Professor Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad

PhD Supervision Interests

Indian Philosophy - classical and modern, especially in: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, consciousness studies

Comparative Philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, consciousness studies,and political thought

Hinduism

Indian Buddhism

Jainism

Religion and politics: South Asia, and comparative studies

Indian diaspora

Multiculturalism and British society

Research Interests

Areas of Expertise

Indian and comparative epistemology, metaphysics and philosophy of religion; religion and politics, especially foreign policy; South Asian religious identities in contemporary Britain; the conceptual sources of modern Hindu life and beliefs.

Books and other publications

Papers: Over forty-five papers in a wide range of journals like Philosophy East and West, Journal of Indian Philosophy, Ageing and Society, Contemporary South Asia, Journal of Hindu Studies, etc., and edited volumes.

Books:

Knowledge and Liberation in Classical Indian Thought, Library of Philosophy and Religion Palgrave, Basingstoke, 2001

Advaita Epistemology and Metaphysics: An Outline of Indian Non-Realism Routledge Curzon, London; 2002

Eastern Philosophy, Weidenfield and Nicholson London, 2005

India: Life, Myth and Art Duncan Baird, London, 2006

Indian Philosophy and the Consequences of Knowledge: Themes in metaphysics, ethics and soteriology Ashgate, Aldershot, 2007

Current Research

My main current areas of research are as follows:

1. Theories of self: As PI, I am working with Prof. Jonardon Ganeri of Sussex University on a major AHRC research project: Self: HinduResponses to Buddhist Critiques (http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/projects/self/index.htm). My work for this project is primarily on i) arguments for the diachronic unity of consciousness and the relationship between subject unity and theories of self; ii) the relationship between personal identity and the unity of consciousness, especially with regard to memory; and iii) the theological and ethical dimensions of Hindu conceptions of human and divine self. An outgrowth of this project, tied also to some elements of 2., below, has been an interest in the neurophilosophical aspects of meditative states, focussing on the conceptual debates about consciousness and selfhood between Hindu and Buddhist practices of meditation. In this regard, I have started working with members of the Mind Life Institute, after presenting papers on Hindu theories of consciousness and contemporary neuroscientific and cognitive scientific issues at Mind Life Institute's firstmajor public conference in India, in 2010, inthe presence of HH the Dalai Lama.

2. Theories of consciousness derived from classical Indian thought, for which I held an award from the John Templeton Foundation. My work at the National Institute for Advanced Studies, Bangalore in 2006-07 was primarily on the reconceptualisation of the cognitive science agenda through classical Indian theories of consciousness. I am currently working with Dr Rajesh Kasturirangan, National Institute for Advanced Studies Bangalore, and Dr Nirmalya Guha, Indian Institute of Science-Kanpur, on cognition, conceptualisation and reasoning.

3. Religion and politics, with a focus on the theoretical possibilities offered in interpeting political and public religion in the world, outside the constraints of the modern liberal Western experience, especially through a comparative theological analysis of the politics of secularism. In the more specific area of religion and identity in Britain, I worked under a Home Office Grant with Gwen Griffith-Dickson of the Lokahi Foundation, London, to develop an account of integration of Hindus and Muslims into British society. My interest in the role of comparative theology in the political understanding of secular society has led toworking withthe Hindu-Christian Forum in the UK under the auspices of the Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and chairing the Archbishop's engagement with Hindu religious teacher-leaders in India in 2010.

4. Comparative study of Indian and Chinese philosophies, especially on the issues of self and knowledge. I am co-chair with Tao Jiang of Rutgers University of a new Consultation on Comparative Studies in the Philosophy and Religion of India and China at the American Academy of Religion Conferences starting in 2011. This follows a successful five-year Seminar Series on the same topic. I also sit on the Board of the Working Papers Series on India and China of the India-China Institute at the New School, New York.

Profile

Career details

I studied Politics, Sociology and History in India, and took a doctorate in Philosophy at Oxford. I taught at the National University of Singapore and held Research Fellowships at Trinity College Oxford and Clare Hall, Cambridge before joining Lancaster. I have also been Visiting Fellow at Benares Hindu University, Ecole Francaise d' Extreme Orient, Pondicherry, De Nobili College, Pune, and Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles and the National Institute for Advanced Studies, Bangalore.

I have a range of interests in global and comparative studies, and I am on the academic advisory council of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. I also previously sat on the academic council of the Global Religion and Ethics Forum and I was Asia advisor for the Templeton Foundation's Global Perspective on Science and Spirituality Programme, 2004-6. Currently, Isit on the Board of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy.

I am South Asia Reviews Editor of Philosophy East and West; and sit on the editorial and advisory board of the Online Forum of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy, Blackwell Compass Religion, Diskus, the online journal of the British Association for the Study of Religion, and Fu Jen International Religious Studies.

I regularly lecture at universities in the US, Europe, East Asia and India. Apart from many invited conference talks, major lectures have included a plenary address at the 9th East-West Philosophers' Conference in Hawaii, 2005; a Weidenfield Lecture, Glasgow University, 2006; the Bimal Matilal Memorial Lecture, Jadavpur University, 2007; the Swami Haridas Memorial Lecture, Madras University, 2007; the inaugural Comparative Theology lecture at Harvard Divinity School, 2008. In summer 2011, I will be a faculty professor at the Mind Life Summer Institute in Garrison, New York.

News and Events

October 2010: I chaired a private and a public meeting of the Archbishop of Canterbury's meeting with traditional Hindu teachers and leaders in Bangalore.

http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/ppr/stories/1121/

November 2010: I took part in the Mind Life Institute's public conference on neuroscience and meditation in Delhi, in the presence of HH the Dalai Lama.I presented two papers, one on general challenges facing the neuroscientific study of Indian meditative practices and the role of a proper understanding of the classical philosophical arguments that inform those practices; and the other on the specific Hindu school of Advaita Vedanta.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVXb4979Hjg

December 2010: Together with my colleague Dr Brian Black, and former colleague Dr Irina Kuznetsova, I conducted a workshop at Gresham College where we sought to present to a wider audience some key findings from the AHRC major research project, Self: Hindu Responses to Buddhist Critiques.

http://www.gresham.ac.uk/event.asp?PageId=108&EventId=1164

Current Teaching