•  71
    Facing the boundaries of epistemology: Kumārila on error and negative cognition (review)
    Journal of Indian Philosophy 38 (1): 39-48. 2010.
    Kumārila’s commitment to the explanation of cognitive experiences not confined to valid cognition alone, allows a detailed discussion of border-line cases (such as doubt and error) and the admittance of absent entities as separate instances of cognitive objects. Are such absent entities only the negative side of positive entities? Are they, hence, fully relative (since a cow could be said to be the absent side of a horse and vice versa)? Through the analysis of a debated passage of the Ślokavārt…Read more
  •  64
    Plant lives: Borderline beings in indian traditions (review)
    Philosophy East and West 61 (2): 380-385. 2011.
  •  63
    Mīmāṃsā deontic logic: proof theory and applications
    with Agata Ciabattoni, Francesco Antonio Genco, and Björn Lellmann
    In Hans De Nivelle (ed.), Automated Reasoning with Analytic Tableaux and Related Methods, Springer. pp. 323--338. 2015.
  •  47
    How Do We Gather Knowledge Through Language?
    Journal of World Philosophies 2 (1): 42-46. 2017.
    The present issue of Journal of World Philosophies will host a series of papers discussing the phenomenon of linguistic communication2 from a philosophical point of view and from a cross-cultural perspective. The papers’ authors discussed the topic together with some other scholars in a workshop in Athens, 2015. The contributions are organized around the following four issues: 1. What do we know? 2. How (through which instrument of knowledge) do we know it? 3. What is the role of language as a m…Read more
  •  43
    Duty and Sacrifice: A Logical Analysis of the Mīmāṃsā Theory of Vedic Injunctions
    with Andrew Ollett and Matteo Pascucci
    History and Philosophy of Logic 40 (4): 323-354. 2019.
    The Mīmāṃsā school of Indian philosophy has for its main purpose the interpretation of injunctions that are found in a set of sacred texts, the Vedas. In their works, Mīmāṃsā authors provide some of the most detailed and systematic examinations available anywhere of statements with a deontic force; however, their considerations have generally not been registered outside of Indological scholarship. In the present article we analyze the Mīmāṃsā theory of Vedic injunctions from a logical and philos…Read more
  •  39
    The Reuse of Texts in Indian Philosophy: Introduction
    Journal of Indian Philosophy 43 (2-3): 85-108. 2015.
    The study of textual reuse is of fundamental importance in reconstructing lost or partially lost texts, passages of which can be partly recovered through other texts in which they have been embedded. Furthermore, the study of textual reuse also provides one with a deeper understanding of the modalities of the production of texts out of previous textual materials. Finally, it constitutes a unique chance to reconsider the historicity of concepts such as “author”, “originality” and “plagiarism”, wh…Read more
  •  34
    The authors make an attempt to comparatively analyse some stances of the Old Indian philosophy of language, exemplified by the Medieval Indian author Jayanta, along with the Western tradition of the analytical philosophy of language, and to highlight the differences as well as the similarities. The main focus is on Jayanta's discussion of the meaning vs. reference problem.
  •  29
    Understanding Prescriptive Texts: Rules and Logic as Elaborated by the Mīmāṃsā School
    with Agata Ciabattoni, Francesco A. Genco, and Björn Lellmann
    Journal of World Philosophies 2 (1): 47-66. 2017.
    The Mīmā ṃ sā school of Indian philosophy elaborated complex ways of interpreting the prescriptive portions of the Vedic sacred texts. The present article is the result of the collaboration of a group of scholars of logic, computer science, European philosophy and Indian philosophy and aims at the individuation and analysis of the deontic system which is applied but never explicitly discussed in Mīmā ṃ sā texts. The article outlines the basic distinction between three sorts of principles —hermen…Read more
  •  29
    Freedom Because of Duty
    In Matthew R. Dasti & Edwin F. Bryant (eds.), Free Will, Agency, and Selfhood in Indian Philosophy, Oxford University Press. pp. 137. 2014.
  •  25
    Quotations, References, etc. A Glance on the Writing Habits of a Late Mīmāṃsaka
    Journal of Indian Philosophy 43 (2-3): 219-255. 2015.
    Rāmānujācārya’s Tantrarahasya, a philosophical treatise mainly dedicated to the hermeneutics and epistemology of the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā School, might be considered hardly more than a jigsaw of reused passages, since one third of it has a direct source, and a further third has its roots in interlanguage usage. It is thus a perfect case study for investigating the compositional habits of philosophical authors in pre-modern śāstra literature. The article analyses the formal aspects of textual reuse by R…Read more
  •  21
    Periodization and Historiography of Indian Philosophy. Edited with an introduction by Eli Franco (review)
    Journal of the American Oriental Society 135 (1): 153-156. 2021.
    Periodization and Historiography of Indian Philosophy. Edited with an introduction by Eli Franco. Vienna: De Nobili, 2013. Pp. viii + 388. € 40.
  •  20
    Alternative Theisms
    The Philosophers' Magazine 82 94-98. 2018.
