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Best introductory texts to non-Western philosophical traditions or figures?

Brian Leiter

Continuing with our new series about the best introductory texts in various areas of philosophy, I now invite readers to name what they think are the best introductory texts to non-Western philosophical traditions or figures (e.g., Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Islamic traditions; or figures like Mencius or Al-Fārābī).  As before, don't just name a text, but say something about why you think it's particularly notable or valuable.  Although you don't have to sign  your comment, I do think signed ones will carry more weight with readers.

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18 responses to “Best introductory texts to non-Western philosophical traditions or figures?”

  1. Dael Morris

    Not sure how introductory these are, but a graduate student shouldn't have a problem.

    Indian Esoteric Buddhism; Ronald M. Davidson
    Part of a series, and mildly controversial in respect of its thesis/synthesis, but a wonderful piece of contexualised research that outlines a framework within which the tantric traditions on classical Indian Buddhism can be understood.

    Indo-Tibetan Buddhism; David Snellgrove
    Older overview of the tradition as it existed in Tibet, and now outdated in terms of some of its details. Still stands as an excellent overview.

    Recognizing Reality; George Dreyfus
    Detailed explication of Dharmakirti's vast systematization of classical Buddhist ontology, covering universals, anti-realism, etc. Dharmakirti's work is foundational to Tibetan and Indian scholastic traditions, and Dreyfus has the added advantage in translating it of having been an ordained monk working in those traditions.

    Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way; Jay Garfield
    Translation of the MMK by Nagarjuna. Arguments about its fidelity to the intent of the MMK exist and lots of people have complained that it filters it through western philosophy, but as an introduction that's not necessarily a bad thing, as it gives the reader something to hang concepts on.

    Freedom from Extremes; Cabezon and Dargay
    Brilliant translation and commentary on Gorampa's original text, laying out the central arguments on what – if anything – constitutes an intrinsic quality, which arguments essentially formed the Tibetan ontological landscape. Wonderful counterpoint to the majority of the translated literature, which tends to be derived from only one of the positions.

    As far as Chinese original texts go, I admit that I like Thomas Cleary's translations, even given that there is often license taken. The introductions and commentaries are usually valuable.

    Hope that helps.

    Reply
  2. Tom Carson

    My colleague Richard Kim has just published a book titled Confucianism and the Philosophy of Well-Being (Routledge). He explains some important accounts of well-being and the moral virtues from classical Confucianism. Kim is very knowledgeable about discussions of these topics in western philosophy and makes many helpful comparisons between the traditions.

    This is a very good book. But don't take my word for it – see the glowing blurbs from Owen Flanagan, Dan Haybron, and Richard Kraut at the beginning of the book.

    Reply
  3. Harvey Lederman

    Steve Angle and Justin Tiwald's Neo-Confucianism: A Philosophical Introduction is stellar.

    Siderits' Buddhism as Philosophy is fantastic.

    I know Bryan van Norden's Classical Chinese Philosophy less well, but find it useful too.

    Reply
  4. Paul Taborsky

    Confucian Ethics of the Axial Age, by Heiner Roetz (SUNY, 1993)

    Perhaps not really an introductory text, but a very thourough exposition of classical Confucian ethics and early reactions and developments (Mozi, Mengzi, Xunzi and Daoism). A reading of Confucianism as a critical reaction to inherited tradition. Interesting because it exposes readers to a perspective (Kantian?) on Chinese philosophical ethics that is quite different from that which is often found in a lot of Anglo-American literature on the subject.

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  5. Malcolm Keating

    To answer the question for Indian philosophy, if you want an introduction that focuses on primary sources, Richard King's "Indian Philosophy: An Introduction to Hindu and Buddhist Thought" is good, with some helpful commentary, though less from a strictly philosophical perspective than area studies.

    Peter Adamson and Jonarden Ganeri's "Classical Indian Philosophy," volume 5 of their "without any gaps" series is one I haven't read, but given that it's based on their podcast, promises to be accessible and fairly comprehensive for early/classical thought. Ganeri also has his own "Philosophy in Classical India," which treats the major traditions.

    There are also other introductions to the many categories within the two-thousand or so years of Indian philosophy, such as language, metaphysics, epistemology, mind, aesthetics, ethics, and so on, noted in a blog post at the APA blog which readers here might appreciate, as it answers your question in fine-grained detail.

    Finally, while not an "intro text" per se, Wilhelm Halbfass' "India and Europe: An Essay in Philosophical Understanding" is a must-read if one wishes to begin to engage philosophically with Indian thought while also understanding why many modern philosophers approach it as they do today (see for instance, Chapter 9, "On the Exclusion of India from the History of Philosophy").

