Classical Indian Philosophy: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps by Peter Adamson and Jonardon Ganeri

Abstract

Reviewed by: Classical Indian Philosophy: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps by Peter Adamson and Jonardon Ganeri Joerg Tuske (bio) Classical Indian Philosophy: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps. Volume 5. By Peter Adamson and Jonardon Ganeri. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. xxiv + 397. Hardcover $32.95, ISBN 978-0-19-885176-9. "I cannot recommend this book highly enough!" Is this statement true or have I succeeded in lavishing enough praise on this book by writing this statement, making this statement in fact false? This is one way in which Adamson and Ganeri explain the view of the Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna that everything is empty. (However, humble as they are, they use the movies of Buster Keaton instead of their own book as an example.) Nāgārjuna has to defend himself against the objection that if everything is "empty" then this surely also applies to his own view. He famously argues that he does not have a thesis and provides the "silence" analogy, which I want to illustrate using my own example: if there is too much off-topic chatter in class and I want students to be quiet and pay attention I could shout "silence!" in order to create silence but of course my act of shouting itself is the opposite of silence. Nevertheless, it can bring about silence and Nāgārjuna claims that his view that everything is empty could be an instrument to make "Brahmanical (and other) dogmatists" aware of this. In Classical Indian Philosophy, the fifth volume of transcripts from the excellent podcast History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, and the first to discuss philosophers with no direct connection to ancient Greece, Peter Adamson has teamed up with Jonardon Ganeri to provide a comprehensive, fascinating, and fun account of the history of philosophy on the Indian sub-continent up until the Buddhist philosopher Dignāga (c. 480–540 CE) with many glimpses of philosophical developments beyond Dignāga's time. (Listeners of the podcast series might know that Adamson is also collaborating with Chike Jeffers on a podcast series on Africana Philosophy, which I hope will eventually appear in book form as well.) Classical Indian Philosophy is divided into four parts: in the first part ("Origins") the authors provide an introduction to philosophy in India and then discuss the background to any philosophical activity in India, namely the Vedas, the Upaniṣads, the Mahābhārata (including a chapter on the Bhagavad-gītā) and the Buddha's teachings. The second part, entitled "The age of the sūtra," [End Page 1] gives a thorough overview of what is often called "the six orthodox schools" (Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā, Vedānta, Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika). Part three adds Buddhist and Jaina philosophy while part four ("Beyond ancient India") introduces miscellaneous topics, such as "The aesthetics of Rasa," "Tantra," two chapters on the (possible) influence of Indian philosophy on Greek, Islamic and later European thought, as well as a brief glimpse of philosophy after Dignāga. While my rendering of the outline of the book seems as if it could apply to any number of histories of Indian philosophy, there are several points that make this book stand out. Listeners of the podcast already know that the authors are not afraid to resort to the occasional pun in order to get a point across and I am happy to say that all of them (as far as I can tell) made it into the book version. With that in mind, I want to offer the cliché that Classical Indian Philosophy is a tour de force but what makes it stand out from traditional histories is that there is nothing forced about it. This is partly due to the fact that this book (as the previous volumes) is written as a series of podcasts. This makes for a much more engaging style than is found in standard accounts of the history of philosophy (Indian, European, or otherwise). Listeners of the first four seasons of the podcast or readers of the first volumes will be familiar with Adamson's frequent references to giraffes as contents of our beliefs...