Please see the following link for a new PhD program that combines philosophy of mind/cognitive science with an investigation of first-person methodologies of meditational practice. Funding is available for students.
http://www.blogs.uni-mainz.de/fb05philosophie/files/2013/04/MAP.pdf
Very good that Thomas Metzinger is taking this initiative and gained funding for it as well. Still, is it is just me, is it wrong to have a sense of disquiet about the uncritical way in which the whole de-culturing of classical meditation techinques in MBSR is accepted – a sleight of hand universalism by which you slip in a Buddha picture here and a gesture towards the traditions there, but then resolutely consider all these issues within the terms of a strictly defined disciplinary framework that pays no scholarly attention to Sanskrit/Pali/Tibetan texts and their rich conceptual and practical histories…?
I share your concern in general for this sort of de-culturing, Ram. That said, my confidence is that in the long-term, it (and analogous things on a mass-level like uncontextualized appropriations in yoga “teacher-training” courses), will only have more people interested in learning about these traditions.
Thanks for this announcment Matthew. As regards de-culturing concern, I just talked with Thomas Metzinger about the absence of Buddhist/Indian philosophy among the suggested areas of prospective projects, and he told me that he has no expertise in the field and he just coudn’t supervise a project with historical/textual focus. It’s just a PhD program š