The Book of Questions: An Introduction to Indian Philosophical Analysis

What is the philosophy of India? This question is as silly as the question: ‘Do you speak Indian?’ For, the expression ‘the philosophy of India’ is vacuous. This book tries to tackle that problem by focusing on a few chosen issues and debates rather than on particular texts. And neither does it make any attempt to present a comprehensive history of all the schools nor does it offer any chronological chronicling of the views of particular philosophers; nor does it risk unearthing one running general thematic unity such as ‘the Spirit of India’ or ‘the Essential Indian Mind’. It sheds light on sceptics, agnostics, mystics, monists, dualists, pluralists, realists, idealists, materialists, epistemologists, ethicists, aesthetes, political theorists, jurists, grammarians, lexicographers, theists, atheists, radicals and reconcilers who keep arguing against each other, each searching for their own preferred form of ‘liberation from anxiety and suffering’. The Book of Questions thus proposes to inspire a systematic argumentative pedagogy of philosophical interrogation and debate.