bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Trubetskoi, Evgenii Nikolaevich (1863–1920)
Authors: Grier Philip
Published: September 2018

Prince Evgenii Nikolaevich Trubetskoi was a prominent philosopher of law known also for his works on Solov’ëv, Kant, Nietzsche, ethics and religion (including Russian Orthodox iconography). Personally and philosophically very close to Solov’ëv, he was recognized as the most important commentator on the older philosopher’s work in the early twentieth century. He was a staunch Russian patriot, devoutly Orthodox, active in various political, cultural and religious organizations aimed at maintaining the Russian way of life threatened first by the First World War and then by the Bolshevik revolution.
Struve, Pëtr Berngardovich (1870–1944)
Authors: Nemeth Thomas
Published: September 2018

A prominent figure in early Russian Marxism and in liberal politics during the last years of the Tsarist regime, Struve’s philosophical concerns centred around individual free will versus the historical process, and individual rights versus society and the state. He was among the first to argue that Marxism needed philosophical supplementation, particularly in light of new developments. Struve later abandoned Marxism altogether, upholding an idealism featuring above all a recognition of transcendent values and an appreciation of non-dogmatic religiosity.
Kudriavtsev-Platonov, Viktor Dmitrievich (1828–91)
Authors: Nemeth Thomas
Published: September 2018

Calling his position ‘transcendental monism’, Kudriavtsev held that neither the material nor the ideal spheres can be reduced to the other, but together form a harmonious whole under God. Kudriavtsev’s principal concern was with the role of reason as manifested in the sciences and philosophy vis-à-vis a general religious outlook.
Lomonosov, Mikhail Vasil’evich (1711–65)
Authors: Jones Gareth
Published: September 2018

Endowed with scientific and literary genius, Lomonosov was a product and proponent of Russia’s eighteenth-century Westernization. He was trained under Christian Wolff, the philosophic luminary of German pietism, and shared his encyclopedic interests, contributing to Russia’s linguistic, literary and technological advancement. In his scientific work, particularly physical chemistry, he came to question the Cartesian physics and cosmology of his mentors.
Buddhism, Mādhyamika: India and Tibet
Authors: Kawamura Leslie S.
Published: September 2018

Madhyamaka (‘the Middle Doctrine’) Buddhism was one of two Mahāyāna Buddhist schools, the other being Yogācāra, that developed in India between the first and fourth centuries ad. The Mādhyamikas derived the name of their school from the Middle Path (madhyamapratipad) doctrine expounded by the historical Siddhārtha, prince of the Śākya clan, when he gained the status of a buddha, enlightenment. The Madhyamaka, developed by the second-century philosopher Nāgārjuna on the basis of a class of sūtras known as the Prajñāpāramitā (‘Perfection of Wisdom’), can be seen in his foundational Mūlamadhyamakakārikā(Fundamental Central Way Verses). Therein he expounds the central Buddhist doctrines of the Middle Path in terms of interdependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda), conventional language (prajñapti), no-self nature (niḥsvabhāva) and voidness (śūnyatā). He grants that the dharma taught by the enlightened ones is dependent upon two realities (dve satye samupāśritya) – the conventional reality of the world (lokasaṃvṛtisatyam) and reality as the ultimate (satyam paramārthataḥ). Although voidness is central to Madhyamaka, we are warned against converting śūnyatā into yet another ‘ism’.

Historically, Madhyamaka in India comprises three periods – the early period (second to fifth century), represented by the activities of Nāgārjuna, Āryadeva and Rāhulabhadra; the middle period (fifth to seventh century) exemplified by Buddhapālita and Bhāvaviveka (founders respectively of the *Prāsaṅgika and *Svātantrika schools of Madhyamaka), and Candrakīrti; and the later period (eighth to eleventh century), which includes Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla, who fused the ideas found in the Madhyamaka and Yogācāra systems. Many of the Indian Madhyamaka scholars of the later period contributed to Madhyamaka developments in Tibet.
Materialism, Indian school of
Authors: Franco Eli , Preisendanz Karin
Published: September 2018

‘Materialism’ stands here for the Sanskrit term Lokāyata, the most common designation for the materialistic school of classical Indian philosophy. However, at the outset ‘materialism’ and ‘Lokāyata’ were not equivalent: early materialistic doctrines were not associated with Lokāyata, and early Lokāyata was neither materialistic nor even a philosophical school.

