A wide-ranging interview with Dipesh Chakrabarty, Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Chicago and author of The Climate of History in a Planetary Age and Provincializing Europe. Dipesh Chakrabarty is one of the leading thinkers on climate change in the humanities. He is responsible for introducing concepts like the "Anthropocene," "geological force," and "species history" into history, philosophy, and literary theory.

The introduction of the long-term history of the Earth into the preoccupations of historians has triggered a crisis because it has become impossible to keep the “planet” as one single entity outside of history properly understood. As soon as the planetary intruded into history, it became impossible to keep it as one naturalized background. By problematizing the planetary, Dipesh Chakrabarty has forced philosophers, historians and anthropologists to extend pluralism to the very ground on which history was supposed to (...) unfold. Hence Bruno Latour’s attempt at counting the number of “planets” whose attractions are simultaneously being felt today on any political question. Each of his eight planets are defined by the disconnect between where they are situated and where they are imagined to be moving, which means that each planet is led by a different and incommensurable philosophy of history. Such a “fictional planetology” is then discussed by Chakrabarty, who reviews the difficulties historians have had in taking the nonhuman as a historical agent and then adds to Latour’s count a new planetary body which further complicates the geopolitical situation. The result of their joint effort is to shift questions of philosophy of history to philosophy of geography. (shrink)

Discussion of global climate change is shaped by the intellectual categories developed to address capitalism and globalization. Yet climate change is only one manifestation of humanity’s varied and accelerating impact on the Earth System. The common predicament that may be anticipated in the Anthropocene raises difficult questions of distributive justice – between rich and poor, developed and developing countries, the living and the yet unborn, and even the human and the non-human – and may pose a challenge to the categories (...) on which our traditions of political thought are based. Awareness of the Anthropocene encourages us to think of humans on different scales and in different contexts – as parts of a global capitalist system and as members of a now-dominant species – although the debate is, for now, still structured by the experiences and concepts of the developed world. (shrink)

This response to Carola Dietze’s critique of Provincializing Europe takes up for examination three key expressions or ideas on which the original argument of the book was founded: hyperreal Europe, historicism, and political modernity. I appreciate the spirit of Dietze’s engagement with the book, but I show that her critique is based on a degree of misapprehension of these three central ideas. While clarifying the details and the degree of my disagreement with Dietze, I provide my own critique of Dietze’s (...) proposal of “equal histories” by arguing that Dietze has not named or explained the unit with respect to which different histories could be considered equal. I also argue that Dietze’s proposals about judging societies only by their “own” standards, and basing human dignity on the idea of a “human nature” that could be seen as a “constant,” do not solve the problems she sees with my book and are themselves open to some serious historical and logical criticism. (shrink)

The author examines the symbolism of the Indian politician's common dress: white coarse khadi cham pioned by Gandhi. Does its continued survival during the post-independence era signify merely hypocrisy, empty ritual? What does it implicitly communicate about the public and private intents ofpoliticalfigures? What values does the khadi conceal in its texture? Do they serve any purpose? Chakrabarty's analysis concludes by admitting that though khadi no longer conveys any message as to the prevalence of Gandhian convictions, yet it constitutes (...) a deep-seated resistance by Indian democracy and politics to the wholesale loss of their identity in the rising surge of global capitalism. (shrink)

Historical Teleologies in the Modern World tracks the fragmentation and proliferation of teleological understandings of history--the notion that history had to be explained as a goal-directed process--in Europe and beyond throughout the 19th and into the 20th century. Historical teleologies have profoundly informed a variety of other disciplines, including modern philosophy, natural history, literature, humanitarian and religious philanthropism, the political thought and practice of revolution, emancipation, imperialism, colonialism and anti-colonialism, the conceptualization of universal humankind, and the understanding of modernity in (...) general. By exploring the extension and plurality of historical teleology, the essays in this volume revise the history of historicity in the modern period. Historical Teleologies in the Modern World casts doubt on the idea that a single, if powerful, conception of time could function as the unifying principle of all modern historicity, instead pursuing an investigation of the plurality of modern historicities and its underlying structures. By bringing together Western and non-Western histories, this book provides the first extended treatment of the idea of historical teleology. It will be of great value to students and scholars of modern global and intellectual history"--From publisher's website. (shrink)

The concepts »labor« and »work« have different etymologies that have become entwined in the course of European history. By tracing the changes in meaning these words have undergone, we gain a view to the current situation of anthropogenic climate change and the efforts to think through how this situation affects our categories more broadly. That has consequences for the humanities.

M. K. Gandhi's a series of talks delivered to ashramites at Sabarmati during 1926 and 1927, provides a singular instance in Indian intellectual thought in which the Bhagavad Gita's message of action is transformed into a theory of non-violent resistance. This essay argues that Gandhi's reading of the Gita has to be placed within an identifiable general understanding of the political that emerged among the so-called in the Congress towards the beginning of the twentieth century. Gandhi, we argue, wrested from (...) the their vocabulary and their pre-eminent political text, the Gita, and put them to use in the cause of non-violent politics. But, more importantly, his discourses on the Gita after 1920 suggest an acceptance, on his part, of politics as it actually was. This is where he departed from the projects of Tilak or Aurobindo. The Gita, in Gandhi's hand, became a talismanic device that allowed the satyagrahi his or her involvement in political action while providing protection from the necessary and unavoidable venality of politics and its propensity to violence. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to introduce a Merleau-Pontyan reading of the Four Theses of Dipesh Chakrabarty. In the first part of this article, we identify the theoretical problems that undergird Chakrabarty’s claims by connecting them to an attempt to rethink the concept of history in a non-historicist manner in light of the questions raised by the Anthropocene and by anthropogenic climate change. Our hypothesis, which we explore in the second part of the article, is that (...) the idea of history developed by Merleau-Ponty, which finds in the concepts of “institution” and “transcendental geology” its fundamental theoretical articulations, can provide the framework for a rereading of the Four Theses. In the last section, we attempt to provide an interpretation of Chakrabarty’s proposition by reading the problem of the relationship between geological history, life history, and human history as a relationship of institution. In conclusion, we indicate some potential developments for this proposition that move in the direction of a narrower intersection between philosophy and earth system science. (shrink)

