The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies

Rating:
Summary: The Time for This Book Is Finally Front and Center
Review: I used to know Tom in graduate school long ago, when he began this book (Hi, Tom). Having discovered through the graduate school of hard knocks that reality is not what we present it to be, Tom found himself involved in the philosophy of "the happening." We usually prefix such discoveries with non-, such as the non-friend, non-justice, the non-state, etc. What actually happens may be quite different from what is thought or said to be happening, which is about half of what the Buddha was saying. When Tom began this book, his field was being described as the study of "the influence of Buddhism on Greek philosophy". Following an independent course, Tom had something of a happening, but he lacked the power to bring it to our attention. Who were the first real Buddhists? I'm not going to spoil the story by trying to upstage Tom, but he brings every resource of a bright and independent mind and a career of classical scholarship to the answer. The editors are right, this book is destined to change the field, and perhaps that is why 30 years were required to do the job right.

Rating:
Summary: The riddle of world history
Review: In spite of the advances in archaeology our knowledge of world history is really a terra incognita and this work bravely sets sail into some of its most notable uncharted waters. In the process the author brings a degree of critical acumen to a subject where mistakes of understanding are probable due to the complete absence of a proper methodology for such a venture. Our image of Greece and the Greek Enlightenment too often filters out the significance of such as Pythagoras and Orphism, the taboo issue of reincarnation, indeed the mysterious strains in Plato, and the clear echoes of the world of Indian philosophy and yoga. The sheer scale of the endeavor is impressive and this work is an instant addition to one's resources on world history, which is not a full endorsement of the results as such. The work is such a compedium of interesting problems and research puzzles. Questions of diffusion haunt all efforts to assess the enigma of antiquity, and not the least problem is the very definition of 'philosophy' as this stretches between the terrain of rationalism to the domain of the Indian sutras, beside the charvakas, materialist monism, and secular humanism of the full spectrum of post-Upanishadic tradition. The author deals tactfully with the gnarled issue of Sumerian versus Indic diffusion, in a context of near Occidentalism overtaking Orientalism in the modern world's ironic recursion of one and the same mix of New Age mystics and rationalist philosophers. The verdict of the cylinder seals is a fascinating part of the argument. The great riddle of the source of the great yogas seems increasingly to find some evidence of a source in the Sumerian milieu, a point many would protest in a period of claims for India as the source of all civilizations. Once might cross Arabia twice on a camel and never see a sufi, let alone his unity with the yogi, and in the same way the exteriorization of the Indian spiritualities does not necessarily entail a visible diffusion of like to like. Thus the riddle remains most probably in some unseen aspect of the Sumerian world that also spawned a myth of Abraham.
This work breaks new ground in areas where crackpot thinking would be all too likely. I would, however, consider the lack of any consideration of a still more intractable riddle, that of the Axial Age, which might clarify the inability of diffusionist arguments to fully succeed here. More is going on than simple diffusion of 'ideas'. In general, proof of diffusion still falls short of explanation, and in a simpler case, Greek Archaic sculpture shows obvious affinities to the Egyptian, yet this does not explain the timing or later development. In the same way we must wonder if the effects to be explained proceed as 'thoughts of a philosopher' as much as the 'self-consciousness' of the 'philo-sophist' or 'man of consciousness'. In Heraclitus we see the spectrum in mid range, half yogi, half philosopher, and the Indian echo, however mysterious still, is somehow transparent.
Fascinating book in a treacherous field. One might disagree but the focus on these problems is essential, however difficult their answers.

Rating:
Summary: The Shape of Ancient Thought
Review: The mastery this book shows of both primary and secondary sources in several languages is awesome. It is clear that it is the product of a life's work. Not only does it demonstrate an East-West connection that was previously almost unknown and that is terribly important for the future, it also presents a working-through of the most basic ideas of philosophy and the most basic mechanisms of human thought. These are topics that have been neglected heretofore as a result of political and social factors that this author seems above and beyond. It is an awesomely beautiful exposition of ancient thought and the origins of philosophy as a force in civilization.

