Watch 2023-2024 Sessions

Consciousness in Jainism

Jan 13, 2025
8:00 - 9:30 AM PST
Register Here
Presiding: Marie-Hélène Gorisse, University of Birmingham
Marie-Hélène Gorisse is Assistant Professor in Jain Studies in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham, where she leads the “Dharmanath Network in Jain Studies”, which enhances the societal impact of Jainism, interfaith and non-violence through continuous engagement with political, cultural and religious institutions. She is a member of the “Jain Philosophy Research Group” and specialises in Jainism and in the way its epistemology and hermeneutics developed in dialogue with other South Asian philosophico-religious traditions.
 
She also works on the contemporary relevance of Jainism as a contributor to global philosophy of religion, as co-PI of the Templeton project “Global Philosophy of Religion: Fundamental Spiritual Reality, Human Purpose, and Living Well”.
 
Consciousness in Jainism
Presenter: Shree Nahata, University of Oxford

Shree Nahata recently completed his PhD at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford. His research interests include Buddhist philosophy, Jaina philosophy, and Persian poetry.

Dharmakīrti vs Akalaṅka on the Nature, Object, and Structure of Perception
This talk will present the philosophical debate between the Buddhist philosopher Dharmakīrti and the Jaina philosopher Akalaṅka regarding the nature, object, and structure of perception (pratyakṣa) qua source of knowledge (pramāṇa). We shall see that there are three main points of contention between Dharmakīrti and Akalaṅka: Is perception non-conceptual (Dharmakīrti) or conceptual (Akalaṅka) in nature? Does perception apprehend mental forms internal to awareness (Dharmakīrti) or mind-independent external objects (Akalaṅka)? And, is perception structured non-dualistically (Dharmakīrti) or dualistically (Akalaṅka)? We will examine each point of contention by (a) exploring the philosophical issue at stake, (b) reconstructing and analysing the arguments advanced by both philosophers for their respective positions, and (c) offering some initial evaluation of the arguments. The talk will conclude with some reflections on the respective philosophical merits of Dharmakīrti’s and Akalaṅka’s theories of perception as well as the historical significance of this Buddhist-Jaina philosophical debate. We shall see how Akalaṅka’s polemical refutation of Dharmakīrti leads him to a thoroughgoing perceptual conceptualism and a defiant common-sense realism, a distinctive combination of commitments not found in the works of his philosophical predecessors and contemporaries.
Presenter: Jane Allred, University of Alberta

Jane Allred is a Ph.D Candidate in History at the University of Alberta, where she is finishing her dissertation, titled “Pursuing Multifaceted Philology through Vernacular Grammar: A Study of Bhaṭṭākalaṅkadēva’s Karṇātakaśabdānuśāsanam”. Her research more generally focuses on the history of Jainism in Southern India, and Jaina contributions to the histories of linguistics, and to the philosophy of language. Her research has also brought her to history of gender, insofar as it connects to linguistic practices, and she is the author of the forthcoming chapter on Gender and Sexuality in the Bloomsbury Cultural History of Ancient Indian Literature.

Reconstructing a Jain Critique of Deep Grammar: Bhaṭṭākalaṅka-deva and Yaśovijaya-gaṇin on the Relationship between Grammar, Language, and Understanding.
In what sense does the native of a speaker of a language know the language’s grammar, even with no formal schooling in the subject? According to some philosophers of language, this is due to the fact that there are two different levels of understanding, a deep grammar which maps onto our universal structures of understanding, and a surface grammar which expresses how this deep structure is realized in any particular language. The Jain philosophers of language Bhaṭṭākalaṅka and Yaśovijaya both offer accounts of verbal understanding which assume little more of a speaker’s inborn abilities other than a physical capacity for speech and claim that what may seem to be knowledge of a deep grammar may be explained through the structures of reality reflected in our understanding. In this light, this lecture offers to reconstruct an early modern Jaina critique of deep grammar.