Categorisation in Indian Philosophy Thinking Inside the Box Dialogues in South Asian Traditions: Religion, Philosophy, Literature and History Series

It is by fitting the world into neatly defined boxes that Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain philosophers were able to gain unparalleled insights into the nature of reality, God, language and thought itself. Such categories aimed to encompass the universe, the mind and the divine within an all-encompassing system, from linguistics to epistemology, logic and metaphysics, theology and the nature of reality. Shedding light on the way in which Indian philosophical traditions crafted an elaborate picture of the world, this book brings Indian thinkers into dialogue with modern philosophy and global concerns. For those interested in philosophical traditions in general, this book will establish a foundation for further comparative perspectives on philosophy. For those concerned with the understanding of Indic culture, it will provide a platform for the continued renaissance of research into India's rich philosophical traditions.

Contents: Foreword: remarks on the philosophical use of categories, Gavin Flood; Introduction: the importance of ’thinking inside the box’, Jessica Frazier; Vyākaraṇa: Bhāva as the ultimate category, Eivind Kahrs; Nyāya: pramāṇa (knowledge-generators) as natural kinds, Stephen Phillips; Sāṃkhya: the analysis of experience in classical sāṃkhya, Mikel Burley; Vedānta: metaphors for the category of existence, Jessica Frazier; Early vaiÅ›eá¹£ika: the concept of categories in vaiÅ›eá¹£ika philosophy, Shashiprabha Kumar; Later vaiÅ›eá¹£ika: the ’seven category ontology’ reaffirmed, Jonardon Ganeri; Madhyamaka: conventional categories in madhyamaka philosophy, Jan Westerhoff; Jainism: from ontology to taxonomy in the jaina colonisation of the universe, W. J. Johnson; Historical perspectives: the origin of categories in Indian philosophy, Johannes Bronkhorst; The order of things: the goals and categories of categorisation in India, Jessica Frazier; Bibliography; Appendices; Index.

Jessica Frazier is a Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, and Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Kent. She is the author of Reality, Religion and Passion: Indian and Western Approaches in Gadamer and Gosvami and author/editor of The Continuum Companion to Hindu Studies, as well as the founding and managing editor of The Journal of Hindu Studies.