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Purushottama Bilimoria

Purushottama Bilimoria
University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University · Legal Studies and Philosophy respectivey (visiting professor/scholar)

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Introduction
Purushottama, a recent Visiting Professor at Ashoka University (Delhi) as Disti nguished Fulbright U.S. Scholar, is back temporarily at University of Melbourne & Venus Bay. He is an Editor-in-Chief of Sophia Journal of Philosophy & Traditions, and Sophia Studies in Cross-Cultural Philosophy. "Billie"'s research interest ranges from Metaphysics, Ethics, Comparative Philosophy of (Religion, Law, Morals, Politics, Aesthetics), to Indian Logic & Epistemology; a current project is 'On Being Absent'.
Additional affiliations
January 2009 - June 2019
University of Melbourne
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Publications

Publications (202)
Article
Full-text available
There are various permutations of theism: henotheism, pantheism, panentheism, a/theism, and nontheistic divinity. There is debate whether the idea of OmniGod was ever achieved in India. R. C. Zaehner argued that an evolutionary transition from pratenaturalism of the Vedas to Upaniṣad’s monism, culminated in monotheism with Purāṇas and the Bhagavad...
Chapter
There has been much said about consciousness, but very often the right questions are not asked, or the harder ones. In this epilogue, I set out to press certain “limit questions” that raise both matters of epistemological constraints in the inquiry and issues in metaphysical speculations about this thing called consciousness (and whether it names a...
Chapter
Ever since some traditional protagonists made the intriguing claim that the Vedas (canonical Brahmāṇical texts) are an inviolable resource of authority on significant matters, extensive debate has raged in Indian thought as to whether word can rightfully be accepted as pramāṇa or autonomous mode of knowing; in western epistemological terms, as test...
Chapter
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This book presents histories and religious traditions of Hindus with a South Asian ancestral background living outside of South Asia. Hinduism is today a global religion with significant presence in many countries in the world on all continents. The most important cause of this global expansion is migration and the term ‘Hindu diasporas’ is today u...
Chapter
Much philosophical thinking about religion in the Anglophone world has been hampered by the constraints of Eurocentrism, colonialism and orientalism. Addressing such limitations head-on, this exciting collection develops models for exploring global diversity in order to bring philosophical studies of religion into the globalized 21st century. Drawi...
Article
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The article describes the state of affairs and prospects for research and development in the domain of active use of digitalization and computer programming in the study of the Indian intellectual tradition. The term “Digital Indology” is used this term as an analogy of the expression “Digital Humanities”. Here, it will be understood as the recepti...
Chapter
It is my intention in this essay to problematize the relationship between economics and ethics. The route I will take is an unconventional one—though not so unconventional if we consider Amartya Sen’s original position on capabilities and his radical revision of the Rawlsian theory of justice. Sen’s thinking is informed by his deep-rooted awareness...
Chapter
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Article
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The article considers the theoretical and practical consequences of the so-called "soft" version of epistemological realism in Bimal K. Matilal's philosophical project. The author offers an analytical view on Matilal's philosophy, which helps to understand it in a broader prospective, comparing his arguments on perception and objectivity with conte...
Book
This volume brings sustainability studies into creative and constructive conversation with actions, practices, and worldviews from religion and theology supportive of the vision and work of the UN SDGs. It features more than 30 chapters from scholars across diverse disciplines, including economics, ethics, theology, sociology, ritual studies, and v...
Chapter
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It is a truism that Bimal Krishna Matilal (1935–1991) was the twentieth century's leading exponent of Indian logic and epistemology while also being an analytical visionary on the role of philosophy in classical Indian society. What is less known is that Bimal Matilal, a one‐time occupier of the Spalding Chair in Eastern Religion and Ethics at All...
Chapter
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The essay explores how God is conceived—if only just—in the works of two existentialist philosophers: Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers, one considers the mutual convergence and disarming divergence of their respective positions. In 1919, Martin Heidegger announced his distancing of himself from the Catholic faith, apparently liberating himself to...
