Nilanjan Das, Śrīharṣa on Two Paradoxes of Inquiry
Dear colleagues,
We are excited to announce our next Philosophy of Religions workshop. Prof. Nilanjan Das, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, will be joining us to present a chapter from his forthcoming monograph, The Instability of Reason: Śrīharṣa on the Foundations of Epistemology (Oxford University Press), on the 12th-century Indian philosopher Śrīharṣa. Prof. Das works in formal epistemology as well as Indian philosophy, and his work has appeared in Noûs, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, and Oxford Studies in Epistemology.
The talk will be held in Swift 207 at 4pm this Thursday, April 27th. The workshop will be a presentation and discussion of a chapter from Prof. Das’s book (attached!), and anyone interested is warmly invited to participate!
The Instability of Reason: Śrīharṣa on the Foundations of Epistemology (Under contract with Oxford University Press) For many Sanskrit philosophers, epistemology wasn’t a purely theoretical… www.dasnilanjan.com |
Journal Articles Vasubandhu on the First Person Forthcoming in Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement [ Penultimate Draft ] [Published Version] The Search for Definitions in Early… www.dasnilanjan.com |
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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), Audrey Guilbault (audreyrg@uchicago.edu), or John Marvin (johnmarvin@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.
Connie Kassor – Why Can’t Mādhyamikas Finish What They Started? An exploration of awakened awareness (ye shes)
Prof. Connie Kassor
Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Lawrence University
Why Can’t Mādhyamikas Finish What They Started?
An exploration of awakened awareness (ye shes)
The Philosophy of Religions Workshop is excited to host Prof. Connie Kassor of Lawrence University, who will be presenting on a portion of her upcoming book Accounting for Awakened Awareness: The Madhyamaka Philosophy of Gorampa Sonam Senge (linked below). Prof. Kassor summarizes the topic of the workshop as follows:
“What I’m exploring here is the nature of a fully awakened buddha’s awareness (ye shes, jñāna). According to Gorampa, a fully awakened being’s mind can be understood from two perspectives: From a Buddha’s own perspective (rang snang), conventional phenomena do not appear. But from the perspective of others (gzhan snang), it can be said that conventional appearances do exist for a Buddha. This is a strange and seemingly unsatisfying position that has puzzled me for some time.
I think that Gorampa arrives at this position for three reasons: first, he is thoroughly committed to a logically coherent and consistent system of thought; second, he is committed to reading Candrakīrti as literally as possible; and third, he finds the position on this matter put forth by his philosophical opponent Tsongkhapa unsatisfactory.
What I am puzzling over — and what I hope we can discuss together — is why Gorampa arrives at this position. Might there be some other, more satisfying way that someone like Gorampa can successfully refute Tsongkhapa while also remaining faithful to Candrakīrti and to Madhyamaka systems of logic and reasoning?
What follows is largely informed by the Synopsis of Madhyamaka (dbu ma’i spyi don), Gorampa’s longest and most detailed Madhyamaka text. This text describes Madhyamaka in terms of the basis (gzhi) that is to be understood, Madhyamaka in terms of the path (lam) that is to be practiced, and Madhyamaka in terms of the result (‘bras bu) that is to be realized. Gorampa’s investigations into the nature of an awakened being’s mind occur in the final Result section.”
This workshop will focus on a pre-circulated paper (contact the Workshop for the password if you plan to attend) and will be largely discussion-based. We hope to see you there!
TOMORROW, April 14th, 12:30 PM, Swift 201
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 incl usive workshop. Please contact Workshop Coordinators Danica Cao (ddcao@uchicago.edu), Audrey Guilbault (audreyrg@uchicago.edu), or John Marvin (johnmarvin@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.
Protected: Kassor Paper
Viren Murthy, Rethinking Resistance: Takeuchi Yoshimi and the Conundrums of Global Modernity
Viren Murthy
Professor of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison
The Japanese public intellectual Takeuchi Yoshimi (1910-1977) is particularly interesting to us today because through reading China, he constructs a critique of Eurocentrism that anticipates postcolonial discourse. However, he does so at a time when socialism continued to be a powerful ideal. For this reason, if we examine Takeuchi from our present historical conjuncture, we can grasp some of the tensions between postcolonialism and Marxism and, in particular, the tension between universalism and particularism. In this context, Takeuchi uses Lu Xun as a lens to understand political actors such as Sun Zhongshan and Mao Zedong. While most works on Takeuchi have touched on his reading of Lu Xun, they have rarely dealt with his attempt to understand Mao Zedong. Consequently, they have failed to grasp the relevance of Takeuchi’s work for Marxist theory both historically and theoretically.
During transition from wartime to postwar Japan, Takeuchi constantly returns to Lu Xun and Mao Zedong to develop a vision of Asia as an alternative to a modern world dominated by abstraction and alienation. Through Lu Xun and Mao, he rethinks the relationship between intellectuals and the people in way that he believes would be a new path for Asia. In short, he envisions the people as an amorphous force that cannot be quite subsumed under capitalism and the state. With respect to Marxism, Takeuchi’s work anticipates recent postcolonial attempts to question the Eurocentric nature of Marxism, while at the same time rethinking concepts such as the people and the working class. Takeuchi’s work might seem obsolete today with the passing of Mao’s China. However, since his death in 1977, scholars have built on elements of his legacy. Towards the end of my presentation, I will touch on how themes of Takeuchi’s work live on in the work of the Japanese sinologist Mizoguchi Yūzō and the Chinese critical intellectual Wang Hui.
