In this book, a series of interviews offers an accessible, revealing, human and intellectual biography of leading Islamic scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr is one of the preeminent philosophers writing today. Sure to be a key resource for decades to come, In Search of the Sacred: A Conversation with Seyyed Hossein Nasr on His Life and Thought illuminates Nasr's experiences and shares his insights on topics from religion and philosophy to science and the arts. Based on a series of interviews, the book combines traditional autobiography with an exploration of the intellectual and spiritual trajectories of the author's thought during key periods of his life. In doing so, it presents a fascinating panorama, not only of the life and ideas of one man, but also of major events ranging from intellectual life in Iran during the Pahlavi period and the Iranian Revolution to some of the major religious and intellectual debates between Islam and modernism. Nasr writes that his "whole life has been a quest for the sacred." This work connects that quest with some of the most important issues of the day in encounters between Islam and the West.

Non-violent movements, under figures like Gandhi and the Dalai Lama, led to some of the great social changes of the 20th century, and some argue it offers solutions for this century's problems. This book explores non-violence from its roots in diverse religious and philosophical traditions to its role in bringing social and political change today.

This book examines the figure of the public intellectual through the work of Emile Zola in the Dreyfus Affair. It analyses Zola's famous letter "J'Accuse" supporting Alfred Dreyfus and its philosophical and political consequences for the intellectual world, including Indian public intellectuals. The volume is an examination of the critical role which can be played by public intellectuals today by referring to the "J'Accuse" model and an homage to the ideal of living decently and truthfully through the exercise of critical reason and moral excellence. Accessible and comprehensive, the book will be essential reading for students of philosophy and critical reasoning. It will be of interest to general readers as well.

This book examines Gandhi's idea of Swaraj as an alternative to the modern concept of political authority. It also introduces the readers with Gandhi's ideas of moral interconnectedness and empathetic pluralism. It explores the Gandhian belief that 'nonviolence' as a moral and political concept is essentially the empowerment of the Other through spiritual and political realization of the self as a non-egocentric subject. Further, it highlights Swaraj as an act of conscience and therefore a transformative force, essential to the harmony between spirituality and politics. The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of philosophy, politics and South Asian Studies.

This book highlights the problem of one-dimensional, reductionistic life of the modern individual. An expression of crisis in our world, it discusses the imperative need to have a more comprehensive, non-reductionist life where the Other is incorporated, especially the relationship between the Other and the Self, based on virtues like love, empathy, equality, and compassion. The volume sheds light on how the world has forgone the art of living for a mutilated sense of well-being, the rise of conformity and complacency in human thought, and the lack of democratic dissent and citizenry responsibility in our contemporary societies, which is now characterized by mass immaturity, propelled by a process of thoughtlessness. It discusses how humans need to be aware of the life they lead, to think about Otherness of the Other not just as another virtue but also as a crucial element in the survival of humanity, for people to coexist with the world around them as equals. Furthermore, it advocates meaningful and thoughtful existence, in touch with the Nature we coexist with, to ensure that humanity is not robbed of its noble spirit as we live to survive in our techno-capitalist societies. An introspective read, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of moral and ethical philosophy, political philosophy, and political science.

In April 2006, Canadian-Iranian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo was waiting at the airport in Tehran for a flight to Brussels. He had arrived early, knowing he would be double-checked by security, something that had become almost routine for him. But on this day the routine was broken and missing his flight became the least of his worries.
Jahanbegloo was arrested and detained in solitary confinement in Iran's infamous Evin Prison.
Sorbonne-educated and an author of almost thirty books, he was a prominent promoter of intercultural dialogue, and a philosopher of non-violence in the tradition of Tolstoy and Gandhi. He was hardly someone to pose a threat to a country's security. Yet, the Iranian authorities accused him of spying.
A petition against his imprisonment was initiated, with Umberto Eco, Jurgen Habermas, and Noam Chomsky among the signatories. International organizations and human rights groups joined in; the media reported the case extensively. Without ever being officially charged, Jahanbegloo was finally released in August of that year.
This is his story.

* This volume examines the philosophy of Albert Camus through his concept of 'decivilization'* It Will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of Western literature, especially French, and Western Philosophy.* Albert Camus won the Nobel Prize for literature.

This book highlights the problem of one-dimensional, reductionistic life of the modern individual. An expression of crisis in our world, it discusses the imperative need to have a more comprehensive, non-reductionist life where the Other is incorporated, especially the relationship between the Other and the Self, based on virtues like love, empathy, equality, and compassion. The volume sheds light on how the world has forgone the art of living for a mutilated sense of well-being, the rise of conformity and complacency in human thought, and the lack of democratic dissent and citizenry responsibility in our contemporary societies, which is now characterized by mass immaturity, propelled by a process of thoughtlessness. It discusses how humans need to be aware of the life they lead, to think about Otherness of the Other not just as another virtue but also as a crucial element in the survival of humanity, for people to coexist with the world around them as equals. Furthermore, it advocates meaningful and thoughtful existence, in touch with the Nature we coexist with, to ensure that humanity is not robbed of its noble spirit as we live to survive in our techno-capitalist societies. An introspective read, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of moral and ethical philosophy, political philosophy, and political science.

