Hello all,

I'm not surprised that some members of this list conflate being professional with being a philologist (see below), as though that's all Indology could be. I'm not surprised as I've written on this for some time, and there are cultural roots to this focus on language as the source of knowledge about an area of study. That too I've written on. And for the record, I'm not a philologist. I'm a philosopher.  I suppose that some would think that I don't belong on this list. At least one member publicly claimed as much when I asked a question not too long ago.  That member was not removed from the list, though their attack on me was ad hominem.

And one of the things that I teach, as a philosopher, are courses on logic and critical thinking. Ad hominem arguments fall under the heading of informal fallacies. An ad hominem argument is not an argument where one criticizes a person as instantiating something generally objectionable. An ad hominem argument is where you denigrate a person, and thereby their credibility as a witness, or reasoner.

In philosophy we are routinely pressured to provide examples of a more general point, and what Bagchee did was just that. Of course, you could dispute the general point he was making, or the relevance of the specific examples (the examples could be false or misrepresented), but it seems to me that excluding him from the list simply because he provided such examples for a general point he was making is strange. For even if he didn't name names, we could have understood what examples from professional Indology fall under the general point he was making. 

I myself wouldn't have made the argument. But I have noticed for much time that Indology is a hostile place for philosophy and the practices of philosophers. Any time ethical questions come up on this list, they are shot down as irrelevant to Indology. If Indology excludes philosophy, then yes, talking about ethical questions would be out of bounds---and talking about examples of a general ethical point would also be a distraction from Indology. But if Indology excludes philosophy it's strange that so much attention is given to the history of Indian philosophy by Indologists and that they are routinely called upon to referee peer reviewed articles on Indian philosophy. 

Best wishes,

Shyam

Shyam Ranganathan

Department of Philosophy

York Center for Asian Research,

York University, Toronto

I absolutely second the postings of Arlo Griffith, Walter Slaje, Birgit Kellner and Andrew Ollett. We should read Joydeep Bagchee's message as professionals, namely as philologists, and thus cannot but regard his posting as full of inacceptable insinuations.

With best regards,

Roland Steimer


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