The silence of the south and the absence of political philosophy

Abstract

In The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies, Thomas McEvilley sees the great stage of philosophy's history as simply too vast for the Greek Miracle alone. There is an Indian Miracle that has always already shared in the act. This presence of Indian philosophy alongside Greek philosophy is not simply established through an articulate typological witnessing of parallels and similarities in philosophic subject matter. Such a witnessing could lure one into defending the position that "certain... words...[have] a metaphysical existence independent of any mind thinking them...waiting...for the moment when certain minds, no matter how far apart geographically, should become ready for their dawning" (McEvilley 2002: 59). Instead, "though typological comparisons may reveal something about the possibilities for thought in a particular age," McEvilley feels that "the present study would not...seem as alive without the lure of concrete historical contacts and influences." It is on the basis of his central claim that "Indian and Greek philosophies were historically interactive and partially formative upon one another" that McEvilley concludes "it would seem a mere cultural and ethnic prejudice to exclude Indian thought from that history of philosophy of which Greek thought is supposedly both the source and the central event" (653). McEviliey's book?by demonstrating the influence of Indian thought upon the pre-Socratic "Ur-fountainhead of the western tradition" and the influence of Greek thought upon the dialectic of N?g?rjuna and ?ryadeva which provided the basis for "the Hindu tradition from Sankara to Radhakrishnan"?success