Tyler Dalton McNabb and Erik Baldwin, "Classical Theism and Buddhism: Connecting Metaphysical and Ethical Systems" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
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Welcome to New Books in Philosophy, a channel on the New Books Network. I'm Malcolm Keating, and today we'll be talking to Eric Baldwin and Tyler McNabb, authors of Classical Theism and Buddhism, Connecting Metaphysical and Ethical Systems, published by Bloomsbury Academic Press in twenty twenty two. Welcome to New Books in Philosophy, Eric and Tyler.
Hey, thank you. Nice to be here.
Great. Glad to have you here. Let's let's just dive in. Uh your book argues that classical theism and Buddhism, or at least some Buddhisms on some interpretations, are philosophically compatible. But this is a pretty surprising claim given some of the metaphysical commitments that most Buddhist philosophers hold. So we'll dive into your arguments soon, but maybe first top line, can you explain why you think this is an important claim to defend? What motivated you to write this book?
Eric, you want to go first?
Yeah, um sure. The Primary motivation, I suppose, is uh bit of an extension of what we were working on in our Plantingian uh religious epistemology in the in world religions book. Um that was my primary interest and uh as a way to further some of the things we've been working on.
Yeah. So we have um a volume With Lexington. That is basically kind of comparative religious epistemology and to see what to what extent these other religious traditions can make use of Planiga's rel uh religious epistemology. Uh, for those unfamiliar with uh Planiga, he's a philosopher and uh really important philosopher in the in the 20th, 21st century. And he argues that that religious belief can be properly basic. Um That's to say, rational apart from any sort of argument. And uh there's this kind of objection to Plenigus epistemology where it's like, well. Maybe all sorts of different religious views, even really diverse religious views, can make sense of planning as epistemology. And so uh in the book, we're like, well, hey, uh, you know, we take a very kind of standard Nagarjana interpretation of the Mahayana tradition and and we look at other various traditions of uh uh different religious traditions and argue that, hey, you know what?
Um these religious traditions, it it doesn't seem like they can make use of planning its epistemology. Maybe if you adjust them a little bit, then maybe you could. Um and so This book really was saying, okay, wait a minute. Maybe we were too too fast in that book. Maybe in this book, what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at and see like to what extent maybe a Buddhist can really be a theist and and then thus make sense of Planega's epistemology. Because that's that's the idea is that you need some sort of theism or something like theism to make sense of Planega's epistemology.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–8:47
2
What is the main motivation behind writing *Classical Theism and Buddhism*?
8:47–32:31
3
How do the authors define Classical Theism in contrast to popular analytic views?
32:31–44:34
4
What are the core Buddhist metaphysical doctrines (impermanence, interdependence, emptiness) discussed?
44:34–57:57
5
How does the book reconcile the Fundamental Metaphysical Doctrines of Buddhism with the concept of God as a non‑thing?
57:57–1:07:40
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from New Books in Philosophy
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