Do the two rival schools of Indian Buddhist philosophy, Madhyamaka and Yogācāra, share more in common than it may appear at first blush? Interpretation of Madhyamaka that see it as a philosophical enterprise concerned with language games, conceptual holism, and the limits of philosophical discourse, it is argued, miss the point about its distinctly epistemic concern with conventions of everyday practice. Likewise, interpretations of Yogācāra that regard it as a form of pure idealism overlook its uniquely phenomenological epistemology. Offering a (...) detailed analysis of the two-truths and three natures doctrines, this paper makes the case for continuity while examine the impact of philosophical trends in modern approaches to Buddhist philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Identity, Ritual and State in Tibetan Buddhism: The Foundations of Authority in Gelukpa MonasticismChristian P. B. HaskettIdentity, Ritual and State in Tibetan Buddhism: The Foundations of Authority in Gelukpa Monasticism. By Martin A. Mills. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. 404 + xxi pp. with 12 black and white plates.In Tibetan Buddhism, there is a type of teaching called a dmar khrid, a "red instruction," wherein the lama brings students through (...) a teaching as a physician might dissect a corpse, pointing out and explaining the various parts and organs and their places and functions. In Identity, Ritual and State in Tibetan Buddhism, Martin Mills has done very much the same thing, with the exception that the body he examines is still very much alive, and emerges, to my eyes at least, as a new and wholly vital entity. Mills exposes the subcutaneous and sanguine body of Tibetan Buddhism, the bones and muscles that make up its structure, the blood that flows through it, and the organs that keep it alive, in "a plain and open manner," just as in a dmar khrid.1 The value of such a presentation truly cannot be overstated. An attempt to catalog the contents of each chapter would be both impossible and counterproductive, as the wealth of theoretical material and ethnographic detail is a large part of what makes this book so powerful. Instead, I will identify several topics, several of the vital organs alluded to, that are either not commonly noticed in the academic study of Buddhism, or that are given fresh perspective by Mills's anthropological and sociological methodology, and that are so crucial to understanding how it is that Buddhism lives in a typical Himalayan village. The latter portion of this review explains why I place such high value on this book and its potential place in Buddhist-Christian studies.Identity, Ritual and State is an ethnography of Kumbum Monastery in Lingshed, Ladakh (the eastern half of the Kashmir valley, located in Jammu and Kashmir, India), but its concerns are much more far-reaching than a single remote Himalayan village. The central question of the work is "how we are to understand the nature of religious authority in Tibetan Buddhist monasticism" (p. xiii), although it might more properly be the religious authority of Tibetan [End Page 187] Buddhist monastics. This answer is worked out in three overlapping areas of analysis: local ritual activity, ecclesiastical structure of the monastery, and the ritual foundations of Tibetan political thought (p. xvii).Mills convincingly asserts that there is a framework within which Buddhism happens in the Himalayas. The starting point of this framework is birth itself, which establishes the embodied person. The very physicality of personhood has several implications. First, the body is embedded in a very specific local space and place, and personhood is thus not only embodied, but also chthonic—intimately bound up with the earth or soil onto which it is born. At birth, persons are injected into a complex matrix of relations between people and various spirits, such as household gods and protectors, nāga, and itinerant demons. For example, Lingshed is divided into seven subterritories, each under the jurisdiction of a local deity whose physical abode and reign are well known to all in the village.2 These deities are associated with features of the local geography, and they regulate and influence local agricultural and social production, so birth in one area or another signifies a relation with the deity presiding over it. The land itself is imbued with a notion of personhood and agency. The human body is also the repository for pollution (sgrib), which comes about as a result of violating the established hierarchy of space and place and from bringing about changes to the local matrix of embodied persons. Both bodily pollution concerns and the need for proper relations with local spirit numina mandate definite, ongoing ritual attention. Rituals are occasioned in response to births, deaths, spirit possession, unintentional pollution of places or household objects, and movements within the monastic ecclesiastical structure, or happen regularly according to an astrologically and agriculturally influenced calendar.Rituals are performed by monks not only because they are trained specialists, but because... (shrink)

This article is an attempt to understand “Bounds of Ethics in a Globalized World”, the hiatus between principles, norms and values and how they are codified on the one hand and the risks that follow when the actualisations of regulative principles fail in political reality on the other hand. Considering the political, economic and social reality, it is frequently diagnosed that reality is lagging far behind the potential of constitutionally guaranteed rights and duties. A variety of constitutionally guaranteed values suffers (...) from devaluation. Taking examples from Bavaria in Germany, questions concerning whether the Bavarian society is at the borders of ethical capacities, or whether the limits of possible ethical regulation have been reached are dealt with. Important parallels in the genesis of the Bavarian and the Indian constitution are highlighted in this context. Through an understanding of the ideas of Ludwig Erhard, a pragmatic approach and an innovative model is proposed for cultivating values in a sustainable way. The importance of values of virtues is discussed and an emphasis is put on the importance of practiced virtues. (shrink)

