1st Edition

Ganeri: Indian Philosophy, 4-vol. set

Edited By Jonardon Ganeri
    1714 Pages 19 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    The learned editor of this new four-volume collection from Routledge argues that its subject matter is ‘a vast—and vastly undersurveyed—body of inquiry into the most fundamental problems of philosophy. As the broader discipline of philosophy continues to evolve into a genuinely international field, "Indian Philosophy" stands for an unquantifiably precious part of the human intellectual biosphere. For those who are interested in the way in which culture influences structures of thought, for those who want to study alternative histories of ideas, and for those who are merely curious to know what some of the world’s greatest thinkers have thought about some of the most intractable and central philosophical puzzles, Indian Philosophy is a domain of unparalleled richness and importance. And in its potential for cross-fertilization with ideas from other philosophical cultures—Greek, Chinese, European, African, Arabic, and Anglophone—Indian Philosophy is a resource that any creative philosopher can and should draw upon.’

    The first of the four volumes (‘Philosophical Inquiry and the Aims of Life’) collects the best scholarship on how Indians have understood the purpose and importance of philosophy; what philosophy as a discipline consists of; the relationship between the study of philosophy and the aims, arts, and ways of life; and, indeed, whether philosophical inquiry is possible. Volume II (‘Self, No Self’), meanwhile, surveys the great diversity of Indian thinking about the mind, with particular emphasis on the vibrant and dynamic work done by a new generation of scholars working at the interface between Buddhist Studies, Cognitive Science, Philosophy of Mind, and Phenomenology. Volume III (‘Critical Indian Philosophers’) focuses on the thought of the most important individual thinkers in the Indian tradition, including: Nāgārjuna, Śankara, Dignāga, Dharmakīrti, Patañjali, Kumārila, and Śrīharṣa. The final volume in the collection (‘Being and Truth’) collates canonical and cutting-edge pieces on Indian theories of being and what there is; realism and antirealism; the nature of truth and representation; and language and logic. The materials gathered here will enable users to get a grip on the remarkable range of Indian thinking about the structure of the world and its fundamental constitution, as well providing insight into fundamental Indian theories about how we reason and how we talk.

    With a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, this ambitious collection of major works simultaneously presents Indian philosophy as an autonomous intellectual tradition, with its own internal dynamic and approach, while also demonstrating how the richness of this tradition can have a crucial role in a newly emerging global and international discipline of philosophy, a discipline described by the collection’s editor as one ‘in which no one philosophical tradition claims priority for itself, but rather in which a diversity of traditions exchange ideas and grow through their interaction with one another’.

    Volume I: Philosophical Inquiry and the Aims of Life

    Part 1: The Concept of Philosophy (ānvīkṣikī)

    1. Bimal Krishna Matilal, ‘On the Concept of Philosophy in India’, Philosophical Essays: Anantalal Thakur Felicitation Volume (Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar, 1987), pp. 190–8.

    2. Wilhelm Halbfass, ‘Darśana, Ānvīkṣikī, Philosophy’, India and Europe: an Essay in Understanding (State University of New York Press, 1988), pp. 263–86.

    Part 2: Philosophy as the Work of Reason

    3. Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen, ‘Internal Criticism and Indian Rational Traditions’, in M. Krauz (ed.), Relativism: Interpretation and Confrontation (University of Notre Dame Pres, 1989), pp. 299–325.

    4. Arindam Chakrabarti, ‘Rationality in Indian Philosophy’, in Eliot Deutsch and Ron Bontekoe (eds.), A Companion to World Philosophies (Blackwell Publishers, 1997), pp. 259–78.

    5. Jonardon Ganeri, ‘Intellectual India: Reason, Identity, Dissent’, New Literary History, 2009, 40, 247–63.

    Part 3: Philosophy as Medicinal Therapy

    6. Wilhelm Halbfass, ‘The Therapeutic Paradigm and the Search for Identity in Indian Philosophy’, Traditions and Reflection: Explorations in Indian Thought (State University of New York Press, 1991), pp. 243–63.

