A group blog of scholars exploring Indian philosophy
My friend Stephen Harris recently posted an interesting article on the question of whether Śāntideva’s ethics is “overdemanding”. I appreciate the article’s methodological approach. It engages Śāntideva’s ethics with the categories of analytical moral philosophy while moving beyond the relatively Continue reading Does Śāntideva’s theory make demands?
In Part One, I explained the critiques of Dignāga’s epistemology offered by Candrakīrti and Jayarāśi. In Part Two, I’ll consider whether these arguments create serious problems for Dignāga’s epistemology. I suspect that the two arguments are different in that Candrakīrti Continue reading Candrakīrti and Jayarāśi on Dignāga’s Epistemology (Part Two)
Is Indian Philosophy “caste-ish”? Yes and no, in the sense that each philosophy is also the result of its sociological milieu, but it is not only that. Is Indian Philosophy only focused on “the Self”? Surely not.
In his Pramāṇasamuccaya, Dignāga claims that there are two means of knowledge (pramāṇas): perception (pratyakṣa) and inference (anumāna). Perception has as its object the particular (svalakṣana); inference has as its object the universal (sāmānyalakṣana). The key distinguishing feature between the two is Continue reading Candrakīrti and Jayarāśi on Dignāga’s Epistemology (Part One)
A while ago I referred to Śāntideva’s thought as “ethics without morality” – a deliberately provocative formulation based on Shyam Ranganathan’s eccentric definition of morality as that which conduces to anger. (I don’t agree with Shyam’s definition myself, but putting Continue reading Goodness as preventing suffering
I just found out through Philpapers about a forthcoming article by “our” Stephen Harris, who perhaps might want to elaborate a little bit more about it here? The title is: Suffering and the Shape of Well-Being in Buddhist Ethics and Continue reading Stephen Harris on Suffering and Buddhist Ethics
In a recent exchange with Graham Priest, Massimo Pigliucci (who works mainly in philosophy of science, and Stoicism) takes aim at this notion that most Western philosophers’ disdain for Buddhism has to do with an aversion to contradictions, easily understood if one’s Continue reading Logic, mysticism, both or neither
Saturday, I went to the panel on Buddhism and Philosophy of Mind, which was announced as involving “our” Christian Coseru, Mark Siderits and Jonardon Ganeri. In fact, Ganeri could not make it (“obviously he did not feel fit for the Continue reading Fifth day at the IABS: “Buddhism and Philosophy of Mind” panel
The “Pramana across Asia” panel has been opened by Eli Franco, its convener, with the following hope: “In some years, through stimuli such as this panel, we will speak of Indo-Sinic Buddhism, just like we speak of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism”.
A strange coincidence surprised me as I designed this spring’s course in Indian philosophy – but one that I suspect is quite significant. The coincidence resulted from three of my primary concerns in selecting content for the course syllabus, and Continue reading The accidental Gītā