Rudyard Kipling, the famous english author of « The Jungle Book », born in India, wrote one day these words: « Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet ». In my paper I show that Kipling was not completely right. I try to show the common ground between buddhist philosophy and quantum physics. There is a surprising parallelism between the philosophical concept of reality articulated by Nagarjuna and the physical concept of reality (...) implied by quantum physics. For neither is there a fundamental core to reality, rather reality consists of systems of interacting objects. Such concepts of reality cannot be reconciled with the substantial, subjective, holistic or instrumentalistic concepts of reality which underlie modern modes of thought. (shrink)

Rudyard Kipling, the famous english author of « The Jungle Book », born in India, wrote one day these words: « Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet ». In my paper I show that Kipling was not completely right. I try to show the common ground between buddhist philosophy and quantum physics. There is a surprising parallelism between the philosophical concept of reality articulated by Nagarjuna and the physical concept of reality (...) implied by quantum physics. For neither is there a fundamental core to reality, rather reality consists of systems of interacting objects. Such concepts of reality cannot be reconciled with the substantial, subjective, holistic or instrumentalistic concepts of reality which underlie modern modes of thought. (shrink)

The East has seen totality in a far more consistent and systematic way than the West; and India more so than any other civilisation in the East. When the Swami Siddheswarananda came to France to lecture on Vedic philosophy, he entitled his address, Outline of a Philosophy of Totality’. The expression could have been applied to the philosophies of India as a whole. But the world of thought, coextensive with culture, is far broader than philosophy. It is no (...) exaggeration to assert that India is the land of totality par excellence. Is it not even, according to one dictum, bigger than the world …? The notion of totality, implicit or conscious, poetic or theoretical, original or final, is present throughout Indian culture, both in its religion and in its arts, both in its customs as in its language. The Mahabharata, the largest epic poem ever conceived, proclaims: everything in the Mahabharata can be found elsewhere, but what is not in the Mahabharata cannot be found anywhere. Whilst the absolute beginning of a piece of Western music is in keeping with a dramatic time analogous to that of the Creation, Indian music seems to come from the eternity of a universe without transcendence. The body takes on a cosmic meaning through dance. By performing the tandava, the cosmic dance, Shiva Nataraja (‘Lord of the dance’) endlessly creates and destroys worlds. Indian art is an art of proliferation: both the reiteration of motifs sculpted in architecture and the litanies and metaphors spun out in epic poetry are symbolic attempts to capture the totality of the world. Every single element, being, movement or thing within this continuous space and time points towards all the others. The texts describe the sky of Indra with its web of pearls arranged in such a way that when one looks into one, one sees all the others reflecting in it; in the same way, each object of this world is not merely itself but comprises every one of the others and actually is all the others. The culture of India is one of plenitude, presence and continuity. At the opposite extreme, Japan developed a culture based upon the values of emptiness, absence and the interval. When a guru speaks, Valmiki and Vyasa know that it will take them many scores of verses. A Zen master's reply to his disciple takes up a single-line anecdote, or a word, or even a silence. At the other extreme, hundreds of statues line the gopuram of the temple at Madurai: not all of the thirty-three million gods ‘recognized’ in the writings are there, of course, but at least their unbelievable abundance gives us a plausible image of them. (shrink)

Rudyard Kipling, the famous english author of « The Jungle Book », born in India, wrote one day these words: « Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet ». In my paper I show that Kipling was not completely right. I try to show the common ground between buddhist philosophy and quantum physics. There is a surprising parallelism between the philosophical concept of reality articulated by Nagarjuna and the physical concept of reality (...) implied by quantum physics. For neither is there a fundamental core to reality, rather reality consists of systems of interacting objects. Such concepts of reality cannot be reconciled with the substantial, subjective, holistic or instrumentalistic concepts of reality which underlie modern modes of thought. (shrink)

