University of Otago
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 1987
Acton, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
  • From Africa to Zen: An Invitation to World Philosophy
    with Roger T. Ames, J. Baird Callicott, David L. Hall, Peter D. Hershock, Oliver Leaman, Janet McCracken, Robert A. McDermott, Eric Ormsby, Thomas W. Overholt, Graham Parkes, Stephen H. Phillips, Homayoon Sepasi-Tehrani, and Jacqueline Trimier
    Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2003.
    In the second edition of this groundbreaking text in non-Western philosophy, sixteen experts introduce some of the great philosophical traditions in the world. The essays unveil exciting, sophisticated philosophical traditions that are too often neglected in the western world. The contributors include the leading scholars in their fields, but they write for students coming to these concepts for the first time. Building on revisions and updates to the original, this new edition also considers thr…Read more
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    Justice, Ethics, and New Zealand Society (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 1992.
    What is sovereignty? Was it ceded to the Crown in the Treaty of Waitangi? If land was unjustly confiscated over a century ago, should it be returned? Is an ecosystem valuable in itself, or only because of its value to people? Does a property right entail a right to destroy? Can collectives (such as tribes) bear moral responsibility? Do they have moral rights? If so, what are the implications for the justice system? These questions are essentially philosophical, yet all thoughtful New Zealanders …Read more
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    Preferring more pain to less
    Philosophical Studies 93 (2): 213-226. 1999.
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    The unreality of words
    Synthese 201 (1): 1-18. 2023.
    Philosophers of language and linguists need to be wary of generalizing from too small a sample of natural languages. They also need to be wary of neglecting possible insights from philosophical traditions that have focused on natural languages other than the most familiar Western ones. Take, for example, classical Indian philosophy, where philosophical concerns with language were very much involved with the early development of Sanskrit linguistics. Indian philosophers and linguists frequently d…Read more
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    Hindu Ethics: A Philosophical Study
    University of Hawaii Press. 1998.
    "This philosophical study offers a representation of the logical structure of classical Hindu ethics and argues for the availability of at least the core of this ethical system to Westerners."--Page [4] Cover.
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    Studies in Buddhist Philosophy by Mark Siderits
    Philosophy East and West 68 (1): 1-5. 2017.
    Over the last few decades Mark Siderits has established himself as a leading philosophical interpreter of Indian Buddhist philosophy. He has published widely in this field, but three of his books are particularly well known: his Personal Identity and Buddhist Philosophy, a self-styled "essay in fusion philosophy"; his introductory textbook Buddhism as Philosophy ; and–with Shōryū Katsura–his translation and commentary, Nāgārjuna's Middle Way: Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Taken together, these three boo…Read more
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    Valuing Lives
    Bioethics 6 (3): 185-200. 2007.
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    Buddhist idealism and the problem of other minds
    Asian Philosophy 27 (1): 59-68. 2017.
    This essay is concerned with Indian Yogācāra philosophers’ treatment of the problem of other minds in the face of a threatened collapse into solipsism suggested by Vasubandhu’s epistemological argument for idealism. I discuss the attempts of Dharmakīrti and Ratnakīrti to address this issue, concluding that Dharmakīrti is best seen as addressing the epistemological problem of other minds and Ratnakīrti as addressing the conceptual problem of other minds.
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    Many environmental ethicists believe that any adequate environmental ethic should attribute ‘direct moral standing’ to plants, animals, and the rest of nature. But certain interpretations of Hindu environmental ethics apparently attribute only instrumental value to nature. This places them in direct conflict with the purported adequacy condition on an environmental ethic. So, is such a Hindu ethical view really inadequate? In his recent book Hinduism and Environmental Ethics, Christopher Framari…Read more
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    Buddhism and Abortion
    Journal of Medical Ethics 25 (5): 424-425. 1999.
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    Is whatever exists knowable and nameable?
    Philosophy East and West 49 (4): 401-414. 1999.
    Naiyāyikas are fond of a slogan, which often appears as a kind of motto in their texts: "Whatever exists is knowable and nameable." What does this mean? Is it true? The first part of this essay offers a brief explication of this important Nyāya thesis; the second part argues that, given certain plausible assumptions, the thesis is demonstrably false
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    Theory of Value: Indian Philosophy (edited book)
    Routledge. 2000.
    Empire's Children looks at works at by Rudyard Kipling, Frances Hodgson Burnett, E. Nesbit, Hugh Lofting, A.A. Milne, and Arthur Ransome for the ways these writers consciously and unconsciously used the metaphors of empire in their writing for children.
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    History, Time, and Knowledge in Ancient India
    History and Theory 38 (3): 307-321. 1999.
    The lack of interest in history in ancient India has often been noted and contrasted with the situation in China and the West. Notwithstanding the vast body of Indian literature in other fields, there is a remarkable dearth of historical writing in the period before the Muslim conquest and an associated indifference to historiography. Various explanations have been offered for this curious phenomenon, some of which appeal to the supposed currency of certain Indian philosophical theories. This es…Read more
  •  49
    Symbols, icons and stupas
    British Journal of Aesthetics 36 (4): 432-438. 1996.
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    Death and immortality
    Distributors for the U.S. and Canada, Kluwer Academic Publishers. 1987.
    INTRODUCTION In The World as Will and Representation Schopenhauer writes: Death is the real inspiring genius or Musagetes of philosophy, and for this reason ...
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    Rebirth
    Religious Studies 23 (1). 1987.
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    A note on the navya-nyāya account of number
    Journal of Indian Philosophy 13 (3): 227-234. 1985.
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    Tolstoy, Death and the Meaning of Life
    Philosophy 60 (232): 231-245. 1985.
    Questions about the meaning of life have traditionally been regarded as being of particular concern to philosophers. It is sometimes complained that contemporary analytic philosophy fails to address such questions, but there do exist illuminating recent discussions of these questions by analytic philosophers.1Perhaps what lurks behind the complaint is a feeling that these discussions are insufficiently close to actual living situations and hence often seem rather thin and bland compared with the…Read more
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  • Indian Philosophy of Religion
    International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 34 (1): 62-64. 1993.
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    Taking life and the argument from potentiality
    Midwest Studies in Philosophy 24 (1). 2000.
  • Epistemology: Indian Philosophy (edited book)
    Routledge. 2001.
    First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company
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    Regarding Immortality: ROY W. PERRETT
    Religious Studies 22 (2): 219-233. 1986.
    Would personal immortality have any value for one so endowed? An affirmative answer would seem so obvious to some that they might be tempted to go so far as to claim that immortality is a condition of life's having any value at all. The claim that immortality is a necessary condition for the meaningfulness of life seems untenable. What, however, of the claim that immortality is a sufficient condition for the meaningfulness of life? Though some might hold this to be the characteristic religious v…Read more