From Plato to Panini to Levinas: The Problem of Language for Philosophy and Theology

This volume offers an innovative exploration of Western social and religious thought and bridges the expression of a regional imagination with several planetary conversations. It reconnects Plato and philosophy to the issue of theology and religion and the limits of language as an instrument in engaging both disciplines. While beginning with the language problem as Socrates lays it out in Plato’s Cratylus, it wends its way through the Panini-inspired discussion of language across Western thought and turns to an examination of the idea of theodicy—the justice of God in its relationship to humans: how do the innocent suffer—for example, during the Holocaust—in a world made by God? The book ultimately turns arouand to consider how particular contemporary Indian thinkers have taken up both Western thought and the issue of language and its applicability to philosophy and theology. It thus offers new horizons in the Western World and India by connecting Plato’s Cratylus to the works of Saussure, Wittgenstein, Barthes, Derrida, Levinas, as well as to Panini, Aurobindo, Ranjan Dass, Giri, and the Gita. The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of philosophy, linguistics, and religion. Read more