Cet article porte sur l'utilisation contextuelle de créole et du français à l'île de la Réunion dans l'Océan Indien. Il montre comment les enjeux situationnels induisent automatiquement l'utilisation de telle ou telle langue pour communiquer. Il souligne également que l'association commune entre langue et culture n'est pas toujours valable. Ceci est particulièrement évident avec l'exemple des personnes d'origine tamoule vivant dans l'île qui, si elles ont une ascendance endogame, véhiculent un système de valeurs très proche de leurs congénères en Inde (...) du sud, même si elles ne pratiquent plus la langue tamoule.This paper addresses the contextual use of Creole and French in the French multicultural Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean. It shows how situational stakes automatically result in the usage of a particular language to communicate. The paper also stresses that the common association between language and culture is not always accurate. This is particularly obvious when studying the example of those people originally from Tamil Nadu living on the Island who, although they have an endogamous descent, have a value system close to that of their peers in South India although they no longer speak the Tamil language. (shrink)

The Bavarian and the Indian constitutions were developed in almost the same period of time. Because of historic experiences the prospect of legal certainty was the determining factor for the representatives of the people in India and Bavaria. They elaborated functioning constitutions and integrated their fundamental ideological principles quite naturally. The Indian and the Bavarian constitution are characterized by their aspirations to balance social injustice, particularly by striking a balance between individual liberty and social need.The history of political economy (...) demonstrates a broad variety of interpretations regarding the meaning and function of value concepts. When we review all these value concepts we identify two poles of the value-concept that still lack compatibility with each other in economical and philosophical schools to this day. Value systems have to be applied situation-sensitive and are in need of a frequent critical reflection; they need to be refused or changed if necessary.Examining some examples of the Bavarian Constitution, we indicate some concordances with regard to contents of the Indian Constitutional Law. The equivalences in the Bavarian and the Indian Constitution incorporate entitlements which should protect citizens against an unjustified economical assault upon their existence. The social value conflicts that occur more and more because of the hiatus to the constitutionally warranted values, and that cannot be solved simply by law or political adjustment, are therefore up for discussion. We then examine the disparity between entitlements and reality and discuss the hierarchy of our values. (shrink)

A prevailing view among specialists is that Indian philosophy "proper" can only be philosophy written in Sanskrit and a few other Prakrits (any of the several Middle Indo-Aryan vernaculars formerly spoken in India), in a doxographical style, and along more or less clearly drawn scholastic lines. As such, it encompasses the entirety of speculative and systematic thought in India up to the advent of British colonial rule in the 19th Century. Minds Without Fear challenges this dominant view of (...) the history of Indian philosophy, arguing that Indian philosophy produced in English during the Raj does not mark a radical departure from its indigenous cultural forms so much as their appropriation in the service of intercultural philosophy. While necessarily politically fraught (given the status of English as the language of colonial power), the new vernacular becomes a vehicle for Enlightenment ideas of rationality and scientific progress, and serves as a new "scholarly metalanguage" in the formation of a modern Indian philosophical canon. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.2 (2000) 189-202 [Access article in PDF] Spinoza in Denmark and the Fall of Struensee, 1770-1772 John Christian Laursen * Baruch (Benedict) de Spinoza was the arch-heretic of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He was denounced in half a dozen languages from the time he began to publish until at least the 1780s, when Lessing's allegiance to Spinoza became the heart of (...) a literary scandal. 1 In time-honored fashion, some of these denunciations led to the burning of books and the imprisonment or banning of authors. The most spectacular case, however, led to the trial of a prime minister, the cutting off of his right hand and of his head, and the drawing and quartering of his body in full public ceremony. The year was 1772, the prime minister was Johann Friedrich Struensee, and the country was Denmark.Late eighteenth-century Denmark was not known for barbarities of the type represented by Struensee's execution. Previously disgraced prime ministers had merely been imprisoned, and other political enemies of the ruling powers had [End Page 189] merely been exiled. 2 Why such harshness with Struensee? What was at stake in the fall of Struensee?The answers to these questions are complex, but an important element of those answers lies in Struensee's public image, which made it seem both necessary and justifiable to treat him with such harshness. In turn, public opinion about Struensee was closely tied to the reputation of Spinoza. This essay will show that charges of Spinozism were part of the campaign that poisoned public opinion against Struensee. This was an unusually clear case of a theological and philosophical debate having direct political effects.Before getting to the role of Spinozism and anti-Spinozism in eighteenth-century Denmark, let us fill in important points of the story. The charge against Struensee was lèse majesté, for plotting the death of the King and for usurping power in violation of the constitution. Behind these charges was a further element which encouraged outrage: sleeping with Queen Caroline Matilda. That much was true, as both the Queen, a sister of George III of England, and Struensee admitted, each in order to save the other. The King knew about it all along but did not care. He did not care because he had become a libertine, going out to whorehouses most nights with rowdy friends, and he figured that what was good for the gander was good for the goose. He was also schizophrenic and easily manipulable by those around him, so that Struensee and the Queen encountered no disapproval from him until he fell under other people's influence. After Struensee and the Queen were taken into custody, the King was forced to divorce the Queen and she was sent to live in a Hannoverian castle in Celle because her brother did not want the embarrassment of having her back in England. She died there a few years later. 3It is an irony that we owe our knowledge of the state of public opinion in Denmark in this period to Struensee. Until shortly before the fatal events mentioned above, the Danish press had been subject to censorship that might have prevented the expression of many of the subsequent attacks on Struensee. But in September 1770 Struensee persuaded the king to declare freedom of the press in all his realms (consisting of the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, the Duchies of Slesvig and Holsten [Schleswig and Holstein in German], Greenland, Iceland, the Faroes, and colonies in India, Africa, and the Caribbean). 4 It is not widely [End Page 190] known that Denmark was the first country to declare unlimited freedom of the press as official public policy. For much of the century England and the Netherlands had effective freedom of the press, but it had never been declared official policy. The next to do so was rebellious Virginia, in the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776), followed by other colonies and then the Bill of Rights of the new... (shrink)

