Identity as Reasoned Choice: A South Asian Perspective on the Reach and Resources of Public and Practical Reason in Shaping Individual Identities

ISBN-13: 9781441196576 / Angielski / Twarda / 2012 / 256 str.

Jonardon Ganeri

Opis

In an increasingly multi-religious and multi-ethnic world, identity has become something actively chosen rather than merely acquired at birth. This book essentially analyzes the resources available to make such a choice.Looking into the world of intellectual India, this unique comparative survey focuses on the identity resources offered by India's traditions of reasoning and public debate. Arguing that identity is a formation of reason, it draws on Indian theory to claim that identities are constructed from exercises of reason as derivation from exemplary cases. The book demonstrates that contemporary debates on global governance and cosmopolitan identities can benefit from these Indian resources, which were developed within an intercultural pluralism context with an emphasis on consensual resolution of conflict. This groundbreaking work builds on themes developed by Amartya Sen to provide a creative pursuit of Indian reasoning that will appeal to anyone studying politics, philosophy, and Asian political thought.

Spis treści

Preface

Introduction: The Reach and Resources of Reason

PART I: PUBLIC REASON PROMOTED
1. An Ideal of Public Reason
Public reason in the Questions of Milinda
An ideal of public reason in the Nyaya-sutra
 
2. Ancient Indian Logic as a Theory of Case-Based Reasoning
A model of reasoning in the Nyaya-sutra
The theory transformed
Retrieving the ancient case-based model

3. Neutrality: a Theory From the Time of Asoka
A Buddhist treatise on public reason: the Elements of Dialogue
Eight stances in a dialogue
The ‘way forward' and the ‘way back'

4. Local Norms: the Priority of the Particular
Rules versus cases
Three models of particulars as standards
Particulars as paradigms in the Nyaya-sutra
Particulars as prototypes in the Ritual Sutras

PART II: PRACTICAL REASON RESOURCED
5. The Critic Within
Multiple Hinduisms
A dissenting voice
Meeting reason with reason
Evidence, expertise and assent
Religion and reason
    
6. Adapt and Substitute
The hermeneutics of ritual
Ethics in the Hindu canon
The reason of sages
Adaptive reasoning from paradigms

7. Model Humans and Moral Instincts
Persons as paradigms of exemplary conduct
Ethical dilemmas: the ‘case'
The heart's approval: moral instinct

PART III: DISSENT
8.  Implied Voices of Dissent
The paradox of inquiry
Inquiry as adjudication
The challenge reformulated in Sa?kara

9. Can One Seek to Answer any Question? Srihar?a
On questioning: the pragmatics of interrogative dialogue
The prior knowledge argument
Against aiming
The longing for knowledge

PART IV: IDENTITY, FOUND OR FASHIONED?
10. On the Formation of Self
Spiritual exercises and the aesthetic analogy
Philosophy as medicine
Plutarch and the Buddhists: returning oneself to the present
A life complete at every moment
Taming the self
Philosophy and the ends of life

11. Problems of Self and Identity
Reincarnation and personal identity
Higher and lower selves
Bad thoughts and conscience
No self?
Being true to your individual self

12. Identity and Illusions about the Self
Speaking about the self
Polestar and compass: two modes of practical reason
The ethics of self-deception and the reach of reason
Cognitive stories

13. "What You Are You Do Not See, What You See is Your Shadow"
The philosophical double
The double in Mauni's fiction
Self to self
Inhabiting an identity

PART V: IDENTITY & THE MODERN INTELLECTUAL

14.  Interpreting Intellectual India
 Questions of method
 Objectivity
 Immersion

 15. An Exemplary Indian Intellectual
 Bimal Krishna Matilal
 A conversation among equals
 A common ground?
    
16.  India and the Shaping of Global Intellectual Culture
 Covert borrowings
 Other routes of influence

Concluding Summary
Bibliography