Dear List Members,

Apologies for cross-posting.

I'm happy to announce that my book (in the work for the past five years) is out. It is part of a series of books on the philosophy of religion: each on a specific religion. Also, I am happy to thank kind members of our list (RISA for sure)  (our own Frank Clooney, Jeff Long and Ashwani Peetush) who provided reviews for the book. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers who provided useful feedback along the way.

It is called Hinduism: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation (Routledge 2019).

The abstract, TOC as well as reviews are on the publisher page.

In this book, I contrast two traditions. The one I call the West: it's the intellectual tradition derivable from Greek philosophy, where thought and language were bound together in one idea: logos. So it not only defines thought by way of language, given its historical origins, it prioritizes European languages in its articulation of thought. It leads to many outcomes, some of which are contingent on its European origins in addition to the notion that thought is linguistic meaning (*):

• the distinction between the religious as anything not originally derivable from European literature, and the secular as anything originally derivable from European literature* (hence all world religions have non-European roots)
  
• the West's globalizing history of imperialism *
  
• the study of philosophy conflated with the study of language
  
• rampant anthoprocentrism (politely called 'humanism')
  
• communitarianism (the idea that moral traits have to do with community membership)
• nationalism
  
• the confusion of thoughts (what we draw inferences from), and beliefs (descriptions of the attitude that a proposition is true)
  
• the ubiquitous but logically bizarre view called "interpretation"---that all explanation or the good ones are explanations by way of what one takes to be true, seems true or is true (a procedure that violates basic requirements of logic).

If we try to make sense of Hinduism via the West, we don't see Hindus as contributing to philosophical inquiry. We rather would have to make sense of Hinduism in terms of some shared humanistic beliefs, underwriting some communal Hindu outlook that is religious (inexplicable by European standards).  Effort is hence diverted to fixing the content of Hindu belief.

Rather, I contrast this with an alternative, that identifies good explanations with logical inference, and thought with disciplinary practices (yoga). And the upshot is that if we take this approach: we lose any grounds for distinguishing between the secular the religious---all we find is philosophy; anthropocentrism and communitarianism are under-motivated (as is nationalism); Hinduism appears unique among things conventionally called "religion" --- it is nothing but the disagreements of philosophy. 

The book contrasts the expectations of the West with what I call representative Hinduism:

• what Hindus and we converge on as we disagree across a diversity of philosophical topics using Indian resources. 
  

The topics I explore are: ethics, logic, the philosophy of thought, epistemology, moral standing, metaphysics, and politics. Whereas the linguistic, Western model of thought and explanation prioritizes agreement and truth, a representative Hindu model of thought and explanation prioritizes disagreement and objectivity. To understand Hinduism is hence to understand its disagreements, which are the disagreements of philosophy. 

This book consists of a fairly broad overview of Indian philosophies in contrast to Western contributions, and addresses the relationship between practice and theory.  It can be used as a source for exploring the problems of cross cultural scholarship and the problems of philosophy (with special reference to South Asia), or as an overview of Indian and Hindu philosophies.  Explicitly, it addresses the problem of making sense of Hinduism in a world of diversity.  I hence hope that it is useful to teachers covering the topic of Hinduism in their religious studies classes.

The book is political: representative Hinduism and has a fair bit to say about getting along in a diverse world.  I think (and I argue) that the effort to avoid politics and moral theorizing in the account of Indian thought is par for course with the West: it would sooner depict Indians as converging on some shared mysticism.   One of the West's many vices, traceable to the linguistic account of thought, is that it can't tolerate disagreement.   But it's not  essentially European: it can spread---colonized peoples can come to adopt the premises of the West in their own self articulation   (Hindu nationalism is one of the outcomes). But, I argue, it's far more objective to understand Hinduism in terms of its disagreements and to abandon the West. 

Best wishes,

Shyam

Shyam Ranganathan

Department of Philosophy

York Center for Asian Research
York University, Toronto

shyam-ranganathan.info 

Hinduism: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation

The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Ethics

Patañjali`s Yoga Sūtras (Translation, Edition and Commentary)

Translating Evaluative Discourse: The Semantics of Thick and Thin Concepts

Full List, Publications