• Gārgī Vācaknavī is known for her challenging interrogation of the sage Yājñavalkya, in what was by then a male dominated activity: philosophical debate. Gārgī distinguishes herself for challenging Yājñavalkya, being rebuked and challenging him a second time. Gārgī demonstrates her mastery over the concept at dispute (Growth, Expansion, Development) by being able to revise her approach to the question. Gārgī philosophically demonstrates the very idea she is investigating. Her salvos at Yājñavalky…Read more
  • Maitreyī has been renown since antiquity for her contributions to philosophy. In this chapter, her views as a proponent of Advaita (Monism) are explained. She was an explicator of a monistic approach to value that argues that the true Self, Ātman, is the basis of the highest values we hold and that knowledge of one’s true identity as Ātman, can be followed by acquiring a first person appreciation of one’s identity as Ātman. That deep axiological understanding, not merely intellectual comprehensi…Read more
  • Yoga: Procedural Devotion to the Right
    In Michael Hemmingsen (ed.), Ethical Theory in Global Perspective, Suny Press. pp. 351-366. 2024.
    An accessible introduction to Yoga moral philosophy.
  •  3
    Yoga - Anticolonial Philosophy: An Action-Focused Guide to Practice
    Jessica Kingsley Publishers (Hachette UK). 2024.
    Providing a decolonial, action-focused account of Yoga philosophy, this practical work from Dr. Shyam Ranganathan, pioneering scholar in the field of Indian moral philosophy, focuses on the South Asian tradition to explore what Yoga was like prior to colonization. It challenges teachers and trainees to reflect on the impact of Western colonialism on Yoga as well as understand Yoga as the original decolonial practice in a way that is accessible. This book is accessible but thought provoking in it…Read more
  •  1185
    As known from the academic literature on Hinduism, the foreign, Persian word, “Hindu” (meaning “Indian”), was used by the British to name everything indigenously South Asian, which was not Islam, as a religion. If we adopt explication as our research methodology, which consists in the application of the criterion of logical validity to organize various propositions of perspectives we encounter in research in terms of a disagreement, we discover: (a) what the British identified as “Hinduism” was …Read more
  •  831
    To talk about ethics and the moral life in India, and whether and when Indians misunderstood each other’s views, we must know something about what Indians thought about ethical and moral issues. However, there is a commonly held view among scholars of Indian thought that Indians, and especially their intellectuals, were not really interested in ethical matters (Matilal 1989, 5; Raju 1967, 27; Devaraja 1962, v-vi; Deutsch 1969, 99). This view is false and strange. Understanding how it is that pos…Read more
  •  1106
    Idealism and Indian philosophy
    In Joshua R. Farris & Benedikt Paul Göcke (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Idealism and Immaterialism, Routledge. 2021.
    In contrast to a stereotypical account of Indian philosophy that are entailments of the interpreter’s beliefs (an approach that violates basic standards of reason), an approach to Indian philosophy grounded on the constraints of formal reason reveals not only a wide spread disagreement on dharma (THE RIGHT OR THE GOOD), but also a pervasive commitment to the practical foundation of life’s challenges. The flip side of this practical orientation is the criticism of ordinary experience as erroneous…Read more
  •  478
    This article, addressed to Yoga Therapists, sorts out the historical roots of our idea of Yoga, elucidates the colonial interference and distortion of Yoga, and shows that trauma and therapy are the primary focus of Yoga. However, unlike most philosophies of therapy, Yoga's solution is primarily moral philosophical---Yoga itself being a basic ethical theory, in addition to Virtue Theory, Consequentialism and Deontology. This article goes some way to elucidating that it is quite ironic (and absu…Read more
  •  70
    The Bhagavad Gītā
    Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2021.
    The Bhagavad Gītā occurs at the start of the sixth book of the Mahābhārata—one of South Asia’s two main epics, formulated at the start of the Common Era (C.E.). It is a dialog on moral philosophy. The lead characters are the warrior Arjuna and his royal cousin, Kṛṣṇa, who offered to be his charioteer and who is also an avatar of the god Viṣṇu. The dialog amounts to a lecture by Kṛṣṇa delivered on their chariot, in response to the fratricidal war that Arjuna is facing. The symbolism employe…Read more
  •  1987
    Just War and the Indian Tradition: Arguments from the Battlefield
    In Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues & Danny Singh (eds.), Comparative Just War Theory: An Introduction to International Perspectives, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 173-190. 2019.
    A famous Indian argument for jus ad bellum and jus in bello is presented in literary form in the Mahābhārata: it involves events and dynamics between moral conventionalists (who attempt to abide by ethical theories that give priority to the good) and moral parasites (who attempt to use moral convention as a weapon without any desire to conform to these expectations themselves). In this paper I follow the dialectic of this victimization of the conventionally moral by moral parasites to its philo…Read more
  •  42
    In this review, I summarize Littlejohn's excellent contribution and share some of my concerns.