Viren Murthy teaches transnational Asian History and researches Chinese and Japanese intellectual history in the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of The Political Philosophy of Zhang Taiyan: The Resistance of Consciousness (Brill, 2011) and The Politics of Time in China and Japan: Back to the Future, (Routledge, 2022). He is also co-editor with Joyce Liu of Marxisms in East Asia (Routledge, 2017), co-editor with Fabian Schäfer and Max Ward, of Confronting Capital and Empire: Rethinking Kyoto School Philosophy (Brill, 2017) co-editor with Axel Schneider of The Challenge of Linear Time: Nationhood and the Politics of History in East Asia (Brill, 2013), and co-editor with Prasenjit Duara and Andrew Sartori of A Companion to Global Historical Thought, (Blackwell, 2014). He has published articles in Modern Intellectual History, Modern China, the Journal of Labor and Society, Critical Historical Studies, Frontiers of History in China and Positions: Asia Critique and the International Journal of Asian Studies. and his book Pan-Asianism and the Legacy of the Chinese Revolution, will appear in University of Chicago Press, in 2023.
This workshop will focus on pre-circulated materials (attached below) and will be largely discussion-based. We hope to see you there!
NEXT THURSDAY, March 9th, 3:30 PM, Swift 201
Co-Hosted by the Philosophy of Religions Workshop and the Arts and Politics of East Asia 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), Audrey Guilbault (rguilbault@uchicago.edu), or John Marvin (johnmarvin@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.
Zhuangzi at Play
Prof. Pauline Lee
Associate Professor, Chinese Thought and Cultures
Saint Louis University
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), Audrey Guilbault (rguilbault@uchicago.edu), or John Marvin (johnmarvin@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.
Protected: Zhuangzi at Play (paper)
The Yijing (易经) and Cybernetics : From Leibniz’s Xiantian tu (先天图) to Wiener’s Bergsonism
Yeti Kang
PhD Student, Philosophy of Religions, UChicago Divinity School
Respondent: Elvin Meng
PhD Student, Comparative Literature and East Asian Languages and Civilizations, UChicago
The Yijing (易经) and Cybernetics : From Leibniz’s Xiantian tu (先天图) to Wiener’s Bergsonism
When Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz firstsent his paper on binary arithmetic to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris in 1701, the Academy advised him not to publish it until he had found “better samples” to demonstrate the usefulness of his binary system. What Leibniz eventually added into his paper was a detailed account of the connection between the Yijing (易经) tri/hexagram or gua (卦) system and his binary arithmetic, based on the Xiantian tu (先天图) he received from the Jesuit missionary Joachim Bouvet (白晋). Such connection, as Leibniz suggests, not only reflects the universal applicability and metaphysical importance of his binary system, but also indicates the possibility of using Chinese writing as a sample for universal characteristic. Modern scholars tend to think Leibniz’s use of the Yijing as a strategic move, which proves at best a formal analogy between binary arithmetic and the Yijing system, and at worst a “Chinese prejudice” or “European hallucination.” In contrast, this paper argues that Leibniz’s reading reveals some profound connections and differences between the two systems at both the metaphysical and cosmo-technological levels.
To demonstrate these connections and differences, this paper compares the application of the Yijing tri/hexagrams and binary arithmetic in their cosmo-technological systems, i.e., in the Yijing divination and cybernetics. Based on the reading of Norbert Wiener’s account of cybernetic automaton and the divination system of the Yijing explicated in the Xici zhuan (系辞传), this paper outlines a recursive cosmic system in the Yijing, which not only shares certain logical and arithmetic premises with cybernetic mechanism, but also unifies the recursive system with the idea of sheng sheng (生生). However, beneath the recursive structure shared by cybernetics and the Yijing lies a fundamental divergency in their views towards the mechanism-organism relationship. Such difference leads to two radically different answers to Henri Bergson’s question about mechanism and moral mysticism. Through the journey of comparisons, this paper tries to answer two central questions: How do the two systems with strong similarities at the formal and structural levels end up producing two very different cosmo-technological and socio-ethical practices? How would the encounter of these two cosmo-technologies in the modern West shed new light on the discussions of mechanism/computationalism and moral mysticism in our information age?
This workshop will focus on a pre-circulated paper and will be largely discussion-based. We hope to see you there!
February 14th, 12:30 PM, Swift 200
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), Audrey Guilbault (rguilbault@uchicago.edu), or John Marvin (johnmarvin@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.
Fulfilment of Fate as Zhuangzian Freedom
This workshop will be involve a presentation and discussion of Luyao‘s paper, the abstract of which is above. There will be no materials to read ahead, and anyone interested is invited to participate. We hope to see you there!
Tuesday, January 17th, 12:30 PM, Swift 200
Hosted by the Philosophy of Religions
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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), Audrey Guilbault (rguilbault@uchicago.edu), or John Marvin (johnmarvin@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.
Chapter 3 “Too Much Sad” from Untying Things Together: Philosophy, Literature, and a Life in Theory (2022)
Prof. Eric L. Santner
Philip and Ida Romberg Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Germanic Studies, University of Chicago
PhD Student, Philosophy of Religions, Divinity School
Chapter 3 “Too Much Sad” from Untying Things Together: Philosophy, Literature, and a Life in Theory (2022)
This workshop will focus on a pre-circulated book chapter (attached below) and will be largely discussion-based. We hope to see you there!
WEDNESDAY, December 7th, 12:00 PM, Swift 201
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), Audrey Guilbault (audreyrg@uchicago.edu), or John Marvin (johnmarvin@uchicago.edu) in order to make any arrangements necessary to facilitate your participation in workshop events.