A group blog of scholars exploring Indian philosophy
A while ago I was contacted by an academic publisher asking me to review a new introductory textbook on philosophy of religion. I didn’t do so, even though the publisher offered me a stipend. The main reason was just that Continue reading On “philosophy of religion”
The world picture of the Buddhist Pali Canon is a mythical world picture. The world is made up of 31 planes of existence, divided into a formless realm, a fine material realm and a sensory realm. In the formless realm Continue reading Bultmann for Buddhists
Sanjay Lal recently published a book titled Gandhi’s Thought and Liberal Democracy (Lexington Books, 2019). You can now listen to Sanjay Lal discussing it on the New Books network, here.
What happens when commands clash? A standard devise to deal with the topic is the idea of taking one as a general rule and the other as a specific one. In Sanskrit, these are called, respectively, utsarga and apavāda. Mīmāṃsā Continue reading General and specific rules in Mīmāṃsā?
Evan Thompson’s critique of my eudaimonistic and probabilistic approach to karma has two prongs: that it is not really karma, and that it doesn’t work on its own terms. I addressed the first criticism last time. Now I’d like to Continue reading Is the eudaimonist proposition true?
Evan Thompson has made his last statement in our correspondence. Before I make mine, a personal note: our series of responses to date has become increasingly confrontational in tone, in a way I imagine our readers have noticed. Thompson and Continue reading When does karma stop being karma?
Paul Fuller’s The Notion of Diṭṭhi in Theravāda Buddhism, as its title might suggest, is a dry, abstract, technical monograph. It may also be one of the more spiritually beneficial books I have ever read. I suppose maybe both of Continue reading Right view vs. true statements
I have spent a good deal of time criticizing the idea of a “perennial philosophy”, the idea (expressed by Ken Wilber and others before him) that the great sages of the world have always basically agreed on the really important Continue reading Perennial nondualism
Why do people obey to commands? Because they are immediately inclined, in a behaviourist way, to obey? Or because they realise that the action commanded is an instrument to the realisation of a coveted goal? Or are there further explanations? Continue reading Why do people respond to commands?
Maṇḍana’s thesis is an answer to the problem of how to identify the core of a prescription. What makes people undertake actions? Kumārila’s śabdabhāvanā theory and Prabhākara’s kāryavāda had already offered their answers. Maṇḍana expands on Kumārila’s intuition about human Continue reading Maṇḍana’s intellectual theory of motivation