Reflections on Reflectivity: Comments on Evan Thompson’s Waking, Dreaming, Being

EvanThompson has written a marvelous book. Waking, Dreaming, Being blends intellectual autobiography, phenomenology, cognitive science, studies in Buddhist and Vedānta philosophy, and creative metaphilosophy in an exploration of what it is to be a person, of the nature of consciousness, and of the relation of contemplative to scientific method in the understanding of human life. I have learned a great deal from it, and the community of philosophers and cognitive scientists will be reading and discussing it for some time. But I have come to criticize Thompson, not to praise him. Here I raise a few issues regarding Thompson’s treatment of the self and the connections between his own account and the Madhyamaka and Yogācāra accounts with which he juxtaposes it, and then turn to his treatment of consciousness and end up with some questions about his commitment to the reflexivity of awareness. But I emphasize that these sets of worries are specific and local, and should be seen in the context of genuine admiration for this fine volume and for its author

Thinking Beyond Thought: Tsongkhapa and Mipham on the Conceptualized Ultimate

Buddhist accounts of the ultimate truth, especially in the Mahāyāna tradition, emphasize the fact that it is beyond all conception and inexpressible, yet knowable. If the path to awakening is to make sense, the ultimate truth of which we have discursive knowledge prior to awakening must in some sense be the same as that to which we have access after awakening. This leads immediately to paradox, and this paradox leads to debates regarding the relationship between the categorized ultimate we know prior to awakening and the uncategorized ultimate we know after awakening. I explore some of these debates, defending the position of Tsongkhapa and the Geluk tradition

Remembering Daya Krishna and G. C. Pande: Two Giants of Post-Independence Indian Philosophy

Daya Krishna was the public face of Indian philosophy in the first half-century after Indian independence. Nobody on the Indian scene in that period came close to him in influence or in contribution to the profession. Nobody else in the world thought as hard or as fruitfully about the relation of Indian philosophy to that of the rest of the world, and nobody else dared to think as creatively and even as heretically about the history of Indian philosophy itself. This special issue of Philosophy East and West commemorates G. C. Pande and Daya Krishna as philosophers. But we would be remiss if we were not to acknowledge that Pande was also an elegant poet, both in Hindi and in Sanskrit. In this article, the authors have continue the dialogue that Krishna and G. C. Pande initiated between the argumentative and the spiritual, the skeptical-individualistic and the traditional-communitarian styles of thinking, self-critical and culture-sensitive on all the practical and theoretical problems that haunt human rationalities and relationships

Evidentiality, Questions and the Reflection Principle in Tibetan: What do Children Learn when they Learn About Evidentiality?

Evidentials fall in the borderland between traditional semantics and pragmatics. A situation semantics for evidentials helps to explain their puzzling developmental pathway in children. Drawing on our work in Tibetan, we argue that there is no necessity for a child to master Theory of Mind, that is, awareness of others\u27 mental states, in order to make or to understand assertions that carry evidential force. The meaning of evidentials does not make reference to states of knowledge of persons, but rather encodes relations between discourse, evidence and evaluation situations. On the other hand, when a Tibetan speaker asks a question, the form of the evidential used in the question must anticipate the kind of knowledge the interlocutor can access in reply. Full mastery of questions in Tibetan-speaking children does require attention to and representation of others\u27 states of knowledge and belief

Two Plus One Equals One: A Response to Brook Ziporyn

Brook Ziporyn argues that our dialetheism is too tame, at least with respect to Tiantai Buddhism. He argues first that from the standpoint of Tiantai no assertions are meant to be true at all, that all use of language is nothing but upāya. He then argues that in Tiantai not only some but all contradictions are true. He grounds both of these claims on the further claim that in Tiantai the relation between the two truths is identity. We reject all of these claims, arguing that the relation of round fusion between the two truths is not that of identity, that some claims, even in Tiantai, are meant to be truth-evaluable, and that even in Tiantai there are some claims that are simply false, that not all contradictions are true

Why practice philosophy as a way of life?

This essay explains why there are good reasons to practice philosophy as a way of life. The argument begins with the assumption that we should live well but that our understanding of how to live well can be mistaken. Philosophical reason and reflection can help correct these mistakes. Nonetheless, the evidence suggests that philosophical reasoning often fails to change our dispositions and behavior. Drawing on the work of Pierre Hadot, the essay claims that spiritual exercises and communal engagement mitigate the factors that prevent us from living in accord- ance with our conceptions of the good life. So, many of us have reasons to engage in philosophical reasoning along with behavioral, cognitive, and social strategies to alter our behavior and attitudes so that they’re in line with our philosophical commitments. In these respects, many of us should practice philosophy as a way of life