• S. Hamilton, Indian Philosophy, Chapters 4, 5, and 7.
• K. Potter, Presuppositions of India's Philosophies: Chapter 4 ("How Speculative Philosophy Comes In") and Chapter 6 ("Freedom and Causation," with special attention to the section on "A Fresh Classification of Philosophical Systems" and the chart in Figure 20).

  Also take a look at the abridged version of Potter's spectrum included in the Class Notes section for today; it gives a less cluttered view of some of Potter's main points.

• Recommended: K. Potter, Indian Metaphysics and Epistemology: The Tradition of Nyaya-Vaisesika up to Gangesa: pp. 38-46 ("The Nature of a Philosophical System"). [This book is Volume II of Potter's Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, and is kept in the Butler Library Reference Room, in addition to the several copies available in the stacks.]
• Recommended: G. Larson, Samkhya: pp. 43-106 ("The Philosophy of Samkhya"). [This book is Volume IV of Potter's Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, and like the previous book is available both in the Reference Room in Butler Library and in the Butler stacks.]

  Alternative: If you are finding Larson's passage inaccessible (physicially or otherwise) you will be better off reading a translation of the Sankhya Karika (see Related Material below).

Related Material

• Good overviews of the contents of each of the classical systems of philosophy are available in any of the books listed under "Surveys of Indian Philosophy" in the Textbooks webpage for this course.

• The Sankhya Karika (or Samkhya-karika) of Isvarakrsna is the most important of the general texts of the Sankya system, and is fortunately quite brief. Good translations are available in several places, including these:
  • In Gerald Larson, Classical Samkhya (the 1979 edition; on reserve in Butler and elsewhere.)

  • In Radhakrishnan and Moore's A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy (pp. 426-445, translation by S. S. Suryanarayana Sastri; this book is available on library reserve and in the bookstore).

  • In Koller and Koller's A Sourcebook in Asian Philosophy (pp. 52-59, a reprint of the translation by Gerald J. Larson).

  [A translation by Raghavan Iyer is available online (reprinted from Hermes, a publication of the Theosophical Society), but lacks explanations.]

• The central text of Yoga as a systematic philosophy is the Yogasutra of Patanjali, of which there are dozens of translations, including the ones included in the sourcebooks mentioned above (Radhakrishnan and Moore, Koller and Koller).

• The clearest of several late handbooks giving overviews of the combined Nyaya and Vaisesika systems is the Tarkasangraha of Annambhatta, available in Koller and Koller's A Sourcebook in Asian Philosophy (pp. 69-80, translation by Kuppuswami Sastri), and separately.

• For an extreme example of the hardcore realist analysis of phenomena practised in the Nyaya-Vaisesika tradition, see G. Tubb, "Making a Black Pot Red: The Vaisesika Theory of the Pilupaka," available online:
  • in html (webpage) form (without diacritics)
  • in postscript form (with diacritics)

Western Relevance

• W. O. Wilson, Consilience: the latest work of one of the founders of modern "sociobiology," looking at how evolutionary views of human nature, life and society may be changed by the reconciliation of the modern Cartesian dichotomy between soul and matter, religion and science.

Links of interest

• For an entertaining introduction to the relations between theology and philosophy, read about Rene Descartes, "sort of the Bill Gates of philosophy," in the section entitled "Philosophy -- The Evil Twin" in Orrin R. Onken's "Vocabulary of Deep Thought," the first chapter in his Big Dummy's Guide to Theology, Philosophy, and Ethics: A Starter Kit for Technoids.

• There is a brief overview of the classical darshanas in the Ethics of Hindu Philosophy page that forms part of the Ethics of Civilization curriculum in Sanderson Beck's web-based university, the UGA (pronounced "yuga") or "University of the Golden Age."

• Several of the links are broken in David J. Melling's "Darshana" homepage of Indian philosophy, but in those that work there are some punchy presentations. The "Doctrine of the Logic School" page, for example, begins its account of the schools's realist approach by announcing that "Nyaya is not news from nowhere."

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Last updated: Fri Aug 30 20:25:28 EDT 2002
by Gary Tubb, email [email protected]
Email to course instructors: [email protected].