A group blog of scholars exploring Indian philosophy
Humans are not animals according to Descartes’ distinction of res cogitans and res extensa. They are also not animals according to many Christian theologians (Jesus came to save humans, not animals). Perhaps humans are not (only) animals also according to Continue reading Humans as animals
In the arthāpatti reading group we are currently reading the chapter on arthāpatti of Śālikanātha’s Prakaraṇapañcikā. As already discussed, Śālikanātha differentiates arthāpatti from anumāna insofar as in the latter the gamaka `trigger of the cognitive process’ is doubted, whereas, it Continue reading Arthāpatti and the Kevalavyatirekin anumāna
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.
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
Arthāpatti ‘postulation’ is the instrument of knowledge through which we know that Devadatta is out given that he is alive and not home. In Classical India, just like among contemporary scholars, several thinkers (especially of the Nyāya school) have tried Continue reading Why are postulation (arthāpatti) and inference not the same thing?
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-
Let us take the abstract form of a Vedic prescription: (A.) Whoever desires to achieve something should sacrifice It is easy for an objector to go on and argue as follows: A Śūdra (i.e., a member of the lowest class) Continue reading Deontic rules at work: A case of conflict
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?
One of the many things I’ve been learning from the special issue of South Asian History and Culture called Discipline, Sect, Lineage and Community is that 16th-century intellectuals like Vyāsatīrtha and Appayya Dīkṣita had an unprecented awareness not just of Continue reading The Appayya One-Two
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