Free Will, Agency, and Selfhood in Indian Philosophy - Hardcover

Questions about free will and agency have challenged and vexed the best philosophical-and theological-minds for millennia, yet the bulk of writing on the topic comes down to us from the intellectual traditions of the West. The erudite and insightful essays collected here help us to redress the imbalance, by concerted attention to the great intellectual traditions of India. No consensus on the age-old paradoxes emerges here, but these essays enable us to see more clearly what it means to be responsible ethical agents in the religious and political worlds we inhabit today. (Francis X. Clooney, SJ, Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University)

No other book considers such a diverse array of historical and theoretical issues about the nature of self, agency, and freedom of action across this broad a sweep of classical Indian thought. Authored by an impressive mix of rising young and renowned senior scholars, and written with rigor and clarity, it offers an insightful investigation into varied perspectives within Indian traditions and a fascinating and provocative alternative lens to Western understandings. (Andrew O. Fort, Professor of Asian Religions, Texas Christian University)

a fine thematic study that will be extremely useful on philosophy and religion courses at both undergraduate and graduate level. (Gavin Flood FBA, Journal of Hindu Studies)

Indian thought is well known for diverse philosophical and contemplative excursions into the nature of selfhood. Led by Buddhists and the yoga traditions of Hinduism and Jainism, Indian thinkers have engaged in a rigorous analysis and reconceptualization of our common notion of self. Less understood is the way in which such theories of self intersect with issues involving agency and free will; yet such intersections are profoundly important, as all major schools of Indian thought recognize that moral goodness and religious fulfillment depend on the proper understanding of personal agency. Moreover, their individual conceptions of agency and freedom are typically nodes by which an entire school's epistemological, ethical, and metaphysical perspectives come together as a systematic whole.

Free Will, Agency, and Selfhood in Indian Philosophy explores the contours of this issue, from the perspectives of the major schools of Indian thought. With new essays by leading specialists in each field, this volume provides rigorous analysis of the network of issues surrounding agency and freedom as developed within Indian thought.