Mode of philosophizing in post-colonial India is deeply influenced by two centuries of British rule, wherein a popular divide emerged between doing classical Indian philosophy and Western philosophy. However, a closer look reveals that the divide is not exclusive, since there are several criss-cross modes of philosophizing shaped by the forces of colonialism and nationalist consciousness. Contemporary challenges lie in raising new philosophical questions relevant to our time, keeping in view both what has been inherited and what has been imbibed (...) in these centuries-old civilizational journeys. One needs to recognize India’s rich intellectual traditions based on cultural diversity, and at the same time raise fundamental questions that are transcendental in nature, yet historically rooted in our temporal presence. The challenge to articulate the nature of Indian philosophy has remained one of the daunting tasks for scholars of philosophy. Contemporariness of Indian philosophy is another issue to be deliberated. Contemporariness lies not only in raising new questions to classical Indian philosophies, but also in finding newness in old questions. It should further include engaging the classical philosophies with new methodological questions, be it Western philosophical methods or ones internally generated. Contemporariness will include narrating new stories driven by the dynamics of the present, where drive for questioning comes from the authentic philosophical issues of our time. (shrink)

This paper provides one of the many ways of doing historiography, specifically concerning Indian philosophy. After making some general observations on the limitations of a historian and a historiographer in general—it would provide a brief analysis of the historiography of Indian philosophy by looking at the recent attempts at periodization. The development of 'Indian philosophy' as a label to a concept, issues concerning the use of darśana for its representation, and reeking it as a space of strange intellectual landscape by (...) contemporary scholars are discussed subsequently. While using historiography implicitly as a methodological tool, an attempt is made to probe into the contemporary conception of Indian philosophy. Though it doesn’t claim to provide any determinate conclusions regarding either periodization or conceptualization of Indian philosophy, the paper emphasizes the need to probe these concerns further and the need to use a historiographical approach to such a study. (shrink)

The demand for the recognition of non-Western philosophy has often brought about the opposition of substantialized entities such as ‘India’ and the ‘West,’ which has nourished the drifts of nationalistic rhetoric. As a decolonizing process but also as a deconstruction of nationalistic revivals, it is necessary to investigate the presuppositions involved when defining ‘Indian philosophy’ in these post-colonial demands for recognition. Considering that the understanding of what is ‘Indian philosophy’ and its claim for recognition is a prerequisite for its reception, (...) I focus in this paper on analyzing the problems of reception of post-colonial Anglophone Indian philosophy. What is it today that prevents the reception of Anglophone Indian philosophy in Indian academics and in the global world? Leaving aside the insufficient integration in Western structures of non-Western philosophies, I focus here on the internal difficulties of Anglophone Indian philosophy in India today. I suggest that the following interrelated obstacles prevent a global reception: the language, in terms of disparity of linguistic communities; the conditions of distribution and diffusion of the philosophical material; the historical rupture in the forms of transmission of knowledge; regionalism or fragmentation into micro-groups; and finally, the complexity of the situation of utterance or enunciative context, namely, the difficulty for Indian philosophers to answer the question: to whom are we speaking? (shrink)

The future of philosophy is moving towards “global philosophy.” The idea of global philosophy is the view that different philosophical approaches may engage more substantially with each other to solve philosophical problems. Most solutions attempt to use only those available resources located within one philosophical tradition. A more promising approach might be to expand the range of available resources to better assist our ability to offer more compelling solutions. This search for new horizons in order to improve our clarity about (...) philosophical issues is at the heart of global philosophy. The idea of global philosophy encourages us to look beyond our traditions to improve our philosophical problem-solving by our own lights. Global philosophy is a new approach whose time is coming. This essay offers the first account of this approach and an assessment of its future promise. (shrink)

This paper discusses the positions held by two opposing camps—the traditionalists and the positivists regarding the presence or absence of ethics in Indian philosophy. It subsequently offers a way ahead of the impasse where I consider some inputs inherent in the method of dialogue in pre-modern Indian philosophy for imagining an ethics of and ethics for plurality. Such an ethics, I argue, cannot be imagined without involving the category of ‘Other,’ which has otherwise remained elusive in the Indian philosophical debates. (...) The diverse nature of Indian societies demands Other-centric ethics to assess and evaluate the enduring moral crisis pervading contemporary times. (shrink)