Philosophy Colloquium: Prof. Ralph Weber will talk on 'Comparative Philosophy: Between Past and Future', followed by time for Q&A.  He will offer a critical account of how comparative philosophy has been practiced in the past and how we lack good historiographical accounts, then go on to offer some thoughts on how the field should move forward in order to make it philosophically an even more persuasive undertaking.

Prof. Ralph Weber is based at the University of Basel, Switzerland, where he is Deputy Director of the Institute for European Global Studies, Associate Professor of European Global Studies, Director of the MA and PhD Programs in European Global Studies, and on the Research Council Swiss National Science Foundation Institute for European Global Studies.  He is an expert in European and Chinese Political Philosophy, with insights relevant to Philosophy, Political Science, and International Relations. This semester he will be collaborating with Ashoka's own Professor Arindam Chakrabarti, including giving guest lectures in the course Metaphysics of Political Relations.

Abstract: Comparative philosophy as a self-conscious academic inquiry has been around for at least a century, but it continues to be riddled with some unresolved ambiguities. As Wilhelm Halbfass has pointed out, it is unclear whether “philosophy is the subject or the object of comparing.” If it were about comparing philosophies, what is it that separates one philosophy from another? If about comparing philosophically, what distinguishes philosophical comparison from other forms of comparison? Unsurprisingly, practitioners of comparative philosophers have filled in these missing pieces of information in varied ways, bringing about a pluralism of approaches and labels.

In this talk, I present a critical account of how comparative philosophy has been practiced in the past and how we lack good historiographical accounts, calling for a more sociological and global history of comparative philosophy that emphasizes entanglement and knowledge circulation rather than cultural boundaries. It is, I argue, only from such a rewriting of the history of philosophy that the future of a global post-comparative philosophy as just philosophy can be envisaged.

The colloquium will be held on Wednesday 16th of September 2026,  at 13:30-15:00, in AC02-LR203. Refreshments will be served.