Classical Lokāyata stands apart from all other Indian philosophical traditions due to its denial of ethical and metaphysical doctrines such as karmic retribution, life after death, and liberation. Its ontology, tailored to support this challenge, allows only four material elements and their various combinations. Further support comes from Lokāyata epistemology: the validity of inference and Scriptures is denied and perception is held to be the only means of valid cognition. As offshoots, a fully fledged scepticism and a theory of limited validity of inference developed in response to criticism by other philosophers. Consistent with Lokāyata ontology and epistemology, its ethics centres on the criticism of all religious and moral ideals which presuppose invisible agents and an afterlife. Hostile sources depict its followers as promulgating unrestricted hedonism.
Vedānta
Authors: Phillips Stephen H.
Published: September 2018

Indian philosophical speculation burgeoned in texts called Upaniṣads (from 800 bc), where views about a true Self (ātman) in relation to Brahman, the supreme reality, the Absolute or God, are propounded and explored. Early Upaniṣads were appended to an even older sacred literature, the Veda (‘Knowledge’), and became literally Vedānta, ‘the Veda’s last portion’. Classical systems of philosophy inspired by Upaniṣadic ideas also came to be known as Vedānta, as well as more recent spiritual thinking. Classical Vedānta is one of the great systems of Indian philosophy, extending almost two thousand years with hundreds of authors and several important subschools. In the modern period, Vedānta in the folk sense of spiritual thought deriving from Upaniṣads is a major cultural phenomenon.

Understood broadly, Vedānta may even be said to be the philosophy of Hinduism, although in the classical period there are other schools (notably Mīmāṃsā) that purport to articulate right views and conduct for what may be called a Hindu community (the terms ‘Hindu’ and ‘Hinduism’ gained currency only after the Muslim invasion of the South Asian subcontinent, beginning rather late in classical times). Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902), the great popularizer of Hindu ideas to the West, spoke of Vedānta as an umbrella philosophy of a Divine revealed diversely in the world’s religious traditions. Such inclusivism is an important theme in some classical Vedānta, but there are also virulent disputes about how Brahman should be conceived, in particular Brahman’s relation to the individual.

In the twentieth century, philosophers such as Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, K.C. Bhattacharyya and T.M.P. Mahadevan have articulated idealist worldviews largely inspired by classical and pre-classical Vedānta. The mystic philosopher Sri Aurobindo propounds a theism and evolutionary theory he calls Vedānta, and many others, including political leaders such as Gandhi and spiritual figures as well as academics, have developed or defended Vedāntic views.
Bhartṛhari (c. 5th century)
Authors: Bronkhorst Johannes
Published: September 2018

Bhartṛhari is the Indian philosopher of grammar par excellence. Drawing on practically all the schools of thought of his time – religious, philosophical, linguistic and ritual – he uses elements from them to create a philosophy. This philosophy, while claiming to be grammatical, goes far beyond traditional grammar, constituting a new and remarkably original system of thought.
Dharmakīrti (c.600–60)
Authors: Steinkellner Ernst
Published: September 2018

Dharmakīrti represents the philosophical apex of the Buddhist contribution to Indian thought of the post-systematic period. On the basis of Dignāga’s late works he developed a system of epistemology with a strong emphasis on logic, propounding it both as an explanation and defence of Dignāga’s thought. His logic, particularly, was new; in order to create a system of Buddhist logic proper, it clearly established the general Indian idea that logical relations are founded in reality. Buddhist epistemology as shaped by Dharmakīrti became a strong and influential rational tradition in late Indian Buddhism and has been studied and continued in Tibet up to the present time.
Kauṭilya (fl. c.321–c.296 BC)
Authors: Bilimoria Purushottama
Published: September 2018

Kauṭilya is famous as the author of the Arthaśāstra, a political treatise often compared with Machiavelli’s The Prince. Although its influence on subsequent political and literary writers is noteworthy, tradition has remained somewhat ambivalent about it, especially because of its seemingly ruthless prescriptions for efficacious government. On a closer reading, however, Kauṭilya is assiduously concerned to secure the welfare and wealth of the citizens of a state under a just government, of which the king, although the sovereign, is just one among seven institutes. Upon the king falls the duty of safeguarding the good of the people in as dharma-sanctioned a way as possible; the ‘rule of the rod’, intrigues and stratagems are reserved for combatting internal and external threats.
Madhva (1238?–1317?)
Authors: Stoker Valerie
Published: September 2018

Madhva, Hindu theologian and ascetic, founded the philosophical school commonly called Dvaita Vedānta, but which Madhva and his followers termed tattvavāda, or realism. The name Dvaita refers to Madhva’s dualistic interpretation of the Hindu canonical texts known as the Upaniṣads, also known as Vedānta. In contrast to the monist and semi-monist systems of his two major Vedāntin predecessors, Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja, Madhva asserted the absolute difference between God (īśvara) and human souls (jīva), claiming that they were uncreated, eternal principles with fundamentally distinct natures. Madhva delineated the respective natures of God and souls so as to assert God’s complete transcendence of the world and to legitimate the practice of devotion as the principal means of attaining liberation from the cycle of rebirth (saṃsāra). Madhva’s realist epistemology served as the foundation for this ontological emphasis on difference (bheda).
Mahāvīra (6th–5th century BC)
Authors: Soni Jayandra
Published: September 2018

Mahāvīra’s significance for Jaina philosophy is comparable to that of his contemporary, Buddha, for Buddhist philosophy. Both are regarded as the source of ideas, concepts and categories with far-reaching implications for later philosophical activity. In their respective traditions, both Mahāvīra and Buddha are recognized as enlightened or omniscient beings because they grasped the essential nature of reality, human life and the world. The teachings ascribed to them were at first passed on orally and were compiled into their present form several centuries later.
Śaṅkara (early 8th century)
Authors: Fort Andrew O.
Published: September 2018