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  6. Nick Jones

    Amber Carpenter's -Indian Buddhist Philosophy- does just what it sets out to do: presenting material to orient readers to the terrain and give them a sense of the concerns driving Indian Buddhists. There's a nice review at NDPR: https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/indian-buddhist-philosophy/

    For an introduction to Chinese Buddhism, I enjoy Ming-wood Liu's -Madhyamaka Thought in China- (Brill 1994). Thorough survey focusing on Sengzhao, Jizang, and Zhiyi, with copious (translated) quotations from primary sources.

    Reply
  7. Thomas Osborne

    I don't know the languages and have no background, but by reading on my own I have found some more helpful than others. Maybe the fact that I know so little and have no background might be helpful, since a lot of people find these texts unapproachable.

    For Chinese philosophy, I really enjoy Fung Yu-Lan's A History of Chinese Philosophy in two volumes. I wish that I had been told about this before reading other books on Chinese philosophy. Almost any essay by Antonio Cua seems good to me. But for teaching, if I were qualified, I would definitely prefer Bryan van Norden's Introduction or even maybe Jee Loo Liu's books. I have looked into Angle's works but don't know them. I think Daniel Gardner's Four Books is accessible and appealing and would be a great introduction to both Classical Chinese Philospohy and Neo-Confucianism. The Hackett editions of texts with commentaries are great. I really like van Norden's Megnzi and Slingerland's Analects. Ziporyn's Zhuangzi is great but focuses mostly on the Inner Chapters, whereas it seems to me that there is a lot of rich material later on.

    For Indian philosophy, Hamilton's Indian Philosophy was clear and provided a good overview. Roy Perret's An Introduction to Indian Philosophy helped me to see more clearly the philosophical value of some of the approaches. Hiriyanna's Essentials of Indian Philosophy filled in some of the questions that I had from the other books. If I had to teach, it would be from Hamilton or Perret. Perrett translates some texts.

    I would love to know what the experts would think of some of these. I know that in my area of Medieval Philosophy, where I know the language and the texts, a lot of the books for a wider audience seem to me misleading and/or riddled with errors. I am worried that it is the same with some of these books that I have mentioned, but I can't tell.

    Reply
  8. Craig Duncan

    I'm in the same position as Thomas Osborne above: I have no formal training in non-Western philosophy but I seek to incorporate some of it into my teaching.

    I think the recent (2017) translation of The Nyaya-Sutra (and its well-known early commentaries) by Matthew Dasti and Stephen Phillips is a great resource for students. It includes nice introductory commentary by the editors to help newcomers understand the translated text. "Nyaya" is often translated as "logic," and the arguments in the text clearly aim to persuade rationally (as opposed to appealing to revelation), so I think a standard topically-based philosophy course (i.e. not one exclusively focused on non-Western philosophy) could profitably include relevant excerpts from this work.

    I'll second the recommendation above of Mark Sidertis's Buddhism as Philosophy as a good text that students can use. A quick perusal of Cyrus Panjvani's Buddhism: A Philosophical Approach suggests that that text is also likely good for students, though I have not yet read it with the care it deserves. John M. Koller's Asian Philosophies (7th Ed) ranges widely over Islamic, South Asian, and East Asian philosophy in a short space. Of necessity, depth is sacrificed, but I found it still a useful overview for myself. There is also an associated anthology of primary sources (covering all those areas) edited by John Koller and Patricia Koller: A Sourcebook in Asian Philosophy. On the subject of anthologies, I've found Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Charles A. Moore's classic (1957) A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy indispensable. (I'd be curious to learn from researchers in this area if they that believe better, more recent sourcebooks in Indian philosophy exist.)

    Reply
  9. Matthew Konig

    Bina Gupta's An Introduction to Indian Philosophy: Perspectives on Reality, Knowledge, and Freedom (Routledge 2012) is quite good. It is accessible, makes connections with the Western philosophical tradition, and contains a fair amount of translated source material.

    Reply
  10. Frank Saunders

    For Chinese philosophy, Chad Hansen's *A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought* and A.C. Graham's *Disputers of the Tao* are worthwhile starting points. They're both dated in more ways than one, but I still recommend them not only for their usefulness in their presentations of the basic issues, but also as having inspired me to study Chinese philosophy in the first place. They're quite fun as introductory texts, and both authors are very engaged with the story they see being told by the early Chinese philosophical tradition. Just exercise some epistemic caution.

