Author Archives: tarynsue

Jed Forman, “Omniphenomenology: What Buddhist Theories of Omniscience Teach Us about Experience”

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Jed Forman

Assistant Professor in Buddhist Studies, Simpson College

Omniphenomenology: What Buddhist Theories of Omniscience Teach Us about Experience

Tuesday, February 18th, 5:00 PM, Swift 207
 
The workshop will consist of a presentation, followed by discussion and Q&A. We will focus on a pre-circulated book chapter, which can be accessed here (password: “omniphenomenology”).
 
Abstract

Husserl’s method of epoché involves a suspension of subject-object dichotomies. This, he argues, addresses a “crisis of European sciences,” recovering our pre-theoretical, direct encounter with the world as a starting point for scientific inquiry. Nevertheless, Husserl’s methodology emphasizes the subjective pole. Indeed, it constitutes a type of idealism. This prioritization of the first-person, I argue, has been a mainstay of phenomenology ever since.

This presentation recruits Buddhist theories of omniscience as an intervention. I explore how Buddhist thinkers from the epistemological (pramāṇa) tradition—including Dharmakīrti, Prajñākaragupta, and Śāntarakṣita—understand omniscience as a return to our most natural, pre-theoretical state, where division between mind and world are elided. Their arguments thus provide a more thorough suspension of subject-object dichotomies, providing useful fodder for contemporary phenomenology. Borrowing from Linda Zagzebski’s notion of omnisubjectivity, I dub this intervention “omniphenomenology.”

Hosted by the Philosophy of Religions Workshop at the University of Chicago.

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The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to being a fully accessible and inclusive workshop. Please contact Workshop Coordinators Taryn Sue (tarynsue@uchicago.edu) or Yeti Kang (hkang01@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.

Alla Alaghbri: Waḥdat al-Wujūd in Epistemological light: Rationalism, Mysticism, the Problem of the Stage Beyond Reason in Al-Bukhārī’s Faḍīḥat al-mulḥidīn.

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Alla Allagbhri

PhD Student, Divinity School

Waḥdat al-Wujūd in Epistemological light: Rationalism, Mysticism, the Problem of the Stage Beyond Reason in Al-Bukhārī’s Faḍīḥat al-mulḥidīn. 

TUESDAY, February 4th, 5 PM, Swift 207

The workshop will consist of a presentation followed by discussion and Q&A. The paper to be read in advance can be accessed here (password: “being”). We hope to see you there!

Abstract:

The problem of Being (Wujūd) particularly God’s Being and its relationship with the existence of everything other Him has a central place in Islamic philosophical theology. The problem generated a range of rich discussions concerning issues of ontology and metaphysics more generally. What is interesting is that the problem of Being was also a sight in which problems of epistemology were investigated. This was especially the case between mystics of a philosophical bent (otherwise called philosophical Sufis) and rational theologians. In this paper, I investigate some of these epistemological problems through an analysis of a treatise written by the rational theologian, ʿAlāʾ Al-Dīn Al-Bukhāri (d.1438). My focus will be on the philosophical Sufi’s idea of a stage beyond reason, that is, an epistemological terrain in which the basic propositions of reason, such as the law of non-contradiction, are witheld in light of direct mystical experience. I will explore the idea’s conceptual history and al-Bukhārī’s deep suspicion of it. Along the way, I will draw some conclusions about the epistemic commitments of rational theology and the sources of the philosophical Sufi’s dissatisfaction with it. Hosted by the Philosophy of Religions Workshop at the University of Chicago.

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The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to being a fully accessible and inclusive workshop. Please contact Workshop Coordinators Taryn Sue (tarynsue@uchicago.edu) and Yeti Kang (hkang01@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.

Seth Auster-Rosen: Doth He Refute Well or ‘Protest Too Much’?: Mikyö Dorje’s Critique of Dolpopa’s Zhentong-Madhyamaka Philosophy

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[PR WS] NEXT TUESDAY: Seth Auster-Rosen at the Philosophy of Religions Workshop
Seth Auster-Rosen
 
PhD Candidate, University of Chicago Divinity School
Doth He Refute Well or ‘Protest Too Much’?: Mikyö Dorje’s Critique of Dolpopa’s Zhentong-Madhyamaka Philosophy
TUESDAY, November 12, 5:00 PM, Swift 207
 
