Download or read book Gandhi and the Stoics written by Richard Sorabji and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-11-06 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Was Gandhi a philosopher? Yes.” So begins this remarkable investigation of the guiding principles that motivated the transformative public acts of one of the top historical figures of the twentieth century. Richard Sorabji, continuing his exploration of the many connections between South Asian thought and ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, brings together in this volume the unlikely pairing of Mahatma Gandhi and the Stoics, uncovering a host of parallels that suggests a deep affinity spanning the two millennia between them. While scholars have long known Gandhi’s direct Western influences to be Platonic and Christian, Sorabji shows how a look at Gandhi’s convergence with the Stoics works mutually, throwing light on both of them. Both emphasized emotional detachment, which provided a necessary freedom, a suspicion of universal rules of conduct that led to a focus not on human rights but human duties—the personally determined paths each individual must make for his or her self. By being indifferent, paradoxically, both the Stoics and Gandhi could love manifoldly. In drawing these links to the fore, Sorabji demonstrates the comparative consistency of Gandhi’s philosophical ideas, isolating the specific ideological strengths that were required to support some of the most consequential political acts and experiments in how to live.
Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of the Stoic Tradition written by John Sellars and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-02-12 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ancient philosophy of stoicism has been a crucial and formative influence on the development of Western thought since its inception through to the present day. It is not only an important area of study in philosophy and classics, but also in theology and literature. The Routledge Handbook of the Stoic Tradition is the first volume of its kind, and an outstanding guide and reference source to the nature and continuing significance of stoicism. Comprising twenty-six chapters by a team of international contributors and organised chronologically, the Handbook is divided into four parts: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, including stoicism in Rome; stoicism in early Christianity; the Platonic response to stoicism; and stoic influences in the late Middle Ages Renaissance and Reformation, addressing the impact of stoicism on the Italian Renaissance, Reformation thought, and early modern English literature including Shakespeare Early Modern Europe, including stoicism and early modern French thought; the stoic influence on Spinoza and Leibniz; stoicism and the French and Scottish Enlightenment; and Kant and stoic ethics The Modern World, including stoicism in nineteenth century German philosophy; stoicism in Victorian culture; stoicism in America; stoic themes in contemporary Anglo-American ethics; and the stoic influence on modern psychotherapy. An invaluable resource for anyone interested in the philosophical history and impact of stoic thought, The Routledge Handbook of the Stoic Tradition is essential reading for all students and researchers working on the subject.
Download or read book Gandhi s Thought and Liberal Democracy written by Sanjay Lal and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-03-13 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With an intense focus on both the depth and practicality of Mahatma Gandhi’s political and religious thought this book reveals the valuable insights Gandhi offers to anyone concerned about the prospects of liberalism in the contemporary world. Gandhi’s Religious Thought and Liberal Democracy makes the case that for Gandhi, in stark contrast to commonly accepted liberal orthodoxy, religion is indispensable to the public life, and indeed the official activity, of any genuinely liberal society. Gandhi scholars, political theorists, and activist members of a lay audience alike will all find much to digest, comment upon, and be motivated by in this work.
Download or read book Gandhi s Moral Politics written by Naren Nanda and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-12-06 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the scope and limits of Mahatma Gandhi's moral politics and its implications for Indian and other freedom movements. It presents a set of enlightening essays based on lectures delivered in memory of the eminent historian B. R. Nanda along with a new introductory essay. With contributions by leading historians and Gandhi scholars, the book provides new perspectives on the limits of Gandhi’s moral reasoning, his role in the choice of destination by Indian Muslim refugees, his waning influence over political events, and his predicament amid the violence and turmoil in the years immediately preceding partition. The work brings together wide-ranging insights on Gandhi and revisits his religious views, which were the foundation of his morality in politics; his experience of civil disobedience and its nature, deployment and limits; Satyagraha and non-violence; and his struggle for civil rights. The volume also examines how Gandhi’s South African phase contributed to his later ideas on private property and self-sacrifice. This book will be of immense interest to researchers and scholars of modern Indian history, Gandhi studies, political science, peace and conflict studies, South Asian studies; to researchers and scholars of media and journalism; and to the informed general reader.
