William Edelglass | Emerson College (original) (raw)

Books by William Edelglass

Routledge Handbook of Indian Buddhist Philosophy, 2022

The Routledge Handbook of Indian Buddhist Philosophy is the first scholarly reference volume to h... more The Routledge Handbook of Indian Buddhist Philosophy is the first scholarly reference volume to highlight the diversity and individuality of a large number of the most influential philosophers to have contributed to the evolution of Buddhist thought in India. By placing the author at the center of inquiry, the volume highlights the often unrecognized innovation and multiplicity of India’s Buddhist thinkers, whose unique contributions are commonly subsumed in more general doctrinal presentations of philosophical schools. Here, instead, the reader is invited to explore the works and ideas of India’s most important Buddhist philosophers in a manner that takes seriously the weight of their philosophical thought.

The forty chapters by an international and interdisciplinary team of renowned contributors each seek to offer both a wide-ranging overview and a philosophically astute reading of the works of the most seminal Indian Buddhist authors from the earliest writings to the twentieth century. The volume thus also provides thorough coverage of all the main figures, texts, traditions, and debates animating Indian Buddhist thought, and as such can serve as an in-depth introduction to Buddhist philosophy in India for those new to the field.

Essential reading for students and researchers in Asian and comparative philosophy, The Routledge Handbook of Indian Buddhist Philosophy is also an excellent resource for specialists in Buddhist philosophy, as well as for contemporary philosophers interested in learning about the rigorous and rich traditions of Buddhist philosophy in India.

Buddhist Philosophy: Essential Readings, 2009

The Buddhist philosophical tradition is vast, internally diverse, and comprises texts written in ... more The Buddhist philosophical tradition is vast, internally diverse, and comprises texts written in a variety of canonical languages. It is hence often difficult for those with training in Western philosophy who wish to approach this tradition for the first time to know where to start, and difficult for those who wish to introduce and teach courses in Buddhist philosophy to find suitable textbooks that adequately represent the diversity of the tradition, expose students to important primary texts in reliable translations, that contextualize those texts, and that foreground specifically philosophical issues.

Buddhist Philosophy fills that lacuna. It collects important philosophical texts from each major Buddhist tradition. Each text is translated and introduced by a recognized authority in Buddhist studies. Each introduction sets the text in context and introduces the philosophical issues it addresses and arguments it presents, providing a useful and authoritative guide to reading and to teaching the text. The volume is organized into topical sections that reflect the way that Western philosophers think about the structure of the discipline, and each section is introduced by an essay explaining Buddhist approaches to that subject matter, and the place of the texts collected in that section in the enterprise.

This volume is an ideal single text for an intermediate or advanced course in Buddhist philosophy, and makes this tradition immediately accessible to the philosopher or student versed in Western philosophy coming to Buddhism for the first time. It is also ideal for the scholar or student of Buddhist studies who is interested specifically in the philosophical dimensions of the Buddhist tradition.

Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy, 2011

This book provides a set of introductions to each of the world's major non-European philosophical... more This book provides a set of introductions to each of the world's major non-European philosophical traditions. It offers the non-specialist a way into unfamiliar philosophical texts and methods and the opportunity to explore non-European philosophical terrain and to connect their work in one tradition to philosophical ideas or texts from another. Sections on Chinese philosophy, Indian philosophy, Buddhist philosophy, East Asian philosophy, African philosophy, and recent trends in global philosophy are each edited by an expert in the field. Each section includes a general introduction and a set of articles written by scholars, designed to provide a broad overview of a major topic or figure.

Papers by William Edelglass

Oxford Encyclopedia of Religion, 2021

Summary Buddhism is a vast and heterogeneous set of traditions embedded in many different environ... more Summary
Buddhism is a vast and heterogeneous set of traditions embedded in many different environments over more than two millennia. Still, there have been some similar practices across Buddhist cultures that contributed to the construction of local Buddhist environments. These practices included innumerable stories placing prominent Buddhist figures, including the historical Buddha, in particular places. Many of these stories concerned the conversion of local serpent spirits, dragons, and other beings associated with a local place who then themselves became Buddhist and were said to protect Buddhism in their locales. Events in the stories as well as relics and landscape features were marked by pillars, reliquary shrines (stupas), caves, temples, or monasteries that often became the focus of pilgrimage or considered particularly auspicious places for Buddhist practice, where one could encounter buddhas and bodhisattvas. Through ritual practices such as pilgrimage, circumambulation, and offerings, Buddhists engaged environments and their local spirits. Landscapes were transformed into Buddhist sites that were mapped and made meaningful according to Buddhist stories and cosmology. Farmers, herders, traders, and others in Buddhist cultures whose livelihood depended on their environments engaged the spirits of the land, whose blessings they needed for their own good.
Just as they transformed the meaning of local environments, Buddhists also transformed the material environment. In addition to building monasteries, stupas, and other religious structures, Buddhist monastics developed administrative and engineering expertise that enabled large-scale irrigation systems. As Buddhism spread through Asia, it brought agricultural technologies that created the watery landscapes enabling rice production and increasing the agricultural surplus that made possible large monasteries and urbanization.
In the last decades of the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st, eco-Buddhist scholars and practitioners have found resources in Buddhist traditions to construct a Buddhist environmental ethic. Some have argued that concepts such as dependent origination, the ethics of loving-kindness and compassion, and other ideas from classical Buddhist traditions suggest that Buddhism has always been particularly attuned to the environment. Critics have charged that eco-Buddhists are distorting Buddhist traditions by claiming that premodern traditions were responding to contemporary environmental concerns. Moreover, they argue, Buddhist ideas such as dependent origination, or its more environmentally resonant interpretation as “interdependence,” do not in fact provide a satisfying grounding for an environmental ethic. Partly in response to such critics, much scholarly work on Buddhism and the environment became more focused on concrete phenomena, informed by a variety of disciplines, including anthropology,
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archaeology, place studies, art history, pilgrimage studies, and the study of activism. Instead of focusing primarily on universal concepts found in ancient texts, scholars are just as likely to look at how local communities have drawn on Buddhist ontology, ethics, cosmology, symbolism, and rituals to develop Buddhist responses to local environmental needs, developing contemporary Buddhist environmentalisms.

The Routledge Handbook of Indian Buddhist Philosophy, 2022

B.R. Ambedkar (1891-1956), was born into an outcaste community, the Mahars, and went on to earn m... more B.R. Ambedkar (1891-1956), was born into an outcaste community, the Mahars, and went on to earn multiple graduate degrees at both Columbia and the London School of Economics, eventually becoming the first Minister of Law in the newly independent India and Chair of the Drafting Committee of the Indian Constitution. While he is primarily known as the chief architect of the constitution, Ambedkar was also a prolific author who worked in disciplines across the social sciences and humanities, including philosophy. According to Ambedkar’s analysis, the inequality that permeated Indian society was due in part to the dominant forms of Indian religion; he argued that not only caste had to be annihilated, but also the religious framework that justified caste hierarchy. However, Ambedkar believed religion was still important as it could provide the basis for a sacred morality and responsibility to others that would bind social groups together in a democratic society. Ambedkar devoted the last decade of his life to developing a Buddhist philosophy and practice that would explicitly center the experience of marginalized communities and lead to a more free, just, and equitable society. This chapter traces three intertwined threads in Ambedkar’s work: philosophy of religion, Buddhism as socially engaged, and Buddhist political philosophy.

Routledge eBooks, Jun 22, 2022

Oxford Scholarship Online

The widespread discourse of happiness and meditation is part of a “happiness turn” in contemporar... more The widespread discourse of happiness and meditation is part of a “happiness turn” in contemporary Western Buddhism, in which meditation is presented as a path to happiness. This turn is justified, in part, by empirical research on happiness, which appears to be a straightforward scientific inquiry into the causes and conditions of happiness. The two most widespread methods for measuring happiness, life satisfaction questionnaires and random experience sampling, are each committed to a particular theory of happiness: implicit in the random experience sampling method is a hedonic conception of happiness as positive affect or pleasure. In contrast, Śāntideva suggests that cultivating mindfulness and awareness entails relinquishing of self and increasing skill in addressing others’ needs. This contrast demonstrates that the scientific study of meditation and happiness is not value neutral but reframes the meaning of meditation.