Article
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The essay explores how God is conceived—if only just—in the works of two existentialist philosophers: Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers, one considers the mutual convergence and disarming divergence of their respective positions. In 1919, Martin Heidegger announced his distancing of himself from the Catholic faith, apparently liberating himself to...
Article
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We wake each morning to news on the glaring statistics of people infected by COVID-19 and others reportedly dying from complications thereto; the numbers are not receding in at least a number of countries across the world (barring a few that imposed strict lockdowns, testing and quarantining measures, such as Australia, Singapore, New Zealand and V...
Presentation
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During strict lockdown in Victoria, spending time in 'iso' or solitude in Venus Bay had one virtue: contemplating nature's magic, watching seed pop up and plants maturing to yield pods and spinach, tomatoes, and kale, carrots and zucchini, fenugreek herbs, parsley, mint, and much more. The metal garden-bed was a self-assembled craft.
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A number of different kinds of negation and negation of negation are developed in Indian thought, from ancient religious texts to classical philosophy. The chapter explores the Mīmāṃsā, Nyāya, Jaina and Buddhist theorizing on the various forms and permutations of negation, denial, nullity, nothing and nothingness, or emptiness. The main thesis argu...
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The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the volume “Beyond Faith and Rationality: Essays on Logic, Religion and Philosophy”. We briefly sketch, in a first step, what analytic and logical philosophy are all about, and, in a second step, clarify the particular features of analytic philosophy of religion and logical philosophy of religion. In the...
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In this chapter we opt for a very literal interpretation of materiality and religion by highlighting religious notions that merge the usually mundane material with the divine, with some discussion about how many Christians find such views problematic. There has been much written of late on the topic of panentheism, which is pertinent to religions o...
Book
This volume deals with the relation between faith and reason, and brings the latest developments of modern logic into the scene. Faith and rationality are two perennial key concepts in the history of ideas. Philosophers and theologians have struggled to bring into harmony these otherwise conflicting concepts. Despite the diversity of approaches abo...
Chapter
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This essay in the comparative metaphysic of nothingness begins by pondering why Leibniz thought of the converse question as the preeminent one. In Eastern philosophical thought, like the numeral ‘zero’ (śūnya) that Indian mathematicians first discovered, nothingness as non-being looms large and serves as the first quiver on the imponderables they s...
Article
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Abstract: This paper is an attempt to map the philosophical and soteriological horizon of the thought-world of Raimon Panikkar who is quintessentially and uniquely a Hindu peripatetic philosopher. In trying to locate the ‘Hindu’ character of Panikkar’s philosophical thinking, the focus is on the civilizational matrix called ‘Hinduism’ which is at o...
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In his versatile treatment of important themes, issues, and problems in Indian philosophy, My mentor, J N Mohanty has not flinched from making intelligent reflections on the somewhat controversial and difficult view about an avenue towards possible new knowledge. Embraced nonchalantly by a good number of classical Indian philosophers, or ruefully a...
Article
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Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, clearly one of the early modern doyens of Indian Philosophy, remained much enamored of Western thought—of which he took the ancient to classical tradition as his model—and he spent a good part of his speculative life attempting to reconfigure Indian thought to fit the vesture, maybe the toga, of his Greek heroes, namel...
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The chapter undertakes to tread the tenuous ground between modernity and the post-modern which has reverberated with debate in the second half of the twentieth century when both the theoretical framework and the political hegemony of the Western European tradition began to be challenged. This is achieved basically through an analysis of three issue...
Book
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This volume engages in conversation with the thinking and work of Max Charlesworth as well as the many questions, tasks and challenges in academic and public life that he posed. It addresses philosophical, religious and cultural issues, ranging from bioethics to Australian Songlines, and from consultation in a liberal society to intentionality. The...
Article
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Since its founding in 1962, the journal Sophia has provided a forum for discussions in philosophy and religion, focusing on the interstices between metaphysics and theological thinking. The discussions encompass the wider ambience of the sciences ('natural' philosophy and human/social sciences), ethical and moral concerns in the public sphere, crit...
