Stephen H. Phillips

Perceiving Particulars Blindly: Remarks on a Nyaya-Buddhist Controversy

10 – The preferred Yogācāra-Sautrāntika formulation of this assumption would replace the term ‘‘individuals’’ with ‘‘ephemeral particulars.’’ I think Siderits himself would prefer to use the term ‘‘individuals’’ given his hesitant agreement with my positive thesis. He writes that ‘‘there is something odd about the notion of perceiving a pure particular as such. There may well be good reasons for dismissing this as just one more version of ‘the myth of the given’.’’

Could There Be Mystical Evidence for a Nondual Brahman? A Causal Objection

This article has three sections: an introduction, a stretch of textual interpretation, and a final evaluative argument. The upshot of the middle section is that the eighthcentury Advaitin Sahikara in his commentary on the first four satras of the Brahmasatra (the catuhbstrT) intimates a mystic/sensory parallelism thesis. Brahman as a preexistent reality not dependent on human cognition (or activity) gives rise to mystical knowledge (brahma-vidyj) in a fashion parallel to the way that objects of sensory experience give rise to sensory information. The upshot of the final section is a certain worry about this parallelism thesis, namely that Saiakaras metaphysics of Brahman precludes the sort of causal story that a true mystic parallelism would entail. I shall also explore resources within the Advaita view for answering such a causal objection and comment on the overall viability of a mystical argument for Brahman.

Engagement with Sanskrit Philosophic Texts

This chapter has two parts, first a pedagogical complaint that will serve to introduce part two which concerns indological and philosophical hermeneutics. The first part is focused on a particular problem with English translations that do not acknowledge how the Sanskrit texts have been understood by Sanskrit commentators and others in the classical culture. The second part presents a general characterization of the methods of indology and of philosophy, and shows how in one sense, not appreciated by some within indology, philosophic engagement trumps context and placement of a work within a stream of intellectual history.

Nonharmfulness (ahimsā) in Classical Indian Thought

“Nonharmfulness,” ahiṃsā in Sanskrit, was a pillar of ethical and social theory in the civilization of South Asia during its classical period. Classical India was Hindu, Jaina, and Buddhist in religion and similarly pluralist in philosophy, producing distinct genre of literature where nonharmfulness is a central concept. As a principle of constraint, variously interpreted, or as a virtue, it is related to a cluster of ideas and practices that can be traced through Sanskrit literature. Various explanations as well as arguments for ahiṃsā continue to have influence today through the globalization of philosophy.

The challenge of religious pluralism : A reply to James Kraft

Religious pluralis does have, as James Kraft says, a negative impact on the epistemic confidence with which one holds a religious position, when epistemology is thought on both the externalist and internalist lines. I also conclude both that there is a resulting epistemic humility and that a tolerance of religious diversity results from it, but I reach these conclusions for entirely different reasons. Epistemic humility and religious tolerance are fostered by the realization that many religions are striving for the infinite, though all have limited views of it.