A group blog of scholars exploring Indian philosophy
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
It is difficult to disentangle the different roots of what is now known as Śrīvaiṣṇavism, since this term is usually the label attributed to the religious counterpart of the philosophical-theological school of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta. However, Vaiṣṇavism was apparently an important Continue reading The making of Śrīvaiṣṇavism: A tentative hypothesis about its reconstruction
In Part One, I explained the critiques of Dignāga’s epistemology offered by Candrakīrti and Jayarāśi. In Part Two, I’ll consider whether these arguments create serious problems for Dignāga’s epistemology. I suspect that the two arguments are different in that Candrakīrti Continue reading Candrakīrti and Jayarāśi on Dignāga’s Epistemology (Part Two)
Is Indian Philosophy “caste-ish”? Yes and no, in the sense that each philosophy is also the result of its sociological milieu, but it is not only that. Is Indian Philosophy only focused on “the Self”? Surely not.
In his Pramāṇasamuccaya, Dignāga claims that there are two means of knowledge (pramāṇas): perception (pratyakṣa) and inference (anumāna). Perception has as its object the particular (svalakṣana); inference has as its object the universal (sāmānyalakṣana). The key distinguishing feature between the two is Continue reading Candrakīrti and Jayarāśi on Dignāga’s Epistemology (Part One)
Recently a few articles (see here, here and here) have raised the issue of whether philosophy of religion is not really little more than Christian apologetics. A straightforward answer would be that it is not, but an output of the Continue reading Call for Papers: Is Theology Comparable? (Rome, September 17–19 2015)
The Philosophy Meets Cultural Diversity Conference has now ended. And I wanted to return to Malcolm Keating’s Questions. I won’t address his questions directly, although some of what I say will hit on issues his questions raise. I will begin by Continue reading Philosophy and Cultural Diversity: A Follow Up On Keating’s Questions
Our Anand Vaidya has recently raised a very intriguing discussion on modality in Indian philosophy. His post started with the suggestion that modality is less central in Indian philosophy than it is in Western thought. In the comments, several scholars Continue reading Necessity in Mīmāṃsā philosophy