Category Archives: Uncategorized

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Read more primary texts to unsettle your philosophical views

I tend to think that the history of philosophy is not (just) of historical significance, but that it is an integral part of philosophy.

I think that it would be delusional to think that philosophy of the last, say, twenty years, is, by coincidence the best philosophy ever produced by humans and that therefore exposing oneself to just those twenty years means blindfolding oneself and risking to mistake one’s prejudices for genuine philosophical “intuitions”. Therefore, I think that it is key to read texts written in different time-periods and coming from different philosophical traditions. With “texts” I mean primary texts (at least in translation), not just summaries of them in English.

To make an easy example: A contemporary scholar of, say, cosmopsychism who has never read Abhinavagupta or Utpaladeva may have heard about their philosophical positions and incorporate a paragraph on one or the other in their last article. But given that this engagement is based only on hearsay and not on a direct engagement with Utpaladeva or Abhinavagupta’s thought, the potential of Utpaladeva or Abhinavagupta’s thought to trigger a real rethinking of cosmopsychism is lost and they are used only to confirm the contemporary scholar’s own views. 

For instance, “material cause” and “efficient cause” are Aristotelian categories and superimposing them on Vedānta in an uncritical way risks leading to fundamental misunderstandings. The antidote? Reading Sāṅkhya, Nyāya and Vedānta theories of causation, so as to. understand similarities, but also differences with the Aristotelian paradigm.

There might come a time when secondary literature on, e.g., causation in Sanskrit philosophy or on specific authors will be enough. But we are not there yet. Only a few texts have been edited among the millions of manuscripts that await an edition, a small percentage of these have been translated, and even less have been properly studied. At this stage, any conclusion reached by secondary literature is preliminary at best.

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Growing ambitions: Philosophy of ritual/deontics and philosophy of religion

What I today call philosophy of ritual comprises a complex set of philosophical approaches seeking to solve questions and problems arising in connection with ritual. Different philosophers of ritual aim at reconstructing rituals in a highly structured, rigorous manner, curbing religious metaphors to the strict discipline of their linguistic analysis. As a result, they examine religious texts according to exegetical rules to extract all meaning and intelligibility from them. Another set of philosophical questions connected with rituals concerns duty. How are duties conveyed? How can one avoid contradictions within texts prescribing duties? I started using deontic logic, as initially developed by G.H. von Wright, to formalise contrary-to-duty situations and think about commands, especially thanks to the collaboration with the amazing Agata Ciabattoni and her brave team at the Theory and Logic Group of the TU in Vienna. Ciabattoni had not heard of logic apart from the Euro-American mathematical logic. Before meeting her, I had not heard, let alone worked on intuitionistic logic nor on fuzzy logic. By joining forces, we could explore new formalisations to make sense of seemingly puzzling texts (see mimamsa.logic.at).

Working with people outside one’s comfort zone is demanding, since one cannot assume any shared research background and needs to explain each element of one’s research. However, exactly this deconstructive operation means that one needs to rethink each step analytically, often being able to identify for the first time problems and resources one had overlooked.

For instance, our ongoing work on permissions in ritual is going to highlight the advantages of the Mīmāṃsā approach in denying the interdefinability of the operators of permission, prescription and prohibition and thus avoiding the ambiguity of the former (which in common linguistic use as well as in much Euro-American deontic logic can mean “permitted, but discouraged”, “permitted and encouraged” as well as “permitted and neutral” and in Euro-American deontic logic even “permitted and prescribed”). By contrast, permissions in Mīmāṃsā are always “rather-not” permissions, whereas what is encouraged though not prescribed is rather covered by different operators.

Within the next weeks, I plan to put the finishing touches and submit to a publisher a first book dedicated to deontics and philosophy of ritual not in the Euro-American or Chinese worlds. The book, entitled Maṇḍana on Commands, aims at providing both scholars of philosophy and of deontics in general a comprehensive access to the thought and work of a key (but unacknowledged) deontic thinker and his attempt to reduce commands to statements about the instrumental value of actions against the background of its philosophical alternatives. I plan to continue working on deontics and philosophy of ritual with an intercultural perspective and with cross-disciplinary collaborations.

Within Philosophy of Religion, I aim primarily at using an intercultural perspective to rethink the categories of “god” and the connected category ofatheism”. Scholars who have not thought critically about the topic, might think that there is only one concept of “god” that is discussed within philosophy, and that this is the omnipotent and omniscient Lord of rational theology, whose existence is necessary and independent of anything They created. But this is not the case in European philosophy (especially in the parts of it which have been more influenced by Jewish philosophy) and it is certainly not so outside of European philosophy. For instance, Tamil and Bengali philosophers of religion will think about and worship a personal and relational God, one for whom existence is not intrinsically necessary, but dependent on His (Her) relation to His (Her) devotees. Similarly, looking at Buddhist authors allows one to see how atheism can be constructed in a religious context, namely as the negation of one (or multiple) concept(s) ofgod”, typically focusing on the negation of mythological deities and the contradictions they entail. I plan to submit a project on new ways to conceptualise atheism from an intercultural perspective and to continue working on the concept of a relational God, deriving my inspiration especially from Medieval Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta theologians like Veṅkaṭanātha.

