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K.C. Bhattacharyya on the history of philosophy

“The historian here cannot begin his work at all unless he can live in sympathy into the details of an apparently outworn creed and recognise the truth in the first imperfect adumbrations of it. The attitude of the mere narrator has, in the case of the historian of philosophy, to be exchanged, as far as possible, for that of the sympathetic interpreter. There is the danger, no doubt, of too easily reading one’s philosophic creed into the history, but the opposite danger is more serious still. It is the danger of taking the philosophic type studied as a historic curiosity rather than a recipe for the human soul, and of seeking to explain the curiosity by natural causes instead of seriously examining its merits as philosophy. This unfortunately is sometimes the defect of Western expositions of Eastern philosophy and religion.”

(K.C. Bhattacharyya, Studies in Philosophy, Motilal Banarsidas, 1983, p. 2 —Thanks to Elise Coquereau-Saouma for the pointer).

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Philosophy of action

In case you missed it, I would like to recommend a website on philosophy of action which is a great single go-to page for almost anything related to the topic. It offers links, biographies, encyclopedic entries, essays, videos and learning materials on various facets of philosophy of action. It has also a section on job vacancies and one with short interviews with scholars working on philosophy of action. It is learned and enjoyable and the same time, a great achievement.

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Call for papers for the first South Asian studies day in Bonn

I received from the organiser of the first South Asian studies day in Bonn the attached call for papers. Please note that you need to send your abstract by the end of December 2018. The conference itself will take place on the 28.6.2019 in Bonn.

Please notice also that the call for papers is in German, but that papers in both English and German are welcome.

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On the absence of ethics in Indian philosophy

a small addendum

Every year, when I introduce Indian philosophy to my students, I deal with the problem of the alleged absence of ethics from it. I basically deal with this absence in multiple ways:

  • First, and more important, I point out that “philosophy” is not a natural type. There is no binding reason why something should a priori belong to philosophy and, in fact, historically, different texts have been considered philosophically relevant or not (from the Suttanikāya to the Presocratics, from St. Augustin to Levinas, from Nietzsche to Th. Bernhard and G. Leopardi). Hence, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with a philosophical tradition developing more, say, philosophy of language and less, say, ethics, or vice versa. That we think that there are “core” disciplines within philosophy is only the result of specific historical circumstances.
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Atheism in Europe? Blame it on theism!

Hyman's analysis and some interesting Indian parallels

Gavin Hyman explains in his 2007 contribution to Martin’s Cambdride Companion to Atheism as well as in his 2010 A Short History of Atheism that atheism is always the refusal of a given form of theism. In particular, in European history, atheism is the refusal of theism as conceived in modern times, with God as one “thing” among others. This claim might raise the eyebrows of readers of Julian Baggini, who in his 2003 Atheism. A very short introduction maintained that atheism is independent of theism, since it is tantamount to naturalism. The two claims are, however, less far than it might look like.

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Positive and negative apparatus

A younger colleague made me aware of the fact that the distinction might not be obvious for everyone. Hence, here is a short summary:

A positive apparatus is an apparatus where you find all information about each and every single witness (each manuscript you checked and possibly each relevant edition). A negative apparatus is one in which you only show variants which diverge from the reading you selected in the main text.

As a very easy example, suppose you are putting in the main text the following reading: yan nehāsti na tat kvacit and have only three manuscripts, namely A, B and C.

positive apparatus = lemma: kvacit variants: A, B: kutracit. C: kvacit.
negative apparatus: lemma: kvacit. variants: A, B: kutracit.

I (with many others) recommend a positive apparatus. Why?

  • With a negative apparatus, you risk to loose track of the one or the other manuscript.
  • With a negative apparatus, you don’t know whether a given manuscript is not mentioned because it agrees with the main text or because, e.g., the relevant folio was missing.

Still, a positive apparatus is not really handy if you have, say, over ten manuscripts. Many editors introduce therefore the siglum “Σ” (or anything similar) meaning “All the other manuscripts”. In the previous example:

lemma: kvacit. variants: A, B: kutracit. Σ: kvacit.

What do other readers use or prefer?