Article
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This paper argues that Śrī Swāminārāyaṇ espoused a position on the pramāṇa-s (means of knowing), and his theory was that among these it is śabdapramāṇa that is the important and authoritative pramāṇa. However, in delineating the precise sources and textual authority that fall within the ambit of śabdapramāṇa, he privileged mostly the Smṛti texts, a...
Chapter
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This chapter presents a fictionalized narrative of Totaram Sanadhya’s brief visit to Sydney in 1914. Pundit Sanadhya migrated to Fiji as an indentured labourer and spent twenty-one years on the Pacific Island. He became a nationalist and collaborated with C.F. Andrews in bringing down the indenture system. The story is based on the evidence provide...
Article
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The commentary engages Hegel’s anxieties as discussed in Robert Pippin’s lead paper on the question of Western ‘modernity’ in early 19th century: how did we get there, to the ‘dissatisfactions of European high culture’, after all the promises of the teleology of world-spirit (ecclesia spiritualis) and hermeneutik that Hegel mapped in the inexorable...
Article
Full-text available
This paper argues that Śrī Swāminārāyaṇ espoused a position on the pramāṇa-s (means of knowing), and his theory was that among these it is śabdapramāṇa that is the important and authoritative pramāṇa. However, in delineating the precise sources and textual authority that fall within the ambit of śabdapramāṇa, he privileged mostly the Smṛti texts, a...
Article
Full-text available
The paper is a cross-cultural critique on how God is conceived in the works of two Existentialist Philosophers: Karl Jaspers and Heidegger (their convergence and divergences), and how we might disconceive both. And there is reference via Jaspers to Faith (since I am a Fellow of the College of the All Souls of the Faithful Departed, in Oxford), I am...
Article
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I wish to take up some of the sentiments we have towards animals and put them to test in respect of the claims to moral high grounds in Indian thought-traditions vis-à-vis Abrahamic theologies. And I do this by turning the focus in this instance—on a par with issues of caste, gender, minority status, albeit still within the human community ambience...
Chapter
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There are three main questions one can ask about *intuition*. The analytical—phenomenological question is: what is the correct conceptual analysis and phenomenological account of intuition? The empirical-cognitive question is: what is the correct process-wise robust account of *intuition* phenomenon? In this paper we provide an answer to a third qu...
Article
Full-text available
The paper is a cross-cultural critique on how God is conceived in the works of two Existentialist Philosophers: Jaspers and Heidegger (their convergence and divergences), and how we might disconceive both. In passing, there is reference via Jaspers to Faith (since I have been a visiting fellow of the College of the All Souls of the Faithful Departe...
Cover Page
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Hardback eBook Add to GoodReads Toleration in Comparative Perspective EDITED BY VICKI A. SPENCER - CONTRIBUTIONS BY VICKI A. SPENCER; TAKASHI SHOGIMEN; SCOTT L. PRATT; KEN TSUTSUMIBAYASHI; KAREN BARKEY; ASMA AFSARUDDIN; ANNE MOCKO; NEELIMA SHUKLA-BHATT; PURUSHOTTAMA BILIMORIA; BENJAMIN SCHONTHAL; KOICHIRO MATSUDA; KAM-POR YU AND XIAOGAN LIU
Article
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This paper offers a set of nuanced narratives and a theoretically-informed report on what is the driving force and motivation behind the movement of Hindus and Sikhs from one continent to another (apart from their earlier movement out of the subcontinent to distant shores). What leads them to leave one diasporic location for another location? In th...
Chapter
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Should the problems of epistemology be settled before the questions of metaphysics and practical applications of philosophical learning are dealt with, so that our knowledge that pertains to such matters may be established on firmer foundations and not on false understanding? The adage pramāṇādhīnā prameya-sthitiḥ (EIP 1977, 8) sums up the directio...
