Living with Difference: Essays in a Philosophical Anthropology

The fourteen essays presented together in this volume try to present a line of thinking, at once both philosophical and anthropological oriented to the reclamation of the autonomy of diverse cultures, even and precisely in their coexistence and interpenteration. Exploring the counterpositions even in their very intermeshing, of the European dispensation and the Indian particularity, the book aims to introduce a point of view and a strategy to unravel the complex intertwining of cultures without unjustifiable reductions of one into the other or highhanded readings of the one only in terms of the other. What is here presented as a philosophical anthropology is the attempt to decipher the coherence of cultures in their own autonomous terms, while not ignoring and in fact paying careful attention to the intermingling of their influences, already inextricably worked into the fabric of that which may well be taken for granted by now. While here restricted to the consideration of the European and the India, there is little to prevent the extension of the point of view and the strategy to the study of the whole gamut of cultures that have been brought into intimate correlations with each other with contemporary development. While holding promise for the exploration of diversity in a plural world, the essays are specifically aimed at illuminating aspects of the Indian predicament in a situation where the Indian seems to have become irrevocably Europeanized, to a smaller or greater degree. While not categorical as to what the future may bring, the essays try to explore the present in its complexity for such light as it may throw on what can reasonably be expected. Implicit in such a project is the hope of peaceful coexistence, and the possibility of maintaining authentic autonomy, in diversity, and even under threat. The book is likely to interest philosopher, anthropologists and sociologists, historians, and all who take an interest in a deeper understanding of India and are concerned about its future.