Buddhism and Jainism, 2017

Journal of Dharma Studies, 2019

Teaching Philosophy, 2014

Environmental Philosophy, 2006

His current research is focused on Indian Mahāyāna ethics; and he is co-editing Buddhist Philosop... more His current research is focused on Indian Mahāyāna ethics; and he is co-editing Buddhist Philosophy, with Jay Garfield, forthcoming from Oxford University Press. J. Baird Callicott claims that moral pluralism leads to relativism, skepticism, and the undermining of moral obligations. Buddhist ethics provides a counterexample to Callicott; it is a robust tradition of moral pluralism. Focusing on one of the most significant texts in Buddhist ethics, Śāntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra, I show how it draws on a multiplicity of moral principles determined by context and skillful means (upāya kauśalya). In contrast to Callicott's description of pluralism as detrimental to moral life, I suggest that South Asian Buddhist traditions provide a model of moral reasoning that is both robust and flexible, a model appropriate for the many kinds of moral obligations that arise in the context of environmental ethics.

Asian Philosophies and the Idea of Religion: Beyond Faith and Reason. Edited by Sonia Sikka and Ashwani Peetush. Routledge, 2020, 2020

I this chapter I situate Walpola Rahula’s presentation of Buddhism as a rational tradition that e... more I this chapter I situate Walpola Rahula’s presentation of Buddhism as a rational tradition that eschews faith in the broader context of Buddhist modernizers who responded to European modernity and colonialism by articulating a Buddhism that conformed to modern European values. Their rejection of faith, I argue, is a rejection of a modern European notion of faith, a Kantian understanding of faith as a belief about that which is beyond the realm of experience, and therefore beyond the realm of knowledge. It is a faith defined against knowledge, which is understood as its opposite. While there are many different accounts of faith in Buddhist traditions, in this chapter I am focusing on several Indian Mahāyāna texts on the path, in which faith, while including belief, is not primarily defined in contrast to reason and knowledge and includes behavioral and affective elements. Asaṅga, for example, understands faith (Sanskrit śraddhā; Pāli saddhā) to have three aspects: (1) a conviction in the good qualities of the Buddha, the teachings of the Buddha, and the community of those who follow the Buddha’s teachings; (2) a serene joy or gladdening made possible by this conviction; and (3) a confidence in one’s ability to make progress on the Buddhist path. While the teachings of the Buddha are initially taken on faith, for Asaṅga, the more understanding one develops, the more one acts faithfully, the more one’s faith increases. Indeed, faith – providing the trust in evidence that reason requires – is the very condition of rational activity. Faith and reason, then, are not oriented toward different realms; they are mutually enhancing. I illustrate this by showing how faith and devotional practices operate in Śāntideva’s Introduction to the Way of Life of a Bodhisattva and Training Anthology. In these texts, Śāntideva presents faith as the origin and source of awakening, because it sets the practitioner on the path. But faith is not merely necessary to initiate the path; according to Śāntideva, and many other Indian Buddhist authors, faith is necessary to continue to motivate progress along the path and is necessary until the end. Still, while worship of the Buddha and other practices to generate faith may be essential elements of the path, the goal is to become a Buddha oneself, which requires, along with transforming affect and action, attaining wisdom through analytic meditation and rational arguments. Śraddhā, as understood by Asaṅga and Śāntideva, while very different from a Kantian conception, resonates with some other Western accounts of faith, both classical and contemporary, that emphasize the affective and behavioral elements, as well as the cognitive. While my main point here is that for Asaṅga and Śāntideva, śraddhā is not in tension with but complements reason, I conclude by arguing that its range of meaning in Indian Buddhist literature on the path is best captured by the English term faith.

