[Buddha-l] Maybe I was wrong

[Dan Lusthaus]

Richard Nance writes, in response to posts by Richard Hayes and myself:

> Not so now. At least not in my experience. Perhaps my experience is
> atypical; I don't know.

Yes, Richard N., your experience IS atypical. You've been very fortunate. 
You will notice that the exception Richard H. mentioned was Dan Arnold's 
forthcoming book (although the Analytic philosophical discussion of 
neuroscience is not what I had in mind -- there is a reason the 
psychologists and scientists consider that literature irrelevant). Chicago 
is the only grad program offering the possibility of Buddhist Studies with a 
heavily philosophical leaning at the moment. That is not to say that some of 
the scholars currently teaching -- young and not so young -- are devoid of 
sympathy for or training in philosophy. But in terms of programs promoting 
Buddhist Studies as a philosophical discipline, that's another matter. 
Philosophy has been under siege and shunted for a couple of decades, but is 
starting, slowly to re-earn respectability within Buddhist studies. Not a 
moment too soon. I still remember how Roger Jackson introduced himself to me 
the year I finished my dissertation: "Hi. My name is Roger Jackson. I used 
to do Buddhist Philosophy too." Those days, if you wanted a career and a job 
and to get published, the sooner you distanced yourself from philosophy the 
more successful you'd be.

Let's hope you and your cohorts will make all these complaints obsolete, and 
the sooner the better.

Dan