ABSTRACT
Gandhi is not interested in abstract theoretical or academic philosophical formulations, but rather in philosophy as practice. His focus is on living philosophy, on how we can live a life of satya (truth) and ahimsa (nonviolence), with the focus on practice. This is not to endorse a common misconception that Gandhi is simply a practical person of no philosophical interest or significance. His practice is grounded in a profound, dynamic, moral and ontological theoretical framework. Gandhi’s theoretical and practical philosophy challenges us with a qualitatively different philosophical view of freedom and human development. He critiques dominant modern models as based on egoistic desires and attachments to possessions, as reductionistically materialist and consumerist, amoral and immoral, violent and untruthful, and as resulting in our modern lack of human development that is economically, morally, politically, culturally, and environmentally unsustainable. The objective of this chapter is to examine Gandhi’s alternative philosophical paradigm and approach.