Rating:
Summary: The Shape Of Ancient Thought
Review: The Shape of Ancient Thought, no doubt, will send shock waves through the academic historical community, but I would like to address its impact and importance to alternative communities with which I've worked and studied for over two decades. As an exhibiting artist, educator of visual culture, and someone who has been schooled in some of America's premier arts institutions, I suggest that Tom McEvilley's book is an indispensable resource that the arts community has long awaited. All throughout reading The Shape of Ancient Thought I continually caught myself wishing I had been schooled with this book in my founding years. It has taken me nearly twenty years to come to, flesh out, and grasp the diverse philosophical tenets within this book. And still I had much to learn and enjoy in reading it.
The Shape of Ancient Thought concisely, and in this case 731 pages is concise, organizes the views that not only shaped past thinkers, but unveils a mutually dependent history that (for better or worse) has shaped our current environment. The student of visual culture (and if I may add the student of higher education in general) should have a handle on these ancient philosophical ideas and practices without which digesting much of the current tropes becomes a difficult task, or goes uneaten. To understand more fully, to be apart, and to participate in today's current cutting edge discussions a scholar as well as an arts professional needs to have filtered through the basic yet voluminous ideas that McEvilley collects in this book, but maybe more emphatically, that Tom McEvilley proposes the cross pollination of ancient philosophy, and in signposting the course, the reader is better prepared to do their own combinational work in today's demanding climate.

Rating:
Summary: The globalization of philosophy (again!)
Review: This book displays an impressive mastery of both the primary sources and secondary literature in both classical Greek philosophy and Asian religio-philosophical traditions. Its arguments are more than plausible, indeed, they are imaginative, courageous and persuasive. I had, until now, been unable to recommend to my students in "comparative world religions" a reliable book from which they could see the possible connections between seemingly disparate traditions. Much that comes under the rubric "comparative philosophy" is rather dated, superficial, or burdened with overweening biases and prejudices (not to mention bereft of historical warrant). I see this work as taking up where other pioneers have left off: Karl Potter, Ninian Smart, B.K. Matilal, for instance, in Indian philosophy, and Herbert Fingarette, Joel Kupperman, David Hall and Roger Ames, most notably, in ancient Chinese philosophy. Those students of ancient Greek philosophy who have read, and enjoyed, their Nussbaum, Sorabji or Hadot, will likewise be moved by this book. Having set an enviable and emulative standard, I hope it portends more works along these lines.

Rating:
Summary: a tour de force
Review: This work is a splendid achievement. I came to it as a reader with a very strong background in the history of Western Philosophy, and only a very sketchy familiarity with Indian Philosophy. McEvilley has seemingly mastered all the primary texts in both traditions, and he discusses a vast array of secondary literature, by Western and Indian scholars, in a very fair-minded and thorough fashion. This book fully deserves to be required reading for anyone who wants to understand ancient philosophy.
He also discusses historical matters, especially pertaining to the Hellenistic kindoms of Central Asia, that were quite illuminating. I certainly had no idea that cities like Gandahar, in what is now Afghanistan, were Greek-speaking centres for many centuries. That region: Khorasan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and the southern parts Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, was once one of the centres of world civilization. Many educated readers might be familiar with the history of the Khwarazmian renaissance, associated with names such as Al-Biruni, Omar Khayyam, Al-Tusi, Al-Khwarazmi, Ibn Sina, and so forth. Those thinkers are often cited as the among the glories of Islamic civilization - in fact they represented the last gasp of Hellenistic civilization in that region, finally re-arising after the catastrophe of Islamic conquest. When the cities of Khorasan were again utterly destroyed by the Mongol invasions, that civilization was unable to recover, and the slow cancerous rot of Islamic anti-intellectualism snuffed out any further hope of revival. The decline of that region's intellectual life, from the early period McEvilley describes to the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001, is a dismal trajectory to contemplate.