    7. Jonardon Ganeri, ‘Philosophy as a Way of Life: From the Buddha to Tagore’, in M. McGhee, M. Chase, and S. Clark (eds.), Philosophy as a Way of Life, Ancients and Moderns: Essays in Honour of Pierre Hadot (Blackwell Publishers, 2013), pp. 116–31.

    8. Christopher Gowans, ‘Medical Analogies in Buddhist and Hellenistic Thought: Tranquillity and Anger’, in Jonardon Ganeri and Clare Carlisle (eds.), Philosophy as Therapeia (Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 11–34.

    Part 4: Philosophy as a Search for the Self

    9. Joel Brereton, ‘The Upaniṣads’, in W. T. de Bary and I. Bloom (eds.), Approaches to the Asian Classics (Columbia University Press, 1990), pp. 115–35.

    10. Jonardon Ganeri, ‘Hidden in the Cave: The Upaniṣadic Self’, The Concealed Art of the Soul (Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 13–38.

    Part 5: Philosophical Naturalism

    11. Karin C. Preisendanz and Eli Franco, ‘Indian School of Materialism’, in Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1998), pp. 178–81.

    12. Ramkrishna Bhattacharya, ‘Cārvāka Fragments: A New Collection’, Journal of Indian Philosophy, 2002, 30, 6, 597–640.

    13. Jonardon Ganeri, ‘Emergentisms, Ancient and Modern’, Mind, 2011, 120, 671–703.

    Part 6: Commentary as Philosophy

    14. Francis Clooney, ‘Binding the Text: Vedānta as Philosophy and Commentary’, in Jeffrey R. Timm (ed.), Texts in Context: Traditional Hermeneutics in South Asia (State University of New York Press, 1991), pp. 47–68.

    15. Norman Cutler, ‘Interpreting Tirukkuraḷ: The Role of Commentary in the Creation of a Text’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1992, 112, 4, 549–66.

    16. Jonardon Ganeri, ‘Sanskrit Philosophical Commentary: Reading as Philosophy’, Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, 2008, 25, 1, 107–27.

    Part 7: Normative Ethics as Philosophy

    17. Amartya Sen, ‘Realizations, Consequences, and Agency’, The Idea of Justice (Belknap Press, 2009), pp. 208–17.

    18. Joshua Anderson, ‘Sen and the Bhagavad Gītā: Lessons for a Theory of Justice’, Asian Philosophy, 2012, 22, 1, 63–74.

    19. Sandeep Sreekumar, ‘An Analysis of Consequentialism and Deontology in the Normative Ethics of the Bhagavadgītā’, Journal of Indian Philosophy, 2012, 40, 3, 277–315.

    Volume II: Self, No Self

    Part 8: Buddhist Philosophy of Mind

    20. Georges Dreyfus and Evan Thompson, ‘Asian Perspectives: Indian Theories of Mind’, in Morris Moscovitch, Evan Thompson, and Philip David Zelazo (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness (Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 89–116.

    21. Christian Coseru, ‘Mind in Indian Buddhist Philosophy’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2012 edition).

    22. Jake Davis and Evan Thompson, ‘From the Five Agreggates to Phenomenal Consciousness: Towards a Cross-Cultural Cognitive Science’, in Steven Emmanuel (ed.), A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy (John Wiley and Sons, 2014) pp. 585–97.

    23. Jonardon Ganeri, ‘Subjectivity, Selfhood, and the Use of the Word "I"’, in Dan Zahavi, Evan Thomson, and Mark Siderits (eds.), Self, No-self ? (Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 176–92.

    24. Matthew MacKenzie, ‘Self-Awareness Without a Self: Buddhism and the Reflexivity of Awareness’, Asian Philosophy, 2008, 18, 3, 245–66.

