Elise Coquereau-Saouma

'Comparative Philosophy without Borders' consists of nine essays and puts forth an extensive methodology for a redefined comparative philosophy, as presented in the Introduction and Afterword/Afterwards written by Arindam Chakrabarti and Ralph Weber. The nine essays by Tom J. F. Tillemans, Barry Hallen, Chien-hsing Ho, Laurie L. Patton, Arindam Chakrabarti, Masato Ishida, Ralph Weber, Sari Nusseibeh and Sor-hoon Tan draw on various philosophical traditions, academic fields and topics, in order to effectuate what ‘Comparative Philosophy Without Borders’ could be. The clear aim of these essays is to demonstrate and put into practice the methodology presented by the two editors and authors, according to whom performing comparative philosophy transcends establishing it through norms. This definitely constitutes a successfully treated challenge, not only by the authors, but even more by the editors.

The demand for the recognition of non-Western philosophy has often brought about the opposition of substantialized entities such as ‘India’ and the ‘West,’ which has nourished the drifts of nationalistic rhetoric. As a decolonizing process but also as a deconstruction of nationalistic revivals, it is necessary to investigate the presuppositions involved when defining ‘Indian philosophy’ in these post-colonial demands for recognition. Considering that the understanding of what is ‘Indian philosophy’ and its claim for recognition is a prerequisite for its reception, I focus in this paper on analyzing the problems of reception of post-colonial Anglophone Indian philosophy. What is it today that prevents the reception of Anglophone Indian philosophy in Indian academics and in the global world? Leaving aside the insufficient integration in Western structures of non-Western philosophies, I focus here on the internal difficulties of Anglophone Indian philosophy in India today. I suggest that the following interrelated obstacles prevent a global reception: the language, in terms of disparity of linguistic communities; the conditions of distribution and diffusion of the philosophical material; the historical rupture in the forms of transmission of knowledge; regionalism or fragmentation into micro-groups; and finally, the complexity of the situation of utterance or enunciative context, namely, the difficulty for Indian philosophers to answer the question: to whom are we speaking?

In a world where philosophy has become "global" and yet is mainly written by scholars educated and/or writing in "top" universities, where syllabi must become more "inclusive" yet conform to the same academic style, Daya Krishna's philosophy is distinctively refreshing and thought-provoking.1 Professor at the University of Rajasthan, prolific author, unremitting correspondent in journals, letters, and dialogues, anti-conformist regarding the norms of Western academia and irreverent toward the "inalterability" of the philosophical Indian traditions, Daya Krishna's creative and daring philosophical spirit is paid homage to by Daniel Raveh in his book, Daya Krishna and...

This book engages in a dialogue with Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya (K.C. Bhattacharyya, KCB 1875-1949) and presents a vista of contemporary Indian philosophy. KCB is one of the founding fathers of contemporary Indian philosophy; a distinct genre of philosophy that draws both on classical Indian philosophical sources and on Western materials, old and new. His work offers both a new and different reading of classical Indian texts, and at the same time he is a unique commentator of Kant and Hegel. The book (re)introduces KCB's philosophy, identifies the novelty of his thinking, and highlights different dimensions of his oeuvre, with special emphasis on freedom as a concept and striving, extending from the metaphysical to the political (or the postcolonial). The contributors to this book decipher KCB's distinct vocabulary (demand, feeling, alternation) and revisit his discussion of Rasa aesthetics. The chapters offer a bird's eye view of his corpus to ascertain if and how its different compartments converge and illuminate the place of the body in his phenomenological inquiry toward "the subject as freedom". The book situates him between classics (Abhinavagupta) and thinkers inspired by his thought (Daya Krishna) and discuss his lectures on Samkhya and Yoga rather than projecting him solely under the rubric of Vedanta. Finally, the book analyzes if and how KCB's philosophical work is relevant to the discourse today, from the problem of other minds to freedoms in the social and political spheres. This book will be of interest to academics studying Indian and comparative philosophy, philosophy of language and mind, phenomenology without borders, and political and postcolonial philosophy.