A group blog of scholars exploring Indian philosophy
Well, yes… isn’t it? The problem is less easy than it may look like and amounts to the problem of non-committal understanding. Is it the normal attitude while listening to a speaker or just an exception or an a posteriori Continue reading Can one understand a sentence without believing its content to be the case?
The discussion on the epistemological validity of sentences starts in Jaimini’s Pūrva Mīmāṃsā Sūtra (PMS) and in Śabara’s commentary thereon when the opponent notes that, even if —as established in PMS 1.1.5— there were really an originary connection between words Continue reading Śabara on sentences
Are words an instrument of knowledge? And, if so, what sort of? Are they an instance of inference insofar as one infers the meaning on the basis of the words used? Or are they are an independent instrument of knowledge, Continue reading Are words an instrument of knowledge?
Compared to the pramāṇa of pratyakṣa (perception) or anumāna (inferential reasoning), arthāpatti (postulation or presumption) has received less attention in contemporary secondary literature. This is unfortunate, since it is broadly recognized as a pramāṇa, whether as a sui generis one, as Continue reading What is arthāpatti?
Friends, Volume 14.2 of the American Philosophy Association’s Newsletter on Asian and Asian American Philosophers and Philosophies is out, co-edited by Prasanta Bandyopadhyay and yours truly. Link here: http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.apaonline.org/resource/collection/2EAF6689-4B0D-4CCB-9DC6-FB926D8FF530/AsianV14n2.pdf The contributors include established philosophers in our field like Stephen Phillips Continue reading Latest volume of the American Philosophy Association’s Newsletter on Asian and Asian American Philosophers and Philosophies
Humans are not animals according to Descartes’ distinction of res cogitans and res extensa. They are also not animals according to many Christian theologians (Jesus came to save humans, not animals). Perhaps humans are not (only) animals also according to Continue reading Humans as animals
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)
In the arthāpatti reading group we are currently reading the chapter on arthāpatti of Śālikanātha’s Prakaraṇapañcikā. As already discussed, Śālikanātha differentiates arthāpatti from anumāna insofar as in the latter the gamaka `trigger of the cognitive process’ is doubted, whereas, it Continue reading Arthāpatti and the Kevalavyatirekin anumāna
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about two excellent books on very different topics, both of which I’ve written about at Love of All Wisdom before: Andrew Nicholson’s Unifying Hinduism, and Brian Tierney’s The Idea of Natural Rights. The idea Continue reading The blurry boundary between premodern and modern
In preparing for the fall term, I have been looking through translations of Udāyanācarya’s Kusumāñjali. The one excerpted in Radhakrishnan’s Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy (mentioned in some earlier posts here as not a good starting point) is by E.B. Cowell, translated in 1864. I checked out Continue reading (Relatively) Recent History: E.B. Cowell’s Preface to the Kusumāñjali