Chapter
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Article
Full-text available
A number of different kinds of negation and negation of negation are developed in Indian thought, from ancient religious texts to classical philosophy. The paper explores the Mīmāṃsā, Nyāya, Jaina and Buddhist theorizing on the various forms and permutations of negation, denial, nullity, nothing and nothingness, or emptiness. The main thesis argued...
Article
Full-text available
Two of the most important contributions that Bimal Krishna Matilal made to comparative philosophy derive from his (1968) doctoral dissertation The Navya-Nyāya Doctrine of Negation: The Semantics and Ontology of Negative Statements in Navya-Nyāya Philosophy and his (1986) classic: Perception: An Essay on Classical Indian Theories of Knowing. In this...
Article
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This is an extensive critical discussion on Advaita metaphysics from, as we have in the title, a contemporary perspective. ‘Contemporary’ can of course mean contemporaneous to the author or around her time; but one thing it cannot signify is a moment we might call the receding past: some line that does not cut into the present in quite the same way...
Chapter
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PURUSHOTTAMA BILIMORIA and ALEKSANDRA WENTA (eds): Emotions in Indian Thought-Systems. x, 287 pp. New Delhi: Routledge, 2015. ISBN 978 1 138 85935 7. doi:10.1017/S0041977X1600077X Emotions have a history in South Asia, if hardly anything like an adequate historiography. The editors of this book agree: “much more work . . . needs to be done to impr...
Article
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The chapter examines the three types of negation described in the Mīmāṃsā school in their treatment of the kinds of permissible, prohibited, and excluded (vipratipratiṣedha, niṣedha, pratiṣedha) sacrifices that are otherwise enjoined as injunctions (vidhis) in the Vedic passages. The paribhāṣā (‘meta-language’) rules becomes instructive with the de...
Book
Full-text available
Since the late 1990s, the Indian community in Australia has grown faster than any other immigrant community. The Indian Diaspora has made substantial contributions to the multi-ethnic and multi-religious diversity within Australia. The growth of Hinduism and Sikhism through gurus, temples, yoga and rituals of many kind has brought new colours, imag...
Article
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The extended mind hypothesis for the case of belief, defended by Clark and Chalmers (1998), is an intriguing hypothesis about the nature of human minds that rests on functionalism about various components of mindedness. In this paper we present the Advaita Vedānta account of perception as continuous-part extension against the backdrop of panpsychis...
Book
Full-text available
Since the late 1990s, the Indian community in Australia has grown faster than any other immigrant community. The Indian Diaspora has made substantial contributions to the multi-ethnic and multi-religious diversity within Australia. The growth of Hinduism and Sikhism through gurus, temples, yoga and rituals of many kind has brought new colours, imag...
Chapter
Full-text available
This chapter examines the relationship between economics and ethics by focusing on India's recent reemergence as a major force in the global economy. More specifically, it considers the common narrative about India's long history of poverty and its inability to rise to the economic standards of the West, an adverse imaginary grounded in the negativ...
Article
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The most pressing issues of the twenty-first century—climate change and persistent hunger in a world of food surpluses, to name only two—can only be resolved by generating sustained and globally robust coordination across value systems. This book brings together leading thinkers from around the world to deliberate on how best to correlate worth (va...
Article
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The presentation begins with the moving scene of Va¯lmi¯ki's grief over the bereavement of the survivor of the two birds in amorous union as one of them is pierced by a hunter's arrow. After considering Abhinavagupta's doubt about the genuineness of Va¯lmi¯ki's grief, the paper moves to Maha¯bha¯rata as the women from the warring clans bear witness...
Book
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As a Festschrift, this book celebrates and honours the scholarly achievements of Professor Jaysankar Lal Shaw, one of the most eminent and internationally acclaimed comparative philosophers of our times. Original works by leading international philosophers and logicians are presented here, exploring themes such as: meaning, negation, perception and...
Chapter
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Indian theistic solution to the problem of evil – or universal injustice – is an off-shoot of the logical theism of Nyāya and philosophical theologies of Vedānta thought. Their respective teleo-cosmologies embed an ontology of divine creation, sustention and periodic dissolution of our world. An N-factor is introduced governing the moral sphere, na...