    Graham's book is a bit more comprehensive and intuitively organized as a survey text. He talks about more figures and texts; sections are shorter; and there are many quotations. Hansen's is more philosophically provocative, perhaps to a fault, but still will introduce you to the main ideas and themes of early Chinese philosophy in an engaging way. Although I can't say I agree with the details of many of his views currently, it lit the spark for me anyway.

    A more recent book that might fall under the genre of being a survey from a point of view is Franklin Perkins' *Heaven and Earth are Not Humane*. Again, while the overall narrative of the book might not convince everybody, it's certainly a fruitful and accessible exercise in comparative and Chinese philosophy, and obviously takes advantage of more recent scholarship than Graham or Hansen could. Additionally, Perkins focuses more than others on excavated texts, which is something we should all do better.

    I admit I haven't ready Bryan Van Norden's *Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy*, but I've heard it's very good and useful.

    As far as introductions to topics in Chinese philosophy, two excellent books come to mind: Steven Coutinho's *An Introduction to Daoist Philosophies* and Chris Fraser's *The Philosophy of the Mozi: The First Consequentialists*. I find both to be quite valuable both in teaching and research, and they're both recent.

    Reply
  11. elisa freschi

    Happy to read the answer and to see that people start thinking about philosophy more globally! Still, I dream of the day in which we will speak of "Philosophy of Language" and insert equally authors writing in English and, say, Sanskrit. Same with Ethics, Logic, etc.

    As for Sanskrit philosophy, the topic was discussed in this thread, with many interesting suggestions, ranging from a historical approach to a thematic one: https://twitter.com/cmalcolmkeating/status/1224727418247598082

    Reply
  12. Mat Foust

    Walpola Rahula's What the Buddha Taught works very well as an introductory text for Buddhist philosophy (and with many copies circulating since its publication, it can be found cheaply). Students benefit from clarity of written expression and organization, as well as a useful glossary.

    I also recommend Paul Goldin's Confucianism and Steve Coutinho's An Introduction to Daoist Philosophies. In my experience, the Rahula text is a smoother read for students than either of these, however, an instructor who can competently guide students' navigation will be sure to see them benefitting from the breadth and incisiveness of these texts.

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  13. Matt

    It's not at all a general introduction to Confucianism, but Joseph Chan's _Confucian Perfectionism: A Political Philosophy for Modern Times_ (Princeton, 2014) is, I think, really nice as an introduction to Confucianism for political philosophers. That is, for a political philosopher who is interested in what Confucianism might have to offer in contemporary political philosophy, this is a great book and gives a really good and accessible intro to Confucian political thought, or so it seemed to me. Chan is especially good at bringing Confucian thought into dialog with contemporary "Western" political philosophy, which helps a lot of accessibility. (I've read a modest amount of Confucian texts, but think this would be accessible to people without significant background as well.)

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  14. David Auerbach

    Mark Siderits' Buddhism as Philosophy. I would also like to endorse this volume. Having read a great deal of literature on Buddhist philosophy, Siderits offers the best compromise between accessibility and precision that I have encountered. (I personally prefer Siderits's translaion of Nagarjuna to Garfield's.) Facing the impossible challenge of condensing an entire tradition into a single book, I think Siderits' decisions are wiser than most.

    Jan Westerhoff's The Golden Age of Indian Buddhist Philosophy in the First Millennium is somewhat more specialized (hence the title) but also does not sacrifice rigor.

    Georges Dreyfus' Recognizing Reality is a magisterial work, but fairly daunting. His memoir, The Sound of Two Hands Clapping, is not strictly philosophical but has much to offer a philosopher, and is wonderful.

    A. C. Graham's Disputers of the Tao is strongly opinionated and somewhat partial (and, I suspect, unfashionable as a consequence), but I think displays a comprehensiveness and depth of insight lacking from much of the other introductory work on Chinese philosophy I've read.

    With less justification because I've read less in the area, I will say that

    J. N. Mohanty's Classical Indian Philosophy; and
    Bimal Krishna Matilal's Logic, Language, and Reality

    …are two of my favorite overviews of Indian philosophy.

