A group blog of scholars exploring Indian philosophy
[Cross-posted at Love of All Wisdom.] I was honoured to see Elisa Freschi’s post reviewing my recent article on Śāntideva’s metaphysics and ethics. I have a lot to say about both the post itself and the comment threads that followed Continue reading Reading the deconstruction of the body
Jay L. Garfield. Engaging Buddhism: Why It Matters to Philosophy. xxii + 376 pp., index. NY: Oxford University Press, 2015. $29.95 (paperback). My job in reviewing this book is made much easier by something Garfield says early on: ‘Mark Siderits Continue reading Book Review of Engaging Buddhism: Why It Matters to Philosophy by Jay L. Garfield (Reviewed by Mark Siderits)
B. K. Matilal (1935-1991) was undoubtedly one of the most influential scholars of Indian philosophy in the late 20th century. His work has greatly influenced many of us who work on Indian philosophy today, especially if we do so in Continue reading The Matilal Strategy
The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography. By Richard H. Davis. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015. Pp. x + 243. Hardcover $24.95, ISBN 978-0-691-133996-8. Richard H. Davis’s The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography is a recent offering within Princeton University Press’s series “Lives Continue reading Book Review of The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography, by Richard H. Davis (Reviewed by Matthew R. Dasti)
What are the principles by which we divide texts into portions, and why would we want to do that in the first place? What Elisa has referred to as “the prescriptive portion of the Veda” is what Mīmāṃsā authors call Continue reading Injunction and denotation in the Veda
“If you can find honey on a tree nearby, why going to the mountains?” arke cen madhu vindeta, kim artham parvataṃ vrajet
The hermeneutic principles are the ones which regard only the Brāhmaṇa texts and whose significance could not be automatically extended outside them, e.g., to a different corpus of texts, or can be extended, but regard characteristics of language. Mīmāṃsā authors Continue reading Hermeneutic principles in Mīmāṃsā
The Mīmāṃsā school of Indian philosophy has at its primary focus the exegesis of Sacred Texts (called Vedas), and more specifically of their prescriptive portions, the Brāhmaṇas. This means that the epistemic content conveyed by the Vedas is, primarily, what Continue reading Conveying prescriptions: The Mīmāṃsā understanding of how prescriptive texts function
Hello, everyone—Matthew asked me to write a guest post on some of my work on Mukulabhaṭṭa and pragmatics in Indian philosophy. I’d be interested in everyone’s thoughts! Mukulabhaṭṭa was a ninth-century Kashmiri thinker who wrote a critical response to Ānandavardhana’s Continue reading Mukulabhaṭṭa and pragmatics in Indian philosophy–a Guest Post by Malcolm Keating
I think that we all have had experiences where we pick up an old text for the umpteenth time, and looking over an old passage, see something new or interesting within it. Recently, I noticed something interesting while reading though Vātsyāyana’s Continue reading Gesturing toward conversational implicature–a snapshot