Seminar on Indian Philosophy (MT 2024)

Convened by Dr Jessica Frazier

This series of regular seminars brings together scholars and students working on Indic philosophies and religions. It focuses on topics of current research: in each session, two people will present a context they are investigating for 20min, and then open it for discussion on key questions. This term we will have a great list of speakers, all sharing ideas, puzzles, and questions from their work on Indian Philosophy for the group to discuss. All scholars, graduates and finalists in all areas are welcome to join.

Week 2 (Wednesday, 23 October) 4.30pm-6.00pm

Dr Marie Helene Gorisse (University of Birmingham): 'On how to distinguish curd and camels: The Jain-Buddhist dispute over the non-one-sidedness of things'
In this talk I will assess whether – with its doctrine of non-one-sidedness (anekāntavāda) – Jain philosophy of language really fails at denoting. This will be the occasion to examine what distinguishes it from Buddhist philosophy of language. I will notably focus on Akalaṅka and on the Buddhist criticism as featured in Śāntarakṣita.

Week 4 (Wednesday, 6 November) 4.30pm-6.00pm

Dr Zishan Khawaja (University of Manchester): 'Svabhāva, Pratītya Samutpāda and Nirvāṇa: Is Nāgārjuna Consistent?'

This talk thinks about whether there is a consistent philosophy in the work of Nagarjuna, focusing specifically on the apparent tension between a rejection of intrinsic nature, a commitment to dependent-origination, and the description of Nirvana as the cessation of conceptual proliferation

Week 6 (Wednesday, 20 November) 4.30pm-6.00pm

Prof Monima Chadha (University of Oxford): 'Vasubandhu’s account of Agency and Responsibility'

In Abhidharmakośabhāṣya IX, Vasubandhu denies the ultimate existence of persons and selves because they lack causal efficacy. Who, then, is the agent of (moral) action and the bearer of moral responsibility?

Dr Szilvia Szanyi (University of Oxford): 'Sthiramati on Rebirth and the Notion of the Self'
In his Tattva-saṅgraha (330), the Buddhist thinker Śāntarakṣita evaluates Vedānta views, and writes that he find these ideas rather reasonable, except that they make the “slight error” in asserting that consciousness is eternal. This session will examine this claim, to see whether the difference between Vedānta and Mādhyamaka thought really is only so slight.

Dr Jessica Frazier (University of Oxford): 'Radical Phenomenology in Indian Cultures: Devising a Symposium on the Stranger Structures of Mind'
Indian thought aims humans at some of the most extreme re-structurings of conscious known to history. Across different traditions, some have advised systematically destroying the structures of the ego, dissolving all reification, totally absorbing in a single object, or re-identifying as the whole of reality. This discussion asks what phenomenologies exist, and what they add to our understanding of the untapped potentialities of consciousness, with an eye to setting up a Symposium in Spring. All welcome to discuss and get involved!

Dr Karen O'Brian-Kop (King's College London): 'A shared argument between Patañjali, Vasubandhu and Asaṅga on causality and rebirth'

This talk examines cross-traditional dialogue in early South Asia between the Sāṃkhya-Yoga philosopher Patañjali and the Buddhist philosophers Vasubandhu and Asaṅga concerning how ethical causality, or karma, determines rebirth.