Статтю присвячено огляду можливих перспектив розвитку діалогу буддизму з наукою в напрямку міжкультурних філософських дискусій у разі залучення вчення тибето-буддійської традиції Калачакра, яке «балансує» між релігійно-філософською та науковою думкою. Заради цього розглянуто зв’язок вчення Калачакра з класичними буддійськими науками, зокрема традиційною астрономією (астрологією) та медициною (алхімією). Особливу увагу приділено метафізичній системі Калачакра, яка пропонує власну модель феноменального світу і дає можливість намітити певні зв’язки між різними рівнями свідомості, та потенціалу філософських підходів до аналізу цієї моделі. Як висновки сформульовано окремі попередні (...) зауваження щодо кардинальної парадигмальної відмінності прикладних буддійських наук (астрономії, медицини) від сучасних західних наукових світоглядних позицій, що варто враховувати, якщо є наміри ставити в межах діалогу «буддизм – наука» культурно-філософські питання. (У статті використано матеріали до сходознавчого семінару, проведеного автором в Інституті філософії ім. Г. С. Сковороди НАН України 26 березня 2019 р.) -/- . (shrink)

Jnanasrimitra (975-1025) was regarded by both Buddhists and non-Buddhists as the most important Indian philosopher of his generation. His theory of exclusion combined a philosophy of language with a theory of conceptual content to explore the nature of words and thought. Jnanasrimitra's theory informed much of the work accomplished at Vikramasila, a monastic and educational complex instrumental to the growth of Buddhism. His ideas were also passionately debated among successive Hindu and Jain philosophers. This volume marks the first English translation (...) of Jnanasrimitra's Monograph on Exclusion, a careful, critical investigation into language, perception, and conceptual awareness. Featuring the rival arguments of Buddhist and Hindu intellectuals, among other thinkers, the Monograph reflects more than half a millennium of competing claims while providing an invaluable introduction to a crucial philosopher. Lawrence J. McCrea and Parimal G. Patil familiarize the reader with the author, themes, and topics of the text and situate Jnanasrimitra's findings within his larger intellectual milieu. Their clear, accessible, and accurate translation proves the influence of Jnanasrimitra on the foundations of Buddhist and Indian philosophy. (shrink)

"'Buddhist Ethics' presents an outline of Buddhist ethical thought. It is not a defense of Buddhist approaches to ethics as opposed to any other, nor is it a critique of the Western tradition. Garfield presents a broad overview of a range of Buddhist approaches to the question of moral philosophy. He argues that while there are important points of contact with these Western frameworks, Buddhist ethics is distinctive, and is a kind of moral phenomenology that is concerned with the ways (...) in which we experience ourselves as agents and others as moral fellows"--. (shrink)

Modern dialogue between Western science and Buddhism raises an enormous range of cognitive issues that require interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research. The idea of methodological pluralism arises here as an ef fective solution for such projects. Having immersed itself in the study of the background of its opponent, Western science touched the fairly old and specific way of reality cognition, which in certain aspects actually can be identified as a Tibetan-Buddhist version of the MP. In an interview with the professor from (...) the United States, who for many decades has been engaged in research on the boundaries of various science disciplines, ethics, and religious studies, we tried to clarify the specifics of this so-called version of MP, which is set out in the Buddhist doctrine of time, Kālacakra. Texts of this doctrine are included in the corpus of Buddhist canonical literature and form the basis for two classical Buddhist sciences: the science of stars ; and the science of healing. During the interview, we went directly to the possibility of using the Buddhist version of MP at least within the dialogue “Bud dhism- Science”, to the need to understand the specifics of such an implementation, and to the mandatory combination of MP with an integrated approach. The interview was intended to raise the question that deals with transgressing the abovementioned dialogue from the “consumer” level to the philosophical one, in order to formulate a criterion for recognizing a different way of thinking, and finally, to move on toward the semantic discussion, without which the integration phase of any kind of MP is impossible. (shrink)

