Download Free Indian Philosophy Of Language Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Indian Philosophy Of Language and write the review.

What can the philosophy of language learn from the classical Indian philosophical tradition? As recently as twenty or thirty years ago this question simply would not have arisen. If a practitioner of analytic philosophy of language of that time had any view of Indian philosophy at all, it was most likely to be the stereotyped picture of a gaggle of navel gazing mystics making vaguely Bradley-esque pronouncements on the oneness of the one that was one once. Much work has been done in the intervening years to overthrow that stereotype. Thanks to the efforts of such scholars as J. N. Mohanty, B. K. Matilal, and Karl Potter, philoso phers working in the analytic tradition have begun to discover something of the range and the rigor of classical Indian work in epistemolgy and metaphysics. Thus for instance, at least some recent discussions of personal identity reflect an awareness that the Indian Buddhist tradition might prove an important source of insights into the ramifications of a reductionist approach to personal identity. In philosophy of language, though, things have not improved all that much. While the old stereotype may no longer prevail among its practitioners, I suspect that they would not view classical Indian philoso phy as an important source of insights into issues in their field. Nor are they to be faulted for this.
This introduction brings to life the main themes in Indian philosophy of language by using an accessible translation of an Indian classical text to provide an entry into the world of Indian linguistic theories. Malcolm Keating draws on Mukula's Fundamentals of the Communicative Function to show the ability of language to convey a wide range of meanings and introduce ideas about testimony, pragmatics, and religious implications. Along with a complete translation of this foundational text, Keating also provides: - Clear explanations of themes such as reference, figuration and sentence meaning - Commentary illuminating connections between Mukula and contemporary philosophy - Romanized text of the Sanskrit - A glossary of terms and annotated bibliography - A chronology of important figures and dates By complementing a historically-informed introduction with a focused study of an influential primary text, Keating responds to the need for a reliable guide to better understand theories of language and related issues in Indian philosophy.
The Volume Throws Light On Various Issues And Problems In Classical Indian Philosophical Tradition Concerning The Structure Of Language And Meaning, Particularly Referring To The Theories And Philosophies Of Bhartrhari And Nyaya And Purva-Mimamsa Philosophies Of Language. It Also Involves The Contemporary Western Perspective In The Course Of Analysis.
The word 'philosophy' as well as the conjuring expression 'Indian philosophy' has meant different things to different people-endeavours and activities, old and new, grave and frivolous, edifying and banal, esoteric and exoteric. In this book, the author has chosen deliberately a very dominant trend of the classical (Sanskrit) philosophical literature as his subject of study. The age of the material used here demands both philological scholarship and philosophical amplification. Classical pramanasastras usually deal with the theory of knowledge, the nature of inference and language, and the related questions of ontology and semantics. Several important concepts and theories have been singled out for critical analysis and clarification in modern terms so that the results may be intelligible to modern students of both Sanskrit and philosophy. It is hoped that such an attempt will kindle the enthusiasm of young scholars in the field and inspire them to proceed in this comparatively new area of research and explore further and more interesting possibilities.
An Introduction to Indian Philosophy offers a profound yet accessible survey of the development of India’s philosophical tradition. Beginning with the formation of Brahmanical, Jaina, Materialist, and Buddhist traditions, Bina Gupta guides the reader through the classical schools of Indian thought, culminating in a look at how these traditions inform Indian philosophy and society in modern times. Offering translations from source texts and clear explanations of philosophical terms, this text provides a rigorous overview of Indian philosophical contributions to epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, and ethics. This is a must-read for anyone seeking a reliable and illuminating introduction to Indian philosophy.
Jnanasrimitra (975-1025) was regarded by both Buddhists and non-Buddhists as the most important Indian philosopher of his generation. His theory of exclusion combined a philosophy of language with a theory of conceptual content to explore the nature of words and thought. Jnanasrimitra's theory informed much of the work accomplished at Vikramasila, a monastic and educational complex instrumental to the growth of Buddhism. His ideas were also passionately debated among successive Hindu and Jain philosophers. This volume marks the first English translation of Jnanasrimitra's Monograph on Exclusion, a careful, critical investigation into language, perception, and conceptual awareness. Featuring the rival arguments of Buddhist and Hindu intellectuals, among other thinkers, the Monograph reflects more than half a millennium of competing claims while providing an invaluable introduction to a crucial philosopher. Lawrence J. McCrea and Parimal G. Patil familiarize the reader with the author, themes, and topics of the text and situate Jnanasrimitra's findings within his larger intellectual milieu. Their clear, accessible, and accurate translation proves the influence of Jnanasrimitra on the foundations of Buddhist and Indian philosophy.
