Self, No-Self, and Self-Consciousness: Some Classical Indian Views, A Webinar by Prof Stephen Phillips

The question of what accounts for personal identity through bodily, emotional, and mental change is one of many topics related to the positions taken on the nature of subjectivity and self-awareness in classical Indian thought. “Enlightenment” and yogic practice is another. This talk takes up Vedānta, Yogācāra Buddhism, Nyāya, Cārvāka, and other classical views, the debate between Naiyāyikas and Buddhists in particular.

Bio:

Stephen Phillips is professor emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin and has been visiting professor of philosophy at the University of Hawaii and Jadavpur University. Author of ten books, including Aurobindo’s Philosophy of Brahman (Brill 1984), Classical Indian Metaphysics, “Refutations” of Realism and the Emergence of “New Logic” (Open Court 1995 and Motilal Banarsidass 1998), and Yoga, Karma, and Rebirth: A Brief History and Philosophy (Columbia 2009), named by Choice an “Outstanding Academic Title,” he has more recently written Classical Indian Epistemology: The Knowledge Sources of the Nyāya School (Routledge 2012), which presents classical Indian views in terminology suited for philosophy professionals. With Matthew Dasti, he published The Nyāya-sūtra: Selections with Early Commentaries (Hackett 2017), and with Dasti and Nirmalya Guha, a short text, God and the World’s Arrangement: Vedānta and Nyāya Philosophy of Religion (Hackett 2021). Phillips teamed with N. S. Ramanuja Tatacharya to translate the perception chapter of the monumental fourteenth-century Tattva-cintā-maṇi, “(Wish-fulfilling), Jewel of Reflection on the Truth about Epistemology,” by Gaṅgeśa (American Institute of Buddhist Studies 2004 and Motilal Banarsidass 2008), in 750 pages. In three volumes, about 2000 pages, a translation of the entire text has now been published by Bloomsbury (2020) in a solo-authored set including much historical and philosophic exegesis. A synopsis is available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gangesa.

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