A group blog of scholars exploring Indian philosophy
Globethics.net is a website “to ensure that people in all regions of the world are empowered to reflect and act on ethical issues”, creating a global digital library in ethics. Of particular interest to IPB readers, the site has a Continue reading Hindu ethics database at Globethics.net
The starting point of every discussion on this book is that it is an amazing achievement: more than 160 pp. of translation of Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttika and Svavṛtti which will enhance further studies on Buddhist and non-Buddhist epistemology and, even more Continue reading Book note: Vincent Eltschinger’s “Penser l’autorité des Écritures”
One facet of “Indian philosophy” that may be perfectly obvious, but is nevertheless worth talking about at the beginning stages of a blog dedicated to the subject, is that nearly all of the texts we’ve been discussing or will be Continue reading The languages of Indian philosophy
We discussed already on this blog about how our conception of “classical Indian philosophy” is contingent and historically determined. For instance, if you were to ask me what “classical Indian philosophy” for me means, I would at first answer with Continue reading Before “Classical Indian Philosophy”: the influence of the Sāṅkhya logic UPDATED
Can a theist believe in God’s omniscience&omnipotence and in free will? I have argued in other posts that one can think in a compatibilist way (because God wants to be freely loved) and that this entails that no punishment/ban from Continue reading A theist caught in the paradoxes of free will
In the number of years I have been teaching both Indian and Chinese philosophical traditions, I have found that the topic that students in general have the most trouble engaging with is that of “release from rebirth.” Of course, this Continue reading Mokṣa and the Undergraduate Classroom
A short terminological excursus: bhāvanā is a rather common name throughout Sanskrit philosophy (it designates, e.g., a peculiar meditation in Buddhism and in Kashmir Śivaism, a linguistic function in Bhāṭṭa Nāyaka’s aesthetical theory, etc.). It is also found in grammar. Continue reading What did Kumārila have in view when he spoke of a “linguistic force” and of an “objective force”?
Recently I read a very interesting argument in Kumārila’s remarks on the authority of ritual manuals (Kalpasūtrādhikaraṇa, Tantravārtika on Mīmāṃsasūtra 1.3.11–14) which deployed a very familiar concept, the textual coherence of the Veda, in an unexpected way. To put it Continue reading Coherence and intentionality: Kumārila on the Kalpasūtras
Friends, please forgive the shameless self-promotion. The volume that Edwin Bryant and I have edited, Free Will, Agency, and Selfhood in Indian Philosophy, has just been released by Oxford University Press. The origin of the book lies in conversations that Edwin Continue reading Book Notice: Free Will, Agency, and Selfhood in Indian Philosophy
Do we need to prove that unicorns, tooth fairies, hobbits and so on do not exist? The question is not just funny, insofar as an upholder of the existence of ghosts and the like could easily claim that —strictly speaking— Continue reading On the epistemology of the extra-ordinary. Or: Do we need to waste our time proving that unicorns do not exist?