Śaṅkara has been a highly influential figure in Hindu philosophy and religion from his lifetime (early eighth century; traditionally 788–820) to the present day. He is the most renowned teacher of nondualist (Advaita) Vedānta, which emphasizes realizing the nondual reality, Brahman, through hearing and contemplating the Upaniṣads, sacred knowledge which reveals the nature of human existence and the cosmos. Unlike many Western thinkers, who consider themselves forward-looking individuals putting forth new insights, Śaṅkara is self-consciously part of an ongoing tradition committed to scriptural exegesis. He honours prior teachers (such as Gauḍapāda), and his own writings are primarily explanatory commentaries on sacred Vedānta texts. Śaṅkara also requires certain purifying qualifications to pursue liberation, and vigorously contests other views prevailing in his time.
Tsong kha pa Blo bzang grags pa (1357–1419)
Authors: Tillemans Tom J.F.
Published: September 2018

Tsong kha pa Blo bzang grags pa (Dzongkaba Losang dragba), the founder of the dGa’-ldan-pa (Gandenba) school of Tibetan Buddhism, was born in Tsong-kha, in the extreme northeastern region of Tibet. He is often depicted as a type of reformer, putting great emphasis on moral precepts and interpreting Tantra in a way which would not create any conflict with the traditional Mahāyāna doctrines found in the sūtras and treatises. He was also an eclectic, drawing upon and synthesizing numerous different currents of Indian Buddhism – for example, he put forth a version of *Prāsaṅgika-Mādhyamika which was inextricably bound up with the logical tradition of Dignāga and Dharmakīrti. On the Tibetan side, one of his major philosophical debts was undoubtedly to the gSang-phu (Sangpu) traditions stemming from the highly original thinker Phya pa Chos kyi seng ge (Chaba Chögyi sengge, 1109–69). Finally, his dGa’-ldan-pa school subsequently became the dGe-lugs-pa (Gelukba), a predominantly monastic tradition which in time became the dominant current of Buddhism in Tibet. Tsong kha pa thus had, in addition to his philosophical influence, a long-term impact on the Tibetan political situation, contributing to the transfer of power from the southern provinces to the Lhasa region and laying the groundwork for the peculiarly Tibetan synthesis of religion and political power which was to be embodied in the institution of the Dalai Lamas.
Uddyotakara (6th century)
Authors: Laine Joy
Published: September 2018

Uddyotakara, a philosopher of the Nyāya school, wrote the Nyāyavārttika, a lengthy commentary on the Nyāyasūtra. His most urgent task was to re-establish the authority of the Nyāya school in the face of extensive criticism from the great Buddhist logician Dignāga. Dignāga had been particularly critical of the logical work of Vātsyāyana, Uddyotakara’s predecessor. In response, Uddyotakara incorporated Dignāga’s logical work into the Nyāya school, and added his own interpretation. He was less receptive to Dignāga’s other views, especially his account of perception and its relation to language.
Vātsyāyana (5th century)
Authors: Laine Joy
Published: September 2018

Vātsyāyana belonged to the Nyāya school of Indian philosophy, and his Nyāyabhāṣya is the first extant commentary on the Nyāyasūtra, the foundational text of that school. In it, he emphasized the distinctive epistemological and logical character of the topics he deemed appropriate for treatment by Nyāya philosophers. In so doing, he helped both to establish the authority of the Nyāya school in matters related to logical reasoning, and to demarcate the enterprise of the Nyāya school from that of the earlier, more traditional, soteriological approach of the Upaniṣads. His commentary on the Nyāyasūtra set the agenda for succeeding generations of Nyāya commentators and their Buddhist opponents. In particular, Vātsyāyana initiated arguments that were to become crucial in the Nyāya defence of its characteristic brand of realism.
Awareness in Indian thought
Authors: Phillips Stephen H.
Published: September 2018

Classical Indian schools all stake out positions on awareness, its intrinsic nature, its place in the causal processes crucial to human accomplishment, its relations to objects in the world, and the possibilities, according to certain religious or spiritual theories, of mystical transformation. In several prominent instances, stances taken on awareness may be said to constitute the most salient differentiation among schools, so central to a school’s overall outlook is its view on the topic. Classical epistemological conceptions, for example, are in large part shaped by positions on awareness, and the spiritual philosophies for which Indian thought is best known present theories of awareness to guide meditation and mystical practice. Yogic, Vedāntic and Buddhist mysticism all came to be supported by views of the true nature of awareness or its native state.

In the professionalized debates that fill the immense proliferation of philosophical texts in the classical period (from approximately ad 100 to the eighteenth century and later), key issues are whether awarenesses have forms of their own or assume content only with reference to objects, and the precise nature of the relation, or relations, of awarenesses to objects in the world, including the role of awareness in human activity. Some important positions are shared across schools, and apart from the anti-theoretic polemics of Mādhyamaka Buddhists and others, a phenomenalist and idealist stance, a representationalism, and a direct or causal realism are the major theories concerning the content of awarenesses.

