History of Philosophy: India, Africana, China

Philosophy is put into practice in Kashmir Śaivite Tantra and Buddhist Tantra.

Buddhaghosa, a major figure in the history of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, argues against the need for a self to control and coordinate mental activities.

Dignāga argues that all perception is accompanied by self-awareness.

Graham Priest joins Peter to discuss non-classical logic and its connections with Buddhist patterns of reasoning.

Dignāga’s trairūpya theory, which sets out the three conditions required for making reliable inferences.

The great Buddhist thinker Dignāga argues that general concepts and language are mere constructions superimposed on perception.

Vasubandhu’s path to Yogācāra Buddhism, a form of idealism which holds that nothing can be mind-independent.

We're joined by Marie-Hélène Gorisse for a look at the Jain theory of knowledge.

Does the Jain theory of seven predications (saptabhaṇgī) land them in self-contradiction, or help them to avoid it?

The Jain theory of standpoints or non-onesidedness (anekāntavāda) makes truth a matter of perspective.

A discussion with Jan Westerhoff, an expert on the great Buddhist thinker Nāgārjuna.

Nāgārjuna’s four-fold argument scheme, the tetralemma (catuṣkoṭi).

Nāgārjuna applies his emptiness theory to motion, change, and cognition.

Nāgārjuna founds the Madhyāmaka (“middle way”) Buddhist tradition by “relinquishing all views” and arguing that everything is “empty.”

An introduction to philosophical developments in Buddhism and Jainism up to the time of Dignāga in the sixth century AD.

Bharata’s Nāṭya-Śāstra and later works from Kashmir explore the idea of rasa, an emotional response to drama, music, and poetry.

Monima Chadha takes Peter through Buddhist-Hindu debates over mind and self.

Pāyasi and the Cārvāka anticipate modern-day theories of mind by arguing that there is no independent soul; rather thought emerges from the body.

The Cārvāka or Lokāyata tradition rejects the efficacy of ritual and belief in the afterlife, and restricts knowledge to the realm of sense-perception.

Ancient Indian cosmology and the Vaiśeṣika defense of the reality of time and space.

The Vaiśeṣika response to Buddhist skepticism about wholes made up of parts.

The Vaiśeṣika school offers a metaphysical analysis of the world and an atomistic physics.

Prof Jha and Prof Jha discuss the theories and later influence of the Nyāya school.

Nyāya proposes that each of us has both a self and a mind, in addition to the body.

Gautama and his commentators tell us how to separate good inferences from bad ones.

Nyāya philosophers explain how perception can bring us knowledge.

The Nyāya-Sūtra inaugurates a tradition of logical and epistemological analysis.

A leading expert on the founding text of Yoga tells us why, when, and by whom it was written.

Yoga as presented by Patañjali offers a practical complement to the Sāṃkhya theory of the cosmos and the self.

Philosophical aspects of Ayurveda, focusing on the oldest surviving medical treatise, the Caraka-Samhita.

The oldest treatise of Sāṃkhya enumerates the principles of the cosmos and of the human mind.

Francis Clooney joins us to discuss the religious and philosophical aspects of Vedānta.

The grammarian Bhartṛhari argues that the study of language is the path to liberation, because the undivided reality underlying language is brahman.

Śaṅkara and his “non-dual” (Advaita) Vedānta, which teaches that only brahman is real, and the world of experience and individual self are mere illusion.

How to fill the month of August while the podcast is on summer break. Buy the book versions of the podcast at Oxford University Press.

The founding text of the Vedānta school, the Vedānta- or Brahma-Sūtra, interprets the Upaniṣads as teaching that all things derive from brahman.

Mīmāṃsā expert Elisa Freschi speaks to Peter about philosophical issues arising from the interpretation of the Veda.

The Mīmāṃsā school put their faith in sense experience, and argue that the Veda, and hence language itself, had no beginning.

In the Mīmāṃsā school’s founding text, Jaimini systematizes Vedic ritual and explores its theoretical basis.

Skeptical tendences in Indian thought and responses to skepticism from the Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta schools.

Rival philosophical schools proliferate and subdivide in our second major historical period, the “age of the sūtra.”

An interview with Jessica Frazier about philosophical ideas and arguments in the Vedas, Upanisads and later Hindu texts.

Women philosophers and ideas about women in Buddhism, the Upanisads, and the Mahabharata.

Vegetarianism and non-violence (ahimsa) in ancient Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

The Bhagavad-Gītā or “Song of the Lord” from the Mahābhārata ties its theory of detached action to an innovative conception of the divine.

The great Hindu epic Mahābhārata explores moral dilemmas and the permissibilty of lying, against the background of the ethical concept of dharma.

Peter speaks to Rupert Gethin about the no-self theory, and its implications for Buddhist ethics and meditation practices.

Two figures from the Mauryan dynasty, Kautilya and the king Ashoka, set out contrasting ideas about the ideal political rule.

The Buddha offers two parables to explain the purpose of his philosophical teaching.

The Four Noble Truths of the Buddha, and the function they are supposed to play in our lives.