A group blog of scholars exploring Indian philosophy
I’d like to now envision the book I am working on. This post is something like a proposal for the book, both to clarify my thoughts on it and (more importantly) to hear yours. As I write it I keep Continue reading A book on how virtue helps us flourish
Within chapter 11 of his masterpiece, the Vidhiviveka `Discernment about prescription’, Maṇḍana identifies the core element which causes people to undertake actions. Maṇḍana expands on Kumārila’s intuition about human behaviour being always goal-oriented by offering a radical reductionist hypothesis. According Continue reading A preliminary understanding of Maṇḍana’s pratibhā
(In the last months, the IPhblog has hosted a long discussion on Evan Thompson’s last book, Why I am not a Buddhist. We are grateful to the participants, namely Amod Lele and Evan Thompson himself for their patience and accuracy Continue reading Losing the Thread: A Response to Lele (Guest Post by Evan Thompson)
For some time now I have realized: it is time for me to write a book. It’s time to take ideas that I have circulated in blog-post form and develop them into a more systematic, coherent constructive argument. It has Continue reading Resolving cliffhangers in a book
When teaching my World Philosophy course, I try to highlight the ways that Daoist notions of wu-wei, Stoic (and in particular, Epictetus’) notion of living in accordance with nature, and the Gītā’s idea of karmayoga are three ways to approach Continue reading Summary study of Karmayoga
I will close out this latest round of replies to Evan Thompson with a recap: It is simply not the case that karma “is fundamentally about” why bad things happen to good people (or vice versa). To try to portray Continue reading Theodicy is not the core of karma
Having discussed the broader context of Śāntideva’s work, I think it is instructive to turn now to the two passages that Evan Thompson quotes from Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra as supposed examples of the way that Śāntideva’s “philosophical arguments fall apart” without Continue reading Śāntideva’s passages on enemies and their context
I have argued against Evan Thompson that philosophical texts are the proper source for philosophers, so let me now turn our discussion there: specifically to Śāntideva, whom both of us cite. First let us be clear about two points on Continue reading What would Śāntideva do without rebirth?
Last time I explained why I think a constructive modern Buddhist philosophy should indeed focus on Buddhist philosophical texts as its sources for karma, and I stand by that. Yet ironically, even if we were to turn away from philosophy Continue reading Karma in society
In my continuing response to Evan Thompson I now turn to another methodological question that Thompson raises: what sources should we be using in a discussion of karma? I claim that my eudaimonist interpretation of Buddhist karma is congruent with Continue reading Philosophical texts for philosophers