What do you think?
Rate this book
Cambridge Introductions to Philosophy
An Introduction to Indian Philosophy
This wide-ranging introduction to classical Indian philosophy is philosophically rigorous without being too technical for beginners. Through detailed explorations of the full range of Indian philosophical concerns, including some metaphilosophical issues, it provides readers with non-Western perspectives on central areas of philosophy, including epistemology, logic, metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of religion. Chapters are structured thematically, with each including suggestions for further reading. This provides readers with an informed overview whilst enabling them to focus on particular topics if needed. Translated Sanskrit texts are accompanied by authorial explanations and contextualisations, giving the reader an understanding of the argumentative context and philosophical style of Indian texts. A detailed glossary and a guide to Sanskrit pronunciation equip readers with the tools needed for reading and understanding Sanskrit terms and names. The book will be an essential resource for both beginners and advanced students of philosophy and Asian studies.
- GenresPhilosophyHinduism
261 pages, Paperback
First published January 31, 2016
18 people are currently reading
195 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 1, 2019
This book is amazingly clear, informative, and engaging, even for the reader with no background in Indian philosophy at all. In Perrett's preliminary remarks in this book, he sums up the major trends in the history of Western conceptions of Indian philosophy: either Westerners have dismissed it as naive folk beliefs, heavily romanticized it as embodying qualities (i.e., mysticism and irrationalism) that Western thought lacks, or catalogues its details in a detached, non-engaged manner.
These are inappropriate ways of approaching Indian philosophy. Perrett proposes that the debates found throughout the history of Indian philosophy are not historical artifacts but are as living, unresolved, and ready for engagement as major debates in the history of Western philosophy. Classical Indian philosophy (circa 200-1300 CE) is already driven by well-developed logical systems and comes in the form of argumentation that contemporary Westerners can identify as rational and systematic.
Perrett's book focuses mainly on debates during this Classical period, covering the major areas of values (ethical and soteriological), epistemology, logic, language, metaphysics, personal identity, and religion. He shows that various philosophers during this time proposed philosophical theories that greatly resemble (and precede, by hundreds of years sometimes) seminal theories in the history of Western philosophy. For example, the Charvaka school (circa 600 BC) were materialist, empiricist, and radical skeptics about causation; their arguments that causation arises from psychological habit and social convention are strikingly similar to Hume's.
Perrett does a terrific job explaining the core problems that anchored long standing debates in this history. He skillfully presents the views of different philosophers of schools, showing how they criticized and related to one another. Despite the dazzlingly numerous new philosophical terms and names that I felt were thrown at me, at no point was I lost from the main idea. Perrett's writing allows a reader totally unfamiliar with Indian philosophy to tell under which context any particular theory fits, and he guides the reader along the development of these major debates.
Perrett also usefully shows how Western philosophical theories might learn from or engage with these debates. He does this just the right amount; the book mainly introduces Indian philosophy, as the title states, and only as an (important) side note, shows its relevance to Western philosophy (or the relevance of Western philosophy to Indian philosophy). Another useful feature of this book is that it presents a 'further reading' section, which follow each chapter. I look forward to saving those titles and exploring them soon.
I highly recommend this book to any reader who would like to get a comprehensive overview of Indian philosophy, across philosophical subdomains. The chapters are also quite self-standing, so readers interested in only particular subdomains from a non-Western perspective will be suited to this book, as well.
These are inappropriate ways of approaching Indian philosophy. Perrett proposes that the debates found throughout the history of Indian philosophy are not historical artifacts but are as living, unresolved, and ready for engagement as major debates in the history of Western philosophy. Classical Indian philosophy (circa 200-1300 CE) is already driven by well-developed logical systems and comes in the form of argumentation that contemporary Westerners can identify as rational and systematic.
Perrett's book focuses mainly on debates during this Classical period, covering the major areas of values (ethical and soteriological), epistemology, logic, language, metaphysics, personal identity, and religion. He shows that various philosophers during this time proposed philosophical theories that greatly resemble (and precede, by hundreds of years sometimes) seminal theories in the history of Western philosophy. For example, the Charvaka school (circa 600 BC) were materialist, empiricist, and radical skeptics about causation; their arguments that causation arises from psychological habit and social convention are strikingly similar to Hume's.
