Is the self the same as the bodily parts? Most probably, most readers will be inclined to answer that this is not the case. But the question becomes trickier if we ask whether the self is the same as the intellect.
Monthly Archives: January 2016
Buddhist morality and merciful lies
Amod Lele recently asked whether there is an emic Buddhist morality or whether this is only a Yavanayāna invention
from http://sebersole.wordpress.com
(i.e., an invention of contemporary Western-trained Buddhists). The question is in itself interesting, but the discussion it triggered is even more, since Jayarava (who blogs here) added the problem of the possible inconsistency of the doctrine of karman if one denies the continuity of the self. That there is a problem cannot be denied: Why should we care about the karman our actions accumulate, if it is not going to affect “us”?
In case you are in Cracow next week
You might want to come and raise some interesting objection at one of the two lectures below:
—Body and self in Śrīvaiṣṇavism. A “hands-on” discussion of Veṅkaṭanātha’s Seśvaramīmāṃsā (ad 1.1.5) (Wed, 11 am)
—Knowing the unknowable: Vedānta Deśika on supersensory perception (at the Pedagogical University of Cracow, Wednesday, 4 pm).
When did alaṅkāraśāstra become “philosophical”? And what does this mean?
You can read some interesting thoughts by Andrew Ollett (and myself in the comments) on the Indian Philosophy Blog.
PhD scholarships in Heidelberg
The Graduate Programme for Transcultural Studies of the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context” at Heidelberg University welcomes applications for up to four doctoral scholarships beginning in the winter semester 2016/17.
The programme offers a monthly scholarship of 1.200 Euro. It further supports scholarship holders in framing their research through advanced courses as well as individual supervision and mentoring. Half of the scholarships are reserved for young scholars from Asia.
Applicants are expected to propose a doctoral project with a strong affiliation to one of the four research areas of the Cluster. They must hold an M.A. or equivalent in a discipline of the humanities or social sciences with an above-average grade. Applications, including a CV, a letter of intention, a project proposal, a schedule for the dissertation, and two letters of recommendation are submitted through an Online Application System.
The deadline for applications is March 15, 2016.
For more information about the Graduate Programme for Transcultural Studies and the scholarships see http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/gpts
or send an e-mail to application-gpts@asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de.
Veṅkaṭanātha as a way for reconstructing the history of Sanskrit philosophy in South India: The Bṛhaṭṭīkā
Veṅkaṭanātha is an important milestone for the reconstruction of the history of Indian philosophy. In fact, he is a historical figure and the reconstruction of his thought is also facilitated by the contextual knowledge already available about the times, the cultural and geographical milieu, and the religious tradition related to him.
Understanding false sentences
For Mīmāṣakas, a non-defeated belief counts as knowledge as long as the opposite is proven. This means that according to Mīmāṃsakas, for the Veda, the absence of defeating conditions is in itself equivalent to its truth. 
This, however, does not amount to its truth from the point of view of a theory which considers only justified true belief as knowledge. Incidentally, the Mīmāṃsā’s refusal to distinguish between justified belief and knowledge offers a way out of a difficulty found in every account of linguistic communication as an instrument of knowledge, i.e. the problem of how we can understand false utterances (see Chakrabarti 1986, Matilal 1990:61-8, Mohanty 1992:253-5, Ganeri 1999:18-25). Roughly, the problem lies in how we can understand that there is a snake in the next room after hearing the sentence “there is a snake in the next room” although there is no snake in the next room. Linguistic communication is an instrument of knowledge, but the belief that there is a snake in the next room cannot amount to knowledge. How can this content be possibly conveyed? In order to justify that we understand false sentences, Indian theories of linguistic communication as an instrument of knowledge would need a (preceding) status of non-committed awareness of the meaning, claim the authors listed above.
However, this is not needed in the case of Mīmāṃsā. Mīmāṃsakas would describe this situation by saying that our initial knowledge of the presence of a snake in the next room is later defeated as soon as we see that there is no snake there.
An interesting review of Vincent Eltschinger’s last book, Buddhist Epistemology as Apologetics, by Peter Bisschop which has the advantage of
*Long-term readers will now know that I am biased in favour of structured criticism (and against lists of useless typos and baseless praises). Accordingly, they may disagree with me on the importance of this last point if they prefer different types of reviews.