The world-oriented philosophies of Logic (Nyāya) and Exegesis (Mīmāṃsā) engage spiritual or mystical views (principally, Buddhist Yogācāra and Advaita Vedānta) on the issue of self-awareness or awareness of awareness. The exchange between upholders of Nyāya and Advaita Vedānta (Vedāntic Monism) on this score is, in particular, an admirable philosophical achievement.
Error and illusion, Indian conceptions of
Authors: Phillips Stephen H.
Published: September 2018

From the earliest Indian speculation, illusion has been key in the exposition of Indian mysticism. In classical philosophy proper, all schools take positions concerning illusion (sometimes called error) early in their histories, and in some schools successive refinements are achieved over the centuries.

There is a wealth of reflection on illusion from different angles – for example, psychological treatments that differentiate seven, eight or ten types of illusion, identifying causal factors for each variety. Illusion is taken to have ontological and epistemological ramifications brought out in elaborations of one or another metaphysical system.

The sections of classical philosophical texts devoted specifically to illusion generally presuppose or smuggle in criteria of veridical awareness in the midst of causal analyses or systematic explanations of such stock examples as a snake appearing as a rope, a piece of shell appearing as silver, two moons, a ‘red’ crystal with a red flower behind it, a mirage, the ‘blue’ of the sky, and dreams. Arguments in support of a criterion, or set of criteria, of veridicality do appear, however. How we understand (1) what counts as a veridical and a nonveridical experience and (2) why individual cases of illusion occur are distinct issues, but positions taken on the former determine important parts of conceptions about why illusions occur. A peculiar stylistic feature of the later and more refined philosophic treatments is a polemical ordering, where a first view’s inadequacy is shown to lead to a second view whose inadequacy, demonstrated in turn, leads on to a better theory, and so on, until we reach the right view, which is thus established by a sequence of arguments.
Manifoldness, Jaina theory of
Authors: Soni Jayandra
Published: September 2018

The Sanskrit term anekāntavāda literally means ‘not-one-sided doctrine’, and refers to the Jaina epistemological theory of manifold standpoints from which an object may be considered and the manifold predications that can be made with regard to it. It evolved out of Mahāvīra’s ethical emphasis on nonviolence – the multidimensional nature of objects should not be violated by single, absolutist (ekānta) predications about them. Respect for life is thus transformed in its philosophical application into a principle of respect for other views. The theory has come to be called the central philosophy of Jainism and was developed in a milieu of intensive debate between the various Indian philosophical schools. Though the theory was based on Mahāvīra’s teaching, it implicitly presupposed, in its later highly developed form, various philosophical alternatives (representing the views of other schools of thought), which it sought to syncretize. Each standpoint and predication presents a partial truth and, according to Jainism, only the theory of manifoldness does justice to the complex nature of entities. While it can be seen as an attempt to practice intellectual nonviolence, it is evident that the Jainas adhered to it zealously and defended it as vehemently as the others did their own views.
Inference, Indian theories of
Authors: Gillon Brendan S.
Published: September 2018

The use of argument in rational inquiry in India reaches almost as far back in time as its oldest extant literature. Even in very early texts, one finds the deliberate use of modus tollens, for example, to refute positions thought to be false. In light of such practice, it is not surprising to discover that Indian thinkers came to identify certain forms of reasoning and to study them systematically.

The study of inference in India is, as Karl Potter (1977) has emphasized, not the study of valid reasoning as reflected in linguistic or paralinguistic forms, but the study of the circumstances in which knowledge of some facts permits knowledge of another fact, and of when acceptance by one person of some state of affairs as a fact requires that that person accept another as a fact. Still, the form of inference which came to be systematically investigated in India can be given schematically (see below).

At the core of the study of inference in India is the use of a naïve realist ontology. The world consists of individual substances or things (dravya), universals (sāmānya), and relations between them. The fundamental relation is the one of occurrence (vṛtti). The relata of this relation are known as substratum (dharmin) and superstratum (dharma) respectively. The relation has two forms: contact (saṃyoga) and inherence (samavāya). So, for example, one individual substance, say a pot, may occur on another, say the ground, by the relation of contact. In this case, the pot is the superstratum and the ground is the substratum. Or a universal, say brownness, may occur in an individual substance, say a pot, by the relation of inherence. Here, brownness, the superstratum, inheres in the pot, the substratum. The converse of the relation of occurrence is the relation of possession.

Another important relation is the relation that one superstratum bears to another. This relation, known as pervasion (vyāpti), can be defined in terms of the occurrence relation. One superstratum pervades another just in case wherever the second occurs the first occurs. The converse of the pervasion relation is the concomitance relation. As a result of these relations, the world embodies a structure: if one superstratum H is concomitant with another superstratum S, and if a particular substratum p possesses the former superstratum, then it possesses the second. This structure is captured in this inferential schema: Pakṣa (thesis): p has S.Hetu (ground): p has H.Vyāpti (pervasion): Whatever has H has S.