Download or read book The Tagore Gandhi Debate on Matters of Truth and Untruth written by Bindu Puri and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-11-25 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1915 and 1941, Tagore (1861-1941) and Gandhi (1869-1948) differed and argued about many things of personal, national, and international significance---satyagraha, non-cooperation, the boycott and burning of foreign cloth, the efficacy of fasting as a means of resistance and Gandhi’s mantra connecting “swaraj” and “charkha”. The author tracks the development of this dialogue and argues that the debate was about more fundamental issues, such as the nature of truth and swaraj/freedom and the possibilities of untruth that Tagore saw in Gandhi’s movements for truth and freedom. Puri shows that the differences between the two men’s perspectives came from differently negotiated relationships to (and understandings of) tradition and modernity. Tagore was part of the Bengal renaissance and powerfully influenced by the idea that the Enlightenment consisted in the freedom of the individual to reason for herself. Gandhi, on the other hand, remained close to the Indian philosophical tradition which linked individual freedom to moral progress. Puri points out that Tagore cannot, however, be unreflectively assimilated to the Enlightenment project of Western modernity, for he came fairly close to Gandhi in rejecting the anthropocentricism of modernity and shared Gandhi’s belief in an enchanted cosmos. The only single-authored volume on the Tagore-Gandhi debate, this book is a welcome addition to the existing literature.
Download or read book The Secular Imaginary written by Sushmita Nath and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-31 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Given the popularity and success of the Hindu-Right in India's electoral politics today, how may one study ostensibly 'Western' concepts and ideas, such as the secular and its family of cognates, like secularism, secularisation and secularity in non-Western societies without assuming them simply as derivative, or colonial legacies or contrast cases of Western societies? While recognizing that the dominant language of political modernity of Western societies is not easily translatable in non-Western societies, The Secular Imaginary elaborates upon an intellectual history of secularity in modern India by focusing on the two most influential political leaders – M.K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. It is an intellectual history of both idea(s) and intellectuals, which sheds light on Indian narratives of secularity – the Gandhian sarva dharma samabhava, Nehruvian secularism, and unity in diversity. It revisits this dominant narrative of secularity of the twentieth century that influenced and shaped the imagination of the modern nation-state.
Download or read book Gandhi in Political Theory written by Anuradha Veeravalli and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-15 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can Gandhi be considered a systematic thinker? While the significance of Gandhi’s thought and life to our times is undeniable it is widely assumed that he did not serve any discipline and cannot be considered a systematic thinker. Despite an overwhelming body of scholarship and literature on his life and thought the presuppositions of Gandhi’s experiments, the systematic nature of his intervention in modern political theory and his method have not previously received sustained attention. Addressing this lacuna, the book contends that Gandhi’s critique of modern civilization, the presuppositions of post-Enlightenment political theory and their epistemological and metaphysical foundations is both comprehensive and systematic. Gandhi’s experiments with truth in the political arena during the Indian Independence movement are studied from the point of view of his conscious engagement with method and theory rather than merely as a personal creed, spiritual position or moral commitment. The author shows how Gandhi’s experiments are illustrative of his theoretical position, and how they form the basis of his opposition to the foundations of modern western political theory and the presuppositions of the modern nation state besides envisioning the foundations of an alternative modernity for India, and by its example, for the world.
Download or read book Tracing Gandhi written by Samir Banerjee and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2019-06-28 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces the journey of Mahatma Gandhi, from being a simple and truth-seeking human being, a satyarthi, to a committed, conscious and social human being, a satyagrahi. It specifically looks at this critical transformation during the time Gandhi was in South Africa. The central argument of the book is that Gandhi evolved from being a satyarthi to a satyagrahi in South Africa. Subsequently in India, he consolidated his orientation with an emphasis on praxis, by developing his ideas as instruments for social and individual struggles. Marked by a series of events, this period was an intense quest of self-realization and understanding, and shows his journey from being Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to being Mahatma Gandhi. The book discusses various elements of Gandhian thought and praxis – morality, wisdom, non-violence, truth, social justice, dharma, trusteeship, education, sarvodaya, Hind Swaraj, swadeshi, and social service – and interprets the relevance of Gandhi’s thought in the modern world by highlighting its unique significance for social transformation and change. Lucid and accessible, the book will be useful to scholars and researchers of Gandhi studies, Indian political thought, modern Indian history, and political studies.