This paper studies how Europe conceived America, not only as a place inhabited by monsters, but also as a monstrous space in itself, as soon as its mere appearance meant an alteration of the previous ontological order. By way of illustration we analyze how the Europeans imagined projected on America each of the different theratologic currents that dominated during the 16TH and 17TH centuries.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.1 (2002) 116-118 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Pyrrho, His Antecedents, and His Legacy Philo of Larissa: The Last of the Academic Sceptics Richard Bett. Pyrrho, His Antecedents, and His Legacy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. x + 264. Cloth, $60.00. Charles Brittain. Philo of Larissa: The Last of the Academic Sceptics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. xii (...) + 406. Cloth, $60.00. These two books demonstrate once again that the ancient skeptics could indeed live their skepticism. In recent decades Myles Burnyeat, Benson Mates, and too many others have retailed the old canard that the skeptic cannot live his skepticism, but here we have two branches of ancient skepticism that sound quite liveable. Both books are subtle and brilliant examples of the genre of reconstructing philosophy from meager and fragmentary evidence.Bett's book follows up on the case he made in his 1997 translation of Sextus Empiricus's Against the Ethicists for three stages in ancient Pyrrhonism. The first is that of Pyrrho (ca. 360-ca. 270 B.C.), a dogmatist who held what Bett labels the indeterminacy thesis: we do not know anything because the world is indeterminate and thus we cannot know it. The second is a similarly dogmatic stage under Aenesidemus (first century B.C.), also followed by Sextus in Against the Ethicists. The third is the more thoroughly skeptical suspension of judgment of the mature Sextus of the Outlines of Pyrrhonism (second century A.D.). Bett points out that it would indeed be odd if Pyrrhonism had not evolved in any way in five hundred years. What was unique throughout the tradition was the connection drawn between indeterminacy or suspension of judgment and the goal of ataraxia or tranquility (179, 220).Bett tries to avoid reading later concerns back into the earlier materials, and reevaluates the later materials based on his new reading of the earlier. He argues that Pyrrho's indeterminacy thesis was a metaphysical claim, not an epistemological one. One benefit of [End Page 116] understanding Pyrrho this way is that he does not make a self-refuting exception to his epistemological skepticism for his own claims. Rather, he can just admit to being a kind of dogmatist. Then, Pyrrho's ethical dogmatism is also perfectly consistent. Bett draws a picture of Pyrrho's practical life that rejects the walking-off-of-cliffs apocrypha, but accepts evidence of a quasi-Cynic, anti-theoretical lifestyle. Pyrrho's rejection of social norms puts him at odds with Sextus's later use of laws and customs as guides to behavior. There are still further questions here: why was Pyrrho in particular such a hero to philosophers, if most (or at least many) people are resolutely non-theoretical?Bett points out that Pyrrho gives us no reason to think that the abandonment of theories and opinions must always lead to tranquility (81). But in another connection, he recognizes that temperament may be decisive (111), and that may be the deciding factor here, too. There is no answer to people who say that abandoning theories makes them nervous: the Pyrrhonians simply say that it makes them tranquil. Irreducible differences in temperament may also explain why Pyrrho did not bother with theoretical controversy and Sextus revelled in it.Among other points, Bett discourages all but the most general case for an influence from India on Pyrrho. Bett's thumbnail comparisons between Pyrrho and each of Aristotle, Plato, the Eleatics, Xenophanes, and others show that Pyrrho's philosophy was not at all extraordinary for its time and place. Most philosophers expected claims about nature to be invariable and without qualification (118). Bett says this is odd by modern standards (197), but even today scientific laws are said to apply to all times and all places.The title of Bett's book will mislead some readers. If you are a specialist and your world revolves around ancient philosophy, you will be satisfied that Pyrrho's "legacy" includes Aenesidemus and ends... (shrink)

