How does Buddhist philosophy transform the very practice of philosophical inquiry?Buddhist philosophy does not present doctrines in isolation from the methods through which they are examined, defended, and contested. Its reflections on emptiness and dependent origination call into question the independence of objects, concepts, persons, and perspectives while also reshaping what philosophical explanation can claim to accomplish.This book examines the structure of Buddhist philosophical inquiry and the argumentative practices through which its central questions are developed. It considers how reasoning operates when philosophical analysis is directed not only towards establishing conclusions, but towards exposing the assumptions that make apparently self-evident positions possible.Bringing classical Buddhist thought into conversation with contemporary philosophy, the book also reflects on the practice of cross-cultural philosophical interpretation. Such engagement cannot consist merely in translating one tradition into the categories of another. It requires allowing different philosophical methods, problems, and standards of argument to challenge and transform one another.The result is a focused study of how Buddhist philosophy reasons, what it asks philosophical argument to achieve, and how its inclusion within a genuinely global intellectual history can alter our understanding of philosophy itself.
Jay L. Garfield
Jay L. Garfield is Doris Silbert Professor Emeritus in the Humanities and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Smith College, Visiting Professor of Buddhist Philosophy at Harvard Divinity School, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, Sarnath. His research spans Buddhist philosophy, Indian philosophy, philosophy of mind, ethics, epistemology, logic, and cross-cultural philosophy, with particular emphasis on Indo-Tibetan Madhyamaka, Yogācāra, and modern Indian philosophy. He is the author of Losing Ourselves: Learning to Live without a Self; Buddhist Ethics: A Philosophical Exploration; Engaging Buddhism: Why It Matters to Philosophy; and The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā; and has authored or edited more than thirty books.
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