Anil Mundra (Divinity PhD Student in Philosophy of Religions) on Classical Indian Philosophy of Religions

Anil Mundra (Divinity PhD Student in Philosophy of Religions)

“Argument, Agreement, and Authority in Classical Indian Philosophy of Religions”

Tuesday, Jan 20, 4:30 PM, Swift 201

Abstract:

“Situations of religious diversity seem to raise special epistemological demands. How does one establish epistemic authority in the face of fundamental disagreement? In India, where religious diversity has been a fact of life for all of recorded history, interreligious debate and disagreement was formative of a number of interesting philosophical solutions to such problems. The Jains, best known for their ethics of non-violence, took the problem of disagreement so seriously as to ask: How can one be free of contradiction in the face of religious rivals, even as those rivals contradict each other? I will examine how a Jain locus classicus attempts to solve this problem through a dialectically synthetic epistemology that stands out in the Indian panorama, and remains provocative as well as potentially appealing to contemporary sensibilities.”