A group blog of scholars exploring Indian philosophy
Can God as the perfect omniscient knower guarantee the possibility of a reality disidentified from all local perspectives and thus independent of them, though remaining inherently intelligible (by God Himself)? It depends on how one understands God. As discussed already Continue reading God and realism. Marginal notes on a workshop in Hawai’i, part 2
A non-intelligible entity cannot be conceived to exist. But, if the world needs to be known in order to exist, we need to postulate a non-partial perspective out of which it can be known. Since the perspectives of all human Continue reading Omniscience and realism: Marginal notes about a workshop in Hawai’i
According to Mīmāṃsā authors, and unlike Nyāya ones, Vedic sentences do not convey the existence of something, but rather that something should be done. This means that the entire Veda is an instrument of knowledge only as regards duties and Continue reading The Mīmāṃsā approach to the sentence meaning as something to be done
Victoria Lysenko has been so nice as to alert me about a recent workshop on Buddhism Phenomenology, to which very interesting authorities on both topics (ranging from Dan Zahavi to “our” Christian Coseru) contributed. They realised an interactive poster through Continue reading Buddhism and Phenomenology
We can answer the question “What is it?” for a religion or worldview by proceeding either sociologically or doctrinally. […] In philosophy, for example, the question “But is it philosophy?” can be not so much a question about the boundaries Continue reading “But is Indian thought really philosophy?”
I have already argued elsewhere that I am firmly convinced that South Asian philosophers upheld that plants are non-sentient, possibly against a common belief in their sentience.
As part of my attempts to go beyond my confort zone, Wednesday and Thursday last week I enjoyed two days of full immersion in the Analytical Philosophy of Religion. In fact, the conference I was attending was about the ontological Continue reading Analytical Philosophy of Religion with Indian categories
As a scholar of Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā I am well aware of how the normative is often disguised as descriptive. “It is seven o’ clock” says the mother, but what she means is rather “Get up! You have to go to Continue reading What counts as philosophy? On the normative disguised as descriptive UPDATED
Opponents coming from the Advaita field figure often in Yāmuna’s Ātmasiddhi, which shows that even before Rāmānuja Vaiṣṇava authors were taking seriously the challenge of Advaita. Even more interesting is the way Yāmuna answers to them. Let us see some Continue reading The subject as knower and doer in Yāmuna’s Ātmasiddhi
Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta authors claim that the whole world is made of the brahman and that everything else is nothing but a qualification of it/Him. This theological content, it will be immediately evident, crashes against the (Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika) idea of a rigidly Continue reading Viśiṣṭādvaita and Nyāya on qualities