Perrett does a terrific job explaining the core problems that anchored long standing debates in this history. He skillfully presents the views of different philosophers of schools, showing how they criticized and related to one another. Despite the dazzlingly numerous new philosophical terms and names that I felt were thrown at me, at no point was I lost from the main idea. Perrett's writing allows a reader totally unfamiliar with Indian philosophy to tell under which context any particular theory fits, and he guides the reader along the development of these major debates.
Perrett also usefully shows how Western philosophical theories might learn from or engage with these debates. He does this just the right amount; the book mainly introduces Indian philosophy, as the title states, and only as an (important) side note, shows its relevance to Western philosophy (or the relevance of Western philosophy to Indian philosophy). Another useful feature of this book is that it presents a 'further reading' section, which follow each chapter. I look forward to saving those titles and exploring them soon.
I highly recommend this book to any reader who would like to get a comprehensive overview of Indian philosophy, across philosophical subdomains. The chapters are also quite self-standing, so readers interested in only particular subdomains from a non-Western perspective will be suited to this book, as well.
December 17, 2019
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.
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.
May 1, 2020
An accessible introduction to some of the key issues in classical and medieval Indian philosophy. After a historical and methodological introduction, the author presents the issues along seven chapters: Valor (roughly, ethics and politics) -> Knowledge (the role and limits of knowledge) -> Reasoning (logic and methods for knowledge acquisition, especially inference) -> Word (philosophy of language) -> World (ontology and causation) -> Self -> Ultimates (philosophy of religion).
The book succeeds in what I see as being the two main goals of an introduction of this kind. First, each chapter shows how the problems tackled by authors of the various Indian traditions tackle some philosophical questions, highlighting similarities and differences between their approaches and those followed by European authors facing related problems. Second, it provides references and an initial mapping of the issues, enough for an interested reader to know where to look for further education on the subject. Here, the modular structure of the book is particularly useful, as it allows readers that are not particularly interested in some subjects (in my case, language) to make the most of the overall content.
The book succeeds in what I see as being the two main goals of an introduction of this kind. First, each chapter shows how the problems tackled by authors of the various Indian traditions tackle some philosophical questions, highlighting similarities and differences between their approaches and those followed by European authors facing related problems. Second, it provides references and an initial mapping of the issues, enough for an interested reader to know where to look for further education on the subject. Here, the modular structure of the book is particularly useful, as it allows readers that are not particularly interested in some subjects (in my case, language) to make the most of the overall content.
July 4, 2021
A book that I had high hopes for that were somewhat dashed. I should not have expected anything more from a textbook than what I recieved: each chapter deals with a central theme, drawing from across traditions and periods in order to assemble the various takes we might call "Indian" philosophy into some kind of narrative on the topic. Perrett calls his approach innovative because, unlike many other writers on the theme, he attempts to bridge chronology and amalgamate rather than separate distinct traditions. I certainly appreciated this approach and he writes with a fantastic brevity given the sheer amount of material he is undoubtedly covering. Yet the novel-lover in me is a bit lost for words when asked why you should read this book. It makes a fantastic course book - this is the main text for the Oxford Indian Philosophy paper which I regrettably did not take. But as a casual read I encourage you to look elsewhere.
October 2, 2024
El libro está articulado por temáticas. Aunque tiene un primer capítulo en el que expone someramente la historia de la filosofía india, esto puede resultar desorientador para quien sea la primera vez que se acerca a la materia: resulta difícil ubicar los nombres que aparecene en su contexto y momento.
Por otra parte, las temáticas están bien expuestas y transmiten muy bien el tipo de problemas que los pensadores indios encontraron, cómo se enfrentaron a ellos y qué técnicas empleaban para tratarlos y discutir entre ellos. Como otros libros de historia de la filosofía india, no trata de ir más allá del s.XVII.
Por otra parte, las temáticas están bien expuestas y transmiten muy bien el tipo de problemas que los pensadores indios encontraron, cómo se enfrentaron a ellos y qué técnicas empleaban para tratarlos y discutir entre ellos. Como otros libros de historia de la filosofía india, no trata de ir más allá del s.XVII.
March 13, 2022
Extremely narrow focused. It fails to understand what is the essence of indian culture by reducing it to a logical analysis.
Analytic philosophy is good for many fields but in others is absurd.
Analytic philosophy is good for many fields but in others is absurd.
Read
October 28, 2016181.4 P455 2016
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews