History of Indian and Africana Philosophy

Śaṅkara and his “non-dual” (Advaita) Vedānta, which teaches that only brahman is real, and the world of experience and individual self are mere illusion.

The Vedic period sets the context of the Upanisads, Buddhism and Jainism.

Chike Jeffers and Peter Adamson kick off the new series by explaining the scope and meaning of "Africana philosophy".

An interview with Doris Garraway on the background, intellectual basis, and legacy of the Haitian Revolution.

Might philosophy be as old as humankind as we know it? We investigate the implications of findings concerning the origins of humankind in Africa.

The Baron de Vastey unveils the horror of colonialism as a system and defends the monarchy of King Christophe in the tense early years of Haiti’s independence.

John Mbiti’s influential and controversial claim that traditional Africans experience time as having “a long past, a present, and virtually no future.”

The god Indra learns patience and something about the self in a famous passage from the Upanisads.

Justin E.H. Smith joins us to discuss Anton Wilhelm Amo against the background of ideas about race in early modern philosophy, including Leibniz.

Phillis Wheatley astonishes colonial Americans with her exquisite and precocious poetry and reflects on the liberating power of the imagination.

Quobna Ottobah Cugoano and Olaudah Equiano advance the goals of the abolitionist movement through a groundbreaking political treatise and an influential autobiography.

Graham Priest joins Peter to discuss non-classical logic and its connections with Buddhist patterns of reasoning.

Special forms of knowledge and the explanation of misfortunes in African tradition.

Philosophy in Ethiopia, with translations of religious and philosophical texts into Ge’ez and a national epic called the Kebra Nagast.

The origins of the idea of karma, its moral significance in the Upanisads, and an alternative conception in the Bhagavad Gita.

A discussion with Jan Westerhoff, an expert on the great Buddhist thinker Nāgārjuna.

Do the cuneiform writings of Babylonian culture show that it had its own philosophy?

An interview with Nkiru Nzegwu on matriarchy and gender fluidity in Africa.

David Walker defends violent resistance and encourages self-improvement in his incendiary and influential Appeal.

Questions of political autonomy and group identity in the emigration movement led by Paul Cuffe, Daniel Coker, John Russwurm and others.