    25. Charles K. Fink, ‘The "Scent" of a Self: Buddhism and the First-Person Perspective’, Asian Philosophy, 2012, 22, 3, 289–306.

    26. Martin Adam, ‘No Self, No Free Will, No Problem’, Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, 2010, 33, 1–2, 239–65.

    27. Jonardon Ganeri, ‘An Irrealist Theory of Self’, Harvard Review of Philosophy, 2004, 12, 61–80.

    Part 9: Indian Conceptions of Self

    28. Alex Watson, ‘The Self as a Dynamic Constant. Bhaṭṭa Rāmakaṇṭha’s Middle Ground Between a Naiyāyika Eternal Self-Substance and a Buddhist Stream of Consciousness-Moments’, Journal of Indian Philosophy, 2014, 42, 173–93.

    29. Arindam Chakrabarti, ‘Arguing from Synthesis to the Self: Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta Respond to Buddhist No-self’, in Irina Kuznetsova, Jonardon Ganeri, and C. Ram-Prasad (eds.), Hindu and Buddhist Ideas in Dialogue: Self and No-Self (Ashgate, 2012), pp. 199–216.

    30. Wolfgang Fasching, ‘"I am of the Nature of Seeing": Phenomenological Reflections on the Indian Notion of Witness-Consciousness’, in Dan Zahavi, Evan Thomson, and Mark Siderits (eds.), Self, No-self? (Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 193–216.

    31. Wolfgang Fasching, ‘On the Advaitic Identification of Self and Consciousness’, in Irina Kuznetsova, Jonardon Ganeri, and C. Ram-Prasad (eds.), Hindu and Buddhist Ideas in Dialogue: Self and No-self (Ashgate, 2012), pp. 165–80.

    32. John Taber, ‘The Mīmāṃsā Theory of Self-Recognition’, Philosophy East and West, 1990, 40, 1, 35–57.

    33. John Taber, ‘Uddyotakara’s Defence of a Self’, in Irina Kuznetsova, Jonardon Ganeri, and C. Ram-Prasad (eds.), Hindu and Buddhist Ideas in Dialogue: Self and No-self (Ashgate, 2012), pp. 97–114.

    34. Jonardon Ganeri, ‘Cross-Modality and the Self’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2000, 61, 3, 639–57.

    Volume III: Critical Indian Philosophers

    Part 10: Important Thinkers

    35. Kaṇāda (100 CE). Anantalal Thakur, ‘Kaṇāda: The Propounder of the Vaiśeṣika System’, Origin and Development of the Vaiśeṣika System’, History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization, Vol. 2, Pt. 4 (Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 2003), pp. 3–6.

    36. Nāgārjuna (150). Jan Westerhoff, ‘Nāgārjuna’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2010 edition).

    37. Gautama (150). Eli Franco and Karin Preisendanz, ‘Gautama, Akṣapāda’, in Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1998), pp. 859–61.

    38. Patañjali (375). Edward Byrant, ‘Patañjali’, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

    39. Vasubandhu (316–96). Jonathan C. Gold, ‘Vasubandhu’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2012 edition).

    40. Buddhaghosa (450). Maria Heim, The Forerunner of All Things (OUP, 2013), pp. 6–15.

    41. Vātsyāyana (450). Joy Laine, ‘Vātsyāyana’, in Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1998), pp. 587–8.

    42. Bhartṛhari (450). Ashok Aklujkar, ‘Bhartṛ-hari’, in Robert Arrington (ed.), A Companion to the Philosophers (Blackwell Publishing, 2001), pp. 561–5.

    43. Dignāga (480–540). Richard Hayes, ‘Dignāga’, in Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1998), pp. 74–6.

    44. Candrakīrti (600). Jay L. Garfield, ‘Candrakīrti’, in Robert Arrington (ed.), A Companion to the Philosophers (Blackwell Publishing, 2001), pp. 574–7.

