Madhyamaka Buddhist Philosophy

Stanford University presents a public talk on Buddhist philosophy.

Jay Garfield - Smith College

This lecture is part of the Stanford Humanities Center's Claire and John Radway Research Workshop on Mythos & Logos: Religion and Rationality in the Humanities. The workshop brings together scholars from a variety of humanistic disciplines to re-examine the role (and persistence) of religious representations, concepts, and doctrines in modern and contemporary culture, literature, and philosophy. It investigates such topics as a renewed interest in theories of secularization and the ostensible arrival of a post-secular age; the philosophical appropriation and criticism of existential and ethical themes originating in the religions; and the role religious ideas and discourse continue to play in politics. The title of the workshop expresses the wager that the mythos of religion is not without its logos.

Speaker's Bio:
Jay Garfield is Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Logic Program and of the Five College Tibetan Studies in India Program at Smith College, Professor in the graduate faculty of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Professor of Philosophy at Melbourne University and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies. His areas of research include the philosophy of mind, foundations of cognitive science, logic, philosophy of language, Buddhist philosophy, cross-cultural hermeneutics, theoretical and applied ethics and epistemology. His most recent books are his translation, with the ven Prof Geshe Ngawang Samten of the Fourteenth-Fifteenth Century Tibetan Philosopher Tsong Khapa’s commentary on Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakarika (Ocean of Reasoning) and Empty Words: Buddhist Philosophy and Cross-Cultural Interpretation.