Here are two paradigmatic cases of such an inference: Pakṣa (thesis): p has fire.Hetu (ground): p has smoke.Vyāpti (pervasion): Whatever has smoke has fire. Pakṣa (thesis): p is a tree (that is, has tree-ness).Hetu (ground): p is an oak (that is, has oak-ness).Vyāpti (pervasion): Whatever is an oak (that is, has oak-ness) is a tree (that is, has tree-ness).
Language, Indian theories of
Authors: Bronkhorst Johannes
Published: September 2018

Language is a much debated topic in Indian philosophy. There is a clear concern with it in the Vedic texts, where efforts are made to describe links between earthly and divine reality in terms of etymological links between words. The earliest surviving Sanskrit grammar, Pāṇini’s intricate Aṣṭādhyāyī(Eight Chapters), dates from about 350 bc, although arguably the first explicitly philosophical reflections on language that have survived are found in Patañjali’s ‘Great Commentary’ on Pāṇini’s work, the Mahābhāṣya (c.150 bc). Both these thinkers predate the classical systems of Indian philosophy. This is not true of the great fifth-century grammarian Bhartṛhari, however, who in his Vākyapadīya (Treatise on Sentences and Words) draws on these systems in developing his theory of the sphoṭa, a linguistic entity distinct from a word’s sounds that Bhartṛhari takes to convey its meaning.

Among the issues debated by these philosophers (although not exclusively by them, and not exclusively with reference to Sanskrit) were what can be described as (i) the search for minimal meaningful units, and (ii) the ontological status of composite linguistic units. With some approximation, the first of these two issues attracted more attention during the early period of linguistic reflection, whereas the subsequent period emphasized the second one.
Negative facts in classical Indian philosophy
Authors: Gillon Brendan S.
Published: September 2018

Like their European counterparts, the philosophers of classical India were interested in the problem of negative facts. A negative fact may be thought of, at the outset at least, as a state of affairs that corresponds to a negative statement, such as ‘Mr Smith is not in this room.’ The question that perplexed the philosophers of India was: How does someone, say Ms Jones, know that Mr Smith is not in the room? There are essentially four possible metaphysical positions to account for what it is that Ms Jones knows when, after entering a room, she comes to know that her friend is not present there. Each of the positions has been adopted and defended by certain classical Indian philosophers. On the one hand, some take the absence of the friend from the room as a brute, negative fact. Of these, some hold knowledge of this fact to be perceptual, while others hold it to be inferential. On the other hand, some hold that the absence of the friend from the room has no real ontic status at all, and believe that what there really is in the situation is just the sum of all the things present in the office. These latter philosophers hold that knowledge of one’s friend’s absence is just knowledge of what is present, though some believe the knowledge results from perception, while others believe it to result from inference. These four positions were maintained by, respectively, the Nyāya philosopher Jayanta, the Mīmāṃsā philosophers Kumārila Bhaṭṭa and Prabhākara, and the Buddhist Dharmakīrti.
Nominalism, Buddhist doctrine of
Authors: Dunne John
Published: September 2018

Buddhist nominalism refers to the nominalist ontology and semantics developed especially by the Indian Buddhist philosophers Dignāga and Dharmakīrti. Elaborating on the arguments of their Buddhist predecessor Vasubandhu, they critically examine the notions of spatial and temporal extension. For Dignāga and Dharmakīrti, spatially and temporally composite entities are constructed through concepts and language and as such those entities exist only nominally or conventionally. Their semantics rejects the realist position that expressions refer to real, extra-mental universals that are instantiated in each particular of the class formed by the respective universal. Instead, these philosophers developed the unique theory of ‘exclusion’ whereby expressions convey meaning by the exclusion of some particulars from those which do not have the expected causal capacities. Dharmakīrti’s nominalism is credited with a greater impact on Indian philosophy than Dignāga’s.
Cosmology and cosmogony, Indian theories of
Authors: Clear Edeltraud Harzer
Published: September 2018

Theories of the origin of the universe have been told as stories, riddles and instruction in India since early times. The three prominent religious movements, Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism each had their own myths and speculations.

In the Hindu tradition there was never one single theory. Among the divergent ideas we can distinguish: an early stage, which included themes such as there being nothing at the beginning, or the universe being created by mutual birth, or creation as the dismemberment of a sacrificial victim, or the gods arriving after the first moment of creation; and a later stage, in which Viṣṇu or Brahmā was regarded as the creator of the universe. Simultaneously, the old Sāṅkhya idea of the self-creating universe, in which the original material stuff transforms itself into the different parts of the universe, coexisted with the idea of a god creating the universe.

The early Buddhist tradition neglected questions such as ‘Does the universe exist?’ The first mention of such topics occurred in the Pāli Canon, where they were condemned. A few centuries later, these cosmological ideas were taken up by Vasubandhu, who collected them and formulated them in a comprehensive way. Without a creator god, the universe is primarily a reflection of meditational experiences of the world, a Single Circular System. There are several other systems, such as the Thousand Universe System, the Immeasurable Universe System and the Pure Land.

