Description
Sri Satguru Publications Approaches to Personhood in Indian Thought by Ian Kesarcodi Watson
The truth of the self is something that needs to be subjected to philosophical inquiry anew in every age, and every clime, which means, on the one hand, standing on what is already known, and on the other, beginning from scratch but using the best tools at our disposal. 0 doubt analytical philosophy has furnished us with some excellent tools, which, however had been customalitly used for destructive purposes. Nonetheless, some very significant movements in the directions of constructive thought have taken place in analytical philosophy, the most notable among them having been Sir Peter- Strawson's attempt to produce a descriptive metaphysics. Dr. Kesrcodi- Watson has followed in his footsteps in several of his writings, and most of all in his magnificent effort here to analytically describe the truth of the self-spoken in the parts of the Indian tradition he has appropriately selected. And his description is also an original investigation right within Indian philosophy itself in that he searches out the threads of ideas pertaining to the self (a/man) a La personhood lying within the Taittiriya Upanisad's teaching on the five kosas, the Yoga Sutra teaching on ciuta-vrtti in relation to the 'how to', and the Buddhist Nagarjuna's philosophy of dynamic critique of the presumed 'thin' character of the self and the not-self (atman and anatman)
Editors Preface
Dr. Ian Kesarcodi-Watson passed away on May 12, 1984, after a short but painful period of illness. He was just forty-five years of age, and had already shown tremendous potential in his philosophical thinking and writing." The last manuscript he had worked on for a while before leaving for the fatal overseas sabbatical was his doctoral thesis which he earlier had successfully submitted to the Department of Philosophy at Poona University (Pune, India) in 1982. It was' entitled, Approaches