Dipesh Chakrabarty has identified Immanuel Kant’s distinction between the human’s moral and animal dimensions as an underlying source of the failure of the humanities to respond to the ecological crises of the Anthropocene. Although relevant for the environmental humanities generally, Chakrabarty’s critique is especially germane to contemporary environmental philosophy. It shows how the reality of anthropogenic climate change renders central aspects of Kant’s influential conception of human nature untenable. While closer examination of Kant’s writings corroborates the core (...) of Chakrabarty’s reading, there nonetheless remain positive resources in Kant’s philosophy for contemporary environmental thinking, for, although Kant does regard the human’s moral and animal dimensions as conceptually separable, he also understands them to be inextricably bound within the nature of human beings. Attending to the interplay between these Kantian commitments, a new critical insight into one of the basic tensions of the Anthropocene era can be attained. (shrink)

This article interprets critiques of secularity and the related concept of history as progress in the work of Dipesh Chakrabarty and Judith Butler. At the same time, it defends their approach against the criticism voiced by Gregor McLennan. It shows that the postsecular conception of the politics of both authors is not just an attempt to open public space to a wider range of religious and cultural voices. Rather, it is a critique of the way in which political (...) secularism and the ideology of progress are used by the modern state to legitimize the exercise of its own power. Butler and Chakrabarty's postsecular policy is thus based primarily on coalition building against these legitimization frameworks, which opens up the possibility of forming new postsecular political subjects. It illustrates the theoretical approach of both authors with an example of the church sanctuary movement in Germany. (shrink)

Leading figures in comparative philosophy and cultural studies demonstrate what the future of comparative philosophy might look like in practice.

This Book Presents A Lucid English Translation Of The Vaisesika-Sutra Of Kanada, Termed The Earliest Exposition On Physics In Indian Philosophy And The Textual Basis For The Nyaya-Vaisesika And Navya-Nyaya Systems Of Thought. The Translation Retains The Feel Of The Original Sutras Even While Conveying The Intended Meaning Accurately And With Clarity.

On theory of knowledge in Indic and modern philosophy; research papers.

This paper is historical and is devoted to an old controversy in the Indian philosophical tradition with the Vedantins (and others) holding that cognitive states are self-revealing and the Nyaya taking the opposite position. I have summarized the major Vedantin arguments for their viewpoint and offered a critique from the Nyaya perspective. This throws light on a major philosophical controversy in the Indian tradition, a controversy that has not been studied in-depth in the Western tradition. Notably the problem of induction, (...) a major problem in contemporary epistemology, has been studied in-depth in the Western tradition since its introduction by David Hume in the 18th century but the said problem has been studied deeply in Indian tradition for centuries earlier. I have argued in my Classical Indian Philosophy of Induction (2010) that the older Indian contribution on this problem is fully relevant for the very best that contemporary philosophers have offered on this. I hope that this paper will draw the attention of contemporary Western epistemologists who would get involved in this critically important epistemological debate and address a lacuna in the Western tradition. (shrink)

When we understand that something is a pot, is it because of one property that all pots share? This seems unlikely, but without this common essence, it is difficult to see how we could teach someone to use the word "pot" or to see something as _a_ pot. The Buddhist apoha theory tries to resolve this dilemma, first, by rejecting properties such as "potness" and, then, by claiming that the element uniting all pots is their very difference from all non-pots. (...) In other words, when we seek out a pot, we select an object that is not a non-pot, and we repeat this practice with all other items and expressions. Writing from the vantage points of history, philosophy, and cognitive science, the contributors to this volume clarify the nominalist apoha theory and explore the relationship between apoha and the scientific study of human cognition. They engage throughout in a lively debate over the theory's legitimacy. Classical Indian philosophers challenged the apoha theory's legitimacy, believing instead in the existence of enduring essences. Seeking to settle this controversy, essays explore whether apoha offers new and workable solutions to problems in the scientific study of human cognition. They show that the work of generations of Indian philosophers can add much toward the resolution of persistent conundrums in analytic philosophy and cognitive science. (shrink)

Colonialism and Its Legacy brings together essays by leading scholars in both the fields of political theory and the history of political thought about European colonialism and its legacies, and postcolonial social and political theory. The essays explore the ways in which European colonial projects structured and shaped much of modern political theory, how concepts from political philosophy affected and were realized in colonial and imperial practice, and how we can understand the intellectual and social world left behind by a (...) half-millennium of European empires. (shrink)

Daya Krishna(Photo courtesy of Jay Garfield)Govind Chandra Pande(Photo courtesy of his daughter amita sharma)Daya Krishna was the public face of Indian philosophy in the first half-century after Indian independence. Nobody on the Indian scene in that period came close to him in influence or in contribution to the profession. Nobody else in the world thought as hard or as fruitfully about the relation of Indian philosophy to that of the rest of the world, and nobody else dared to think as (...) creatively and even as heretically about the history of Indian philosophy itself. To be sure, the Indian philosophical scene during this period was always a vibrant and creative matrix of thought, and many contributed to that .. (shrink)