© Columbia University Press
Against a Hindu God: Buddhist Philosophy of Religion in India
June, 2009
Cloth, 400 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-231-14222-9
$50.00
/ £34.50
Contents
Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1. Comparative Philosophy of Religions
1. Disciplinary Challenges
2. A Grammar for Comparison
3. Comparative Philosophy of Religions
4. Content, Structure, and Arguments
Part 1. Epistemology
Chapter 2. Religious Epistemology in Classical India: In Defense of a Hindu God
1. Interpreting Nyya Epistemology
2. The Nyaya Argument for the Existence of Isvara
3. Defending the Nyaya Argument
4. Conclusion: Shifting the Burden of Proof
Chapter 3. Against vara: Ratnakirti’s Buddhist Critique
1. The Section on Pervasion: The Trouble with Natural Relations
2. Two Arguments
3. The Section on the Reason Property
4. The Section on the Target Property
5. Conclusion: Is Isvara the Maker of the World?
Part 2. Language, Mind, and Ontology
Chapter 4. The Theory of Exclusion, Conceptual Content, and Buddhist Epistemology
1. The Theory of Exclusion
2. What Exclusion Is Not
3. Semantic Value
4. Ratnakirti’s Inferential Argument
5. Conclusion: Jnanasrimitra’s Three Questions
Chapter 5. Ratnakirti’s World: Toward a Buddhist Philosophy of Everything
1. An Inventory of Mental Objects/Images
2. The Contents of Perception
3. The Contents of Inferential/Verbal Awareness
4. Nonexistence, Existence, and Ultimate Existence
5. The Isvara-Inference, Revisited
6. Conclusion: Who Created the World?
Conclusion
Chapter 6. The Values of Buddhist Epistemology
1. Foundational Figures and Foundational Texts
2. The Soteriological Significance of Epistemology
3. Jnanasrimitra on Epistemology as Pedagogy
4. Ratnakirti’s Framework of Value
5. Conclusion: Religious Reasoning as Religious Practice
References
Index