Download or read book Gandhi and Philosophy written by Shaj Mohan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-12-13 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gandhi and Philosophy presents a breakthrough in philosophy by foregrounding modern and scientific elements in Gandhi's thought, animating the dazzling materialist concepts in his writings and opening philosophy to the new frontier of nihilism. This scintillating work breaks with the history of Gandhi scholarship, removing him from the postcolonial and Hindu-nationalist axis and disclosing him to be the enemy that the philosopher dreads and needs. Naming the congealing systematicity of Gandhi's thoughts with the Kantian term hypophysics, Mohan and Dwivedi develop his ideas through a process of reason that awakens the possibilities of concepts beyond the territorial determination of philosophical traditions. The creation of the new method of criticalisation - the augmentation of critique - brings Gandhi's system to its exterior and release. It shows the points of intersection and infiltration between Gandhian concepts and such issues as will, truth, violence, law, anarchy, value, politics and metaphysics and compels us to imagine Gandhi's thought anew.
Download or read book Gandhi and the Idea of Swaraj written by Ramin Jahanbegloo and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-03-07 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines Gandhi's idea of swaraj as an alternative to the modern concept of political authority. It also introduces the readers to Gandhi’s ideas of moral interconnectedness and empathetic pluralism. It explores the Gandhian belief that "nonviolence" as a moral and political concept is essentially the empowerment of the Other through spiritual and political realization of the self as a non-egocentric subject. Further, it highlights swaraj as an act of conscience and therefore a transformative force, essential to the harmony between spirituality and politics. The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of philosophy, politics, and South Asian studies.
Download or read book Gandhi s Global Legacy written by Veena R. Howard and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-11-30 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While there has been sustained interest in Gandhi’s methods and continued academic inquiry, Gandhi's Global Legacy: Moral Methods and Modern Challenges is unique in bringing together an interdisciplinary group of scholars who analyze Gandhi’s tactics, moral methods, and philosophical principles, not just in the fields of social and political activism, but in the areas of philosophy, religion, literature, economics, health, international relations, and interpersonal communication. Bringing this wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, the contributors provide fresh perspectives on Gandhi’s thought and practice as well as critical analyses of his work and its contemporary relevance. Edited by Veena R. Howard, this book reveals the need for reconstructing Gandhi’s ideas and moral methods in today’s context through a broad spectrum of crucial issues, including pacifism, health, communal living, gender dynamics, the role of anger, and peacebuilding. Gandhi’s methods have been refined and reimagined to fit different situations, but there remains a need to consider his concept of Sarvodaya (uplift of all), the importance of economic, gender, and racial equity, as well as the value of dialogue and dissenting voices in building a just society. The book points to new directions for the study of Gandhi in the globalized world.
Download or read book Marx Gandhi and Modernity written by Akeel Bilgrami and published by Tulika Books. This book was released on 2015-09-02 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a tribute to Javeed Alam and his exemplary life, some of his close friends and admirers have come together in this volume with reflections on the range of themes that he pursued in his work with such intelligence and relish for some four decades: the nature of capitalism and the various angles of a Marxist response to it, the nature of secularism and liberalism and the forms of modernity which they usher in, and Gandhi’s political ideas in the context of Indian society and India’s own unfolding modernity.
Download or read book Pax Gandhiana written by Anthony J Parel and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-02 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Notwithstanding his contributions to religion, nonviolence, civil rights, and civil disobedience, among other areas, Gandhi's most significant contribution is that as a political philosopher. While he is not often treated as such, Gandhi was, as Anthony J. Parel argues, a political philosopher sui generis, both in his philosophical method of constant self-criticism and his framework of philosophical analysis. Gandhi wrote daily on politics, but he did so as an activist; political philosophy was to him not just a way of understanding truths of political phenomena but was directly related to understanding those truths in action. If realized in action these truths would give rise to new political institutions, which in turn would create a corresponding peaceful political and social order. Parel dubs this order Pax Gandhiana. The main contention of Pax Gandhiana is that peace cannot be achieved by politics alone. Peace requires the confluence of the canonical ends of life: politics and economics (artha), ethics (dharma), forms of pleasure (kama), and the pursuit of spiritual transcendence (moksha). Modern political philosophy isolates politics from the other three ends, but Gandhi's originality, according to Parel, lies in the way that he brings all four together. In fact Gandhi's political philosophy is relevant not only to India but also to the rest of the world: it is a new type of sovereignty that harmonizes the interest of individual states with the community of states. Arguing against scholars who dispute a theoretical unity in Gandhi's writings, Parel suggests that Gandhi is the preeminent non-western political philosopher, and in this book he seeks to identify the conceptual framework of Gandhi's political philosophy, the Pax Gandhiana.