Chapter
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This Chapter is an exercise in comparative secularism. In this chapter I will be concerned basically with a critique of Western conceptions of secularism, beginning with Hegel’s invention of a particular reading of secularism that, through imperialist literature, gave a preeminent direction to the ideology of the less-religiously orientated Indian...
Article
Full-text available
This essay in the comparative metaphysic of nothingness begins by pondering why Leibniz thought of the converse question as the preeminent one. In Eastern philosophical thought, like the numeral 'zero' (śūnya) that Indian mathematicians first discovered, nothingness as non-being looms large and serves as the first quiver on the imponderables they s...
Article
Full-text available
Philosophy of Religion (PR) undertakes a critical examination of the methods and reasoning behind theologies and arguments in a range of religious traditions. It also examines critical responses to the doctrinaire commitments of religions – from the alternative points-of-view of secularism, science, atheism (or variant nontheism and agnosticism), f...
Article
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The paper seeks to demonstrate how a political-philosophical idea became a worldwide movement, a driving ideology, that has had a formidably deconstructive impact on significant religious practices of societies wedded to traditional patterns of culture, law and morality. But this Enlightenment epistemé has also come increasingly under scrutiny for...

Questions

Questions (11)
Question
Helo, I mistakenly uploaded a wrong paper when asked to submit a Full-text of some item picked up by the sleuths of RG. I can't find that paper. Can hardly find any of my papers. RG is less friendly in that respect than Academia.edu. How do I do that? This is like rocket science.
Question
I was back there is 2016; on a conference on Tolerance organised by Vicky Spencer of Political Science; she'd be most interested in the project. My chapter was published in a book she edited and it is on Tolerance in Indian Thought, includes Gandhi. I write a lot on Gandhi, Nonviolence, Civil rights, Peace, education and you name it. I am in the US (Berkeley, California) these days but go back to Melbourne (University and Venus Bay where I have a country-seaside home), often. Heading back in May (all being well with the C-19 virus receding we pray by then!) I lived in Waitati in a farm house which is still standing (back in1974-5)! Brings abck memories
Question
I am interested in this project, beautiful Deniz, but my handicap is that I don;t read Turkish language; I wish to yuor citation of my paper, love.
Question
We would be interested in considering publishing something along these lines in SOPHIA. Are you are of Robert C Solomon's work on Secular Spirituality? His wife Kathleen Higgins also wrote a commentary along with two others on Solomon's thoughts in Sophia (journal) and the first volume in the Sophia book series with Springer (I edit the series). see here:
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A copy couldI obtain please?
Question
yes, I agree. Shankara in the 10th century said the same, and Nagarjuna asked why even bother with Metaphysics. My is why is Why is there Nothing rather than someThing? You'll find the paper somewhere , on Research Gate or Academia, edu, certainly in Sophia. Best
Question
. what will be your case studies? Biculturalism is working in New Zealand within liberalism (toward the Left variety); to an extent in Canada and Australia (they cannot but accept and adopt multiculturalism as the settler Anglo-Celtic-French-White population declines, in retrocede, and immigrant communities increase. Now turban-wearing Sikhs in Trudeau's Cabinet, and a prominent Chinese-Gay medical academic a strong opposition whip in Australian Senate. Two Indian women (one is half but sufficiently Gandhian, the other adopted Hinduism as her parent identification) are likely to contest for Presidential nomination in the US 2020 race to the White House. If one of the two becomes President the face of US will change dramatically and liberalism will return to the mainstream agenda if not reality, just yet.
Question
A must for review in Sophia. Can we bespeak a copy?
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Not following what you are saying or expecting.Be more precise please.
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Well done. I'd like to know how yuo found my work useful for your own work? Please share. I have more.
Question
I saw reference to this in Research Gate but forgot to note it, now I can't find article site or author. Anyone come across it or how to find? Does not show up under publication for some reason?

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