A group blog of scholars exploring Indian philosophy
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)
Our Anand Vaidya has recently raised a very intriguing discussion on modality in Indian philosophy. His post started with the suggestion that modality is less central in Indian philosophy than it is in Western thought. In the comments, several scholars Continue reading Necessity in Mīmāṃsā philosophy
The hardest part, I find, about the philosophical vocabulary of Sanskrit is not its enormity or its technicality, but the fact that it includes a couple of “basic” or even “common-sense” words whose import, in any given context, can be Continue reading Tricky words: prāp-
On the Indian Philosophy Blog, commenter Anthony S asked an important and difficult question: what are good resources for thinking through Indian political philosophy? . I’m interested not so much in comparative philosophy as comparative political thought/theory, specifically in terms Continue reading Is there Indian political philosophy?
The seventh and eighth centuries were, as Jean-Marie Verpoorten said, a “Golden Age” for Mīmāṃsā, when the two most important exponents of the system, Kumārila and Prabhākara, lived. But it was also a “Golden Age” for other systems. It was Continue reading Untangling the Golden Age
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
Evan Thompson has kindly alerted us to a very interesting development, the Open Mind project, which just went live: http://open-mind.net. From the “About” page: This is an edited collection of 39 original papers and as many commentaries and replies. . . Continue reading The Open Mind Project
Mary is a doctor who volunteers often. She works in low income clinics, and travels to foreign nations to treat epidemics. If you ask her why she’s willing to sacrifice her time, she might grip your arm while a look Continue reading Somewhat vague worries about classification and Indian Buddhist ethics
When, where and how did bhakti become acceptable within the Indian intellectual élites?
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