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Jan Westerhoff, The Golden Age of Indian Buddhist Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2023, 352pp., $20.99 (pbk), ISBN 9780198878391.
Reviewed by Mark Siderits, Illinois State University
This book, part of the Oxford History of Philosophy series, is an account of the development of Indian Buddhist philosophy during the first millennium of the common era. It thus begins its history not with the Buddha (roughly 5th c BCE) but with the rise of distinct schools of interpretation of the Buddha’s teachings. These developments ushered in what the author calls a ‘golden age’ of philosophical system-building, one in which Buddhist thinkers developed a variety of ways of systematizing the Buddha’s core claims, constructed arguments in support of their views, and raised objections to competing views, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist. The basic outline of the tale that Jan Westerhoff tells does not significantly deviate from the story one finds in other studies of the…
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