Category Archives: Philosophy

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Ontology is a moot point if you are a theist

A philosopher might end up having a double affiliation, to the philosophical standpoints shared by one’s fellow philosophers, and to the religious program of one’s faith.
This can lead to difficult reinterpretations (such as that of Christ with the Neoplatonic Nous, or that of God with the Aristotelic primum movens immobile), or just to juxtapositions (the addition of angels to the list of possible living beings).

A Vaiṣṇava who starts doing philosophy after centuries of religious texts speaking of Viṣṇu’s manifestations (vibhūti), of His qualities and His spouse Lakṣmī (or Śrī or other names), is in a similar difficult situation.

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Confluence: A new journal on comparative philosophy

How did comparative philosophy evolve in the last sixty+ years? What is the difference between intercultural philosophy and comparative philosophy? All the answers can be read in the introductory essay to the first number of a new journal dedicated to comparative philosophy, namely Confluence.

The long and learned introductory essay, by Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach, Geeta Ramana and James Maffie (who are also the journal’s editors)

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Ritual prescriptions in Śrautasūtras: Why they are interesting (first part)

I am working on the formalisation of the prescriptions regarding the Full- and New-Moon sacrifices in the Baudhāyana Śrautasūtra. In Kashikar’s edition, they cover about 32 full pages of Sanskrit. And they are overtly boring in their pedantic prescription of each sacrificial detail. Thus, instead of reading the BaudhŚrSū, have a look at what follows for what is interesting in them:

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Updates concerning the 3quarksdaily philosophical blog prize

You can read here the list of the 20 semifinalists of the 3quarksdaily prize (see also here) for the best philosophical post of the last year. For a quick summary regarding non-Western philosophy:

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Anand Venkatkrishnan on Vedānta, bhakti and Mīmāṃsā through the history of the family of Āpadeva and Anantadeva in 16th–17th c. Banaras

When, where and how did bhakti become acceptable within the Indian intellectual élites?

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Daya Krishna’s “Creative Encounters with Texts”

Daya Krishna was an Indian philosopher, a rationalist and iconoclast, who constantly tried to question and scrutinise acquired “truths”. The main place for such investigations was for him a saṃvāda ‘dialogue’. That’s why he also strived to organise structured saṃvāda inviting scholars from different traditions to debate about a specific problem. The minutes of such dialogues have been published in Saṃvāda and Bhakti.

169th Philosophers’ Carnival

The 169th Philosophers’ Carnival is online! Among several other interesting things, it has some lines on the interpretation of an alien Philosophy and on the Skholiast‘s contribution to the “doing philosophy in a polycentric world” debate (about which see also this post on the Indian Philosophy Blog).

For personal reasons, I am also happy to see also a link to Gabriele Contessa’s plea for a more inclusive policy of inclusion of philosophers who do not have English as their first language. Why should this be important? Apart from the fact that it is fair to include everyone, independent of their (race, gender, sexual preferences… and) native tongue, inclusion of different perspectives is part of the enterprise of ideodiversity, which is what we (=scholars of non-Western philosophies) are all engaged with, isn’t it?

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What is a body? Veṅkaṭanātha on plants, rocks, and deities

In general, classical Indian philosophers tend to define śarīra ‘body’ as a tool for experience (bhogasādhana). Thus, many philosophers state that plants only seem to have bodies because of our anthropomorphic tendencies, which make us believe that they function like us, whereas in fact plants cannot experience. By contrast, Veṅkaṭanātha in the Nyāyasiddhāñjana defines śarīra in the following way: