SMVDU Katra: As the Dept. of Philosophy and Culture SMVDU organizes extensional lectures for faculty and research scholars, Prof. Alex Watson delivers three talks on different themes on Indian Philosophy. Prof. Watson is a D.Phil. from Oxford University and had been Fellow at Kyushu University Japan and University of Vienna. He specializes in Indian Philosophy, Kashmir Shaivism, Nyaya Philosophy and is an outright scholar of Sanskrit. Presently, he is a Professor of Indian Philosophy at Ashoka University, Sonipat and has also taught at Harvard and received a University Certificate of Teaching Excellence. He has authored two books namely ‘Self’s Awareness of Itself’ and ‘An Enquiry into the Nature of Liberation’.
He delivered a talk on ‘Four Mimaṃsa views concerning how the self is perceived by itself’ in which he highlighted upon the various views on ‘self’ in Indian philosophy and gave special emphasis on the views of Jayanta Bhatta – a great Indian Philosopher of 9th century hailing from Kashmir. During the following two days he will be speaking on ‘Can Jayanta Bhaṭṭa respond effectively to the charge that the inference of God’s existence’ and ‘Contrasting Nyaya-Vaiseṣika and Buddhist explanations of attention’. Dr. V. K. Tripathi Head Dept. of Philosophy and Culture extended a cordial welcome to Prof. Watson. Dr. Anil K. Tewari, Dr. Madhu M. Chaturvedi, Dr. Ashoka Tarai, Dr. Amitabh Dwivedi, Mr. Sumanta S. Sharma, Dr. Anurag Kumar, Dr. Kirti, Ms. Simranpreet Kaur and research scholars were present. The talk was followed by extensive discussion.