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Roy W. Perrett

Författare till An Introduction to Indian Philosophy

5+ verk 48 medlemmar 1 recension

Verk av Roy W. Perrett

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The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics (2005) — Bidragsgivare — 51 exemplar

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This is a very solid introduction to many discussions within classical and medieval indian philosophy. They touch upon subjects such as ethics, epistemology, logic, language, ontology/metaphysics, mind and religion. The approach is a topical rather than a historical one, exposing arguments from various schools of thoughts in favour of or against many positions within these subjects. These presentations are preceded by a metaphilosophical discussion on whether there is such a thing as "indian philosophy", and each chapter features a section with further readings for those interested in the area treated by the chapter.

Two things in particular interested me:
(I) Although indian philosophers shared many questions with western philosophers, their starting points are significantly different. Take epistemology for example: whereas western philosophers tackle the concept of knowledge mostly from an internalist and belief-centered point of view, indian philosophers almost universally took knowledge to be a cognitive episode which featured a veridical cognition that has a causal route that goes back to a source of knowledge (be it perception, inference, testimony, whatever) - notably an externalist and causal point of view, one that would become popular in the west only during the 20th century.
(II) Indian philosophical debates were richly pluralistic, with three different religions (hinduism, buddhism and jainism) and their schools debating against one another. So we'll have many different theories, each with their own specific suppositions derived from their religious goals and maxims.

This also shows just how advanced indian philosophy also was compared to western debates during the classical and medieval age. Not on every aspect, surely, but it is quite surprising to see many of them discuss such advanced topics and put forth specific positions since the 2nd century CE (and sometimes even before these periods).

I wasn't happy with everything though, as there is some inconsistency in quality. Some debates are discussed more deeply than others, leaving e. g. debates in ethics a little shallow (the author however acknowledges that ethics is not really a very developed field in indian philosophy). Maybe it could've also been a little more systematic in its presentation, I suppose. Finally, there were a few typos here and there, but that is only a minor thing.

Overall I'm very happy with this book, and I recommend it to anyone interested in knowing a little more about indian philosophy and its theories.
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iogavagai | Jul 31, 2021 |

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Statistik

Verk
5
Även av
1
Medlemmar
48
Popularitet
#325,720
Betyg
4.0
Recensioner
1
ISBN
28