Teaching Philosophy, 2009

Sophia, 2006

... Echoing the well-known sentence that begins Totality and Infinity, in 'Useless Suffering&... more ... Echoing the well-known sentence that begins Totality and Infinity, in 'Useless Suffering' Levinas writes, 'The philosophical problem, then, that is posed by the useless pain that appears in its fundamental malignancy through the events of the twentieth century, concerns the ...

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2011

Emmanuel/A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy, 2013

Routledge Handbook of Indian Buddhist Philosophy, 2022

Buddhist Philosophy: Essential Readings, 2009

Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy, 2011

Oxford Encyclopedia of Religion, 2021

The Routledge Handbook of Indian Buddhist Philosophy, 2022

Routledge eBooks, Jun 22, 2022

Oxford Scholarship Online

Buddhism and Jainism, 2017

Journal of Dharma Studies, 2019

Teaching Philosophy, 2014

Environmental Philosophy, 2006

Asian Philosophies and the Idea of Religion: Beyond Faith and Reason. Edited by Sonia Sikka and Ashwani Peetush. Routledge, 2020, 2020

Teaching Philosophy, 2009

Sophia, 2006

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2011

Emmanuel/A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy, 2013

The Enigma of Good and Evil; The Moral Sentiment in …, 2005

... With the prominence of the distinction between the saying and the said in Otherwise Than Bein... more ... With the prominence of the distinction between the saying and the said in Otherwise Than Being, and the imperative to unsay his own said, Levinas's writing ... Rousseau, Joseph Butler, Hutcheson, Hume, and Adam Smith, all gave compassion for the other's suffering a prominent ...

Sophia, 2006

Moral Theory and Climate Change: Ethical Perspectives on a Warming Planet, edited by Dale Miller and Ben Eggleston, 2020

This chapter begins with an overview of Levinas’s ethics of difference and singularity and then e... more This chapter begins with an overview of Levinas’s ethics of difference and singularity and then explores a Levinasian approach to the ethical dimension of climate change. Dale Jamieson argues that climate change and other collective action environmental problems pose a challenge to our traditional conceptions of moral responsibility. But Levinas’s account of responsibility, because it is not grounded in intention or causal relations, suggests that I am indeed responsible for those who suffer from a changing climate. Indeed, their vulnerability and suffering disclose my own resources to work for mitigation and adaptation, and my complicity in their situation. Moreover, Levinas’s understanding of the work of ethics as a service for a time in which I do not benefit, provides a framework for conceptualizing my responsibility to future generations. And grounding justice in the ethical relation, as Levinas does, motivates collective agreements aimed at mitigating and adapting to climate change while simultaneously resisting the ways in which these agreement inevitably justify present and future suffering. Thus, I argue, Levinas’s work provides an apt description of ethical life in the Anthropocene: I have inescapable responsibilities that increase with my awareness and attention and are always beyond my capacities to meet.

Journal of Dharma Studies, 2019

This essay arose from a collaborative project exploring the meaning of apophatic discourse in dif... more This essay arose from a collaborative project exploring the meaning of apophatic discourse in different religious traditions. I focus on the paradox of language as both liberating and ensnaring that resonates across the great diversity and heterogeneity of Buddhist traditions. Apophatic discourse is a widespread response to this paradox, as it is motivated by a recognition of the limits of words and concepts even as it seeks to point to that which is beyond these limits. The questions of whether there is a nonconceptual reality beyond the limits of words and concepts, and if so, what it might be, and why, precisely, language and reason are incapable of articulating nonconceptual reality, and what the role of language might be in leading beyond itself, are all sources of considerable debate among Buddhist thinkers. What is shared by figures with different responses to these questions is an understanding of apophasis as a form of Buddhist practice. The aim of Buddhist apophatic practice is to disrupt our natural linguistic attitude, in which we are beguiled by language, presupposing that our words and concepts somehow correspond with the ultimate nature of reality. How is apophatic discourse-enacting an awareness of the limits of language-meaningful if it cannot actually describe that which it is about? Buddhist apophatic discourses, such as ontological doctrines of ineffability, negations, and silence, are not simply pointing to ultimate reality, but are meaningful as transformative practices in the context of an interpretive community with shared soteriological goals and doctrines. Thus, even as apophatic discourse is ever transcending positive claims, it depends on kataphatic discourse to have any specific meaning.