Review of Adamson, P., & Ganeri, J.. Classical Indian Philosophy: a History of Philosophy Without any Gaps. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Volume 5.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Buddhism and Deconstruction: Toward a Comparative SemioticsYouru WangBuddhism and Deconstruction: Toward a Comparative Semiotics. By Youxuan Wang. London: Curzon Press, 2001. Pp. xiv + 242. Hardcover $65.00.Youxuan Wang's Buddhism and Deconstruction: Toward a Comparative Semiotics is a full-length study comparing Derridean and Buddhist discourse, especially their deconstruction of the notion of sign. Since Robert Magliola's 1984 publication Derrida on the Mend, which involved his pioneering comparison of Derrida (...) and Nāgārjuna, many articles or book chapters have contributed to the growing body of comparative studies on Derridean and various (Indian, Chinese, or Japanese) Buddhist thought. However, a more systematic study of Buddhist deconstruction had not been achieved until the publication of Wang's book. In my view, as long as the investigation of deconstructive strategies in important Buddhist texts has not been completed, the comparison of Derridean and Buddhist deconstruction will never be sufficient. Wang's book provides substantial development of this topic. The understanding of sign and the conception of the Same are the major threads running [End Page 486] through his detailed investigation of Derridean texts and the Chinese texts of Mādhyamika and Yogācāra Buddhism.Wang denies that the objects of his study are "representatives of Buddhist philosophy" but rather believes they are "specimens of Buddhist literary production" (p. 11). This attitude enables him to be open to different Buddhist texts, to discover different strategies and styles, without being fettered by the problem of the self-identity of each text and its authorship. Consequently, the author's selection of a particular set of Buddhist texts has proven distinctive and philosophically significant. The texts he investigates are written neither by famous Indian Mādhyamika philosophers such as Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti nor by great indigenous Chinese thinkers such as Sengzhao, Jizang, and the Chan Buddhists. Such texts, with their greater names, are popular among contemporary scholars for their study of Buddhist deconstruction. What Wang examines, however, is a set of peripheral texts, including the Dazhidu Iun (translated and edited by Kumārajīva but attributed to Nāgārjuna) and the Treatise on the Eighteen Points about Emptiness (translated and edited by Paramārtha but also attributed to Nāgārjuna). Because of their problems of alleged authorship, these have largely been neglected by modern scholarship. Wang's study in fact subverts this kind of judgment of central/marginal texts by revealing their significance to the historical development of the understanding of Mahāyāna teaching in Chinese Buddhism and their critical usefulness in the postmodern discourse of sign.The subversiveness of Wang's study lies not only in his use of marginal Mādhyamika texts, but also in his bold approach to a couple of Yogācāra texts. To my limited knowledge, no serious discussion of Buddhist deconstruction has specifically referred to any Yogācāra text. Most discussions have hitherto referred to Nāgārjuna, Prāsangika, or Chan/Zen texts. It has been a common impression that Yogācāra Buddhism somehow smuggles a form of substantialization into Mahāyāna teaching through the back door. But this is not the case with the texts Wang studies. Although these texts may also be considered marginal compared to some others, Wang convincingly demonstrates in them a Yogācāra deconstruction of substantialization through the three categories of absence-of-being (san wu xing) and other strategies, with regard to a Yogācāra understanding of the Same or True Suchness.The first two chapters concentrate on a survey of the Sarvāstivāda-Sautrāntika metaphysical-semiotic themes in the list of seventy-five existential factors and how they are undone by Kumārajīva and Paramārtha's commentaries on the Mahāyāna list of eighteen points about emptiness. Wang's analysis reveals the deconstructive power of these commentaries while doing justice to the Sarvāstivāda-Sautrāntika refutation of naive realism. The central semiotic theme as involved in the soteriology of Mahāyāna Buddhism, according to these commentaries and Wang's interpretation, is the "true character of all dharmas"—the emptiness of all existential factors (pp. 76... (shrink)