Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- I INTRODUCTION
- II DISCOURSE, CONDITIONS AND DYNAMICS OF TRADITION IN SOUTH ASIA
- III HOW TO PRODUCE, CONSTRUCT AND LEGITIMATE A TRADITION
- IV EXPERIENCING BOUNDARIES WITHIN TRADITION: THE CASE OF THE SANSKRIT GRAMMARIANS
- V VIOLATING TRADITION AND ITS BOUNDARIES
- VI THINKING ABOUT TRADITIONS IN SOUTH ASIA TODAY
- When Two Strong Men Stand Face to Face. The Indologist, the Pandit and the Re-Making of the Jaina Scholarly Tradition
- Evaluation or Dialogue? A Brief Reflection on the Understanding of the Indian Tradition of Debate
Unity in Diversity: Indian and Western Philosophical Traditions
from VI - THINKING ABOUT TRADITIONS IN SOUTH ASIA TODAY
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- I INTRODUCTION
- II DISCOURSE, CONDITIONS AND DYNAMICS OF TRADITION IN SOUTH ASIA
- III HOW TO PRODUCE, CONSTRUCT AND LEGITIMATE A TRADITION
- IV EXPERIENCING BOUNDARIES WITHIN TRADITION: THE CASE OF THE SANSKRIT GRAMMARIANS
- V VIOLATING TRADITION AND ITS BOUNDARIES
- VI THINKING ABOUT TRADITIONS IN SOUTH ASIA TODAY
- When Two Strong Men Stand Face to Face. The Indologist, the Pandit and the Re-Making of the Jaina Scholarly Tradition
- Evaluation or Dialogue? A Brief Reflection on the Understanding of the Indian Tradition of Debate
Summary
Since many years we have been interested in a problem that worries many scholars in Indology: whether philosophy existed in ancient India (Tola, Dragonetti 1983).
It is our idea that philosophical thinking has been an important part of Indian tradition all along its history and that its origin can be traced back to the Vedic epoch. Of course we admit that in Vedic texts philosophical thinking still appears in a rudimentary form, as ‘preformations’—we could say—that were to be developed in later centuries.
We know that it is not easy to give a definition of the word ‘philosophy’, acceptable to all. The long series of articles concerning the notion of ‘Philosophie’, included in the Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie (v. 7, col. 572-926), shows the great number of opinions that have existed concerning this notion. We assume that philosophy basically is what in Indian technical terminology is called a darśana, a peculiar way of looking at the reality in which we live. This word is used to designate what Indians and indologists consider to be the Indian ‘systems of philosophy’. We shall examine later on the validity of the opinion that Western philosophy is characterized by rationality, free thinking and search of truth for its own sake, conceived as being the essential features of philosophical thinking.
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- Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2011