  •  173
    Vedas and Upaniṣads
    In Tom Angier, Chad Meister & Charles Taliaferro (eds.), The History of Evil in Antiquity: 2000 Bce to 450 Ce, Routledge. pp. 239-255. 2016.
    Evil in the Vedas and the Upanishads undergoes a theoretical transformation as this literature itself moves away from its consequentialist and naturalistic roots to a radical procedural approach to moral questions. The goods of life on the early account were largely natural: evil was a moral primitive that motivated a teleological approach to morality geared towards avoiding natural evil. The gods of nature (such as fire, and rain, intimately involved in metabolism) were propitiated to gain bene…Read more
  •  29
    An Interview with Shyam Ranganathan
    Translation Today 11 (1). 2017.
    Abdul Halim, of the National Translation Mission (NTM) India, interviews Ranganathan about his contributions to translation theory. Translation Today is a Double-blind, Peer- reviewed journal of the NTM.
  •  3
    The Virtue of Nonviolence (review) (review)
    Philosophy East and West 57 (1): 115-120. 2007.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Virtue of NonviolenceShyam RanganathanThe Virtue of Nonviolence. By Nicholas F. Gier. SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. Pp. xv + 222. Hardcover $50.00.The Virtue of Nonviolence is Nicholas F. Gier's second book in the SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought, edited by the eminent Alfred North Whitehead scholar David Ray Griffin. It is a remarkable …Read more
  • Love: India’s Distinctive Moral Theory
    In Adrienne M. Martin (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Love in Philosophy, Routledge Handbooks in Philoso. pp. 371-381. 2018.
    In addition to the familiar moral theories of Virtue Ethics, Consequentialism and Deontology, India presents us with one unique moral theory: it may be called “Yoga” (discipline, meditation) but also “Bhakti,” which is typically translated as “Devotion” but is also translated as “Love.” In this chapter, I focus on Bhakti, in its formal and informal manifestations in Indian philosophy. In order to understand how it is a distinct and basic option of moral theory, I will identify four basic option…Read more
  •  52
    Human Rights, Indian Philosophy, and Patañjali
    In Ashwani Kumar Peetush & Jay Drydyk (eds.), Human Rights: India and the West, Oxford University Press. pp. 172-204. 2015.
    Human rights, as traditionally understood in the West, are grounded in an anthropocentric theory of personhood. However, as this chapter argues, such a stance is certainly not culturally universal; historically, it is derivable from a cultural orientation that is Greek in origin. Such an orientation conflates thought with language (logos), and identifies humans as uniquely deserving of moral consideration or standing to the exclusion of non-human knowers. The linguistic theory of thought impedes…Read more
  •  221
    Context and Pragmatics
    In Piers Rawling & Philip Wilson (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Philosophy, Routledge. pp. 195-208. 2018.
    Syntax has to do with rules that constrain how words can combine to make acceptable sentences. Semantics (Frege and Russell) concerns the meaning of words and sentences, and pragmatics (Austin and Grice) has to do with the context bound use of meaning. We can hence distinguish between three competing principles of translation: S—translation preserves the syntax of an original text (ST) in the translation (TT); M—translation preserves the meaning of an ST in a TT; and P—translation preserves the …Read more
  •  31
    Hinduism: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation explores Hinduism and the distinction between the secular and religious on a global scale. According to Ranganathan, a careful philosophical study of Hinduism reveals it as the microcosm of philosophical disagreements with Indian resources, across a variety of topics, including: ethics, logic, the philosophy of thought, epistemology, moral standing, metaphysics, and politics. This analysis offers an original and fresh diagnosis of studying Hin…Read more
  •  239
    Bhagavad Gītā II: Metaethical Controversies (Ethics1, M09)
    In A. Raghuramaraju (ed.), Philosophy, E-PG Pathshala, India, Department of Higher Education (nmeict). 2016.
    In the previous module we examined the dialectic that Krishna initiates in the Bhagavad Gītā. Arjuna’s despondency and worry about the war he must fight is captured in his own words by teleological concerns – consequentialism and virtue theoretic considerations. In the face of a challenge, a teleological approach results in the paradox of teleology---namely, the more we are motivated by exceptional and unusual ends, the less likely we are to pursue our ends given a low expected utility. Krishna'…Read more
  •  20
    Lao Tzu's Ethics: Taoism (Ethics-1, M35)
    In A. Raghuramaraju (ed.), Philosophy, E-PG Pathshala, India, Department of Higher Education (nmeict). 2016.
    This module is a review of the guiding ideas of Lao Tzu’s ethics of wu wei and the Tao, an account of Lao Tzu’s prioritisation of the feminine as a basic moral principle, the problem of masculinity for practical rationality, his criticism of language, doctrines and oppressive politics. Finally, we shall evaluate the moral import of Lao Tzu’s teachings, and close with some reflections on the synergy between Taoist and Madhyamaka Buddhist thought, which rendered the latter so easily received in As…Read more
  •  5
    Early Buddhism I: Metaethics (Ethics-1, M-30)
    In A. Raghuramaraju (ed.), Philosophy, E-PG Pathshala, India, Department of Higher Education (nmeict). 2016.
