah. Indigenous Metaphors and the Philosophy of History in Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190492564.003.0009.
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Chapter 8 explores how a fascination with a “native language” emerged in literary circles through a simultaneous indebtedness to traditional British prose and verse forms, and Anglo-American linguistic affiliation with indigenous-language roots. By 1815, the “Historical and Literary Committee of the American Philosophical Society” would declare this “native language” a uniquely “American idiom” to be discovered on the American continent through the “numerous novel forms” of Indian languages. In his early novels, James Fenimore Cooper seized upon the aesthetic value that could be constructed from Indian languages and from the figure of the noble savage. I show how Cooper’s novels build upon beliefs in the prelapsarian quality of indigenous languages. I argue that the regenerative potential that Cooper’s novels portray as arising from Indian words functions as aesthetic compensation for the violence and repeated violation of treaty agreements that characterized US and Indian relations in the early nineteenth century.
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Dasti, Matthew. Vātsyāyana. Edited by Jonardon Ganeri. Oxford University Press, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199314621.013.15.
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Vātsyāyana (c.450 ce) is the author of the Commentary on Nyāya, the first full commentary on the Nyāya-sūtra of Gautama (c.150 ce), which is itself the foundational text of the school of philosophy called “Nyāya.” The Nyāya tradition is home to a number of leading voices within classical Indian philosophy and is celebrated in later doxographies as one of the six “orthodox” systems of Hindu thought. Vātsyāyana’s commentary sets the agenda for much of Nyāya’s philosophical developments throughout its history. This chapter explores his theory of knowledge, giving special attention to his account of the nature and importance of cognition as a guide to action. It illustrates the way in which this theme informs a number of apparently distinct elements of his project including his realism, his account of epistemic entitlement, and his notion of philosophy’s contribution to living well.
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Rao, Koneru Ramakrishna. Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199477548.003.0001.
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This book is an attempt to provide a synthetic overview of Gandhi’s person, philosophy, and practices. In the Introduction, the author mentions that the objective of the book is to make Gandhi and his thought relevant to contemporary life. The volume does not discuss his ideas in an abstract format but attempts to present them as issues that relate to actual life. Wherever possible, Gandhi’s ideas have been located with the native as well as other philosophical traditions, including those that seem to conflict with Gandhi’s. In the Introduction the author discusses how philosophy in India grew along with religion, science, and other human endeavours. In India, philosophy is not limited to logic and argument, even though they do play a significant role in philosophical discussions.
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Nagarajan, Vijaya. Feeding a Thousand Souls. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195170825.001.0001.
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Drawing on extensive fieldwork, this book investigates aesthetic, symbolic, metaphorical, literary, mathematical, and philosophical meanings of the kōlam, the popular Tamil women’s daily ephemeral practice, a ritual art tradition performed with rice flour on the thresholds of houses in southern India. They range from concepts such as auspiciousness, inauspiciousness, ritual purity, and ritual pollution. Several divinities, too, play a significant role: Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, good luck, well-being, and a quickening energy; Mūdevi, the goddess of poverty, bad luck, illness, and laziness; Bhūdevi, the goddess of the soils, the earth, and the fields; and the god Ganesh, the remover of obstacles. Braiding art history, aesthetics, and design, this book analyzes the presence of the kōlam in medieval Tamil literature, focusing on the saint-poet Āṇṭāḷ. The author shows that the kōlam embodies mathematical principles such as symmetry, fractals, array grammars, picture languages, and infinity. Three types of kōlam competitions are described. The kinship between Bhūdevi and the kōlam is discussed as the author delves into the topics of “embedded ecologies” and “intermittent sacrality.” The author explores the history of the phrase “feeding a thousand souls,” tracing it back to ancient Sanskrit literature, where it was connected to Indian notions of hospitality, karma, and strangers. Its relationship to the theory of karma is represented by its connection to the five ancient sacrifices. This ritual is distinguished as one of the many “rituals of generosity” in Tamil Nadu.