This book maps the genesis and development of Gandhi's idea of non-violence. It traces the evolution of the message of peace from its first expressions in South Africa to Gandhi's later campaigns against British rule in India, most prominently the Salt March campaign of 1930. It argues that Gandhi's blueprint for change must be adopted in the present, as the world craters on the precipice of catastrophic climate change, and the threat of nuclear war hangs over our heads. A timely book for uncertain times, this work is a reminder of the value of peace in the 21st century. It will be of great interest to readers, scholars and researchers of peace and conflict studies, politics, philosophy, history and South Asian studies.

This book is a comparative study of Gandhi's philosophy and analyzes his relevance to modern political thought. It traces the intellectual origins of Gandhi's nonviolence as well as his engagement with Western thinkers - ancient as well as his contemporaries. The author discusses Gandhi's exchanges with eminent thinkers like Tolstoy and Thoreau, and looks at his vision of pluralism, democracy, and violence through the lens of philosophers like Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, and Cornelius Castoriadis. Further, it explores Gandhi's association with Abdul Ghaffar Khan and the Khilafat Movement. Finally, the book examines Gandhian thought in the light of his global followers like Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela. An invaluable resource for the contemporary mind, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of politics, political thought, Gandhi studies, and philosophy.

This book examines the figure of the public intellectual through the work of Emile Zola in the Dreyfus Affair. It analyses Zola's famous letter "J'Accuse" supporting Alfred Dreyfus and its philosophical and political consequences for the intellectual world, including Indian public intellectuals. The volume is an examination of the critical role which can be played by public intellectuals today by referring to the "J'Accuse" model and an homage to the ideal of living decently and truthfully through the exercise of critical reason and moral excellence. Accessible and comprehensive, the book will be essential reading for students of philosophy and critical reasoning. It will be of interest to general readers as well.

Revealing and enlightening, Conversations with Isaiah Berlin gives a close-up view of one of the foremost thinkers of our time An interview with the noted British philosopher and historian of ideas, conducted by the Iranian philosopher Jahanbegloo, which grew into a series of five conversations, comprising an intellectual memoir. They include Berlin's writings on historicism, pluralism and liberty as well as the ideas of thinkers such as Vico, Herder and Herzen. Berlin also speaks of his many friends and acquaintances amongst the important thinkers and artists of the twentieth century. Philosopher and leading proponent of liberal thinking, Isaiah Berlin has changed our sense of history and life. This new edition provides an excellent introduction to Berlin's thought.

This book is a comparative study of Gandhi's philosophy and analyzes his relevance to modern political thought. It traces the intellectual origins of Gandhi's nonviolence as well as his engagement with Western thinkers - ancient as well as his contemporaries. The author discusses Gandhi's exchanges with eminent thinkers like Tolstoy and Thoreau, and looks at his vision of pluralism, democracy, and violence through the lens of philosophers like Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, and Cornelius Castoriadis. Further, it explores Gandhi's association with Abdul Ghaffar Khan and the Khilafat Movement. Finally, the book examines Gandhian thought in the light of his global followers like Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela. An invaluable resource for the contemporary mind, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of politics, political thought, Gandhi studies, and philosophy.

This book maps the genesis and development of Gandhi's idea of non-violence. It traces the evolution of the message of peace from its first expressions in South Africa to Gandhi's later campaigns against British rule in India, most prominently the Salt March campaign of 1930. It argues that Gandhi's blueprint for change must be adopted in the present, as the world craters on the precipice of catastrophic climate change, and the threat of nuclear war hangs over our heads. A timely book for uncertain times, this work is a reminder of the value of peace in the 21st century. It will be of great interest to readers, scholars and researchers of peace and conflict studies, politics, philosophy, history and South Asian studies.

A powerful book on the importance of committing to nonviolence. In this compact book, Ramin Jahanbegloo argues that the time has come for humanity to renew its political, economic, and cultural commitment to the idea of nonviolence. At the core of the work of such towering fighters against oppression as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, and Václav Havel, the idea of nonviolence still has much to teach us and much work to do in the ongoing fight for justice worldwide.

This book interprets the ideas, thoughts and concepts that characterize the writings and philosophy of Albert Camus for our contemporary times. It investigates Camus' "revolted compassion" as an outsider and a philosopher-writer who in his own words believed in "creating dangerously". The author examines Camus' interventions on political, philosophical and moral questions, such as Algerian independence, capital punishment, ideological violence, nihilism in the context of his ideals of the absurd and revolt, and justice and liberty. Further, it goes on to provide an exhaustive analysis of Camus' critique of violence and his intellectual resistance to totalitarianism. Bringing together latest scholarship with an acute analysis of Albert Camus' philosophy, this sourcebook throws a powerful light on the intellectual foundations of the twentieth century and its relevance for the twenty-first. The book will be of interest to scholars of literature, philosophy and African Studies.

