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The following article reviews a partial translation of the first chapter of two commentaries on Maitreyanātha’s Abhisamayālaṃkāra - the Abhisamayālaṃkāravṛtti by Ārya Vimuktisena, and the Abhisamayālakārālokā by Haribhadra. The publication of these two important commentaries in a single volume is useful in that it allows the reader to compare the similar views of the two commentators (known to Tibetans...
Buddhist maṇḍala that are made of colored sand or are painted on cloth have been well represented in Asian art circles in the West. Discussions of the role that they can play in stimulating religious contemplation or even as sacred icons charged with power have also appeared in English scholarship. The metaphorical meaning of the term maṇḍala, however, is less commonly referenced. This paper discusses...
In this essay I first articulate what I take to be an influential and for the most part persuasive model in the western psychoanalytic tradition that is a response to tragic loss, namely, the one that we find in Freud’s little essay entitled ‘Mourning and Melancholia’ (1917). I then use a well-known Buddhist folk tale about the plight of a young woman named Kisagotami to underscore central elements...
Zen Buddhism and Environmental Ethics, by Simon P. James, is a worthwhile contribution to the growing literature on Buddhism and ecology and should be useful to all those concerned with the intellectual histories underpinning the current environmental crisis.
Some influential interpreters of Dharmakīrti have suggested understanding his thought in terms of a ‘sliding scale of analysis.’ Here it is argued that this emphasis on Dharmakīrti's alternating philosophical perspectives, though helpful in important respects, obscures the close connection between the two views in play (identified by later commentators as ‘Sautrāntika’ and ‘Yogācāra’). Indeed, with...
Paleo-compatibilism is the view that the freedom required for moral responsibility is not incompatible with determinism about the factors relevant to moral assessment, since the claim that we are free and the claim that the psychophysical elements are causally determined are true in distinct and incommensurable ways. This is to be accounted for by appealing to the distinction between conventional...
Siderits’ book is a welcome contribution to the ongoing dialogue between Buddhism and Western analytic philosophy. It covers the three main areas of philosophical enquiry—metaphysics, ethics and epistemology. Although conceptually quite challenging in places, the information is always presented in a pedagogic, evolutionary and highly readable manner. There are occasional problems with Siderits’ approach...
Under the general tutelage of Kant, Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) introduced American pragmatism to yet another philosophical dialectic: between a neglected transcendental instinct and earthly authorities. The dialectic became Peirce’s response to various evolutionary schemes in the 19th century. Guided by the recollected voices of Socrates, Jesus, St. John, Anselm, and Kant, as well as his own...
In this essay, I respond to Nick Trakakis’ “A Third (Meta-)Critique.” This critique is directed against my argument concerning the inadequacy of the traditional theistic argument from free will. I contend that the argument from free will does not adequately explain the distribution of moral evil in the world. I maintain that the third critique, like Trakakis’ earlier critiques, is unconvincing. I...
In ‘The Presuppositions of Religious Pluralism and the Need for Natural Theology’ I argue that there are four important presuppositions behind John Hick’s form of religious pluralism that successfully support it against what I call fideistic exclusivism. These are i) the ought/can principle, ii) the universality of religious experience, iii) the universality of redemptive change, and iv) a view of...
The essay is a review discussion of Indian Ethics in the context of a recent volume of essays. The attempt is to identify some of the issues that are now on the frontier of Indian ethics or that are likely to appear on that frontier in the coming years.
In this paper I discuss a number of problems associated with the suggestion that it is possible for God to randomly select a possible world for actualization.
It is difficult to reconcile claims about the Father's role as the progenitor of Trinitarian Persons with commitment to the equality of the persons, a problem that is especially acute for Social Trinitarians. I propose a metatheological account of the doctrine of the Trinity that facilitates the reconciliation of these two claims. On the proposed account, ‘Father’ is systematically ambiguous. Within...
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