Hello fellow Cosmopolites
For those that aren’t aware, I’m an instructor at CSUN and SFSU. I’ve been busy this past July and August teaching an accelerated online course and preparing for the Fall semester (thus, I have been less active with lastoics.com). But I’ve been devising some EXCITING plans for the Fall that I think will compliment my professional responsibilities nicely. Let me explain.
This upcoming Fall semester at CSUN, I have been assigned a course on ‘Indian Philosophy.’ The school hasn’t offered this course in quite some time and, since I’ve had experience with the topic, they graciously asked me to take it on. I studied Indian Philosophy as part of my graduate studies at SFSU and UC Berkeley, so I was excited to delve back into the topic and shape the curriculum in a way that was more exploratory and discussion-based.
To compliment that exploratory approach, I have decided to start a blog series that will compare Stoic Philosophy with Indian Philosophy — specifically, Hindu and Buddhist thought from the Ancient era to the Medieval era in India (maybe 1000 BCE to 1000 CE). I will be following the reading schedule of the course, which itself follows Richard King’s Indian Philosophy: An introduction to Hindu and Buddhist thought (1999). It will look something like this:
- Early September: Introduction [to the project of comparative philosophy]
- Late September: Survey of different Hindu schools compared to Stoicism
- Early October: Survey of different Buddhist schools compared to Stoicism
- Late October: Indian & Stoic Ontology
- Early November: Indian & Stoic Epistemology/Logic
- Late November: Indian & Stoic Ethics
- Early December: Concluding thoughts
At the moment, the pace is set to one post every other week. Some months may get three or four posts if I decide a particular topic warrants it or if an addendum (or erratum) needs to be made to a past post.
Stay tuned!
— Justin K.
looking forward to it!