    45. Uddyotakara (630). Joy Laine, ‘Uddyotakara’, in Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1998), pp. 514–6.

    46. Dharmakīrti (600–60). Vincent Eltschinger, ‘Dharmakīrti’, Buddhist Philosophy, 2010, 3, 397–440.

    47. Kumārila (600–50). Dan Arnold, ‘Kumārila’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2014 edition).

    48. Śaṅkara (710). Andrew Fort, ‘Śaṇkara’, in Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1998), pp. 458–61.

    49. Haribhadra Sūri (770). Phyllis Granoff, ‘The Jain Biographies of Haribhadra: An Inquiry into the Origins of the Legends’, Journal of Indian Philosophy, 1988, 6, 1–24.

    50. Jayarāśi (800–40). Piotr Balcerowicz, ‘Jayarāśi’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2011 edition).

    51. Udayana (980). Joy Laine, ‘Udayana’, in Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1998), pp. 512–14.

    52. Abhinavagupta (1020). Paul Muller-Ortega, ‘Abhinavagupta’, in Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1998), pp. 15–19.

    53. Rāmānuja (1060). Jan K. Brzezinski, ‘Rāmānuja’, in Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1998), pp. 42–4.

    54. Śrīharṣa (1140). Phyllis Granoff’, Śrī Harṣa’, Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 14 (in preparation).

    55. Madhva (1280). Valerie Stoker, ‘Madhva’, in Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1998), pp. 31–3.

    56. Gaṅgeśa (1325). Stephen Phillips, ‘Gaṅgeśa’ in Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1998), pp. 843–6.

    57. Raghunātha Śiromaṇi (1460–1540). Jonardon Ganeri, ‘Raghunātha Śiromaṇi and the Origins of Modernity in India’, Nagoya Studies in Indian Culture and Buddhism, 2013, 55–78.

    58. Vijñānabhikṣu (1550–1600). Andrew Nicholson, Unifying Hinduism (Columbia University Press, 2010), pp. 6–14.

    59. Dārā Shikoh (1615–59). I. A. Omar, ‘Delhi’s Debates on Ahl-i Kitāb: Dara Shikuh’s Islamization of the Upanishads’, in R. C. Taylor and I. A. Omar (eds.), The Judeo-Christian-Islamic Heritage: Philosophical and Theological Perspectives (Marquette, 2012), pp. 89–109.

    Part 11: Social History of Philosophical Practice

    60. Johannes Bronkhorst. ‘Modes of Debate and Refutation of Adveraries in Classical and Medieval India’, Antiquorum Philosophia, 2007, 1, 269–82.

    61. Phyllis Granoff, ‘Scholars and Wonder-workers: Some Remarks on the Role of the Supernatural in Philosophical Contests in Vedānta Hagiographies’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1985, 105/3, 459–69.

    62. Brian Black, ‘Debates Between Brahmins: The Competitive Dynamics of the Brahmodaya’, The Character of the Self in Ancient India (SUNY, 2007), pp. 59–100.

    63. Esther A. Solomon, ‘Actual Debates and Controversies’, Indian Dialectics (B. J. Institute of Learning and Research, 1978), Vol. II, pp. 833–75.

    64. Madhav Deshpande, ‘Will the Winner Please Stand Up: Conflicting Narratives of a Seventeenth-Century Philosophical Debate from Karnataka’, in Cynthia Talbot (ed.), Knowing India: Colonial and Modern Reconstructions of the Past (New Delhi: Yoda Press, 2010), pp. 366-80.

    Volume IV: Being and Truth

    Part 12: Metaphysics

    65. Wilhelm Halbfass, ‘The Conceptualization of Being in Classical Vaiśeṣika’, On Being and What There Is: Classical Vaiśeṣika and the History of Indian Ontology (State University of New York Press, 1992), pp. 139–68.