This book examines two main concepts - harmony and exchange - in relation to the social, political, economic, and cultural dimensions of human life. As such, what differentiates humans from other living species are the possibility of understanding a context and the willingness to collaborate and create complex models of exchange. Specifically, emotion and intellect are established as fundamental dimensions of our being which play key roles in exchange with others and dealing with our environment. This text provides a new perspective that examines "being and becoming" in a multidimensional exchange framework, concentrating on the analysis of a utilitarian society which reduces human beings to operators and servants of techno-scientific machinery. This approach to validity demands conformity to social and political norms which have lost touch with the intellectual and emotional expressions of the citizens of the world, resulting in an environment of alienation, violence, and subordination of humans to meaningless institutions and positivistic ideologies. The quest for true harmony and collaborative exchange in contemporary societies requires the recognition of multiple sites of subjectivity, self-certainty, and global domination of techno-scientific rationality. This book's primary application towards a Legoic society is built on a critical pedagogy committed to dialogue and exchange, and is an environment that is accompanied by the process of development of a critical consciousness based on new systems of agency, moving toward a fundamentally non-reductionist praxis of the socio-political dimension of living together.

This is an interesting book of conversations, which not only endorses the life and thoughts of Ashok Vajpeyi, but also praises poetry in general. Ashok Vajpeyi is a poet who is at home with the word. He speaks to the mortals and the divinities. He makes the mystery of the world visible to us by speaking with/of poetry. Throughout these conversations we encounter a poet who sets his own pace through poetry, music and painting. Ashok Vajpeyi's deep sense of expectation from arts is born out of his love of the world, which renders moral dignity to creativity.

In today's global climate of pre-packaged opinions, every effort of original thinking is an act of dissent. To think radically today is to be a heretic: committing 'heresy' not in its theological sense, but in relation to its ancient Greek roots, which means 'choice'. With the rise of the post-industrial global village dominated by media networks and technology-led communication, the 'epidemic of conformism' has completely paralysed intellectuals' ability to question. It has now become critical to examine the central role of heresy in the formation of critical thinking and anti-dogmatism. Since the time of Socrates to the present, public intellectuals have aligned themselves with the heretical imperative by questioning organized power and opened up social, political, economic, and cultural life to public scrutiny and accountability. This effort is described in this volume through the self-examined lives of philosophers such as Socrates and Jose Ortega y Gasset, Albert Camus, and Yukio Mishima. They serve to elaborate the context of the author's bold claim that B.R. Ambedkar, the central character of the author's research, is the boldest heretic in Indian political history.

Non-violent movements, under figures like Gandhi and the Dalai Lama, led to some of the great social changes of the 20th century, and some argue it offers solutions for this century's problems. This book explores non-violence from its roots in diverse religious and philosophical traditions to its role in bringing social and political change today.

Talking Sociology is the ninth title in the OUP series of Ramin Jahanbegloo's conversations with prominent intellectuals who have made significant contribution in shaping the modern Indian thought. The present volume covers the life and works of the influential Indian sociologist and public intellectual, Dipankar Gupta. As a social scientist, Gupta has made remarkable contribution to contemporary social theory by redefining and reconstructing the central concepts of the past masters and taking sociology beyond its disciplinary boundaries by helping several generations of Indians understand contemporary social change and transformation of institutions. He is considered the most insightful analyst of modernity and modernization in India. The conversation in this volume revolves around Gupta's career and contribution to the field, and discusses the key areas of sociology such as the problem of social stratification, citizenship and democracy, and the caste system and ethnic groups in India.

What do we mean by nonviolence? What can nonviolence achieve? Are there limits to nonviolence and, if so, what are they? These are the questions the Iranian political philosopher and activist Ramin Jahanbegloo tackles in his journey through the major political advocates of nonviolence during the 20th century. While nonviolent resistance has accompanied human culture from its earliest beginnings, and representations of nonviolence in Eastern religions like Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism are ubiquitous, it is only in 20th century that it emerged as a major preoccupation of figures such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Václav Havel. Focusing on examples of their way of thinking in different cultural, geographic and political contexts, from the Indian Independence Movement and US Civil rights and Anti-Apartheid movement to the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia and nonviolent protests in Tunisia, Iran, Serbia and Hong-Kong, Jahanbegloo explores why nonviolence remains relevant as a form of resistance against injustice and oppression around the world. With balanced readings of central players and events, this comparative study of a pivotal form of resistance written by accomplished scholar of Gandhi presents convincing reasons to commit to nonviolence, reminding us why it matters to the development of contemporary political thought.

This volume is an adda of great minds, spanning generations and multiple nationalities. While one discusses creativity and aesthetics through Indian classical music, another recounts the pleasure of a simple walk. Another questions how it would be if Rabindranath Tagore lived in the twenty-first century; yet another, how 'cool' Indians are or might be in the future. Subjects as far apart as war and solitude find space in these musings. Through these lively engagements emerge key insights into the ideas, writings, and life of one of the foremost intellectuals of our time in Indian and global scholarship, thought, and dissent-Ashis Nandy.