Available in two weeks: Reason in an Uncertain World
An introduction to Nyāya philosophers on argumentation and living well
How can premodern Sanskrit-language philosophy be relevant to the modern world? One answer is that it helps people engage in yoga and mindfulness meditation, enabling us to cope as individuals.
While that's true, another answer is that these same philosophers who gave us tools for emotional regulation and living virtuously also gave us tools to reason well and have difficult conversations about what is true. Further, they claimed that thinking well, reasoning well, and living well are all interconnected.
In two weeks, you can read about these topics in my book, Reason in an Uncertain World: Nyāya Philosophers on Argumentation and Living Well. It’s available for preorder through Oxford University Press.
While I hope this book will be helpful for teaching Indian philosophy in the classroom—it's aimed at an audience of nonspecialists—I also hope some "ordinary" people pick it up. My other audience is anyone interested in the relevance of Stoicism and ancient wisdom to today. What I find compelling in Nyāya philosophy is their interest not just in personal virtue and individual practices of yoga—they were yoga practitioners, clearly—but their concern for engaging in discussion with people whose ideas were very different from their own. And they wanted to engage in truth-seeking critical reflection.
These thinkers do not fit the common caricature of “Eastern wisdom,” yogis on a mountaintop, indifferent to the world. Nyāya philosophers are after robust, truth-seeking debate, practiced by virtuous people whose main desire is to know what is true, and thereby promote a life freed from suffering.
By the way, I should note that this book came out of Season 2 of Sutras & Stuff, which is still available on Spotify and other podcast platforms. The podcast gives some sense of what the book is about, although the book goes much deeper.