Tao Jiang (Rutgers University)
"Myths, Lies, and Moral Reason"
The contemporary study of Indian philosophy tends to stress those topics that most closely accord with the interests of mid-20th century analytic philosophy, focusing on questions pertaining to logic and the theory of knowledge, philosophy of language, metaphysics and philosophical psychology. Ethics, though by no means unrepresented, has been at best an area of secondary concern. This, of course, reflects to some degree Indian philosophical literature itself: whereas works such as Śāntaraksita’s Tattvasamgraha, Kumārila Bhatta’s Ślokavārttika, or Jayanta Bhatta’s Nyāyamañjarī treat of the topics mentioned above at great length, questions of value—ethics, politics, aesthetics—are remarkable only for their absence. In the case of aesthetics, we can of course supplement apparent neglect on the part of the philosophers by referring to the massive and intellectually challenging literature of Indian poetics and dramaturgy. But where do we turn in the case of Indian ethics?
A number of responses to this query are available, of which one of the most promising is to be found in the late Bimal K. Matilal’s reflections on the elusive figure of Dharma in the Mahābhārata. In the talk proposed here, I wish to develop Matilal’s line of inquiry, but with particular reference to the long-standing Western “quarrel between philosophy and poetry,” as it has been understood beginning with Plato’s characterization of the confrontation between the two domains.
This lecture was recorded on Friday, February 13, 2009 at 80 Claremont Avenue (the Department of Religion, Columbia University).
