A group blog of scholars exploring Indian philosophy
Ron Purser’s critique of McMindfulness is in line with William Edelglass’s critique of the “happiness turn” in Western Buddhism. Purser and Edelglass are both right to note that something new, less traditional, is going on in modern mindfulness. For there Continue reading McMindfulness and Engaged Buddhism: the twin innovations
It’s been a long time in the making, but my article on disengaged Buddhism is finally published. It’s at the free online Journal of Buddhist Ethics, so you can go read it for yourself. I’ll say a bit here about Continue reading Disengaged Buddhism article is published
You might have noticed it already (since I am well-known for being a late adapter), but there are now several scholars of South Asian philosophy on twitter, such as “our” Malcolm Keating, Amod Lele and Ethan Mills, as well as Continue reading South Asian philosophy on twitter — and how to persuade your colleagues that there is philosophy in South Asia
Please see the following link for a short but illuminating talk by Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad which reflects on some of the reasons given for why Philosophy should be thought of as a largely Western affair and why those reasons fail. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=davqrJU97Ck
Studies of Indian philosophy often rightly call attention to the varied genres in which they are composed: the sparse pith of the Yoga Sūtras, Śaṅkara’s expositing his own views as commentary on someone else’s, the Milindapañhā’s dialogue evocative of Plato’s Continue reading Don’t give a paper
I hope that readers will bear with me while I keep on exploiting the metaphor of wrestling with the angel. There are a few more indications, in fact, we can take out of it. First, Jacob fights. He does not Continue reading Wrestling with the angel: Fight all night (Further thoughts on intercultural philosophy)
A student has asked me this question, which I thought might be interesting to open up to a broader audience: After how long and how much study does a new scholar become proficient enough in Sanskrit to read the original Continue reading Reading Sanskrit texts “unaided”
Jorge Cham PhD Comics Recently I was asked for advice by an incoming graduate student who was interested in research in Indian philosophy. As I’ve given a lot of the same advice to my own students during the past few Continue reading Advice for new graduate students in Indian philosophy
Intercultural philosophy is based on a dialogue, i.e., not just on a sheer juxtaposition of monologues, since such a juxtaposition would not lead to any new result and both partners would not be able to gain anything out of it. Continue reading “Wrestling with the angel”
A while ago, Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad made a thoughtful reply to the last of my post series on Buddhaghosa. I thank Ram-Prasad for that reply; I appreciate his willingness to engage with my rather cheeky attempt to reply to an article Continue reading The importance of reading Buddhaghosa closely