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Summary of doctoral thesis: My research concerns the role of paradox within the Yogavasistha (c.10th century). By taking the Yogavasistha seriously as philosophy I hope both to work to fill in gaps in previous scholarship on the text, to respond to recent appeals to decolonise philosophy, and more specifically, by taking the text seriously as directed toward yogic goals, will build on work within transformational philosophy (e.g. Hadot 1981, Taber 1983, Ganeri 2007, Collins 2020). Divided along three lines of inquiry, I aim in my research to 1) explore the philosophical implications of paradoxical narratives informed by a metaphysics of illusory reality, 2) examine the text's take on the paradox of liberation-within-life (jivanmukti) by determining the relationship between the embodied person and the transcendental self, and 3) understand the text's stated aim of transformation by using paradox to implicate the reader in the transformations that its protagonists go through. As well as illuminating the philosophical vision of the Yogavasistha itself, I hope to use this text as a case study to open a window into Indian meditation-influenced philosophical traditions directed toward transforming mental and bodily habits to shift the phenomenological boundaries between self and world, ultimately in pursuit of liberation.
Other research interests: Indian Philosophy; Phenomenology; Meditation.
