History of Philosophy: India, Africana, China

Summer Reading

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.

HPI 23 - Source Code - Badarayana’s Vedanta-sutra

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

HPI 22 - Elisa Freschi on Mimamsa

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

HPI 21 - Innocent Until Proven Guilty - Mimamsa on Knowledge and Language

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

HPI 20 - Master of Ceremonies - Jaimini’s Mimamsa-Sutra

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

HPI 19 - When in Doubt - the Rise of Skepticism

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

HPI 18 - A Tangled Web - the Age of the Sutra

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

HPI 17 - Jessica Frazier on Hinduism and Philosophy

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

HPI 16 - Better Half - Women in Ancient India

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

HPI 15 - Mostly Harmless - Non-Violence

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