A group blog of scholars exploring Indian philosophy
The Pacific Meeting of the American Philosophical Association (APA) is taking place this week (April 17-20) in Vancouver, Canada. You can find more information, including the schedule, here. There are two sessions focusing mainly on Indian philosophy. Wed. 9am-12pm APA Continue reading Pacific APA in Vancouver (April 17-20): Indian Philosophy and More
A recent post “On Eurocentrism” from Liam Bright on his blog The Sooty Empiric raises some interesting questions about the role of Eurocentrism in the study of non-Western philosophy. While Bright is not writing specifically about the study of Indian/South Asian Continue reading Bright on Eurocentrism
Last time I expressed my gratitude and praise for Matthew Dasti and Stephen Phillips’s much-needed recent selective translation of the Nyāya Sūtras and commentaries. I stand by all of it – and also noted that the book drives me crazy. Continue reading On translating out of order
Suppose you spent a long time (weeks, months, perhaps even years) understanding a complicated topic. You then write an article or a book about it. Where should you start from? Should you explain all or just assume to have readers Continue reading How much should you explain in an article?
One of the immediate frustrations one faces in teaching Indian philosophy is that good translations are sorely lacking, certainly into English and I suspect into any Western language, perhaps even any non-Sanskrit language. A Source Book of Indian Philosophy, edited Continue reading On new translations in Indian philosophy
From time to time and never by scholars, I am confronted with some variant of this question: “Why bother to look at material from South Asia, when there is so much interesting stuff in our” tradition?”. As examples for the Continue reading Why bother to look at material from South Asia, when there is so much interesting stuff in “our” tradition?
A while ago William Edelglass put up a paper for discussion on academia.edu about Śāntideva and happiness. I made some suggestions for changes in a way that turned out to be unhelpful, since William informed me that the paper was Continue reading Does Śāntideva think bodhisattvas are happy?
If you write on Plato, you should start in medias res. If you write on Thomas Aquinas, you can do the same (unless you are writing for a journal specialising on something completely different, say, business ethics). If you write Continue reading Writing on South Asian Philosophy? A few tips for younger colleagues
It is not especially controversial to say that ethics is a branch of philosophy. I’ve occasionally heard people dispute that claim, but mostly on the grounds that ethics extends beyond philosophy per se, to narrative and the like; few would Continue reading “Indian philosophy” vs. “Buddhist ethics”
If you are the sort of person who reads comparative philosophy blogs, you probably remember the widely read New York Times article that Jay Garfield and Bryan Van Norden wrote two years ago, calling for the study of non-Western philosophies Continue reading Making the case for non-Western philosophy