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Disappearance of modern Indian philosophy from Anglo-American & European journals

#1
C C Offline
PART 1 (the thriving days)
http://digressionsnimpressions.typepad.c...eview.html

EXCERPT: Modern Indian philosophers once had a substantial presence in two of the most prominent English-language philosophy journals of the 20th century. The story that follows is primarily about this presence, and how and why it came to an end. The story is also about the similarity between this ending and another ending, one within modern Indian philosophy itself...

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PART 2 (analytic philosophy ended it)
http://digressionsnimpressions.typepad.c...y-joe.html

EXCERPT: [...] The disappearance of modern Indian philosophy from JoP in the 1960s coincides with the period when the journal became, more or less, an analytic philosophy only journal and, more or less, ceased to publish classical pragmatism, process philosophy, existentialism, phenomenology and more. The changes occur quickly and occur in the early 1960s...

- - -

PART 3
http://digressionsnimpressions.typepad.c...atzav.html

EXCERPT: My post today has two primary aims. First, I aim to explain how the institutional setup of modern Indian (academic) philosophy during (roughly) the period 1925-1970 allowed it to thrive despite adverse academic circumstances in India at the time. Second, I aim to show how ties with key speculative American philosophers facilitated the publication of modern Indian philosophy in Western journals. The picture that emerges supports my earlier observations about modern Indian philosophy, observations according to which the takeover of Mind, the Philosophical Review (PR) and the Journal of Philosophy (JoP) by analytic philosophers led to the exclusion of work by modern Indian philosophers from these journals much as it led to the exclusion from these journals of Western speculative philosophy, that is, roughly, Western “philosophy that tends to focus on the provision of substantial, broad claims about the natures of the universe and humanity”....

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PART 4 (opposing opinion)
http://digressionsnimpressions.typepad.c...tthen.html

EXCERPT: [...] I think it will be evident that there is room for another kind of story. Indians didn’t generally feel intellectually equal to white people, and they didn’t have the resources to compete. Some isolated figures had the confidence and courage to produce work that could be internationally published. But they and their successors did not have the connections to the mid-century ferment to enable them to continue to sneak into these venues. They didn’t know anybody; they didn’t receive the journals; they had no way of learning logic or the other tools of the new philosophy. They didn’t even have other Indians to talk to; for the most part, they were alone. [...] Could these individuals make a sustained contribution to research as it was being conducted in Oxbridge and London, Cambridge MA and California? How?...

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#2
Yazata Offline
(Nov 21, 2017 05:31 AM)C C Wrote: Modern Indian philosophers once had a substantial presence in two of the most prominent English-language philosophy journals of the 20th century.

Two journals? Indians may (arguably) be less prevalent today in those particular journals, but there are lots of journals. I'm not persuaded that Indians have less access to academic publishing today than they once did.

Quote:The story that follows is primarily about this presence, and how and why it came to an end. The story is also about the similarity between this ending and another ending, one within modern Indian philosophy itself...

The disappearance of modern Indian philosophy from JoP in the 1960s coincides with the period when the journal became, more or less, an analytic philosophy only journal and, more or less, ceased to publish classical pragmatism, process philosophy, existentialism, phenomenology and more. The changes occur quickly and occur in the early 1960s.

So there's the target of this, the analytic style of philosophy. Nothing is preventing Indian philosophers from doing philosophy in the analytic manner, and many do.

Quote:My post today has two primary aims. First, I aim to explain how the institutional setup of modern Indian (academic) philosophy during (roughly) the period 1925-1970 allowed it to thrive despite adverse academic circumstances in India at the time. Second, I aim to show how ties with key speculative American philosophers facilitated the publication of modern Indian philosophy in Western journals.

One would hope that what got them published was the quality of their work.

Quote:The picture that emerges supports my earlier observations about modern Indian philosophy, observations according to which the takeover of Mind, the Philosophical Review (PR) and the Journal of Philosophy (JoP) by analytic philosophers led to the exclusion of work by modern Indian philosophers from these journals much as it led to the exclusion from these journals of Western speculative philosophy, that is, roughly, Western “philosophy that tends to focus on the provision of substantial, broad claims about the natures of the universe and humanity”.

So what's the implicit argument here? That the leading analytic philosophy journals need to transform themselves into "continental" philosophy journals, otherwise they are excluding Indians and hence are "racist"?

The obvious rejoinder is 'Why don't modern Indian philosphers publish more analytical philosophy and actually participate in the philosophical discussions? I'm not convinced that they aren't and they don't. I still haven't bought this guy's opening thesis.

Quote:I think it will be evident that there is room for another kind of story. Indians didn’t generally feel intellectually equal to white people, and they didn’t have the resources to compete.

Now the political gloves are off, and in the most condescending way.

Quote:Some isolated figures had the confidence and courage to produce work that could be internationally published. But they and their successors did not have the connections to the mid-century ferment to enable them to continue to sneak into these venues. They didn’t know anybody; they didn’t receive the journals; they had no way of learning logic or the other tools of the new philosophy. They didn’t even have other Indians to talk to; for the most part, they were alone. [...] Could these individuals make a sustained contribution to research as it was being conducted in Oxbridge and London, Cambridge MA and California? How?...

This guy seems rather ignorant about modern Indian higher education. India doesn't seem to have much trouble educating engineers, mathematicians and natural scientists. But "logic and the other tools of the new philosophy" are beyond the grasp of the poor little childlike things?

I'm unmoved by this guy's blog posts. If Indians want to do "continental" philosophy they can publish in the many journals that favor that stuff. (This style of ostensible "philosophy" is largely worthless and uninteresting in my opinion, but many of the more literary types love it and hang on the latest French or German theorist.) Nobody has silenced it. It dominates some American universities, many journals and academic book publishers, and philosophy in general in some European countries and Latin America.

If Indians want to do analytic philosophy, then nothing is preventing them from doing that either. (I believe that many do.) Nothing is really preventing them from publishing in the leading handful of Anglo-American journals.

If Indians want to revive their own country's ancient and medieval philosophical traditions in a more contemporary mode (something I would personally like to see), using Indian texts and authors to address questions of current interest to analytical philosophers perhaps, they can do that too. Philosophy East and West loves that kind of stuff, would no doubt love more participation from Indian scholars, and there are many domestic Indian journals as well.
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