The Jaina tradition had a very detailed theory of the spatial arrangement of the universe. This was essential for understanding where all the individual selves travel to after death, given their spiritual accomplishments (or lack of them). From earth they go to heavens or hells, the aim being eventually to reach the place of bliss and thus to gain final freedom.
Heaven, Indian conceptions of
Authors: Smith Frederick M.
Published: September 2018

Heaven is an important part of Indian religious cosmology and also figures strongly in Indian philosophical discourse. In the cosmologies of the early period of Indian thought, from the Ṛg Veda to the advent of the so-called heterodox schools of Jainism and Buddhism (c.1500–500 bc), heaven was conceived of in relatively simple terms, as a happy and permanent abode for both the deceased (particularly those who performed Vedic sacrifices) and the gods. In all three of the major religious systems of classical India, namely Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, heavenly realms expanded in number, and were usually depicted in terms of the deities who inhabited them and the prevailing life-situations of the deceased. Geographically, the heavens of classical India were envisaged as either parallel, occupying separate, bounded, horizontal space, or vertical, existing on separate tiers of upper-level space. Philosophically, the existence and soteriological value of heaven were much debated, from the earliest Upaniṣads (c.500 bc) and philosophical sūtras of Vedānta and Pūrva Mīmāṃsā (the Brahmasūtra of Bādarāyaṇa and the Mīmāṃsāsūtra of Jaimini respectively) to the later logicians and systematizers of the standard philosophical systems (c.1500 and beyond). Religion and philosophy were always intimately linked in India, indeed were often barely distinguishable; thus the soteriology of a religious form would be logically supported and fully explicated by allied philosophical schools. Broadly, two points of view were represented: first, that heavenly realms did exist and were achievable for one’s ultimate benefit, or, second, that they existed but were phenomena subject to decay, rather like ordinary reality, or (as the Buddhists thought) were mental constructs. In the second case, heaven was regarded as inferior to variously conceived states of enlightenment or liberation.
Matter, Indian conceptions of
Authors: Schweizer Paul
Published: September 2018

During the long and complex history of Indian philosophy, a number of divergent conceptions of matter have been developed and explored. These conceptions diverge both with respect to the ontological analysis of matter, and with respect to its specific structural characteristics. In terms of ontological conceptions of matter, the rival positions of materialism, idealism and substance-pluralism are all advanced by competing schools of thought. For example, pure materialism is espoused by the Cārvāka school, while absolute idealism is defended by Advaita Vedānta, and varying forms of pluralism are advocated by the Sāṅkhya, Yoga, Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika schools.

Regarding the structural characteristics of matter, the most interesting conceptions are advanced by the pluralistic philosophies. In particular, the Vaiśeṣika and Nyāya schools recognize five physical substances, four of which are held to possess atomic structure. According to this conception, matter is composed of imperceptibly small units or paramāṇus, which constitute the basic substrate in which perceptible qualities inhere. All macroscopic objects are transient composites of atoms, while the paramāṇus themselves are indivisible and indestructible. The atoms are held to be naturally at rest, and an external force is required to initiate motion.

In contrast, the Sāṅkhya and Yoga traditions espouse a metaphysical dualism of the two basic categories of matter and consciousness, where the continuity and dynamic transformations of matter are emphasized. All of the diverse phenomena of the physical world result from modifications of a single underlying source known as pradhāna or primal matter, which is said to be continuous, all pervading, indestructible and imperceptible. Pradhāna exists in a balanced and unmanifest state of pralaya until it is disturbed by the presence of consciousness. This disturbance leads to an imbalance between the internal constituents of pradhāna, and the resulting disequilibrium accounts for the evolutionary transformations of the physical world.
Momentariness, Buddhist doctrine of
Authors: Von Rospatt Alexander
Published: September 2018

The object of the Buddhist doctrine of momentariness is not the nature of time, but existence within time. Rather than atomizing time into moments, it atomizes phenomena temporally by dissecting them into a succession of discrete momentary entities. Its fundamental proposition is that everything passes out of existence as soon as it has originated and in this sense is momentary. As an entity vanishes, it gives rise to a new entity of almost the same nature which originates immediately afterwards. Thus, there is an uninterrupted flow of causally connected momentary entities of nearly the same nature, the so-called continuum (santāna). These entities succeed each other so fast that the process cannot be discerned by ordinary perception. Because earlier and later entities within one continuum are almost exactly alike, we come to conceive of something as a temporally extended entity even though the fact that it is in truth nothing but a series of causally connected momentary entities. According to this doctrine, the world (including the sentient beings inhabiting it) is at every moment distinct from the world in the previous or next moment. It is, however, linked to the past and future by the law of causality in so far as a phenomenon usually engenders a phenomenon of its kind when it perishes, so that the world originating in the next moment reflects the world in the preceding moment.