  •  19
    The article offers an overview of the deontic theory developed by the philosophical school of Mīmāṃsā, which is, and has been since the last centuries BCE, the main source of normative concepts in Sanskrit thought. Thus, the Mīmāṃsā deontics is interesting for any historian of philosophy and constitutes a thought-provoking occasion to rethink deontic concepts, taking advantage of centuries of systematic reflections on these topics. Some comparison with notions currently used in Euro-American nor…Read more
  •  19
    Rethinking Classical Dialectical Traditions
    Culture and Dialogue 5 (2): 173-209. 2017.
  •  18
    The Purpose of the Mīmāṃsānyāyasaṅgraha and Its TranslationSome of the criticism frequently seen in book reviews is due to the reviewer's desire to have read something else. Indeed, I do not wish to judge James Benson's Mīmāṃsānyāyasaṅgraha: A Compendium on the Principles of Mīmāṃsā from the standpoint of what I would have written if I had been in his place. And thus, I will start by outlining his work and the goals he had in mind.The central part of this extensive book consists in a critical ed…Read more
  •  16
    Introduction
    with Cathy Cantwell
    Buddhist Studies Review 33 (1-2): 1-7. 2017.
    The bulk of the present volume focuses on the reuse of Buddhist texts. The Introduction gives some background to the topic of textual reuse in general and discusses the reasons for undertaking the analysis of textual reuse within Buddhist texts. It then elaborates on the extent of its pervasiveness within Buddhist literature through the example of Tibetan ritual texts. Lastly, it takes stock of the articles on text-reuse and discusses some general lines of interpretation of the phenomenon of tex…Read more
  •  15
    Veṅkaṭanātha
    Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2016.
    Veṅkaṭanātha Veṅkaṭanātha was an Indian polymath who wrote philosophical as well as religious and poetical works in several languages, including Sanskrit, Maṇipravāḷa—a Sanskritised form of literary Tamil—and Tamil. He is traditionally dated to 1269-1370, but as explained by Neevel “the lifespans of … Continue reading Veṅkaṭanātha →
  •  14
    Deontic Paradoxes in Mīmāṃsā Logics: There and Back Again
    with Kees van Berkel, Agata Ciabattoni, Francesca Gulisano, and Maya Olszewski
    Journal of Logic, Language and Information 32 (1): 19-62. 2023.
    Centered around the analysis of the prescriptive portion of the Vedas, the Sanskrit philosophical school of Mīmāṃsā provides a treasure trove of normative investigations. We focus on the leading Mīmāṃsā authors Prabhākara, Kumārila and Maṇḍana, and discuss three modal logics that formalize their deontic theories. In the first part of this paper, we use logic to analyze, compare and clarify the various solutions to the _śyena_ controversy, a two-thousand-year-old problem arising from seemingly co…Read more
  •  13
    Ve?ka?an?tha was the most important systematiser of the Vi?i???dvaita school of Ved?nta. This article describes his use of Buddhist sources and shows how Ve?ka?an?tha reused Buddhist texts to a much more significant extent than his predecessors Y?muna and R?m?nuja. The reused text-passages come mostly from the epistemological school of Buddhist philosophy but there are important exceptions, attesting that Ve?ka?an?tha was also aware of Buddhist schools such as the Vaibh??ikas, of whom only littl…Read more
  •  9
    This paper aims to offer a preliminary explication of the role of and the relation between mental states, action, and blame in Medhātithi’s commentary on the most influential juridical text of the Sanskrit world – the jurisprudential text attributed to Manu. In defining what it means to act and what constitutes engaging in intentional and unintentional action, this paper makes three claims. First, enjoined actions (e.g., sacrifices) require particular mental states to be performed. Notwithstandi…Read more
  •  6
    This study focuses on the devices implemented in classical Indian texts on ritual and language in order to develop a structure of rules in an economic and systematic way. These devices presuppose a spatial approach to ritual and language, one which deals for instance with absences as substitutions within a pre-existing grid, and not as temporal disappearances. In this way, the study reveals a key feature of some among the most influential schools of Indian thought. The sources are Kalpasūtra, V…Read more
  •  4
    The book is an introduction to key concepts of Indian Philosophy, seen from the perspective of the influential school of Pr?bh?kara M?m??s? (flourished from the 7th until the 20th c. AD). It includes the edition and translation of R?m?nuj?c?rya's ??straprameyapariccheda.
  •  2
    Indian Philosophers
    In Timothy O'Connor & Constantine Sandis (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Action, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 419-428. 2010.
    This chapter contains sections titled: Action as Evidence for the Existence of a Self: Effort, Mental Acts, Motion, and Cause Action in the Context of Linguistic Use: Basic Acts, Effort, Production, Aim, and Reasons Moral Actions Concluding Remarks References Further reading.
  •  1
    Systematising an absent category: discourses on “nature‘ in Prābhākara Mīmād msā
    Supplemento Della Rivista di Studi Orientali 88 (2): 45--54. 2015.
  •  1
    Review of James Benson's translation and edition of Mahādeva Vedāntin's Mīmāṃsānyāyasaṅgraha (review)
    Wiener Zeitschrift für Die Kunde Südasiens 54 236--238. 2011.
  • Bhād td tamīmād msā and Nyāya on Veda and Tradition
    with Alessandro Graheli
    In Federico Squarcini (ed.), Boundaries, Dynamics and Construction of Traditions in South Asia, Firenze University Press and Munshiram Manoharlal. pp. 287-323. 2005.