Introduction

Abstract The introduction discusses some of the textual difficulties relating to The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda and then outlines the cosmopolitan hermeneutic approach to Vivekananda’s philosophy that will be adopted throughout the book. At the methodological level, one of the primary aims of the book is to reconstruct Vivekananda’s philosophical views on a wide range of issues, including the nature of God, the ontological status of the world, the ontological basis of ethics, religious pluralism, the epistemology of mystical experience, the powers and limits of reason, the dynamics of religious faith, and the hard problem of consciousness. However, the book also makes a sustained case that Vivekananda’s philosophical positions and arguments are not merely of historical interest. Drawing upon the recent work of Jonardon Ganeri, the book argues that Vivekananda was an “immersive cosmopolitan” philosopher who developed innovative philosophical ideas by rethinking aspects of his own inherited Indian tradition and critically engaging a variety of Western thinkers.