Sutras & Stuff: A Philosophy Podcast

Does what goes around always come around? And is instant karma gonna get you? In the first episode of a season devoted to Sanskrit-to-English loanwords, we’ll examine how three groups of Indian philosophers understand karma: Jains, Buddhists, and Naiyayikas (or Nyaya philosophers).

Sounds and Music

All music excerpts and soundbites used with an understanding of fair use modification for educational purposes.

Drake featuring Bryson Tiller, “Bad Karma”

Alicia Keys, “Karma”

John Lennon and Yoko Ono with The Plastic Ono Band, “Instant Karma! (We all Shine On)”

Taylor Swift, “Karma”

Indigo Girls, “Galileo”

Culture Club, “Karma Chameleon”

Fox News clips:

Joey Jones, July 2021

Sean Hannity, August 2017

In this episode, I talk with Tom Davies, Seymour Reader in Ancient History and Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, about how understanding Indian philosophy in relationship with the rest of the ancient world helps us reflect on what philosophy is, as a human activity, in different cultural contexts.

Note: This is the final episode of the regular season, concluding the series of interviews with philosophers who taught Philosophy and Political Thought at Yale-NUS. Not every philosopher participated, but interviews with all those who did are now available as episodes one through ten. But at least one bonus episode is coming later this summer!

Further Resources

Tom Davies on Academia.edu: https://yale-nus.academia.edu/TomHerculesDavies

Ancient Egyptian Philosophy at Philosophy Now: https://philosophynow.org/issues/128/Does_Western_Philosophy_Have_Egyptian_Roots

Hannah Arendt: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arendt/

Music Credits:

Brittle Rille by Kevin MacLeod

In this episode, I talk with Robin Zheng, Senior Lecturer at the University of Glasgow, about connections between social practices and knowing in premodern Indian philosophy and contemporary feminist philosophy.

Further Resources:

In this episode, I talk with Cathay Liu, Senior Lecturer at the National University of Singapore, about philosophical systems and both Indian and European philosophy in the 17th century.

Further Resources

In this episode, I talk with Neil Mehta, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Yale-NUS, about what exists and what we can say about it.

Further Resources

In this episode, I talk with Matthew Walker, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Yale-NUS, about ancient philosophy, therapeutic arguments, reading practices, and the Bhagavad Gita.

Further Resources

In this episode, I talk with Jay Garfield, Professor of Philosophy at Smith College, about the Buddhist philosopher Candrakirti and how teaching Indian philosophy at Yale-NUS impacted his understanding of Western philosophers like Hume.

Further Resources

In this episode, I talk with Christine Tan, Philosophy Lecturer at Yale-NUS College in Singapore, about Indian materialism, skepticism, and overlaps with Chinese Philosophy.

Further Resources

Christine Tan’s website: https://tanchristineabigail.com/

In this episode, I talk with Kathryn Muyskens, Philosophy Lecturer at Yale-NUS College in Singapore, about the Buddhist philosopher Shantideva and bioethics, health care, and compassion.

Further Resources

Kathryn Muyskens’ papers on Philpapers: https://philpeople.org/profiles/kathryn-muyskens

Shantideva:

Content note: There's one instance of the "F-word" in English towards the end of the interview.

In this episode, I talk with Andrew Bailey, Associate Professor of philosophy at Yale-NUS College in Singapore about the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna and analytic metaphysics, Gandhi on technology, and Nyaya philosophers on inference.

Further Resources

In this episode, I talk with Bryan Van Norden, Professor of philosophy at Vassar College in the United States about how he came to Indian philosophy, what he enjoys about teaching it, as well as connections between ideas about knowing in Indian and Chinese philosophy.

Further Resources

How does a 9th century Nyaya philosopher addresses the intersection of religious conflict and ruling power in India? Are feelings of offense reason to exclude certain religious practices? What lessons can we take from Nyaya philosophers on religious toleration, and are they internally consistent here?

Join our hero Sankarshana as he travels around the kingdom, vanquishing foes...with reason. Part 1 of 2.

When is a door not really a door? When it's ajar! That old joke equivocates on two meanings of "ajar" In this episode we look at how equivocation can impact our reasoning, like when we ask, When is a doctor not really a doctor? We explore a few other ways that reasoning can go wrong and force us to lose in a debate. And listen until the end to hear what's planned for Episode 9.

Sources:

When is a reason not a reason? According to Nyaya philosophers, when it's all smoke and no fire. In this episode we'll talk about how reasoning can go wrong when people use "counterfeit reasons," which don't actually support their claims.

