Site • RSS • Apple PodcastsDescription (podcaster-provided):
In this informal bite-sized podcast, we'll talk about a range of ideas found in Indian philosophy, along with their connections to the modern day. Your host is a philosopher who reads Sanskrit texts and thinks about how the modern and premodern are intertwined.Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ Indian philosophy through Sanskrit texts • loanwords karma/mantra/dharma/yoga • Nyāya logic, debate, inference, expertise • Buddhism: self, emotions, compassion • connections to medicine/COVID, aesthetics, religion, cross-cultural philosophyThis podcast offers informal, bite-sized explorations of ideas from Indian philosophy, often grounded in Sanskrit texts and brought into conversation with contemporary life. Across the episodes, the host explains how key concepts and practices—especially widely borrowed Sanskrit terms—have been understood within different Indian philosophical traditions and why those differences matter for meaning, ethics, and everyday interpretation. Listeners hear about topics such as karma and mantra, including debates over whether certain utterances have semantic content, how sound and ritual function, and how popular modern uses of these words relate (or don’t relate) to older frameworks.
A recurring focus is on reasoning, argumentation, and epistemology, particularly through Nyāya philosophy: how knowledge is formed, what counts as good inference, how language can mislead through equivocation, and what makes someone a trustworthy expert. The show frequently connects these tools to present-day concerns like public discourse, credibility, and reasoning about disease.
The podcast also ranges into aesthetics and literary theory, using examples from Sanskrit poetry and modern pop culture to discuss figurative language, taste, and “aesthetic gluttony” in relation to binge-watching. Other episodes draw on Buddhist and Jain thought to address mind, emotion, compassion, and ethical life, sometimes linking classical positions to contemporary philosophy, feminist theory, cognitive science, and bioethics.
Interviews with academic philosophers expand the scope further, highlighting cross-cultural and historical connections among Indian, Chinese, and European philosophy and reflecting on what philosophy is as a human activity in different contexts.
| Episodes: |
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S4 E3: Mantra 2023-Dec-11 29 minutes |
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Announcement - Season 4 Episode 3 2023-Mar-03 1 minute |
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S4 E1: Karma 2023-Jan-06 34 minutes |
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S4 Teaser 2022-Dec-16 1 minute |
S3 E10: Tom Davies2022-Jun-16 14 minutes |
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S3 E9: Robin Zheng 2022-Jun-01 15 minutes |
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S3 E8: Cathay Liu 2022-May-15 15 minutes |
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S3 E7: Neil Mehta 2022-May-01 16 minutes |
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S3 E6: Matt Walker 2022-Apr-14 15 minutes |
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S3 E5: Jay Garfield 2022-Apr-01 14 minutes |
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S3 E3: Kathryn Muyskens 2022-Mar-01 14 minutes |
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S3 E2: Andrew Bailey 2022-Feb-14 16 minutes |
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S3 E1: Bryan Van Norden 2022-Jan-30 15 minutes |
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Much Ado about Religion: Part 2 2021-Jan-31 16 minutes |
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Episode 9: Much Ado about Religion, Part 1 2021-Jan-15 12 minutes |
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Episode 8: Equivocating and other ways to lose 2021-Jan-01 12 minutes |
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Season 2 Announcement 2020-Dec-30 1 minute |
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Announcement about Episode 4 2020-Oct-16 3 minutes |
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Knowing 2020-Sep-18 14 minutes |
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Announcement: Season One Ending 2020-Jun-04 1 minute |
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Episode 8: Binging 2020-May-29 14 minutes |
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Episode 7: Craving 2020-May-15 17 minutes |
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Episode 6: Expertise 2020-May-01 16 minutes |
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Teaser: Episode 6 2020-Apr-24 less than a minute |
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Episode 5: Contagion (part two) 2020-Apr-17 15 minutes |
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Episode 4: Contagion (part one) 2020-Apr-03 16 minutes |
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Announcement: Opening up the "phone lines" 2020-Mar-28 1 minute |
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Episode 3: Reclining 2020-Mar-27 16 minutes |
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Episode 2.1: Disease and debate 2020-Mar-20 13 minutes |
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Episode 2: The Man 2020-Mar-13 15 minutes |