Roy W. Perrett

History, Time, and Knowledge in Ancient India

The lack of interest in history in ancient India has often been noted and contrasted with the situation in China and the West. Notwithstanding the vast body of Indian literature in other fields, there is a remarkable dearth of historical writing in the period before the Muslim conquest and an associated indifference to historiography. Various explanations have been offered for this curious phenomenon, some of which appeal to the supposed currency of certain Indian philosophical theories. This essay critically examines such “philosophical explanations.” I argue that it is not true that there was no history in ancient India, and it is not surprising that there was no developed historiography or scientific history. It is both true and surprising that there was no real importance attached to history in ancient India. An adequate philosophical exxplanation for this historica phenomenon, however, is not to be found in appeals to the influence of indigenous metaphysical theories about time and the self. A much more plausible philosophical explanation appeals instead to certain features of classical Indian epistemology.

Future Generations and the Metaphysics of the Self: Western and Indian philosophical perspectives

Our present actions can have effects on future generations - affecting not only the environment they will inherit, but even perhaps their very existence. This raises a number of important moral issues, many of which have only recently received serious philosophical attention. I begin by discussing some contemporary Western philosophical perspectives on the problem of our obligations to future generations, and then go on to consider how these approaches might relate to the classical Indian philosophical tradition. Although the Indian commitment to pre-existence and rebirth precludes the arising of the Non-Identity Problem, this does not mean that there is not still a problem about justifying our obligations to future generations. The Indian Non-Reductionists about personal identity have difficulties with this that are comparable to the difficulties of their Western counterparts, but the Indian Buddhist Reductionists offer some provocative arguments for impartiality and the rationality of altruism.

Indigenous language rights and political theory: The case of Te Reo Māori

The notion of indigenous rights is the notion that there are (or ought to be) special political or legal rights possessed by indigenous or aboriginal peoples in virtue of their status as the descendants of the pre-colonial inhabitants of lands occupied by European settlement. While many of the claims now being pressed upon governments by indigenous peoples are quite general claims that might be subsumed under the broad rubric of human rights, there is a special class of claims that do seem particular to indigenous peoples. These are those claims which derive from the dispossession of their lands and the consequent destruction of their culture and way of life.1 For most indigenous peoples, the recognition of indigenous rights is taken to be an essential means for preserving their culture and language in order to survive as distinct peoples. In this connection land rights are particularly valued because they can provide a basis for physical survival and the revival of cultural pride. But the concem with cultural survival and cultural identity can also generate an appeal to indigenous language rights, for indigenous peoples recognise all too well that language is the vehicle of culture and that the loss of their language will mean the loss of their culture. Once again, however, some of the claims being pressed upon governments by indigenous peoples by appealing to indigenous language rights are claims that might be subsumed under the more general rubric of language rights. After all, it is obvious enough that there are politically fraught issues surrounding language policies. A states decisions about which languages will be used in which spheres can have important politicoeconomic consequences, among which are the implications of such language policies for issues of participation, education, ethnic conflict, nation-building, and world politics. 2 Indigenous language rights, it might hence be argued, are just a special case of the language rights any ettmic group within a non-homogeneous state might claim. These preliminary remarks help to highlight a familiar difficulty with the whole notion of indigenous rights: how are we to justify such special rights? Broadly speaking, there are two sorts of theories of indigenous rights that seek to answer this question: historical theories and principled theories. 3 Historical theories seek to justify indigenous rights by

Personal Identity, Reductionism and the Necessity of Origins

A thought that we all entertain at some time or other is that the course of our lives might have been very different from the way they in fact have been, with the consequence that we might have been rather different sorts of persons than we actually are. A less common, but prima facie intelligible thought is that we might never have existed at all, though someone rather like us did. Arguably, any plausible theory of personal identity should be able to accommodate both possibilities. Certain currently popular Reductionist theories of personal identity, however, seem to be deficient in precisely this respect. This paper explores some Reductionist responses to that challenge.

Truth, relativism and western conceptions of indian philosophy

Abstract We (relatively few) Western analytic philosophers who also work on classical Indian philosophy commonly encounter puzzlement or suspicion from our colleagues in Western philosophy because of our Indian interests. The ubiquity of these attitudes is itself revealing of Western conceptions of Indian philosophy, though their origins lie in cultural history often unknown to those who hold them. In the first part of this paper I relate a small but significant slice of that history before going on to distinguish and illustrate three different Western conceptions of Indian philosophy associated with three different approaches to India: the magisterial, the exoticist and the curatorial. I argue that none of these three approaches gives us an adequate conception of Indian philosophy: the magisterial approach is overly dismissive, the exoticist approach misrepresents the analytical achievements of Indian philosophy, and the curatorial approach fails to take seriously Indian philosophys concern with truth. ...

RELIGION AND POLITICS IN INDIA: SOME PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES

What is the traditional relation of religion to politics in India? Recent scholarly debate has generated at least two divergent answers. According to one view there is a long standing traditional opposition between religion and politics in India. According to another view a separation of religion from politics is contrary to Indian ways of thinking. I argue that from the perspective of classical Indian philosophy there is no single tradition on the issue of religion and politics. To be able do so, however, I utilize too some work in Western philosophy.

The Analogical Argument for Animal Pain

Philosophical defenders of animal liberation believe that we have direct duties to animals. Typically a presumption of that belief is that animals have the capacity to experience pain and suffering. Notoriously, however, a strand of Western scientific and philosophical thought has held animals to be incapable of experiencing pain, and even today one frequently encounters in discussions of animal liberation expressions of scepticism about whether animals really experience pain. The Analogical Argument for Animal Pain responds to this scepticism by claiming that it is just as reasonable for me to believe that animals feel pain, given my only evidence for this is shared behaviour and physiology, as it is for me to believe that other humans feel pain on the basis of similar evidence. In this paper I expound and defend this Argument.

Omniscience in Indian Philosophy of Religion

The concept of omniscience is prominent in both Western and Indian philosophy of religion. A comparison of the different treatments accorded the notion in each tradition reveals some interesting parallels and divergences. I begin with the traditional Western treatments of omniscience as one of God’s attributes and then go on to offer a general characterization of the concept. Utilizing this characterization, I discuss some traditional Indian arguments and theories about omniscience (sarvajnatva) and try to locate them in their religio-philosophical context.