At the root of Buddhism lies the (never questioned) conviction that everything that has originated is bound to perish and is therefore, with the exception of factors conducive to enlightenment, ultimately a source of frustration. There is no surviving textual material that documents how this law of impermanence came to be radicalized in terms of momentariness. It seems that by the fourth century the doctrine of momentariness had already assumed its final form. Characteristically, the debate became more and more dominated by epistemological questions, while the metaphysical aspect faded into the background.
Universals, Indian theories of
Authors: Taber John A.
Published: September 2018

Indian philosophers postulated universals for two principal reasons: to serve as the ‘eternal’ meanings of words, upon which the eternality of language – in particular, the Hindu scriptures, the Veda – is based, and to account for why we conceive of things as being of certain types. However, universals were seen as problematic in various ways. How can something exist simultaneously in numerous individuals without being divided into parts? How can a universal, which is supposed to be eternal, continue to exist if all its substrata are destroyed? In what sense can a universal be said to ‘exist’ at all? Is a universal distinct from or identical with the individuals in which it inheres? In light of such difficulties, it is not surprising that certain other Indian philosophers – specifically Buddhist philosophers, who did not accept the doctrine of the eternality of the Veda – rejected universals and took up a nominalist stance. They held that general terms refer to mentally constructed ‘exclusion classes’, apohas. The use of the term ‘cow’, for example, is grounded not on some positive entity common to all cows but on the idea of the class of things that are different from all things that are not cows. This proposal, which originated with Dignāga in the sixth century ad, was debated vigorously until the eleventh century.
Nirvāṇa
Authors: Cousins L.S.
Published: September 2018

The aim of the spiritual life was already described as nirvāṇa before the rise of Buddhism around the fifth century bc, but it is in the Buddhist context that it is most well known. In earlier Buddhist works and in popular usage to the present day it refers to the goal of Buddhist discipline, reached by systematic training in morality, meditation and intellect. That goal consists of the final removal of the disturbing mental elements which obstruct a peaceful and clear state of mind, together with a state of awakening from the mental sleep which they induce. Such an awakening (often referred to in English as ‘enlightenment’) enables a clear perception of fundamental truths, the understanding of which is essential to mental freedom. Later, the term was often applied more narrowly to a specific aspect of the awakened condition – that aspect of this experience which was considered to be unchanging, that is, an element which is not the product of either mental construction in particular, or of causes and conditions in general.
Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand (1869–1948)
Authors: Hoffman Frank J.
Published: September 2018

Gandhi was called Mahatma (the Great Soul) by Rabindranath Tagore and many in the West, while Gandhi’s followers often simply called him Bapuji (Father). His confrontation with racism in South Africa provided a challenging context for the development of his idea of satyāgraha (holding fast to the truth), a method of nonviolent, noncooperative resistance to the authorities. Influenced by several religious traditions, such as Hinduism (especially Vaishnava), Jainism, Islam and Christianity, Gandhi was both a religious thinker and practical reformer. While in jail on several occasions, he wrote prolifically. He was murdered on 30 January 1948 by a Hindu zealot.
Tagore, Rabindranath (1886–1941)
Authors: Minor Robert N.
Published: September 2018

In the flurry of intellectual activity in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Bengal, Rabindranath Tagore became one of the best-known playwrights, poets, novelists, educators and philosophers, winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. His thought drew on the English Romantics as well as Sanskrit and Bengali writers and movements.

Tagore was not a systematic philosopher. He termed his position ‘a poet’s religion’ which valued imagination above reason. He moved between the personal warmth of human relationships to a theistic Divine and belief in an Absolute as a unifying principle. He advocated a thoughtful but active life, criticizing asceticism and ritualism.
Testimony in Indian philosophy
Authors: Bilimoria Purushottama
Published: September 2018

A prominent topic in Indian epistemology is śābdapramāṇa, knowledge derived from linguistic utterance or testimony. The classical material is extensive and varied, initially concerned with providing grounds for accepting the wisdom of śruti or ‘the heard word’, that is, the canonical scriptures. The Buddhists, however, saw no need for śābdajñāna (information gained through words) as an independent source of knowledge, because any utterance (including the Buddha’s) that has not been tested in one’s own experience cannot be relied upon; and in any case, the operation of such knowledge can be accounted for in terms of inference and perception.

The Nyāya, following the Mīmāṃsā, developed sophisticated analyses and a spirited defence of the viability and autonomy of testimony. The problem is recast thus: is śābdapramāṇa linguistic knowledge eo ipso, or does verbal understanding amount to knowledge only when certain specifiable conditions, in addition to the generating conditions, are satisfied? The more usual answer is that where the speaker is reliable and sincere, and there is no evidence to the contrary, the generating semantic and phenomenological conditions suffice to deliver valid knowledge. If doubt arises, then other resources can be utilized for checking the truth or falsity of the understanding, or the reliability of the author (or nonpersonal source), and for overcoming the defects.
History, Chinese theories of
Authors: Ivanhoe Philip J.
Published: September 2018

The beginnings of Chinese historical writing can be seen in the works of several early thinkers of the sixth through third centuries bc. The various features which we see in their nascent form in early classical sources were developed, synthesized and found their first mature expression in the composition of what came to be known as the Standard or Official Histories, notably the Spring and Autumn Annals, the Shiji (Records of the Historian) and the Hanshu (History of the Former Han Dynasty).

