Indian and Intercultural Philosophy

Douglas L. Berger is Professor of Global and Comparative Philosophy at Leiden University, The Netherlands. He is author of The Veil of Maya: Schopenhauer’s System and Early Indian Thought (2004) and Encounters of Mind: Luminosity and Personhood in Indian and Chinese Thought (2015), and co-editor, with JeeLoo Liu, of Nothingness in Asian Philosophy (2014).

• IntroductionPART I: CLASSICAL BRAHMINICAL THOUGHT1. Shedding Light on the Matter: Sankara’s Dualistic Atman 2. The Abode of Recognition: Memory and the Continuity of Selfhood in Classical Nyaya Thought.3. How Do We Sense? Buddhist and Nyaya Theories of ImaginationPART II: CLASSICAL BUDDHIST THOUGHT4. What Kind of a Designation is ‘Emptiness?’ Reconsidering Nagarjuna’s MMK 24:18 5. The Social Meaning of the Middle Way: B.S. Yadav and the Madhyamika Critique of Indian Ontologies of Identity and Difference6. Justice, Deconstruction and Aporia in Nagarjuna’s Empty EthicsPART III: INDIAN PHILOSOPHY IN INTERCULTURAL PERSPECTIVES7. Early Brahminical and Confucian Ideas of Duty 8. Indian and Chinese Conceptions of Luminous Awareness9. The Unlikely Commentator: The Hermeneutic Reception of Sankara’s Thought in the Interpretive Scholarship of Dara Shukoh10. The Pivot of Nihilism: How Nietzsche Mis-Evaluates Early Buddhist ThoughtBibliographyIndex

This book is a result of many years of sustained thought on intercultural philosophical issues across several traditions. Berger’s humane and sensitive scholarship, broad sympathies, and wide understanding are everywhere evident. This is a book from which there is much to learn for all those committed to a global future for philosophy.