The earlier volume in this series dealt with two religions of Indian origin, namely, Buddhism and Jainism. The Indian religious scene, however, is characterized by not only religions which originated in India but also by religions which entered India from outside India and made their home here. Thus religious life in India has been enlivened throughout its history by the presence of religions of foreign origin on its soil almost from the very time they came into (...) existence. This volume covers three such religions—Zoraoastrianism, Judaism, and Islam. In the case of Zoraostianism, even its very beginnings are intertwined with India, as Zoroastrianism reformed a preexisting religion which had strong links to the Vedic heritage of India. This relationship took on a new dimension when a Zoroastrian community, fearing persecution in Persia after its Arab conquest, sought shelter in western India and ultimately went on to produce India’s pioneering nationalist in the figure of Dadabhai Naoroji ( 1825-1917), also known as the Grand Old Man of India. Jews found refuge in south India after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. and have remained a part of the Indian religious scene since then, some even returning to Israel after it was founded in 1948. Islam arrived in Kerala as soon as it was founded and one of the earliest mosques in the history of Islam is found in India. Islam differs from the previously mentioned religions inasmuch as it went on to gain political hegemony over parts of the country for considerable periods of time, which meant that its impact on the religious life of the subcontinent has been greater compared to the other religions. It has also meant that Islam has existed in a religiously plural environment in India for a longer period than elsewhere in the world so that not only has Islam left a mark on India, India has also left its mark on it. Indeed all the three religions covered in this volume share this dual feature, that they have profoundly influenced Indian religious life and have also in turn been profoundly influenced by their presence in India. (shrink)

Research in the fields of complex problem solving (CPS) and dynamic decision making using microworlds has been mainly conducted in Western industrialized countries. This study analyzes the CPS process by investigating thinking‐aloud protocols in five countries. Participants were 511 students from Brazil, Germany, India, the Philippines, and the United States who worked on two microworlds. On the basis of cultural‐psychological theories, specific cross‐national differences in CPS strategies were hypothesized. Following theories of situatedness of cognition, hypotheses about the specific frequency (...) of problem‐solving strategies in the two microworlds were developed. Results of the verbal protocols showed (a) modification of the theoretical CPS model, (b) task dependence of CPS strategies, and (c) cross‐national differences in CPS strategies. Participants’ CPS processes were particularly influenced by country‐specific problem‐solving strategies. (shrink)