Much has been made of the purported ‘cyclical’ nature of Chinese views of time and the implications this has had on everything from Chinese views of history to the development of science. It is alleged that there was no notion of historical progress among the Chinese, who purportedly held a fatalistic view of infinitely repeating cycles of alternating political order and chaos, beyond human control. However, Chinese thinkers have held a wide range of different views about the pattern and flow of history.

While the amount of historical writing in China is truly staggering, Chinese thinkers have paid relatively little attention to the systematic study of the methodology and nature of history. However, there have been notable exceptions in both critical and speculative history. Critical historians at different times modified and made further suggestions regarding the form and content of the Official Histories. They also criticized the methods by which material for the Official Histories was gathered and controlled, and offered a variety of opinions regarding other forms of historical writing. Chinese philosophers of history developed elegant and sophisticated theories of history which purport to reveal the significance and structure of historical processes.

The nineteenth century marks the beginning of modern Chinese views of history, when Chinese intellectuals were first deeply influenced by Western views on the nature of history and historical method. This was also a time when Chinese society was shaken to its foundations by Western colonialism. Chinese historians of this period responded with impressive syntheses of traditional and western views. Traditional notions – for example the idea that history must fulfil a moral purpose – were recast in terms of the emerging phenomenon of Chinese nationalism. At the same time, new ideas about how objective factors, such as economic forces, shape historical events and the global scale on which these events take shape were incorporated into novel Chinese conceptions of history. This process continued into the early twentieth century when Marxist views became most influential. Early Chinese Marxist theories of history reveal a remarkable mixture of the strange and the familiar. However, Stalinist ideology quickly came to dominate more subtle forms of Marxism. As a result, Chinese Marxist views of history soon became ossified and uninspired. Little new or interesting can be found after the early 1950s.
De
Authors: Hall David L. , Ames Roger T.
Published: September 2018

Across the corpus of pre-Qin philosophical literature, de, conventionally translated as ‘potency’ or ‘virtue’, seems to have a fundamental cosmological significance from which its other connotations are derived. We begin from the pervasive assumption that existence is an uncaused, spontaneous process. It is ziran: so-of-itself. As a total field, this dynamic process is called dao; the individuated existents in this field – its various foci – are called de.
Xin (heart-and-mind)
Authors: Hall David L. , Ames Roger T.
Published: September 2018

In the West, questions of the distinguishability of mind and matter and of rationality and emotion or sentiment are central issues within the philosophy of mind. Neither of these topics is of much interest, however, to the mainstream of Chinese thought. On the one hand, the notion of qi, the vital energizing field that constitutes all natural processes, renders discussions of the relevance of any psychophysical dualism moot. On the other hand, xin, normally translated as ‘heart-and-mind’, preludes the assumption of distinctions between thinking and feeling, or idea and affect. Xin is often translated simply as ‘heart’, but since it is the seat of thinking and judgment, the notion of mind must be included in its characterization if the term is to be properly understood. Indeed, what we often think of as ‘will’ or ‘intention’ is likewise included in the notion of xin.
Ti and yong
Authors: Ivanhoe Philip J.
Published: September 2018

Ti and yong (literally ‘body’ or ‘substance’ and ‘use’ or ‘function’) are technical terms in Chinese philosophy. Ti often is used to denote the essence or fundamental nature of a given thing, for example, ‘the substance/true essence of the Way’. As a verb, it can also mean to ‘embody’ or ‘instantiate’ a given characteristic or virtue, for example ‘to embody/fully realize humanity’. A thing’s yong is its characteristic activity in accordance with its nature.
Fa
Authors: Kasulis Thomas P.
Published: September 2018

Fa is a technical term in a variety of Chinese philosophical traditions. As a noun it means ‘standard’ or ‘norm’, and, by extension, ‘law’. As a verb it means ‘to be in accord with’. The disagreements among the various indigenous schools tended to focus on the origin and nature of fa, whether it is an order or pattern within things or an external pattern to which things conform. When Buddhism entered China, translators often used fa for rendering the Sanskrit term dharma. Depending on context, the Buddhist term could refer to true teachings, moral duty, phenomenal reality or rule.
Zheng Xuan (AD 127–200)
Authors: Nylan Michael
Published: September 2018

Zheng Xuan, perhaps the most influential commentator on the Confucian classics, is widely credited with constructing both a compelling unitary vision of Chinese civilization and a hierarchy of written authorities which upheld the supremacy of the five Confucian classics as infallible guides to morality and history. Inevitably, scholars (including Zheng’s many critics) have ‘read’ early Chinese society through the filter of Zheng’s surviving commentaries, which ultimately superseded earlier divergent scholastic traditions.
Dong Zhongshu (195–115 BC)
Authors: Nylan Michael
Published: September 2018

Tradition hailed Dong Zhongshu as the ‘father of Han Confucianism’ because of his influential theories that posit a perfect congruence between divine and human realms kept in balance by the true king, who functions as mediator, moral exemplar and lawmaker. Undoubtedly the most famous exegete in the ‘Gongyang’ commentarial tradition to the Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn Annals), Dong is also credited by convention with the composition of the Chunqiufanlu (Luxuriant Dew of the Annals), though recent scholarship questions this attribution.