Calibrating Western Philosophy for India

This book proposes a new way of reading modern Western philosophers in the Indian context. It questions the colonial methodology, or the practice of importing theories of Western philosophy, and shows how its unmediated applications are often incongruent, irrelevant, and unproductive in local frameworks. The author shows an alternative route to approaching philosophers from the West – Rousseau, Derrida, Deleuze, Guattari, and Bergson – by bending and reassembling aspects of their ideas and theories to relate with the diversity and complexity of Indian society. He also offers insights on the politics of non-being and negation from a neglected modern Indian philosopher, Vaddera Chandidas, as a step forward from the Western philosophers presented here. An intervention in philosophical research methodology, this volume will interest scholars and researchers of philosophy, Western philosophy, Indian philosophy, comparative studies, postcolonial studies, literature, cultural studies, and political philosophy.