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Harris, Stephen E., Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach, Daniel Raveh, Georgina Tuari Stewart, Dean Anthony Brink, Takeshi Morisato, Pascah Mungwini, et al. Buddhist Ethics and the Bodhisattva Path. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350379572.
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Santideva’s 8th century Mahayana Buddhist classic, the Guide to the Practices of Awakening (Bodhicaryavatara), has been a source of philosophical inspiration in the Indian and Tibetan traditions for over a thousand years. Stephen Harris guides us through a philosophical exploration of Santideva’s masterpiece, introducing us to his understanding of the compassionate bodhisattva, who vows to liberate the entire universe from suffering. Individual chapters provide studies of the bodhisattva virtues of generosity, patience, compassion, and wisdom, illustrating the role each plays in Santideva’s account of well-being and moral development. Harris also provides in-depth analysis of many of Santideva’s most influential arguments, demonstrating how he employs reasoning as a method to cultivate moral character. As the first book-length English language philosophical study of Santideva’s most influential text, this will be essential reading for students and scholars of Buddhist ethics, as well as for anyone interested in intercultural ethics and the philosophy of well-being.
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Duckworth, Douglas S. Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy of Mind and Nature. Oxford University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190883959.001.0001.
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This book offers an engaging philosophical overview of Tibetan Buddhist thought. It shows the way that Buddhist theory informs Buddhist practice across various Tibetan traditions in ways that integrate competing and complimentary perspectives on the nature of mind and reality. The book draws upon a contrast between phenomenology and ontology to highlight distinct starting points of inquiries into mind and nature in Buddhism and to illuminate central issues confronted in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy. It argues that these starting points share a common ground and can be seen to be actually inseparable. This thematic study raises some of the most difficult and critical topics in Buddhist thought, such as the nature of mind and the meaning of emptiness, across a wide range of philosophical traditions, including the “Middle Way” of Madhyamaka, Yogācāra (a.k.a. “Mind-Only”), and tantra. This book provides a richly textured overview that explores the intersecting nature of mind, language, and world depicted across Tibetan Buddhist traditions. It also puts Tibetan philosophy into conversation with texts and traditions from India, Europe, and America, exemplifying the possibility and potential for a transformative conversation in global philosophy.
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Bhushan, Nalini, and Jay L. Garfield. Anukul Chandra Mukerji. Edited by Jonardon Ganeri. Oxford University Press, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199314621.013.42.
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Anukul Chandra Mukerji (1888–1968) was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Allahabad. His career reflects a preoccupation with the history of philosophy, and his systematic work is always situated both in the Western and Indian philosophical traditions. In the West his work focuses on the philosophy of Kant and Hegel. Mukerji approached Indian idealism through Advaita Vedānta. Mukerji, a specialist in the philosophy of mind and psychology, was a committed naturalist, in that he saw the deliverances of empirical psychology as foundational to an understanding of the mind. He paid close attention especially to the psychologists William James, John B. Watson, and James Ward. Mukerji wrote two substantial monographs: Self, Thought and Reality (1933) and The Nature of Self (1938). In each, Mukerji emphasizes the rational intelligibility of the world and the foundation role that consciousness and self-knowledge play in the edifice of knowledge more generally.
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Gowans, Christopher W. Self-Cultivation Philosophies in Ancient India, Greece, and China. Oxford University Press, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190941024.001.0001.
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The book defends the thesis that the concept of self-cultivation philosophy is an informative interpretive framework for comprehending and reflecting on several philosophical outlooks in India, the Greco-Roman world, and China. On the basis of an understanding of human nature and the place of human beings in the world, self-cultivation philosophies maintain that our lives can and should be substantially transformed from what is judged to be a problematic, untutored condition of human beings, our existential starting point, into what is put forward as an ideal state of being. We are to do this by undertaking a set of therapeutic or spiritual exercises guided by some philosophical analysis. The self-cultivation philosophies in India are expressed in the Bhagavad Gita; the Sāṃkhya and Yoga philosophies of Īśvarakṛṣṇa and Patañjali; and teaching of the Buddha and his followers Buddhaghosa and Śāntideva. The philosophies originating in Greece, with subsequent development in the Roman period, are the most prominent Hellenistic approaches: the Epicureanism of Epicurus, Lucretius, and Philodemus; the Stoicism of Chrysippus, Epictetus, and Seneca; and Pyrrho and the Pyrrhonism of Sextus Empiricus. The self-cultivation philosophies from China are the early Confucian outlooks of Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi; the classical Daoist perspectives of the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi; and the Chan tradition of Bodhidharma, Huineng, and Linji.
