A philosopher who enlarged the boundaries of the discipline
Jay Lazar Garfield — Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities at Smith College, Visiting Professor of Buddhist Philosophy at Harvard Divinity School, Professor at the University of Melbourne, and Adjunct Professor at the Central University of Tibetan Studies — has spent four decades arguing that philosophy is a global conversation, not a Eurocentric monologue.
"We suggest that any department that regularly offers courses only on Western philosophy should rename itself 'Department of European and American Philosophy.'"
His landmark translation and commentary on Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, his collaborations on Buddhist ethics, his work on the philosophy of mind and the no-self thesis, and his widely debated 2016 New York Times editorial — co-authored with Bryan W. Van Norden — have made him one of the fifty most influential philosophers of the past decade, according to AcademicInfluence.com.
Professor Garfield inaugurated Poorvam's Authors in Conversation series. This special commemorative issue is both a scholarly tribute and a living dialogue: Professor Garfield has agreed to respond to each thematic section, making this volume a genuine philosophical exchange, not merely a festschrift.
