Ethics and The History of Indian Philosophy

Ethics and The History of Indian Philosophy
Author : Shyam Ranganathan
Ethics and the History of Indian Philosophy, by Shyam Ranganathan, presents a compelling, systematic explication of the moral philosophical content of the history of Indian philosophy in contrast to the received wisdom in Indology and comparative philosophy that Indian philosophers were scarcely interested in ethics.
Unlike most works on the topic, this book makes a case for the positive place of ethics in the history of Indian philosophy by drawing upon recent work in metaethics and meta morality, and by providing a thorough analysis of the meaning of moral concepts and PHILOSOPHY itself- in addition to explicating the texts of Indian authors. In Ranganathan's account, Indian philosophy shines with distinct options in ethics that find their likeness in the writings of the Ancient in the West, such as Plato and the Neo-Platonists, and not in the anthropocentric or positivistic options that have dominated the recent Western tradition.
 
Shyam Ranganathan specializes in ethics, the philosophy of language and Indian Philosophy. He holds a BA (Guelph) and an MA (University of Toronto) in Philosophy, an MA in South Asian Studies (University of Toronto) and is completing a PhD dissertation in philosophy (York University). His dissertation, Translating Evaluative Discourse; the Semantics of Thick and Thin Concepts, is drawn from research in metaethics, translation studies and the philosophy of language and deals with the general problem of translating philosophy and ethics across languages and cultures. He is the acting area editor for Indian philosophy for the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and teaches various philosophy courses, including Asian Philosophy. At the time of this publication, his other writing projects included papers on metaethics, semantics and translation, as well as a manuscript titled The Moral Philosophy of Patanjali's Yoga Sutra: Translation and Commentary.