Roy Perrett's An Introduction to Indian Philosophy is a new addition to an already substantial number of introductory books on Indian philosophy, some of which have done an excellent job. The expectation then is that Perrett should give us something new. He distinguishes his book from others by claiming that “unlike some introductions to Indian philosophy, sustained attention is paid here to various of the technical details of the Indian debates” (p. 2). Since other introductory books have also taken this approach, one would further hope that he engages with the material in new and interesting ways.

Perrett begins by laying out the basic methodology and scope of his book and, in doing so, answers the unfortunate but obligatory question as to whether there is philosophy in India. This question has already been the subject of much discussion, and Perrett deals with it quickly. He rejects the secularity, historicist, and lexical equivalence conditions in favor of the argumentative condition. According to this criterion, there is philosophy in India because individuals there ask recognizably philosophical questions and defend them with an argumentative methodology. Since argument lies at the heart of the philosophical enterprise, Perrett advocates an interlocutory approach, that is, an approach that takes the idea of truth seriously and views coherence and workability as good criteria for truth, however conceived. It should come as no surprise that he rejects the magisterial, exoticist, and curatorial approaches (as delineated by Amartya Sen) for their failure to take seriously Indian philosophers’ concern with the truth of their arguments. He does not consider Raimundo Panikkar's imperative approach in which he asks for a willingness to be transformed by one's encounter with Indian philosophy.Footnote ¹ Perhaps Perrett views such a willingness to be an inevitable consequence of his interlocutory approach, with its focus on finding truth.

In terms of the book's scope, unlike the authors of some other thematic introductory books, Perrett is committed to a genuinely pluralist approach. He includes a broad range of philosophers not only from the orthodox six darśana system but also from the Grammarian tradition and heterodox philosophers from the Cārvāka, Buddhist, and Jain traditions. He focuses on philosophers from the Classical and Medieval Periods (200–1800 CE), finding these to be the most philosophically rich eras. This incidentally allows him to include philosophers from the Navya Nyāya tradition in his discussions.

The contents of the book also span all of the main subdisciplines of philosophy, including ethics and theology. Perrett favors a thematic over a chronological approach, and, in addition to the introduction, there are seven chapters organized around the themes of value, knowledge, reasoning, word, world, self, and ultimates. Each chapter follows a standard format, opening with an introductory section in which Perrett hopes to give an overview of the topic at hand and frame it in a philosophically interesting way. For example, he opens the chapter on “world” by presenting two criteria for reality proposed by rival Indian philosophers: to be real is to be causally efficacious versus the idea that reality is that which can never be subrated. Each chapter ends with suggestions for further reading. Perrett's use of primary sources is judicious, giving his readers a taste for the original sources without overwhelming them with technicalities.

There are numerous philosophical highlights in Perrett's book. His discussion of Indian pramāṇa theory, for example, examines the way in which Indian epistemologists treat knowledge as a species of awareness, a surprising idea for someone schooled in Western epistemology. A second highlight must surely be his discussion of how Sāṁkhya philosophers view the mind-body problem, and the ways in which they map their classification of mental states as intentional or non-intentional onto their ontological dualism. In his final chapter on “ultimates,” he gives an excellent presentation of the natural theology of the Nyāya philosophers but, in addition, includes an examination of the role of the Buddha and Mahāvīra in their respective traditions.

Perrett indicates in the opening pages that he is writing for those who have some prior experience in philosophy, “undergraduates who have taken at least a first course in philosophy, graduate students in philosophy seeking to broaden their philosophical horizons, and interested general readers with some prior background in philosophy” (p. 1). Thus he intends his book to be an introduction to Indian philosophy and he presumes that his readers already have a general grasp of key philosophical debates. In his discussions, therefore, he gives himself license to explore genuinely interesting and sometimes challenging philosophical territory. I would add that even for those who already have considerable knowledge of the Indian philosophical tradition, this would be an interesting and informative book. Perrett supplies the necessary tools for an audience who may not be familiar with India. He provides a guide to Sanskrit pronunciation at the beginning, a glossary at the end, and a brief but informative chronological overview of Indian philosophy in the opening chapter, without which the novice reader might be disoriented, given the thematic approach of the book. A more detailed glossary and a more comprehensive index would have been helpful, especially for the reader dipping into individual chapters of the book. His intended readership is broad, and I suspect that those with less of a philosophical background will find this a challenging read, an inevitable consequence given the philosophical depth of Perrett's analysis of Indian philosophy.