    Reply
  15. elisa freschi

    Some further suggestions concerning South Asian philosophy:
    – Historically-oriented books, e.g., Mysore Hiriyanna, Outlines of Indian Philosophy and The Essentials of Indian Philosophy; Erich Frauwallner, Geschichte der Indischen Philosophie (partially translated in English), especially as for 1. Early Sāṅkhya; 2. Early Vaiśeṣika; 3. The methodology of reconstructing missing links.
    – Thematic books, e.g., Roy Perrett’s edited book An introduction to Indian philosophy and further books on more specific topics (Philosophy of religion, Epistemology, Logic and philosophy of language…).
    – Readers and anthologies, e.g. the thematic series based on Sanskrit topics, not European disciplines published by Columbia University Press: Patrick Olivelle’s A Dharma Reader (on topics of legal philosophy); Johannes Bronkhorst’s A Śabda Reader (on topics of philosophy of language); Sheldon Pollock’s A Rasa Reader (on topics of aesthetics) and many more to follow.
    – Some good translations and studies of specific texts (like John Taber's translation of Kumārila's chapter on perception within his Ślokavārttika, or the one by Larry McCrea dna Parimal Patil)

    • Consider listening, e.g. the podcast by Peter Adamson and Jonardon Ganeri, https://historyofphilosophy.net/india
    • Social media (e.g., The Indian Philosophy Blog)

    Reply
  16. alex stingl

    I think Lewis Gordon's 'Introduction to Africana Philosophy' as well as his "What Fanon said", along with the book he co-edited with Jane Anna Gordon "Not only the Master's Tools" need to be mentioned. Lewis Gordon is, as well as Janne Anna Gordon, meticulous and erudite but also a very clear writer (and an exceptional speaker, I can recommend his talks availabel on youtube as well as to anyone to invite him to give a talk). What marks him (as well as Jane Anna Gordon) out to me, is that he is also very generous in the way he approaches differing points of view but holds them to a standard of making a case rather than relying on some form of entitlement.
    Introduction fo Africana Philosophy is written to fulfill the purpose of its title. While it covers a lot of ground – making clear how rich and diverse the regularly overlooked and often disrespected world of African thought is – the choices Gordon makes what to elaborate on and how to do so are highly instructive and give students as well as more senior philosophers, who have not yet engaged this world but wish to, a lot to think about and think with. The essays in "Not only the master's tools" come with a thorough philosophy-rooted introduction by Lewis Gordon and offer, beyond that, a number of provocations for any (Western and postdecolonial) teachers and scholars "how to do" their work and in what ways of thinking it is and alternatively can and perhaps should be rooted and how tio find them. "What Fanon said" isn't Gordon's first Fanon book – but the earlier "Fanon and the Crisis of European Man" had a different purpose – and it does dig deeper into Fanon's personality and thought, as the "philosophical introduction" it declars itself to be in its subtitle. It is the "less accessible" of these three simply because it does require in some chapters a bit more "philosophical reading skills" because it also deals with referencs that are important toi the context but that require a bit of decoding and reflection. But all three are exceptionally well-suited to their purpose and I would highly recommend them.

    Reply
  17. JDB

    I've had to teach a very broad "philosophies and religions of Asia" course, only having had one graduate seminar in Chinese moral philosophy. I found the Perrett intro mentioned above to be very useful for getting into classical Indian philosophy—it's thematically organized in a way that is familiar to someone (like me) trained in mostly western philosophy, but provides historical context and engagement with primary sources throughout each chapter (so you get repeat treatments from different angles of some texts or figures, which I find quite helpful). Even if you don't require your students to read it (and I think it's more suitable to upper-level undergrads, fwiw), I think it can help guide your own teaching of the primary sources.

    Reply
  18. Pouya Lotfi Yazdi

    A- On the Iranian Philosophy:

    1. "The Development of Metaphysics in Persia" by Muhammad Iqbal
    Note: You can download it from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Development_of_Metaphysics_in_Persia

    2."Early Greek Philosophy and Ancient Iran" by Marina Wolf
    Note: Marina Wolf's page: https://nsc.academia.edu/MarinaVolf

    3. "The Influences of Persian Culture and World View upon Plato" by Estiphan Panoussi
    Not: Estiphan Panoussi's page: https://www.estiphanpanoussi.com/product-page/the-influences-of-persian-culture-and-world-view-upon-plato

    B- On the Islamic-Iranian Philosophy (the phrase of "Islamic-Iranian Philosophy" quoted from (Henry Corbin,1990)):

    1. "Philosophie Iranienne et Philosophie Comparée" by Henry Corbin
    Note: Henry Corbin's page: https://www.amiscorbin.com/en/bibliography/

    2."Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present: Philosophy in the Land of Prophecy" by Seyyed Hossein Nasr
    Note: Seyyed Hossein Nasr's page: https://books.google.co.in/books/about/Islamic_Philosophy_from_Its_Origin_to_th.html?id=Y0ZFkdlCFnYC&redir_esc=y

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