Swami Medhananda - Böcker

Swami Vivekananda, the nineteenth-century Hindu monk who introduced Vedanta to the West, is undoubtedly one of modern India's most influential philosophers. Unfortunately, his philosophy has too often been interpreted through reductive hermeneutic lenses. Typically, scholars have viewed him either as a modern-day exponent of Sankara's Advaita Vedanta or as a "Neo-Vedantin" influenced more by Western ideas than indigenous Indian traditions. In Swami Vivekananda's Vedāntic Cosmopolitanism, Swami Medhananda rejects these prevailing approaches to offer a new interpretation of Vivekananda's philosophy, highlighting its originality, contemporary relevance, and cross-cultural significance. Vivekananda, the book argues, is best understood as a cosmopolitan Vedantin who developed novel philosophical positions through creative dialectical engagement with both Indian and Western thinkers.Inspired by his guru Sri Ramakrishna, Vivekananda reconceived Advaita Vedanta as a nonsectarian, life-affirming philosophy that provides an ontological basis for religious cosmopolitanism and a spiritual ethics of social service. He defended the scientific credentials of religion while criticizing the climate of scientism beginning to develop in the late nineteenth century. He was also one of the first philosophers to defend the evidential value of supersensuous perception on the basis of general epistemic principles. Finally, he adopted innovative cosmopolitan approaches to long-standing philosophical problems. Bringing him into dialogue with numerous philosophers past and present, Medhananda demonstrates the sophistication and enduring value of Vivekananda's views on the limits of reason, the dynamics of religious faith, and the hard problem of consciousness.

This Element provides an argumentative introduction to the doctrines of karma and rebirth in Hinduism. It explains how various Hindu texts, traditions, and figures have understood the philosophical nuances of karma and rebirth. It also acquaints readers with some of the most important academic debates about these doctrines. The Element's primary argumentative aim is to defend the rationality of accepting the truth of karma and rebirth through a critical examination of an array of arguments for and against these doctrines. It concludes by highlighting the relevance of karma and rebirth to contemporary philosophical debates on a variety of issues.

This Element provides an argumentative introduction to the doctrines of karma and rebirth in Hinduism. It explains how various Hindu texts, traditions, and figures have understood the philosophical nuances of karma and rebirth. It also acquaints readers with some of the most important academic debates about these doctrines. The Element's primary argumentative aim is to defend the rationality of accepting the truth of karma and rebirth through a critical examination of an array of arguments for and against these doctrines. It concludes by highlighting the relevance of karma and rebirth to contemporary philosophical debates on a variety of issues. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

For too long, scholars interested in panentheism have focused almost exclusively on Western approaches to the issue. This book offers the first in-depth study of a wide range of Indian paradigms of panentheism, both ancient and modern, and brings these paradigms into creative and constructive dialogue with Western traditions.This volume features original essays written by leading international scholars. The volume discusses a broad range of Indian panentheistic traditions, including the Upaniṣads, Bhedābheda Vedānta, Rāmānuja’s Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta, Yogācāra Buddhism, and the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda tradition. The chapters connect these traditions with Western panentheistic conceptions developed by thinkers such as Spinoza, Berkeley, Schopenhauer, Krause, Royce, Tononi and Koch, and Western process philosophers.Panentheism in Indian and Western Thought will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of religion, Indian philosophy, comparative philosophy, and comparative religion.