The earlier volume in this series dealt with two religions of Indian origin, namely, Buddhism and Jainism. The Indian religious scene, however, is characterized by not only religions which originated in India but also by religions which entered India from outside India and made their home here. Thus religious life in India has been enlivened throughout its history by the presence of religions of foreign origin on its soil almost from the very time they came into (...) existence. This volume covers three such religions—Zoraoastrianism, Judaism, and Islam. In the case of Zoraostianism, even its very beginnings are intertwined with India, as Zoroastrianism reformed a preexisting religion which had strong links to the Vedic heritage of India. This relationship took on a new dimension when a Zoroastrian community, fearing persecution in Persia after its Arab conquest, sought shelter in western India and ultimately went on to produce India’s pioneering nationalist in the figure of Dadabhai Naoroji ( 1825-1917), also known as the Grand Old Man of India. Jews found refuge in south India after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. and have remained a part of the Indian religious scene since then, some even returning to Israel after it was founded in 1948. Islam arrived in Kerala as soon as it was founded and one of the earliest mosques in the history of Islam is found in India. Islam differs from the previously mentioned religions inasmuch as it went on to gain political hegemony over parts of the country for considerable periods of time, which meant that its impact on the religious life of the subcontinent has been greater compared to the other religions. It has also meant that Islam has existed in a religiously plural environment in India for a longer period than elsewhere in the world so that not only has Islam left a mark on India, India has also left its mark on it. Indeed all the three religions covered in this volume share this dual feature, that they have profoundly influenced Indian religious life and have also in turn been profoundly influenced by their presence in India. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Concealed Influence of Custom: Hume’s “Treatise” from the Inside Out by Jay L. GarfieldJohn Christian LaursenJay L. Garfield. The Concealed Influence of Custom: Hume’s “Treatise” from the Inside Out. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. 302. Hardback. ISBN: 978-0-19-093340-1, $82. This book has at least two original and great merits. One is that it is one of the first in the Hume literature to be truly global. (...) The other is that it gives custom and habit the place they deserve in Hume’s philosophy. Concerning the first of these, I think it would be widely admitted that most of the study of Western philosophy is done in blissful ignorance of non-Western philosophy. We follow what our thinkers are doing, and pay little or no attention to the rest of the world. In contrast, this book peppers the footnotes, and even some of the text, with comparisons to Buddhist schools and figures such as Madhyamaka, Candrakirti, Nagarjuna, and the like. We are not used to the idea that Western philosophers may have drawn some of their ideas from non-Western philosophy, although we have long known that Pyrrho traveled to India and may have taken ideas from the gymnosophists, and that later philosophers like Bayle and Leibniz were very interested in Chinese ideas. In Hume’s case, it is possible that there was some influence through Pyrrho and his followers, or that these were simply parallel developments. The latter are still of philosophical interest because they show how similar philosophies can develop from different roots. Of course, one of the reasons that most of us cannot compare a figure like Hume to Indian or Chinese philosophy is that we do not know the languages and have not been trained in those areas. In this case, Jay Garfield is the author of many works on Indian philosophy, including Engaging Buddhism: Why it Matters to Philosophy (2015), so he has authority in the matter. A work like this, drawing attention to many similarities and parallels in philosophy, could be followed up by some methodological work on how to compare philosophies from such different intellectual traditions. What do the parallels mean? Are there any deeper or wider conclusions that we can make about parallels that appear in very different philosophical traditions? Is convergence of ideas a confidence builder in their solidity and truth, or rather a reminder of common human tendencies to fallacy? If philosophy is ever going to join the ranks of truly global human enterprises, it will have to ask and answer these questions about far-flung philosophical traditions. The main argument of this book is that Hume is best understood as a Pyrrhonian philosopher who maintains that the foundations of our knowledge, ethics, and political practices may be found only in custom and habit. Book 2 of Hume’s Treatise is the key, providing a social account of the passions and our constructions of ourselves. “Custom is essential to the story,” the author writes (82). Nature makes [End Page 179] us develop customs together that start from passions and sympathy, and are drawn together by the imagination. On the basis of these social constructions of most elements of our lives, by the end of the book, Garfield is talking about Hume’s place in the “communitarian tradition” (279–80). If Book 2 is read before Book 1, one will realize that what Hume says about reason and ontology in Book 1 is rooted in his theory of the passions in Book 2, and thus always social. What Hume is doing is more like philosophical psychology (or the psychology of philosophy?) than epistemology, metaphysics, or moral philosophy, according to Garfield. Hume is asking why we believe what we believe in epistemology, metaphysics, and moral philosophy, not proving that any of these beliefs are true. Taking the title of Hume’s Treatise seriously, it is a book about human nature, not about Hume’s understanding of those philosophical subfields. Hume’s work is more descriptive than prescriptive. We can learn from it how we live, not how we should live, which is a matter for the development of customs over time... (shrink)

The paper discusses the complexity of spiritual quest and bordercrossing dialogues in India. It discusses the multiverse of engagement between Hindus and Christians and the plural streams of co-walking, contradictions and confrontations. It discusses the complex histories of encounters between Hindus and Christians. It discusses the inter-religious dialogues undertaken by religious leaders, reformers and common people from both the traditions.

Tradition holds that many Brahmin families were converted through the ministry of St. Thomas and seven churches were established in Palur, Muziri, Parur, Gokkamangalam, Chayal, Niranam, and Quilon. After forming several more congregations out of Jews as well as of Dravidi people, Apostle Thomas went to Meliapur where even the Raja was converted with many of his subjects. This infuriated the Brahmins (of Aryan origin). According to tradition, St. Thomas was speared to death by Brahmins near Mylapore. According to many (...) early Church fathers, the mortal remains of Thomas were shifted from his tomb in India to Edessa.[2]. (shrink)

In the past years, the Northeast people linked the BJP with the principle of Hindutwa that made it unattractive for them. In recent years, the Party surprisingly takes the area like wildfire by dictating who is to rule in many states. Now, switching from old history to that of a fresher one, a historian may significantly raise a question in this transition: “Is the Hindu way of life entering the region with the emergence of the BJP?” One perception which robustly (...) stands against this question is that the native inhabitants view the coming of the BJP in the Northeast as “a politics of convenience and expediency” to boost up their deprived economic situations. They do not perceive it as a politic of conviction to and assurance for the BJP. (shrink)