    66. Kisor Kumar Chakrabarti, ‘The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika Theory of Universals’, Journal of Indian Philosophy, 1975, 3, 3–4, 363–82.

    67. Jonardon Ganeri, ‘Objectivity and Proof in a Classical Indian Theory of Number’, Synthese, 2001, 129, 3, 413–37.

    68. Charles Goodman, ‘The Treasury of Metaphysics and the Physical World’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 2004, 54, 216, 389–401.

    Part 13: Epistemology

    69. Bimal K. Matilal, ‘A Realist View of Perception’, in P. K. Sen and R. R. Verma (eds.), The Philosophy of P. F. Strawson (Indian Council of Philosophical Research, 1995), pp. 305–26.

    70. John Taber, ‘Kumārila on Perception’, A Hindu Critique of Buddhist Epistemology (Routledge, 2005), pp. 1–43, 163–7.

    71. Joel Feldman, ‘Vasubandhu’s Illusion Argument and the Parasitism of Illusion Upon Veridical Experience’, Philosophy East and West, 2005, 55, 4, 529–41.

    72. Matthew R. Dasti, ‘Parasitism and Disjunctivism in Nyāya Epistemology’, Philosophy East and West, 2012, 62, 1–15.

    73. Anand Jayprakash Vaidya, ‘Nyāya Perceptual Theory: Disjunctivism or Anti-Individualism?’, Philosophy East and West, 2013, 63, 4, 562–85.

    Part 14: Language

    74. Frits Staal, ‘Euclid and Pāṇini’, Philosophy East and West, 1965, 15, 99–116.

    75. Frits Staal, ‘Indian Theories of Meaning’, in E. Koerner and R. Asher (eds.), Concise History of the Language Sciences (Permagon, 1995), pp. 66–71.

    76. Bimal K. Matilal and Pranab K. Sen, ‘The Context Principle and Some Indian Controversies Over Meaning’, Mind, 1988, 73–97.

    77. B. K. Matilal, ‘Bhartṛhari’s View of Sphoṭa’, The Word and the World (Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 84–98.

    78. Jonardon Ganeri, ‘"Ākāśa" and Other Names’, Journal of Indian Philosophy, 1996, 24, 339–62.

    79. Malcolm Keating, ‘Mukulabhaṭṭa’s Defense of Lakṣaṇā: How We Use Words to Mean Something Else, But Not Everything Else’, Journal of Indian Philosophy, 2013, 41, 4, 439–61.

    Part 15: Logic

    80. Alberto Todeschini, ‘Twenty-two Ways to Lose a Debate: A Gricean Look at the Nyāyasūtra’s Points of Defeat’, Journal of Indian Philosophy, 2010, 38, 49–74.

    81. Brendon Gillon and Richard Hayes, ‘The Role of the Particle Eva in (Logical) Quantification in Sanskrit’, Wiener Zeitschrift fur die Kunde Sudasiens, 1982, 26, 195–203.

    82. Bimal K. Matilal, ‘Semiotic Conceptions in the Indian Theory of Argumentation’, The Word and the World (Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 156–66.

    83. Jonardon Ganeri, ‘Jaina Logic and the Philosophical Basis of Pluralism’, History and Philosophy of Logic, 2002, 23, 4, 267–81.

    84. Scott R. Stroud, ‘Comprehensive Rhetorical Pluralism and the Demands of Democratic Discourse: Partisan Perfect Reasoning, Pragmatism, and the Freeing Solvent of Jaina Logic’, Philosophy and Rhetoric, 2014, 47, 3, 297–322.

    Books on Indian philosophy seldom refer to Islamic thinkers, so Irfam Omar’s essay (in volume 3) on Dara Shikoh (1615–59) is especially welcome. As Ganeri notes, this set could serve as the basis for a course on Indian philosophy as well as a supplement to such study. (...) Summing Up: Recommended."

    - J. M. Fritzman, Lewis & Clark College in CHOICE