    Metaethics is that part of moral philosophy that is interested in the conceptual resolution of the relationship between the RIGHT and the GOOD. Metaethics is, hence, one step removed from practical questions of how to live—but not disconnected from them. Our investigation will begin with the early Buddhist account of language as meaningful for intersubjective reasons. This gives rise to a critical awareness of the correspondence between linguistic meaning and reality. The correspondence is outsi…Read more
  •  19
    Ramanuja
    Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2004.
    Rāmānuja (ācārya), the eleventh century South Indian philosopher, is the chief proponent of Vishishtādvaita, which is one of the three main forms of the Orthodox Hindu philosophical school, Vedānta. As the prime philosopher of the Vishishtādvaita tradition, Rāmānuja is one of the Indian philosophical tradition’s most important and influential figures. He was the first Indian philosopher to provide a systematic theistic interpretation of the philosophy of the Vedas, and is famous for arguing for …Read more
  •  15
    From Philosophy to Ethics (Ethics-1, M01)
    In A. Raghuramaraju (ed.), Philosophy, E-PG Pathshala, India, Department of Higher Education (nmeict). 2016.
    This is the first lesson of the MA level 1 course in Ethics, which spans the European and Asian traditions. This lesson consists of three main components: Part 2 concerns the discipline of philosophy – its scope and aim. Part 3 is an elaboration of philosophy, the discipline, as an exploration of the GOOD and the RIGHT. This is called “ethics” or “moral philosophy.” In Sanskrit, these explorations fall under the heading of dharma. In Part 4 we shall address some basic concerns about understandin…Read more
  •  216
    Bhagavad Gītā: The Dialectic of Four Moral Theories (Ethics-1, M08)
    In A. Raghuramaraju (ed.), Philosophy, E-PG Pathshala, India, Department of Higher Education (nmeict). 2016.
    This is the first of lessons on the Bhagavad Gītā. The Bhagavad Gītā is a small section of the Mahābhārata, which is a dialectical experiment in moral theory. Here the characters not only assume the role of prominent ethical theories, but must also work through the ethical challenge as a matter of practice. In this module I explicate the main arguments of the Gītā, which lead us from teleological accounts of ethics (Virtue Ethics, Consequentialism) to procedural accounts (Deontology and Bhakti…Read more
  •  58
    The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Ethics (edited book)
    Bloomsbury Academic. 2017.
    Featuring leading scholars from philosophy and religious studies, The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Ethics dispels the myth that Indian thinkers and philosophers were uninterested in ethics. This comprehensive research handbook traces Indian moral philosophy through classical, scholastic Indian philosophy, pan-Indian literature including the Epics, Ayurvedic medical ethics, as well as recent, traditionalist and Neo-Hindu contributions. Contrary to the usual myths about India (that India…Read more
  •  5
    Jainism II: Normative and Applied Ethics (Ethics-1, M37)
    In A. Raghuramaraju (ed.), Philosophy, E-PG Pathshala, India, Department of Higher Education (nmeict). 2016.
    Normative ethics concerns the practical resolution of questions about the right and the good. Applied ethics concerns the case-based resolution of questions of the right and the good. In this module, we look at the implications of the radical Virtue Theory of Jainism for practical questions, such as life decisions, occupations, and diet –-- questions of normative and applied ethics. The Jain position is that the self is defined by virtue, and hence action (karma) is derivative and not essential…Read more
  •  32
    The Virtue of Nonviolence (review) (review)
    Philosophy East and West 57 (1): 115-120. 2007.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Virtue of NonviolenceShyam RanganathanThe Virtue of Nonviolence. By Nicholas F. Gier. SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. Pp. xv + 222. Hardcover $50.00.The Virtue of Nonviolence is Nicholas F. Gier's second book in the SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought, edited by the eminent Alfred North Whitehead scholar David Ray Griffin. It is a remarkable …Read more
  •  4
    Ethics and Knowledge (Ethics-1, M05)
    In A. A. Raghuramaraju (ed.), Philosophy, E-PG Pathshala, India, Department of Higher Education (nmeict). 2016.
    In this lesson I explore the question of moral epistemology by way of the thought of Plato, Aristotle and the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā tradition.
  •  2
    No Title available: Dialogue
    Dialogue 52 (2): 413-415. 2013.
  • The Linguistic Account of Thought holds that thought is the meaning of declarative sentences. According to Linguistic Internalism, two languages can share sentential meanings and hence express the same thought. According to Linguistic Particularism, thought content is relative to languages and is not shared. We can contrast these two accounts of thought with a third: the intension of a thought is a common disciplinary use of differing meaningful claims, and the extension of a thought is the coll…Read more