History of Philosophy: India, Africana, China

HPI 43 - We Beg to Differ - the Buddhists and Jains

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

HPI 42 - In Good Taste - The Aesthetics of Rasa

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

HPI 41 - Monima Chadha on Indian Philosophy of Mind

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

HPI 40 - Mind out of Matter - Materialist Theories of the 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.

HPI 39 - The Wolf’s Footprint - Indian Naturalism

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

HPI 38 - A Day in the Life - Theories of Time

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

HPI 37 - The Whole Story - Vaisesika on Complexity and Causation

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

HPI 36 - Fine Grained Analysis - Kanada's Vaisesika-Sutra

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

HPI 35 - Ujjwala Jha and V.N. Jha on Nyaya

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

HPI 34 - The Truth Shall Set You Free - Nyaya on the Mind

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