The narrative of Indian Christianity that is compositely based on Thomine tradition derives significantly from the reality of Parthian-India geo-economics and geopolitics. Although Aksumite trade and diplomatic visibility are a prevalent feature of the Greco-Roman imperial history in the BCE – CE era, the narrative regarding Ethiopian Christianity is a 4th-century CE reality. Ground is made to deduce the possibility of early Christianity akin to apostolic Christianity in Ethiopia as a consequence of similar circumstances in (...) Parthian-India. So as to solidify the arguments and engage relevant data, document analysis complemented by cultural historiography and the archaeology of religion was implemented in this study. A deductive parallel review of Indian and Ethiopian geopolitical and geo-economics history within the context of Christianity as an emergent religion of the 1st century CE is implicative. The narrative of Ethiopia is completed when it is placed within its extensive geographic context, thereby consequently acknowledging its role within the Mediterranean world. Reference to India substantiates the logic of the argument and entails the possibility of the 1st to 3rd century Christian presence in Ethiopia.Contribution: The research highlights a revisionist history of Ethiopian Christianity thereby creating a new narrative for Jewish Christianity and Christian origins, a subject key to the field of theology. (shrink)

In the modern history of India, the term ‘mass movement’ has been used to refer to two entirely different things. One is the Gandhian nationalist movement from the second to the middle, and the other the Dalit conversion to Christianity en masse. This article traces Gandhi’s interaction with Indian Christianity, especially the Indian Dalit Christian movement, with an intention to gain a better understanding of the relation between Indian nationalist movement and Indian Christianity. The chapter shows (...) that Gandhi’s aversion to interreligious conversion and his strong distrust of the Dalit people’s ability to make spiritual choice led to his strong and undue criticisms against Dalit conversion to Christianity. As peaceful a man as the Mahatma was, his clash with the Dalit Christian mass movement seems to have adversely affected the majority of Indian Christians from finding a welcoming home in India. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that no theory of consciousness can simultaneously respect four initially plausible metaphysical claims – namely, ‘first-person realism’, ‘non-solipsism’, ‘non-fragmentation’, and ‘one world’ – but that any three of the four claims are mutually consistent. So, theories of consciousness face a ‘quadrilemma’. Since it will be hard to achieve a consensus on which of the four claims to retain and which to give up, we arrive at a landscape of competing theories, all of which have pros (...) and cons. I will briefly indicate which kinds of theories correspond to the four horns of the quadrilemma. (shrink)

Spacetime as we know and love it is lost in most approaches to quantum gravity. For many of these approaches, as inchoate and incomplete as they may be, one of the main challenges is to relate what they take to be the fundamental non-spatiotemporal structure of the world back to the classical spacetime of GR. The present essay investigates how spacetime is lost and how it may be regained in one major approach to quantum gravity, loop quantum gravity.

Papers presented at National Workshop on "Moral Theology in India Today", organized by Department of Moral Theology of Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram from July 12-15, 2012.

_Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism_ fundamentally rethinks the nature of the transgressive theories and practices of the Buddhist Tantric traditions, challenging the notion that the Tantras were "marginal" or primitive and situating them instead--both ideologically and institutionally--within larger trends in mainstream Buddhist and Indian culture. Critically surveying prior scholarship, Wedemeyer exposes the fallacies of attributing Tantric transgression to either the passions of lusty monks, primitive tribal rites, or slavish imitation of Saiva traditions. Through comparative analysis of modern historical narratives--that depict (...) Tantrism as a degenerate form of Buddhism, a primal religious undercurrent, or medieval ritualism--he likewise demonstrates these to be stock patterns in the European historical imagination. Through close analysis of primary sources, Wedemeyer reveals the lived world of Tantric Buddhism as largely continuous with the Indian religious mainstream and deploys contemporary methods of semiotic and structural analysis to make sense of its seemingly repellent and immoral injunctions. Innovative, semiological readings of the influential _Guhyasamaja Tantra_ underscore the text's overriding concern with purity, pollution, and transcendent insight--issues shared by all Indic religions--and a large-scale, quantitative study of Tantric literature shows its radical antinomianism to be a highly managed ritual observance restricted to a sacerdotal elite. These insights into Tantric scripture and ritual clarify the continuities between South Asian Tantrism and broader currents in Indian religion, illustrating how thoroughly these "radical" communities were integrated into the intellectual, institutional, and social structures of South Asian Buddhism. (shrink)

_Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism_ fundamentally rethinks the nature of the transgressive theories and practices of the Buddhist Tantric traditions, challenging the notion that the Tantras were "marginal" or primitive and situating them instead -- both ideologically and institutionally -- within larger trends in mainstream Buddhist and Indian culture. Critically surveying prior scholarship, Wedemeyer exposes the fallacies of attributing Tantric transgression to either the passions of lusty monks, primitive tribal rites, or slavish imitation of Saiva traditions. Through comparative analysis of (...) modern historical narratives -- that depict Tantrism as a degenerate form of Buddhism, a primal religious undercurrent, or medieval ritualism -- he likewise demonstrates these to be stock patterns in the European historical imagination. Through close analysis of primary sources, Wedemeyer reveals the lived world of Tantric Buddhism as largely continuous with the Indian religious mainstream and deploys contemporary methods of semiotic and structural analysis to make sense of its seemingly repellent and immoral injunctions. Innovative, semiological readings of the influential _Guhyasamaja Tantra_ underscore the text's overriding concern with purity, pollution, and transcendent insight -- issues shared by all Indic religions -- and a large-scale, quantitative study of Tantric literature shows its radical antinomianism to be a highly managed ritual observance restricted to a sacerdotal elite. These insights into Tantric scripture and ritual clarify the continuities between South Asian Tantrism and broader currents in Indian religion, illustrating how thoroughly these "radical" communities were integrated into the intellectual, institutional, and social structures of South Asian Buddhism. (shrink)

Euthanasia and assisted dying are illegal in India according to Sections 306 and 309 of the Indian Penal Code, and Article 21 of the Constitution of India. There have been a number of cases where the Indian High Courts and Indian Supreme Court issued differing verdicts concerning the right to life and the right to die. Nevertheless, on 7 March 2011, a paradigm shift happened as a result of the Indian Supreme Court's judgment on involuntary passive euthanasia in (...) the case of Aruna Shanbaug. In its judgment, the Supreme Court requested the government to prepare a law on euthanasia. Accordingly, the 241st Report of the Law Commission of India proposed a bill to permit passive euthanasia. In May 2016 the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare issued the draft bill for public comment in order to create an informed decision. The Indian people are divided on the issue of euthanasia. The majority of the scientific community welcome it, while some religious groups oppose it. Hindus, in general, express both supporting and opposing views on euthanasia, whereas, Christians and Muslims have hardened their opposition against it. The Supreme Court judgment and the Report of the Law Commission pave the way for the development of new policies pertaining to passive euthanasia by the central government of India. Once such legislation is passed, passive euthanasia may, and probably will, have an enormous impact on the cultural, political, public and medical spheres of India in the near future. (shrink)

One of the hallmark themes of Karl Popper’s approach to the social sciences was the insistence that when social scientists are members of the society they study, then they are liable to affect that society. In particular, they are liable to affect it in such a way that the claims they make lose their validity. “The interaction between the scientist’s pronouncements and social life almost invariably creates situations in which we have not only to consider the truth of such pronouncements, (...) but also their actual influence on future developments. The social scientist may be striving to find the truth; but, at the same time, he must always be exerting a definite influence upon society. The very fact that his pronouncements do exert an influence destroys their objectivity.” (Popper 1963. (shrink)

This anthology is based on a symposium in the series "Young Philosophy of Religion," jointly organized by the Catholic Academy in Berlin and the Research Institute for Philosophy Hanover. German text.

The problem of free will as it is know in Western philosophical traditions is hardly known in China. Considering how central the problem is in the West, this is a remarkable fact. We try to explain this, and we offer insights into discussions within Chinese traditions that we think are related, not historically but regarding the issues discussed. Thus we introduce four central Chinese concepts, namely: (1) xīn 心 (heart, heart-mind), (2) xìng 性 (human nature, characteristic tendencies, inborn capacity), (3) (...) mìng 命 (lifespan, fate, command, allotment, endowment), and (4) zìrán 自然 (self-so, so of itself, nature, spontaneity), and we indicate how these concepts and their discussions can be related to discussions on free will. (shrink)

This is a chapter of the planned monograph "Out of Nowhere: The Emergence of Spacetime in Quantum Theories of Gravity", co-authored by Nick Huggett and Christian Wüthrich and under contract with Oxford University Press. (More information at www<dot>beyondspacetime<dot>net.) This chapter introduces causal set theory and identifies and articulates a 'problem of space' in this theory.