Dr. Constance Kassor - "The Tricky Business of Innovation in Buddhist philosophy" by Rangjung Yeshe Institute published on 2019-09-20T05:19:46Z If any Buddhist philosopher wishes to be taken seriously by other Buddhists, she must ground her arguments in tradition. That is to say, Buddhist philosophical claims are never purported to be new or innovative; they are presented as commentaries on, or explanations of, earlier texts or teachings that can be traced all the way back to the Buddha himself. Why, then, is there such a diversity of views among Buddhist philosophers? To answer that question, this talk will examine some of the philosophical strategies employed by the 15th-century Tibetan thinker Gorampa Sonam Senge, and suggest that if we wish to understand how Buddhist philosophy works, we need to clearly see the distinction between what Buddhist philosophers claim to do, and what they actually do. Constance Kassor is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, USA. She is currently engaged in several projects related to Gorampa’s philosophy, including a forthcoming book called Accounting for Awakened Awareness, and an English translation of Gorampa’s encyclopedic text, Synopsis of Madhyamaka (dbu ma’i spyi don). When she’s not teaching or writing, she can probably be found drinking coffee, riding a bicycle, or talking about her two amazing cats. She spoke with students at RYI on Thursday, August 1 2019.
