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Ep. 270: Classical Indian (Vedanta and Nyaya) Design Arguments for God (Part One)

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On God and the World’s Arrangement: Readings from Vedanta and Nyaya Philosophy of Religion with one of its translators, Stephen Phillips. Does nature require an intelligent designer? Śaṅkara (710 CE) and Vācaspati Miśra (960 CE), commenting on the Brahma-sūtra (ca. 200 CE) and Nyāya-sūtra (ca. 200 BCE), argue that it does against atheistic Buddhists, Sāṃkhya believers in a primordial matter that acts on its own, and the Mīmāṃsā conservatives who so venerated scripture that they ruled out a God who created it. But if we’re all Brahman (God), just trying to discover that we are and so escape the cycle of rebirth, then where is there room for a particular deity who created us?

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Ep. 270: Classical Indian (Vedanta and Nyaya) Design Arguments for God (Part Two for Supporters)

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Continuing on God and the World’s Arrangement: Readings from Vedanta and Nyaya Philosophy of Religion after the departure of our guest, Stephen Phillips. 

We’re all familiar with the design argument, so why wade through all these unfamiliar schools and archaic formulations? Mark, Seth, and Wes talk more about these readings in the Indian context of liberation, reason vs. revelation, and whether we might want to read anything else like this and under what conditions.

Ep. 270: Classical Indian (Vedanta and Nyaya) Design Arguments for God (Part One for Supporters)

by 1 Comment

On God and the World’s Arrangement: Readings from Vedanta and Nyaya Philosophy of Religion with one of its translators, Stephen Phillips.

Does nature require an intelligent designer? Śaṅkara (710 CE) and Vācaspati Miśra (960 CE), commenting on the Brahma-sūtra (ca. 200 CE) and Nyāya-sūtra (ca. 200 BCE), argue that it does against atheistic Buddhists, Sāṃkhya believers in a primordial matter that acts on its own, and the Mīmāṃsā conservatives who so venerated scripture that they ruled out a God who created it. But if we’re all Brahman (God), just trying to discover that we are and so escape the cycle of rebirth, then where is there room for a particular deity who created us?

Ep. 267: Avicenna on God and Soul w/ Peter Adamson (Part One)

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Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Hear this part ad-free.

On selections and commentary about Avicenna’s argument from around 1020 C.E. for the existence of God as a necessary being, plus arguments to prove that God has the person-like properties that Islam imputes to him, and his “flying man” argument for the soul’s essential independence from matter. Featuring Mark, Dylan, and our guest Peter Adamson from the History of Philosophy podcast.

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Ep. 267: Avicenna on God and Soul w/ Peter Adamson (Part Two for Supporters)

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Continuing on Avicenna’s argument for the existence of God and on the “flying man” argument for the soul’s immateriality.

We fill out Avicenna’s metaphysical picture: his concept of necessity, how knowledge means knowing necessary attributions (why self-knowledge can grasp the soul’s character), “mental existence,” infinity, and how God’s character established his uniqueness, simplicity, generosity, and other characteristics.

Ep. 267: Avicenna on God and Soul w/ Peter Adamson (Part One for Supporters)

by Leave a Comment

On selections and commentary about Avicenna’s argument from around 1020 C.E. for the existence of God as a necessary being, plus arguments to prove that God has the person-like properties that Islam imputes to him, and his “flying man” argument for the soul’s essential independence from matter. Featuring Mark, Dylan, and our guest Peter Adamson from the History of Philosophy podcast.

The Tree of Life’s Contingent Universe

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Watch on YouTube I can write nothing on Heideggerian scholar*/(anti)Hollywood director Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life that hasn’t been better written elsewhere. Even so, the film has just come available on DVD and digital download, so I thought I’d recommend it to anyone who has been interested in PEL’s recent religion episodes. (Suggestion: try to watch the HD version Continue Reading …

Hawking Keeps Hacking: “Philosophy is Dead”

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Apparently Stephen Hawking not only thinks that spontaneous creation from nothingness is somehow a scientific concept: he also claims that “philosophy is dead” (and as I point out, this is hardly surprising given the core anti-intellectualism lurking behind his amateur philosophizing).

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The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don’t have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we’re talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion

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