Philosophy East and West, 2005

A long review of JN Mohanty's fascinating autobiography, the story of a remarkable life.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Philosophy East and West, 2004

Śāntideva (eighth century C.E.) occupies a prominent position in the Indo-Tibetan pantheon of sch... more Śāntideva (eighth century C.E.) occupies a prominent position in the Indo-Tibetan pantheon of scholar-saints. This prominence is due primarily to the reception of his Bodhicaryāvatāra (The way of the bodhisattva). Citing traditional sources, the great fourteenth-century Tibetan historian Butön puts the number of Indian commentaries on the Bodhicaryāvatāra at one hundred.1 In addition, every major school of Tibetan Buddhism produced its own commentarial literature. These commentaries, especially the material devoted to the penultimate chapter on the perfection of wisdom (prajñā-pāramitā), became sites of intense debate between the various Tibetan schools—each school defending an interpretation consistent with its own philosophical views. Śāntideva’s exquisite descriptions of bodhicitta, his psychological understanding, and his moral and meditative guidance also made his work of value to many whose practice did not include philosophical study. For these reasons the Bodhicaryāvatāra is thought to be ‘‘the most widely read, cited, and practiced text in the whole of the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist tradition.’’2 The continued significance of the Bodhicaryāvatāra is reflected in its many translations available in European languages; six English versions have been published since 1970. There are also a handful of commentaries by contemporary Tibetan scholars available in English, including two by Tenzin Gyatso, H.H. the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. Despite the attention it has received from the Indo-Tibetan tradition and contemporary translators there is little written by Western scholars on philosophical, ethical, or religious aspects of the Bodhicaryāvatāra.3 This lack is surprising given the current interest in Buddhist ethics and the long-standing European fascination with Mādhyamaka philosophy. Francis Brassard’s study of bodhicitta is thus a welcome addition to the literature on the Bodhicaryāvatāra. In his introduction Brassard proposes two claims he will seek to demonstrate. First, although Buddhist religious and philosophical concepts do have functional uses they are not simply skillful means (upāya) to achieve liberation, as Michael Pye has argued. Some concepts actually describe reality and thus are more than provisional steps in a ladder to be discarded at a later stage. The concepts that interest Brassard are those that describe all possible experience on the path to enlightenment, which in Mādhyamaka include most famously emptiness (śūnyatā) and dependent origination (pratı̄tyasamutpāda). Second, it is through the cultivation of awareness of these concepts that one is able to function effectively on the Buddhist path. Brassard claims that bodhicitta, the desire to attain enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, is precisely such a concept: it describes reality, and its efficacy as a religious concept is achieved through the cultivation of awareness of the reality it describes.