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Yakherds, The, ed. Knowing Illusion: Bringing a Tibetan Debate into Contemporary Discourse. Oxford University PressNew York, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197603628.001.0001.
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Abstract The two volumes of this study examine fundamental issues in Buddhist thought and practice, particularly the implications of the two truths (relative and ultimate). If, as Buddhist sources claim, all perceptions are overlaid with error, is it possible to have confidence in our knowledge of the world? If buddhas only perceive reality as it is, that are they incapable of relating to ordinary beings, who view their environment through a lens of false imaginings? Taktsang Sherap Rinchen, a fifteenth-century Sakya scholar, explored the philosophical and practical ramifications of Madhyamaka antifoundationalism. He accused Tsongkhapa, one of Tibet’s most influential thinkers, of a fundamental incoherence that stems from an attempt to bring together the Epistemology tradition, which posits reliable epistemic instruments, and Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka, which rejects any attempt at foundationalism. Both Taktsang and Tsongkhapa claim to interpret Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti correctly but draw vastly different conclusions from their respective readings. The controversy Taktsang sparked has its roots in Indian debates regarding the implications of the two truths. These were further developed in Tibet and engaged some of Tibet’s best minds for centuries. Our study, the first book-length discussion of this debate, situates this literature in a philosophical perspective. We elucidate parallels with debates in contemporary global philosophy, and we demonstrate the implications of the debate for the entire Buddhist enterprise of making sense of the world and presenting a path capable of leading beings to buddhahood.
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Goble, Geoffrey C. The History of Buddhism. ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9798400664526.
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One of the world's most popular religions, Buddhism is also one of the most misunderstood. This reference overviews misconceptions related to Buddhism and reveals the truths behind the myths. Buddhism is practiced by millions of adherents around the world. Originating in ancient India, it spread throughout Asia and then to the West, and it exists in multiple traditions. Despite its popularity, it is also the subject of many misconceptions. This book examines those misconceptions along with the historical truths behind the myths. The book begins with an introduction that places Buddhism in its historical and cultural contexts. This is followed by chapters on particular erroneous beliefs related to the religion. Chapters explore whether Buddhism is a singular tradition, if it is a religion or a philosophical system, if it is rational and scientific, whether the Buddha was an ordinary human, and other topics. Each chapter summarizes the misconception and how it spread, along with what we now believe to be the underlying truth behind the falsehood. Quotations and excerpts from primary source documents provide evidence for the mistaken beliefs and the historical truths. The book closes with a selected, general bibliography.
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Melidoro, Domenico. Dealing with Diversity. Edited by Aakash Singh Rathore. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190121136.001.0001.
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The diversity of cultures, religions, and moral values and the ways in which liberalism deals with this plurality is the topic at the centre of this book. The author illustrates, in a critical and original way, the recent international debate on liberalism and diversity. In doing that, he discusses some controversial issues such as multiculturalism and minority rights, immigration, religious pluralism, children education, and the place of religion in society as well. After an analysis of some recent liberal theories, the book works out a solution to the problem of ensuring a peaceful and stable coexistence of different groups within the same institutional setting. It is a solution that is liberal in its general orientation, since it has a liberal allegiance to equality and individual rights. However, the proposed solution tries to recognize the due space to community loyalties, religious belongings, and cultural traditions. In addition to this, the author proposes a new theory of political obligation, namely of how a plural society can persist, notwithstanding deep cultural and religious pluralism. In this book, the analytical rigour typical of the philosophical tradition, is not separated from attention to social reality and its problems. In fact, particularly interesting is the way in which the book tests its theoretical achievements with the issue of religious pluralism in India. The outcome is that peaceful coexistence and respect for religious freedoms is possible even in a fragmented society such as India.