The workshop will consist of a short presentation, followed by discussion and Q&A. We will focus on a pre-circulated paper,  which will be circulated this Friday, November 8.
In his Praise to Dependent Arising, Karmapa Mikyö Dorje (1507-1544), eighth reincarnate hierarch of the powerful Karma Kagyü order of Tibetan Buddhism, critiques the philosophy of Künkhyen Dolpopa (1292-1361), luminary of the rival Jonang order. Dolpopa’s Madhyamaka philosophical view (often referred to as Zhentong-Madhyamaka) is that the ‘kingdom’ of ultimate reality is totally separate from and opposite to the world of conventional appearances. Duckworth (2015), noting the resonance between Dolpopa’s position and the metaphysical dualism of thinkers like Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Leibniz, refers to it as a “Buddhist theo-logic.” But is that really right, or are critics like Mikyö Dorje–and Duckworth along with them–missing something fundamental to Dolpopa’s position? In my paper, an article-length distillation of the first part of my dissertation, I first sketch out the key points of Dolpopa’s view and then delve into Mikyö Dorje’s arguments against it in the Praise. Finally, I return to Dolpopa’s writing to highlight a crucial omission in Mikyö Dorje’s critique, and draw conclusions as to why so many critics like Mikyö Dorje mishandle Dolpopa’s philosophy in the way they do.

Hosted by the Philosophy of Religions Workshop at the University of Chicago.

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The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to being a fully accessible and inclusive workshop. Please contact Workshop Coordinators Taryn Sue (tarynsue@uchicago.edu) or Yeti Kang (hkang01@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.

Taryn Sue, Towards a Madhyamaka blo rigs

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Taryn Sue

PhD Student, Divinity School, UChicago

Towards a Madhyamaka blo rigs: Tsongkhapa’s Madhyamaka Epistemology

TUESDAY, October 22, 5:00 PM, Swift 207
 
The workshop will consist of a short presentation, followed by discussion and Q&A. We will focus on a pre-circulated paper,  which can be accessed here (password: “lorig”).
In this paper, I trace Tsongkhapa’s integration of the pramāṇas into Madhyamaka philosophy. I examine how he justifies this project despite purported evidence in Candrakīrti’s writings (among certain Tibetan thinkers) that deny the validity of the pramāṇas in cognizing conventional phenomena. I show that Tsongkhapa recuperates pramāṇavādin epistemology by qualifying Candrakīrti’s statements to pertain only to the ultimate and not to phenomena in general, in this way accounting not only for a way to realize emptiness as an ordinary being, but also for a means to know the conventional. I further examine in brief a text that takes this union of Madhyamaka and epistemology to an extreme, framing itself explicitly as a Madhyamaka blo rigs—that is, a study of Madhyamaka using an overtly pramāṇavādin epistemelogical framework. My aim is to explore the intellectual antecedents in Tsongkhapa’s philosophy that legitimate projects such as these in modern Gelug philosophy.

Hosted by the Philosophy of Religions Workshop at the University of Chicago.

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The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to being a fully accessible and inclusive workshop. Please contact Workshop Coordinators or Taryn Sue (tarynsue@uchicago.edu) or Yeti Kang (hkang01@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.

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Professor David K. Tomlinson
Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy
Villanova University

      ”The Persistence of Habit: Notes on Some Tantric Engagements with Dharmakīrti “

TUESDAY, March 26th, 5PM, Swift 207
 
The workshop will consist of a presentation followed by discussion and Q&A. Although Professor Tomlinson will read his paper and does not require that participants read it prior to the session, he has kindly made it available here (please email us for password).

Abstract:

Dharmakīrti’s view of yogic perception (yogipratyakṣa) and imaginative cultivation (bhāvanā) has generated a good deal of discussion—in Dharmakīrti’s text-tradition, in the works of its various critics, and in the contemporary study of Buddhist philosophy. It is discussed not infrequently in Buddhist tantric works, too. However, tantric authors’ appeals to yogic perception are at odds with Dharmakīrti’s intentions in important ways. In this paper, I show why this appropriation of Dharmakīrti on yogic perception might be surprising, and then I reveal a tantalizing thread of Dharmakīrtian thinking about imaginative cultivation that nevertheless runs through certain Sanskrit Buddhist tantric debates. What is most crucial about Dharmakīrti for these authors, I argue, is his reasoned defense of cultivation’s power: its capacity to fundamentally and irreversibly transform the practitioner’s cognitive, conative, and experiential habits. I develop this point with reference especially to *Śāntarakṣita’s tantric monograph, the Tattvasiddhi.

Hosted by the Philosophy of Religions Workshop at the University of Chicago.

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The Workshop on the Philosophy of Religions is committed to being a fully accessible and inclusive workshop. Please contact Workshop Coordinators Danica Cao (ddcao@uchicago.edu) or Taryn Sue (tarynsue@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.