JAY L. GARFIELD

Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy
Office: Dewey Front Parlor
Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday 9:00 - 11:00 AM
Extension: 3649
E-mail: jgarfield@smith.edu

Publications

Curriculum Vitae 6-08

Recent Papers
Syllab
i

TEACHING AND RESEARCH INTERESTS

Jay Garfield is Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Logic Program and of the Five College Tibetan Studies in India Program at Smith College, Professor in the graduate faculty of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Professor of Philosophy at Melbourne University and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies.  He teaches and pursues research in the philosophy of mind, foundations of cognitive science, logic, philosophy of language, Buddhist philosophy, cross-cultural hermeneutics, theoretical and applied ethics and epistemology.

Garfield’s most recent books are his translation, with the ven Prof Geshe Ngawang Samten of the Fourteenth-Fifteenth Century Tibetan Philosopher Tsong Khapa’s commentary on Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakarika (Ocean of Reasoning) and Empty Words: Buddhist Philosophy and Cross-Cultural Interpretation (Oxford University Press 2002 and 2006,  respectivelyGarfield is also working on projects on the development of the theory of mind in children with particular attention to the role of pretence in that process; the acquisition of evidentials and its relation to the development of theory of mind (with Jill deVilliers, Thomas Roeper and Peggy Speas), the history of 20th Century Indian philosophy (with Nalini Bhushan) and the nature of conventional truth in Madhyamaka (with Graham Priest and Tom Tillemans).  He recently co-directed, with Peter Gregory, Jill Ker Conway Professor of Religion and Buddhist Studies, a year-long research institute, Trans-Buddhism: Transmission, Translation and Transformation investigating the interaction of Buddhist societies with the West.

Other books in progress include the Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy (editor), Readings in Buddhist Philosophy (co-editor with William Edelglass for Oxford University Press), Trans-Buddhism: Transmission, Translation and Transformation (co-editor with Nalini Bhushan and Abraham Zablocki, for the University of Massachusetts Press), and Sweet Reason: A Field Guide to Modern Logic (co-authored with Jim Henle and the late Thomas Tymoczko).

PUBLICATIONS

        
 




RECENT PAPERS

Reductionism and Fictionalism
Why did Bodhidharma go to the East?: Buddhism's Struggle with Mind in the World
Translation as Transmission and Transformation
Buddhist Studies, Buddhist Practice and the Trope of Authenticity

Buddhist Ethics

Contradictions in Buddhism

IN PRESS
Public Trust

Mountains are Just Mountains

Turning a Madhyamaka Trick: A Reply to Huntington

Can Indian Philosophy Be Written in English?

FORTHCOMING

Reply to Finnigan

Authority about the Deceptive

ROUGH DRAFTS
Let's Pretend
Intention: Doing Away with Mental Representation
Taking Conventional Truth Seriously

What is it Like to be a Bodhisattva

SYLLABI FALL 2008

 Presidential Seminar Syllabus

The following courses will be taught next year:
Fall
LOG 100 - Valid and Invalid Reasoning: What Follows from What and What Follows from That??(with Jim Henle)


Spring

On Leave

The following courses are not currently being taught by Jay:
PHI 211 - The Philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein
PHI 220 - Incompletenes and Inconsistency
PHI 594m - Mind and Meaning: The Philosophy of Wilfrid Sellars