Sites of Learning and Practical Knowledge: Against Normativity

This book explores the relationship between cultural difference and practical knowledge, drawing on Western and Indian thinkers to develop a practical epistemology that rejects normativity and offers an alternative conceptualization of Indian sociality. It is an essential read for scholars and researchers in the humanities and social sciences.

Format: Hardback
Length: 192 pages
Publication date: 10 November 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This comprehensive book delves into the intricate relationship between cultural differences and practical knowledge, exploring its profound implications for the study of humanities and social sciences. It presents a meta-theory of Western thought aimed at understanding the conceptual distortions that arise when a normatively structured theoretical framework seeks to replace practical forms of understanding. Drawing from a diverse range of Western thinkers, including Nietzsche, Marx, Wittgenstein, and Foucault, as well as Indian thinkers such as Gandhi, Tagore, and Balagangadhara, the book develops a practical epistemology that seeks to redefine theoretical knowledge by regenerating experiential knowledge, which was the hallmark of Indian intellectual traditions. By preparing the ground for a radical reconceptualization of the human sciences, the book aims to overcome the loss of concepts and the violence generated by the grafting of ill-understood and experience-occluding normative conceptual structures onto the fabric of practical life. Moreover, the author offers an alternative conceptualization of Indian sociality through the idea of a practitional matrix, which explains both why the West necessarily misunderstood or misdescribed India and how that misdescription enables us to theorize the West. This book is a valuable addition to the Critical Humanities across Cultures series and will be of immense interest to scholars and researchers in philosophy, anthropology, sociology, religious studies, post-colonial studies, cultural studies, Indian studies, and literature.

Weight: 540g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367639730