A group blog of scholars exploring Indian philosophy
As many of you may have seen on Daily Nous, Edouard Machery (Pittsburgh) and Stephen Stich (Rutgers), along with anthropologist H. Clark Barrett (UCLA) have just been awarded a US$2.5 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation. It will fund Continue reading The Geography of Philosophy
Last time I discussed Jan Westerhoff’s potent objection to naturalized Buddhism: if there is no rebirth then we can end our suffering simply by committing suicide. Westerhoff takes this objection as a reason to accept rebirth. I do not. Rather, Continue reading Beyond the removal of suffering
A few years ago I wondered how a naturalized Buddhism could avoid advocating suicide. If our goal is the cessation of suffering, and death is not the beginning of a new birth but a simple ending, shouldn’t death itself be Continue reading In defence of Buddhism without rebirth
For a lucky coincidence, two long term projects of mine reached completion almost at the same time. You can therefore read on the 2017 issue of the Journal of World Philosophies the (Open Access) papers on philosophy of language which Continue reading Open access papers on philosophy of language etc.
As I noted last time, I think the disregard of ethics by Indian-philosophy scholars like Dan Arnold is a problem in itself: it’s a misconception of what philosophy is, and one that harmfully shrinks the field of the study of Continue reading The significance of ethics to Candrakīrti’s metaphysics
It is commonplace today for scholars of Indian philosophy to focus their attention entirely on theoretical philosophy at the expense of the practical. I think this tendency is a mistake. I see at least two grave problems with it. First: Continue reading Don’t exclude ethics from philosophy
Scholars of all types of philosophy are fond of referring to philosophical traditions. But what does this mean? What counts as a tradition? In the Indian context one way to discuss a tradition is with the word darśana, which literally means Continue reading What Counts as a Tradition in Indian Philosophy?: The Case of Skepticism
I have agreed to guest edit, along with Prasanta Bandyopadhyay, the Fall 2017 edition of the APA Newsletter on Asian and Asian-American Philosophers and Philosophies. The theme of the issue will be “B. K. Matilal: The Past and Future of Indian Continue reading CFP: B. K. Matilal: The Past and Future of Indian Philosophy
In the comments to Shyam’s recent post on interpretation vs explication, I left a link to Peter Adamson’s recent post,”Rules for History of Philosophy.” While I imagine many readers will have already seen it (it’s been posted elsewhere), perhaps some Continue reading Rules for History of Philosophy
Thanks to Elisa Freschi and Malcolm Keating for prompting me to post about interpretation and explication. In the previous post, titled “Interpretation vs. Explication I: background (Truth and Objectivity)” I set out the logical distinctions we need in view to Continue reading Interpretation vs. Explication II: choosing between Truth and Objectivity