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Stoltz, Jonathan. Illuminating the Mind. Oxford University Press, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190907532.001.0001.
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This book provides readers with an introduction to epistemology within the Buddhist intellectual tradition. It is designed to be accessible to those whose primary background is in the “Western” tradition of philosophy and who have little or no previous exposure to Buddhist philosophical writings. The book examines many of the most important topics in the field of epistemology, topics that are central both to contemporary discussions of epistemology and to the classical Buddhist tradition of epistemology in India and Tibet. Among the topics discussed are Buddhist accounts of the nature of knowledge episodes, the defining conditions of perceptual knowledge and of inferential knowledge, the status of testimonial knowledge, and skeptical criticisms of the entire project of epistemology. The book seeks to put the field of Buddhist epistemology in conversation with contemporary debates in philosophy. It shows that many of the arguments and debates occurring within classical Buddhist epistemological treatises coincide with the arguments and disagreements found in contemporary epistemology. The book shows, for example, how Buddhist epistemologists developed an anti-luck epistemology—one that is linked to a sensitivity requirement for knowledge. Likewise, the book explores the question of how the study of Buddhist epistemology can be of relevance to contemporary debates about the value of contributions from experimental epistemology, and to broader debates concerning the use of philosophical intuitions about knowledge.
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Cohen, Richard I., ed. Alvin H. Rosenfeld (ed.), Deciphering the New Antisemitism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015. 568 pp. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190912628.003.0016.
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This chapter reviews the book Deciphering the New Antisemitism (2015), edited by Alvin H. Rosenfeld. Deciphering the New Antisemitism discusses many of the new forms of antisemitism. It explores antisemitism in relation to Islamophobia and radical Catholicism, antisemitic ideology, and moral antisemitism (the philosophical aspect of the phenomenon) as well as apostasy, literary theory, antisemitism in France, and anti-Zionism within the anarchist tradition. It also looks at the uniqueness of the Holocaust, denial of the Holocaust, and generational changes among Holocaust deniers. Finally, it examines antisemitism in the United States, the European Union, and Iran. Discovering the New Antisemitism is highly recommended for scholars of contemporary Jewish history, Israeli history, and political science.
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Ram-Prasad, Chakravarthi. Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198823629.003.0001.
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The Introduction outlines the various chapters. It then situates the question of ‘body’ in the modern Western philosophical tradition following Descartes, and argues that this leaves subsequent responses to come under one of three options: metaphysical dualism of body and subject; any anti-dualist reductionism; or the overcoming of the divide. Describing the Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty as a potent example of the third strategy, the Introduction then suggests his philosophy will function as foil to the ecological phenomenology developed and presented in the book. Moreover, one approach within the Western Phenomenological tradition, of treating phenomenology as a methodology for the clarification of experience (rather than the means to the determination of an ontology of the subject) is compared to the approach in this book. Since classical India, while understanding dualism, did not confront the challenge of Descartes (for better or for worse), its treatment of body follows a different trajectory.
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Nagarajan, Vijaya. Beginnings. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195170825.003.0001.
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Before dawn each day, millions of Hindu women in Tamil Nadu, India, create a kōlam, a sacred ritual art form, on the thresholds of homes, temples, and businesses. It is usually made of rice flour and therefore is ephemeral. Drawing on her extensive ethnographic research, the author seeks to understand the wide range of meanings attributed to the kōlam, such as beauty; auspiciousness; the god Ganesha; the goddesses Lakshmi, Mūdevi, and Bhūdevi; the evil eye; competition; designs; mathematics; ecology; and the idea of “feeding a thousand souls.” This chapter (along with Chapters 2 and 3) lays the foundation for the book. The author describes how her research was influenced by Ivan Illich, A. K. Ramanujan, and Chandralekha. She braids together the diasporic with the home culture, integrating philosophical underpinnings of women’s knowledge systems and oral traditions.