The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Philosophy of Language presents a systematic survey of philosophy of language in the Indian tradition, providing an up-to-date research resource for better understanding the history and future direction of the field. Each chapter addresses a particular philosophical problem from the viewpoint of seminal traditions and specific thinkers. Covering the philosophical insight on language found in the mainstream philosophies of Vyakarana, Mima?sa, Nyaya, Vedanta, Buddhism, and Alankarasastra, the chapters tackle crucial semantic and pragmatic questions such as the relation of the speaker to reality, the use of metalanguage, the distinction between sentences, elliptic statements, and figurative usages, and the impact of textual structures on the philosophical message. Complete with further reading suggestions and an annotated bibliography, this collection makes an important contribution to both Eastern and Western contemporary philosophy of language.
This book publishes, for the first time in decades, and in many cases, for the first time in a readily accessible edition, English language philosophical literature written in India during the period of British rule. Bhushan's and Garfield's own essays on the work of this period contextualize the philosophical essays collected and connect them to broader intellectual, artistic and political movements in India. This volume yields a new understanding of cosmopolitan consciousness in a colonial context, of the intellectual agency of colonial academic communities, and of the roots of cross-cultural philosophy as it is practiced today. It transforms the canon of global philosophy, presenting for the first time a usable collection and a systematic study of Anglophone Indian philosophy. Many historians of Indian philosophy see a radical disjuncture between traditional Indian philosophy and contemporary Indian academic philosophy that has abandoned its roots amid globalization. This volume provides a corrective to this common view. The literature collected and studied in this volume is at the same time Indian and global, demonstrating that the colonial Indian philosophical communities were important participants in global dialogues, and revealing the roots of contemporary Indian philosophical thought. The scholars whose work is published here will be unfamiliar to many contemporary philosophers. But the reader will discover that their work is creative, exciting, and original, and introduces distinctive voices into global conversations. These were the teachers who trained the best Indian scholars of the post-Independence period. They engaged creatively both with the classical Indian tradition and with the philosophy of the West, forging a new Indian philosophical idiom to which contemporary Indian and global philosophy are indebted.
Language (śabda) occupied a central yet often unacknowledged place in classical Indian philosophical thought. Foundational thinkers considered topics such as the nature of language, its relationship to reality, the nature and existence of linguistic units and their capacity to convey meaning, and the role of language in the interpretation of sacred writings. The first reader on language in—and the language of—classical Indian philosophy, A Śabda Reader offers a comprehensive and pedagogically valuable treatment of this topic and its importance to Indian philosophical thought. A Śabda Reader brings together newly translated passages by authors from a variety of traditions—Brahmin, Buddhist, Jaina—representing a number of schools of thought. It illuminates issues such as how Brahmanical thinkers understood the Veda and conceived of Sanskrit; how Buddhist thinkers came to assign importance to language’s link to phenomenal reality; how Jains saw language as strictly material; the possibility of self-contradictory sentences; and how words affect thought. Throughout, the volume shows that linguistic presuppositions and implicit notions about language often play as significant a role as explicit ideas and formal theories. Including an introduction that places the texts and ideas in their historical and cultural context, A Śabda Reader sheds light on a crucial aspect of classical Indian thought and in so doing deepens our understanding of the philosophy of language.
Ethics and the History of Indian Philosophy, by Shyam Ranganathan, presents a compelling, systematic explication of the moral philosophical content of history of Indian philosophy in contrast to the received wisdom in Indology and comparative philosophy that Indian philosophers were scarcely interested in ethics. Unlike most works on the topic, this book makes a case for the positive place of ethics in the history of Indian philosophy by drawing upon recent work in metaethics and metamorality, and by providing a through analysis of the meaning of moral concepts and PHILOSOPHY itself- in addition to explicating the texts of Indian authors. In Ranganathan`s account, Indian philosophy shines with distinct options in ethics that find their likeness in the writings of the Ancient in the West, such as Plato and the Neo-Platonists, and not in the anthropocentric or positivistic options that have dominated the recent Western tradition.