Episode 3: Approaches to South Asian philosophies

African(a) and South Asian Philosophies

Aamir Kaderbhai and Heeyoung Tae interview Mini Chandran, Professor in the department of humanities and social sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, and Parimal Patil, Professor of Religion and Indian Philosophy at Harvard University. We discuss what it is to do, study, and teach South Asian philosophy. What role should South Asian philosophy, as a living tradition of thought, play in the discipline of philosophy, and what can it contribute? What kind of attitude, and methodology, should we adopt in approaching the texts? Can we, and should we, apply sub-disciplines within the analytic tradition to South Asian material? What presuppositions should we recognise, and abandon? How about terminology, classifications and syllabus design, particularly in light of the new undergraduate paper here at Oxford, titled ‘Indian Philosophy’? We also discuss what is lost - or not lost - in translation, the question of elitism, and the urgent need to learn from and support traditionally trained scholars within traditional intellectual practices. Our sincere thanks to Professor Chandran and Professor Patil for joining us, we will now begin the conversation by introducing our speakers.