History of Philosophy: India, Africana, China

A discussion with Jan Westerhoff, an expert on the great Buddhist thinker Nāgārjuna.

This podcast discusses Nagarjuna's Tetralemma and its challenges to yes-no questions, exploring its interpretations and philosophical applications. It also delves into the distinction between negating nouns and verbs in ancient Indian grammar and the rejection of alternative options in Nagadrinad's philosophy.

Nagarjuna applies his emptiness theory to motion and change. Delving into the concept of motion and location in relation to verbs. Examining Sanskrit grammatical theory and exploring objects' roles in motion. Comparing Nagarjuna and Zeno's paradoxes of motion, language, and knowledge. Analyzing Nagarjuna's critique of the validation of sources of knowledge.

Nāgārjuna founds the Madhyāmaka (“middle way”) Buddhist tradition by “relinquishing all views” and arguing that everything is “empty.”

Learn about the emergence of different philosophical systems in ancient India, the division of Buddhism into rival intellectual schools, the spread of Sābhas Devada and Theravada Buddhism, the Buddhist philosophy of to be relative, and the beliefs and practices of Buddhism, Jainism, and Hindu systems.

Bharata’s Nāṭya-Śāstra and later works from Kashmir explore the idea of rasa, an emotional response to drama, music, and poetry.

Monima Chadha takes Peter through Buddhist-Hindu debates over mind and self.

Pāyasi and the Cārvāka anticipate modern-day theories of mind by arguing that there is no independent soul; rather thought emerges from the body.

The Cārvāka or Lokāyata tradition rejects the efficacy of ritual and belief in the afterlife, and restricts knowledge to the realm of sense-perception.

Ancient Indian cosmology and the Vaiśeṣika defense of the reality of time and space.