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Uddyotakara on absence (NV on 1.1.4)

Uddyotakara is perhaps the first extant Nyāya thinker discussing six types of contact in his commentary on the definition of direct perception (pratyakṣa) in his commentary on NS 1.1.4. By doing so, he can add a specific kind of contact in charge for grasping absence. He calls it viśeṣaṇaviśeṣyabhāva, possibly `the condition of being specified by a specifier (being absence)’.

Unfortunately, he does not seem to elaborate thereon. Vācaspati elaborates extensively and discusses absent pots on the floor, the sheer floor and all we know after Kumārila. Why does Uddyotakara not elaborate thereon?

Probably because someone else (who?) in the tradition had mentioned this possibility and so readers would have understood what he meant by the mention of the sixth kind of contact.

Moreover, is Uddyotakara’s viśeṣaṇaviśeṣyabhāva the same as what will be later known as saṃyuktaviśeṣaṇatā ‘the fact of being an attribute of something being in contact [with the sense faculties]’?

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Professor by special appointment: Diversifying Philosophy (Amsterdam)

Are you a philosopher with a passion for academic teaching and research in diversifying philosophy? If so, please apply at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU). Location: AMSTERDAM FTE: 0.2

Job description The chair for “Diversifying Philosophy” will contribute to diversifying academic philosophy and making this diversity visible to a broader audience. The professor by special appointment preferably does so through research and teaching in the field of non-Western philosophy.

Your duties
  1. you will develop and teach a course in the Bachelor of Philosophy and/or a relevant Master track, preferably in the field of non-Western philosophy
  2. you will do research, preferably in the field of non-Western philosophy, resulting in publications in academic journals and academic lectures, and (preparing) grant applications
  3. you undertake activities for valorization in the field of your research and teaching, e.g. in the shape of public lectures

Requirements
  • you have a PhD in philosophy and enjoy a good research reputation, as shows from publications in (national and) international media
  • you have ample experience in leading philosophy research projects and supervising PhD students
  • you have demonstrable experience in translating the results of your research for a broader audience
  • you have ample teaching experience and are an inspiring teacher
  • you have excellent command of the English language

    • What are we offering? This chair by special appointment (“bijzondere leerstoel”) is a rotating chair. Appointment will be for a period of 2,5 years, with the possibility of a second appointment for another 2,5 years. This chair is non-salaried and is supported with an annual bench fee of € 2.500,-.

    As desired by the chair holder, work for this chair can either be concentrated in a couple of shorter periods, or spread over the entire period. The appointment is for 8 hours a week on average. In accordance with VU policy, this chair is open only to external candidates.

    Additionally, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam offers excellent fringe benefits and various schemes and regulations to promote a good work/life balance, such as: a wide range of sports facilities which staff may use at a modest charge (Thanks to Catarina Dutilh Novaes for pointing out this position).

    https://workingat.vu.nl/ad/bijzonder-hoogleraar-actuele-themas/xdayuc

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Associate professor of South Asian Philosophy and Religion in Naples (Italy) UPDATED

A position for Associate Professor in History, Religion and Philosophy of South Asia at the University “L’Orientale” in Naples has recently been advertised, here.

Non-Italian scholars are encouraged to apply, but the application is only written in Italian. Colleagues in Italy told me that this does not mean that one needs to perfectly know Italian, although one needs to declare to have some knowledge of it, and named several colleague who never learnt Italian and still teach in English after several years.

It is a position especially meant for Philosophies and Religions in South Asia in a University which has a strong South Asian component, with people working on, e.g., Hindī, Tibetan, history and epigraphy based primarily on Sanskrit sources, Buddhist manuscripts and philosophy, Sanskrit tantric philosophy.

Since it is an Associate position, it is expected that candidates are either already professors or have an “Habilitation” or the like.

UPDATE: Duties include 120 hours of teaching per academic year. One needs to present up to ten publications. No recommendation letters are required. Deadline: 11.12.2019

Please feel free to ask me in case you cannot make sense of the Italian application.

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Looking at the structure of temples

Gerald Kozicz sent me a link to a new website he has been intensely working on. The website offers the chance to look at shrines and temples in the Himālayas (better: from Himachal) from different points of view. Not only you can see photos from different perspectives, but you can see the shrine being built in front of your eyes, layer after layer and focus on its different structural elements.
This also means that you are likely to better understand what the experience of believers entering the temple was, which is one of my main reasons for being impressed by Gerald’s work.

You can read more about Kozicz’ work on this blog, here. Don’t miss especially this post on the “Laternendecke”.

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“Linguistics in the premodern world? Just nonsense!”

Patrick O’Donnell, who also contributed to the Indian Philosophy blog, recently published an interesting response to the above argument, as found in this article by Gaston Dorren. Dorren’s main claim is:

While all disciplines attract the occasional eccentric, it seems that two fields exert a particularly strong pull: historiography and linguistics.

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First thoughts on omniscience in Indian thought

“Omniscience” (sārvajñya) assumes many different meanings in the various Indian philosophies. The understanding possibly most common in European and Anglo-American thought, which sees omniscience as including the knowledge of any possible thing in the past, present and future, is neither the only, nor the most common interpretation of omniscience.