A group blog of scholars exploring Indian philosophy
I am a big fan of Paul Ricoeur. It’s shame, I think, that he never learned Sanskrit, because he was deeply interested in a number of issues that were of critical importance to Indian thinkers: the production of meaning through Continue reading Hermeneutics, “Ricoeurian” and “Jaiminīya,” and the Question of Writing
Among the papers in the new issue is “(Close) the Door, the King (is Going): The Development of Elliptical Resolution in Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsā” by our own Malcolm Keating. Congratulations, Malcolm! Entire contents here: https://link.springer.com/journal/10781/45/5?wt_mc=alerts.TOCjournals
The authors of Advaita Vedānta maintain that God, the impersonal brahman, is the only reality and that each hint of dualism or pluralism is due to māyā ‘illusion’. In other words, the absolute, the brahman, is the only reality and Continue reading Does anything exist according to Advaita Vedānta?
As many of you may have seen on Daily Nous, Edouard Machery (Pittsburgh) and Stephen Stich (Rutgers), along with anthropologist H. Clark Barrett (UCLA) have just been awarded a US$2.5 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation. It will fund Continue reading The Geography of Philosophy
One of our blog members, Andrew Ollett, has recently published Language of the Snakes: Prakrit, Sanskrit, and the Language Order of Premodern India with University of California Press. Not only are congratulations in order for the book, but on his Continue reading “Language of the Snakes” available for download or purchase
Last time I discussed Jan Westerhoff’s potent objection to naturalized Buddhism: if there is no rebirth then we can end our suffering simply by committing suicide. Westerhoff takes this objection as a reason to accept rebirth. I do not. Rather, Continue reading Beyond the removal of suffering
The following, fascinating book from Vrinda Dalmiya is available to be reviewed for Philosophy East and West: Caring to Know, Comparative Care Ethics, Feminist Epistemology, and the Mahabharata, OUP 2016 Link here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/caring-to-know-9780199464760?cc=us&lang=en& If anyone is interested, please send me an Continue reading Soliciting a book review for PEW
A few years ago I wondered how a naturalized Buddhism could avoid advocating suicide. If our goal is the cessation of suffering, and death is not the beginning of a new birth but a simple ending, shouldn’t death itself be Continue reading In defence of Buddhism without rebirth
A colleague from the Savitribai Phule Pune University, Prof. Muzaffar Ali, sent us this question concerning K.C. Bhattacharya. Can readers help? “To reflect on the feeling of pain is necessarily to wish to be free from it. To wish anything Continue reading Pain and freedom in K.C. Bhattacharya: A question
According to the Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā approach to language, the sentence meaning is “something to be done” (kārya). In other words, unlike for Nyāya authors, sentences do not convey the existence of something, but rather that something should be done. Sentences Continue reading The Deontic Nature of Language