Philosophy East and West, 2004

As early as Bhāvaviveka (sixth century), Indian Buddhist doxographers situated important philosop... more As early as Bhāvaviveka (sixth century), Indian Buddhist doxographers situated important philosophers in schools and sub-schools characterized by adherence to distinct views, thereby providing a coherent, hierarchical presentation of the Buddha’s teaching. In Tibet this practice continued and gained considerable importance: the pedagogical and hermeneutical significance of ordering texts occasioned widespread doxographical literary production.1 The doxographical projects, in which the systematic understanding of unchanging ‘tenets’ was privileged over the singular views of individual authors, were highly contested. Much of the disagreement was due to the multiplicity of interpretations bound to arise during a millennium of intellectual exchange. Doxographical hierarchy set the parameters of intellectual discourse, and thus the classification of tenets was not simply a matter of historical interest. Traditions were constructed in such a way that one’s own thought would conform to an acceptable view, to say nothing of the complex relationship between political power and religious doctrine in Tibet. Despite the contested status of Tibetan doxographical categories, the classifications and distinctions that order much contemporary Western scholarship on Mahāyāna Buddhism in India were inherited from Tibet. Until recently, even the best research often uncritically employed dominant Tibetan classifications as basic interpretive categories and was thus able to bring order to an enormous body of literature. The most philosophically significant and vigorously contested classification in Tibetan doxography is the distinction between the Rang rgyud pa and the Thal ‘gyur ba (sanskritized by modern scholars as ‘Svātantrika’ and ‘Prāsaṅgika’, respectively). The original locus of the discussion is three Indian commentaries on Nāgārjuna’s (second century) Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Buddhapālita (fifth-sixth centuries), in what is the oldest extant commentary on the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā by a known author, followed Nāgārjuna’s reductio ad absurdam form of argumentation, leading from the opponent’s premise to an untenable consequence (prasaṅga, thal ‘gyur). Shortly thereafter Bhāvaviveka claimed that for every prasaṅga argument in Nāgārjuna’s text there is an unstated positive argument, and he criticized Buddhapālita for not utilizing the new methods of Buddhist logic to demonstrate the validity of Madhyamaka thought. Bhāvaviveka argued that Mādhyamikas ought to present formal probative (prayoga; sbyor ba) and autonomous (svatantraprayoga; rang rgyud kyi sbyor ba) arguments and argued that inferential reasoning was necessary to establish the Madhyamaka view of emptiness. Candrakı̄rti (seventh century) then defended Buddhapālita, insisting that prasaṅga arguments were the only fitting method for a Mādhyamika because they do not require the affirmation of inherent nature. Roughly five centuries later, although Madhyamaka had already been divided according to a variety of classifications in India and Tibet, some Tibetan scholars retroactively characterized Bhāvaviveka as the founder of the Svātantrikas and Candrakı̄rti as the

Digital copies of this work may be made and distributed provided no change is made and no alterat... more Digital copies of this work may be made and distributed provided no change is made and no alteration is made to the content. Reproduction in any other format, with the exception of a single copy for private study, requires the written permission of the author.

Environmental Philosophy, 2009

Environmental Philosophy, 2006

Dao, 2020

I read Gary Snyder's The Practice of the Wild in my early twenties, sharing passages with friends... more I read Gary Snyder's The Practice of the Wild in my early twenties, sharing passages with friends, feeling the stirrings in my heart for a life with more attention, wildness, and connection to place. Snyder's text was also my introduction to Dōgen 道元, whose writings have influenced me as a teacher and scholar. Jason M. Wirth's Mountains, Rivers, and the Great Earth: Reading Gary Snyder and Dōgen in an Age of Ecological Crisis, is one of those rare books by a scholar that challenges and provokes me in ways similar to the works it explores. As when I read Snyder and Dōgen, reading Mountains, Rivers, and the Great Earth I found myself pausing, allowing space for the words and images to do their work. Perhaps this is because, as Wirth makes clear, his text is "a meditation and philosophical engagement that seeks to read, think, and practice along with both [Snyder and Dōgen] in a manner that is mindful of the place from where one reads them today. It seeks to express something of the place from which Snyder and Dōgen practice, think and write" (xiii). For Wirth, reading Snyder and Dōgen today means reading their work on mountains, rivers, and the Great Earth in a time of catastrophic loss of cultural and biological diversity, when climate change is impacting every ecosystem on earth and therefore every living being. Expressing something of the place from which Snyder and Dōgen work means that "this is also a book from and about the Dharma" (xiii). I understand Wirth to mean that this is a book grounded in his own practice. As with Dōgen and Snyder, this means a practice on the cushion, a practice of the wild, and engaging deeply with liberating truths from multiple traditions that can be practiced in our lives. Practicing affirmation of the diversity he recommends, Wirth finds sources of the Dharma in multiple Buddhist traditions, Continental philosophers, environmental philosophers, Indigenous traditions, poets, novelists, and visual artists. Engaging these Dao

Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, 2013

Review of Kari Weil, Thinking Animals: Why Animal Studies Now?