A group blog of scholars exploring Indian philosophy
Veṅkaṭanātha has to adapt the Mīmāṃsā approach to free will to his Vaiṣṇava commitment to the role of God’s grace. He thus concludes that humans are free in their intentions, although they need God’s consent to convert them into action. Continue reading Veṅkaṭanātha on free will to surrender
Kalidas Bhattacharyya. New Perspectives in Indian Philosophy [Ed. Nirmalya Narayan Chakraborty]. X+435pp., index. The Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, 2023. ₹ 600.00 (paperback). The New Perspectives in Indian Philosophy (henceforth NPIP) edited by Chakraborty is a scholarly collection of philosophical Continue reading Book Review of Kalidas Bhattacharyya. New Perspectives in Indian Philosophy [Ed. Nirmalya Narayan Chakraborty]. (Reviewed by Krishna Mani Pathak)
Medhātithi discusses corporeal punishments whenever Manu does, but in two different ways: At times (e.g., in his commentary on MDhŚā 9.248) he just repeats what Manu says, without adding further elaborations and without attempting a general argument about the overall Continue reading Medhātithi on corporeal punishment
In general, Medhātithi’s commentary systematizes the MDh. In the case of action and intention, he does his best to iron away seeming incongruities by explaining that intentional actions are liable to more blame than unintentional ones, which he accomplishes by Continue reading Medhātithi on intention and action
Dear readers, For my final blog post as guest host for March 2021, I’ll begin by putting the concept of the apūrva on the table, and then I’ll shift into my interpretation of Śālikanātha’s new model of the archetypal Vedic Continue reading The Apūrva in Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā
To paraphrase a contemporary philosopher: ‘examples stick around in philosophy in a way they don’t in other fields such as linguistics.’ There is some truth to this. I cannot imagine a philosopher today who doesn’t know Frege’s famous problem: ‘the Continue reading Puzzles in Sanskrit Philosophy
Dear fellow readers, Hi. For my second blog post as the guest host for March 2021, I want to provide a digest version of my recent article in JHS titled: Commands and the Doctrine of the Apūrva in Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā, Continue reading Prabhākara’s Subversion of Śabara’s Theory of Human Motivational Behaviour
Why do people obey to commands? Because they are immediately inclined, in a behaviourist way, to obey? Or because they realise that the action commanded is an instrument to the realisation of a coveted goal? Or are there further explanations? Continue reading Why do people respond to commands?
Within chapter 11 of his masterpiece, the Vidhiviveka `Discernment about prescription’, Maṇḍana identifies the core element which causes people to undertake actions. Maṇḍana expands on Kumārila’s intuition about human behaviour being always goal-oriented by offering a radical reductionist hypothesis. According Continue reading A preliminary understanding of Maṇḍana’s pratibhā
When teaching my World Philosophy course, I try to highlight the ways that Daoist notions of wu-wei, Stoic (and in particular, Epictetus’) notion of living in accordance with nature, and the Gītā’s idea of karmayoga are three ways to approach Continue reading Summary study of Karmayoga