-
Essence and EmptinessIn Koji Tanaka, Yasuo Deguchi, Jay Garfield & Graham Priest (eds.), The Moon Points Back, Oxford University Press Usa. 2015.Madhyamaka Buddhism is famously centered on the doctrine of emptiness, often glossed as the view that there are no essences. This chapter addresses two interrelated questions about that doctrine. First, is the Madhyamaka doctrine of essencelessness more plausibly to be regarded as a necessary or a contingent truth? Second, is the doctrine of essencelessness in contradiction with the views of those prominent Mādhyamikas who also claim that essencelessness is the essence of all things? The chapter…Read more
-
From Africa to Zen: An Invitation to World PhilosophyRowman & 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
-
50Justice, 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
-
17Review of Classical Indian Philosophy of Mind: The Nyāya Dualist Tradition by Kisor Kumar Chakrabarti (review)Philosophy East and West 52 (1): 145-149. 2002.
-
25The unreality of wordsSynthese 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
-
14Hindu Ethics: A Philosophical StudyUniversity 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.
-
17Confrontations with the Reaper: a Philosophical Study of the Nature and Value of Death.The Metaphysics of DeathPhilosophical Quarterly 45 (179): 234-236. 1995.
-
14Compassion and Moral Guidance, by Steve Bein: Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2013, pp. xvii + 226, US$45.00Australasian Journal of Philosophy 92 (1): 211-212. 2014.No abstract
-
67Studies in Buddhist Philosophy by Mark SideritsPhilosophy 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
-
82Buddhist idealism and the problem of other mindsAsian 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.
-
11Instrumentalist Interpretations of Hindu Environmental EthicsSophia 57 (4): 661-668. 2018.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
-
324Personal identity, minimalism, and madhyamakaPhilosophy East and West 52 (3): 373-385. 2002.The publication of Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons in 1984 revived and reshaped the debate on personal identity in Western philosophy. Not only does Parfit argue forcefully and ingeniously for a revisionary Reductionist theory of persons and their diachronic identity, but he also draws radical normative inferences from such a theory. Along the way he also mentions Indian Buddhist parallels to his own Reductionist theory. Some of these parallels are explored here, while particular attention is…Read more
-
74Is 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
-
7Philosophical Finesse: Studies in the Art of Rational Persuasion (review)Philosophy and Literature 14 (1): 157-158. 1990.
-
15History, Time, and Knowledge in Ancient IndiaHistory 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
-
98Death and immortalityDistributors 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 ...
-
115Tolstoy, Death and the Meaning of LifePhilosophy 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