Music:

Brittle Rille by Kevin MacLeod

If you've ever watched a political debate on TV, you may wonder what the point is. After all, aren't both participants committed to their own viewpoints, and just aiming to win? Why would we ever think that debate is a useful activity. Nyaya philosophers were big proponents of debate, but not the kind of debate you see on network TV. In this episode we'll explore why they think arguments between two opposing parties aren't just a spectacular waste of time.

Music:

Brittle Rille by Kevin MacLeod

Doubts can feel paralyzing, but according to the early Nyaya philosopher Uddyotakara, the right kind of doubt is actually useful. In this episode we'll apply his thinking about doubt to the 2020 US presidential election.

Music:

Brittle Rille by Kevin MacLeod

In this increasingly partisan world, many of us are listening only to people we already agree with. But can we learn things from the speech of people on the "other side"? In this episode, we learn how Nyaya philosophers think testimony can be a powerful tool for conveying knowledge, regardless of religion or political affiliation.

Music:

The climate is changing due to human activity. Scientists today are arguing for this crucial claim, warning us that it has dire consequences. But how can we know that the past has an effect on the present? How can we draw connections between unseen things and what we observe? In this episode, we’ll see how Nyaya philosophers could help science communicators like Bill Nye in their mission to demonstrate the reality of climate change. And we’ll see if climate change deniers have a snowball’s chance in Oklahoma of refuting it.

Clips:

We can’t directly see it but we know it exists by extending our vision with special tools. We can reason about when it’s present based on associations. We can share facts about it with each other. And we can learn its name by comparing it to other similar kinds of things. I’m talking about the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, and in this episode we’ll focus on how early Nyāya philosophers might explain our knowledge about this disease, and how they think all human beings have the ability to know using a special set of natural abilities.

Music:

Brittle Rille by Kevin MacLeod

How can we become better thinkers and better human beings? What’s the connection between critical thinking and reducing suffering? In this intro episode to Season 2, we’ll learn about the Indian tradition known as “Nyaya,” who says these things are very closely related, and whose ideas we’ll be focusing on in detail this coming season.

Music:

Brittle Rille by Kevin MacLeod

Binge-watching. You sit down, popcorn and soda at the ready, and before you know it, three hours have gone by and Netflix pops up with a message: “Are you still watching?”  While binge-watching is a fairly new English phrase (attested by the OED back to 1998 in verb form) in the sense of “overindulgence,” binging goes back to the 19th century, associated with gluttony. While binging on television may be a particularly modern phenomenon, the connection between gluttony and aesthetic taste is not. Today on Sutras (and Stuff) we’ll look at the Sanskrit thinker Abhinavagupta on aesthetic gluttony. Would he binge-watch the Tiger King or even the Ramayana on Netflix?

Sources

Do you wish things were different right now? Is there some experience you used to have that you miss? Are you having unpleasant feelings? If so, you've got a lot in common with Buddhist practitioners and philosophers from the 4th century CE. In this episode, I speak with Bryce Huebner, Provost's Distinguished Associate Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. We talk about how some Buddhist philosophers think our mental lives are interrelated with our emotions, how this idea relates to contemporary cognitive science, and why that may help those of us who are wishing things were different right now.

Sources and Links

Who should you listen to? Now, more than ever before, we have access to advice from a range of self-proclaimed experts. Anyone with a webcam and an Internet connection can dole out advice. But how do we tell if someone is trustworthy? In the next episode, I test some so-called experts based on the requirements from Nyaya philosophers, with a litle help from Caraka. Let's see who makes the cut...

Love, happiness, and disease. These are a few things that today we call  "contagious." But how did thinkers in the Indian subcontinent, before  the discovery of viruses, understand diseases and their treatment? This  podcast is part two of a two-part interview with Patricia Sauthoff, an  expert in the history of alchemy and medicine in India. 

Sources and links 

Love, happiness, and disease. These are a few things that today we call  "contagious." But how did thinkers in the Indian subcontinent, before  the discovery of viruses, understand diseases and their treatment? This  podcast is part one of a two-part interview with Patricia Sauthoff, an  expert in the history of alchemy and medicine in India. 

Sources and links 

If you’re going to recline your seat on an airplane, you should do it  gently. And if you’re going to kill your enemy with the shyena ritual,  you should build a brick altar. But should we do either of these things? Mimamsa and the logic of troubling commands.

Sources and Links

(This is an audio remastered version of an episode which first aired February 29, 2020.)

Introduction to the podcast and, what do sutras and Twitter have in common? What do ancient Sanskrit aphorisms have in common with modern Internet communication? In this episode, Malcolm talks about sutras and Twitter, bedbugs and textual interpretation.

Sources & Links