A group blog of scholars exploring Indian philosophy
Any serious contemporary Buddhist intellectual needs to think through the connection between Buddhist ideas and the relevant claims of natural science. Many of us, too, are expressive individualists: we believe that there is something valuable in the project of discovering Continue reading The scientific self is not reductionist
Monism is the idea that everything is, or is ultimately reducible to, one. This is not quite the same as nondualism, a term increasingly common in mystical circles. Nondualism is the idea that everything is not two or more – Continue reading Nondualism without monism
It doesn’t sit very well with many modern readers, including myself, to put a high value on shame. We often find shame to be something that cripples us, makes us burn with embarrassment in a way that inhibits our doing Continue reading The Buddhist critique of shame
Pema Chödrön’s When Things Fall Apart is a beautiful and valuable work on dealing with difficult circumstances. What strikes me in it is how Chödrön – despite being a monk herself – takes a position so deeply at odds with Continue reading Improving on the Buddha
This guest post is by Satyan Sharma (PhD, Panjab University, Chandigarh). In his chapter titled ‘Habit and Karmic result in Yogaśāstra’, published in the Oxford Handbook of Indian Philosophy, Christopher G. Framarin has many a time stated that Yogaśāstra does Continue reading Guest post: A response to Christopher G. Framarin’s “Habit and Karmic result in Yogaśāstra”, by Dr. Satyan Sharma
When I was in grad school, a big academic fashion was to heap scorn on the idea that mystical experience could be something cross-cultural: everything was reducible to social context, and the similarities of experience didn’t really matter, as I Continue reading Finding mysticism in unexpected places
This CfP posted at the request of Scott Stroud, Professor of Communication Studies, University of Texas-Austin. John Dewey’s philosophy has had a global impact. Well known are the stories of his students from China such as Hu Shih and the Continue reading Call for Papers: Special issue of Dewey Studies on “John Dewey’s Pragmatism and India: Pasts and Futures”
Dr. Matthew LoPresti (Hawaii Pacific University) recently informed me of this fellowship opportunity, which is sponsored by the University of California, Irvine. A summary from the call for applications: The University of California, Irvine (UCI) Program in Religious Studies supports Continue reading Process Studies and South Asia Fellowship (applications due 30 June 2024)
Readers may be interested in a new article by Scott Stroud that traces the influence of American pragmatist John Dewey on his student, the modern caste reformer B.R. Ambedkar.
Céline Leboeuf just interviewed me about philosophy for her “Why Philosophy?” newsletter. I discuss the role that Buddhism and Śāntideva have played in my philosophical formation and conception of philosophy, so I thought the interview might be of interest to Continue reading “Why Philosophy?” interview