Download or read book To Shape a New World written by Tommie Shelby and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-19 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Fascinating and instructive...King’s philosophy, speaking to us through the written word, may turn out to constitute his most enduring legacy.” —Annette Gordon-Reed, New York Review of Books Martin Luther King, Jr., is one of America’s most revered figures, yet despite his mythic stature, the significance of his political thought remains underappreciated. In this indispensable reappraisal, leading scholars—including Cornel West, Martha Nussbaum, and Danielle Allen—consider the substance of his lesser known writings on racism, economic inequality, virtue ethics, just-war theory, reparations, voting rights, civil disobedience, and social justice and find in them an array of compelling challenges to some of the most pressing political dilemmas of our time. “King was not simply a compelling speaker, but a deeply philosophical intellectual...We still have much to learn from him.” —Quartz “A compelling work of philosophy, all the more so because it treats King seriously without inoculating him from the kind of critique important to both his theory and practice.” —Los Angeles Review of Books
Download or read book Freedom of Speech and Expression written by Richard Sorabji and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2021 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book on freedom of speech and expression starts (Chapter 1) with an inter-cultural history of this valued right through the ages and then recalls (Chapter 2) the benefits for which we rightly value it. But what about speech that frustrates these benefits? Supporters of the benefits of free speech have reason to exercise voluntary self-restraint on speech which frustrates the benefits. They should also cultivate a second remedy: the art, illustrated in chapter 1, and called by Gandhi the art of 'opening ears', by other kinds of speech and conduct. Such voluntary methods are to be preferred to legal constraints. But (chapter 3) legal constraint is sometimes necessary. In the 21st century, social media funding based on manipulation of personal speech data requires skilful legislation and enforcement in favour of social media that protect our freedoms"--
Download or read book Opening Doors written by Richard Sorabji and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2010-05-30 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clever, attractive and ambitious, intellectually daring and physically courageous, Cornelia Sorabji was a truly remarkable woman. As India's first female lawyer, she was original and often outspoken in her views - for example, in her criticism of Gandhi and her surprising friendship with Katherine Mayo. Cornelia Sorabji resists easy classification, either as a feminist or as an imperialist. She is an Indian whose loyalty to the British Raj never wavered; a passionate advocate of women's rights whose own career was nearly compromised through her inappropriate relationship with a married man; and, an independent and free-thinking intellectual who depended for work on patronage from an elite circle. Cornelia Sorabji's long and fulfilling life was anything but simple. How did she reconcile these apparent contradictions? How did she succeed in opening doors to aspects of Indian and British life which remain closed to so many, even today - and where did she run into difficulties? Through its beguiling portrait of a determined and pioneering woman at the heart of the Raj, this rich and important story will captivate everyone with an interest in Indian or British history.
Download or read book Gadflies in the Public Space written by Ramin Jahanbegloo and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-12-13 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of disobedient consciousness and the rebellious Socratic mind that grows out of this book is, above all, a product of Ramin Jahanbegloo’s life meetings with the two apparently contradictory worlds of philosophy and politics. More precisely, it is the result of approaching the public realm in terms of a philosophical quest for truth and justice. This restless quest for truth and justice has a history that continues to bear upon us, however much we choose to ignore it. We can think about the current situation of philosophy by exploring that history. The image of Socrates represents a mid-point between politics and philosophy; the Socratic mind, exemplified by the presence of the public gadfly in history, finds itself at the beginning of a new struggle for truth. The journey to this struggle started with the trial of Socrates, followed by the experiences of Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Albert Camus. But the forging of the rebellious mind and the sustaining of the civic task of philosophy are goals which impose themselves to each of us whenever we are reminded by the urgency of critical thinking in our own dark times. The future of humankind necessarily requires convictions and commitments, but it also requires Socratic rebels, of the mind and of action, who have the courage to swim against the tide. Examining dissent in the history of philosophy, this book will appeal to scholars of political theory and political philosophy and to scholars and students of political and intellectual history.
