The Lost Age of Reason: Philosophy in Early Modern India 1450-1700.

• Author: Nicholson, Andrew J.
• Position: Book review

The Lost Age of Reason: Philosophy in Early Modern India 1450-1700. By JONARDON GANERI. New York: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2011. Pp. xiv + 284. $45.

Jonardon Ganeri's latest book, The Lost Age of Reason, continues in some ways from his previous three books, The Concealed Art of the Soul, Artha, and Philosophy in Classical India. Following the example of B. K. Matilal, Ganeri expertly employs tools from Anglo-American philosophy to show just how relevant works of Indian philosophy written in Sanskrit are to contemporary philosophical debates. But there is also a new element in The Lost Age of Reason, especially in its earlier sections: inspired by historians of European philosophy, particularly Quentin Skinner, Ganeri contributes to the historiography of Indian philosophy on the eve of the colonial era. Among these contributions is Ganeri's bold argument that philosophical modernity in India began with the work of the Navya-Nyaya philosopher Raghunatha Siromani (c. 1460-1540) in the town of Navadvipa.

Ganeri's book is divided into five parts of two to four chapters each. These different sections cover a remarkably wide number of topics and themes, unified primarily by the time period covered (1450-1700), the argument that the thinkers discussed are part of a movement of early modern philosophy, and the further implication that the beginning of the modern era in India in approximately coincides with the birth of Raghunatha Siromani. Part I, "India Expanding," profiles major intellectual figures of this era, including some beyond the Nyaya school: also featured here are Dara Shikoh, son of Shah Jahan and heir to the Mughal throne, and Yasovijaya Gani, a Jain philosopher and polymath, both as embodiments of a "cosmopolitan ideal" particular to early modern India. In Part II, "Text and Method," Ganeri discusses the background of his method of historical analysis, based in large part on the work of J. L. Austin and Quentin Skinner. Part III, "The Possibility of Inquiry," explicates the attempts of early modern Navya-Nyaya commentators to modify and correct the earlier work of Gangega to shore up the Naiyayika tradition from the attacks of epistemological skeptics, especially Sriharsa. Part IV, "The Real World," goes into greater depth in a rational reconstruction of important aspects of Raghunatha Siromani's realist philosophy. Finally, part V, "A New Language for Philosophy," discusses some specific ways in which Navya-Naiyayikas created a philosophical lingua franca, a new set of...