A Philosophical and Doctrinal Analysis of the Vunanavada

The Vijnanavadins have long been characterized as believing in an Absolute. Thomas Wood investigates the extent- to which this characterization is true.

Through a detailed analysis of some of their fundamental texts, Dr. Wood. demonstrates that the Vijnanavadins were in fact ambivalent "and in some cases even inconsistent" in their philosophical views on this point.
This monograph is directed primarily to scholars of Indian philosophy and religion interested in the schools of Mahayana Buddhism and in its doctrinal relation to Vedanta; but with its treatment of philosophical topics of universal interest, idealism, solipsism, the nature of the inference to other minds it is of interest to Western and comparative scholars as well.

Mind Only: A Philosophical and Doctrinal Analysis of the Vunanavada, Thomas Wood, Motilal, Hardcover, 285 pages, $18.00

Dr. Thomas E. Wood is the co-author and co-principal of the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI). Dr. Wood has been working on CCRI with Dr. Glynn Custred, Professor of Anthropology at California State University, Hayward, since November, 1991.

Dr. Wood has been the Executive Director of the California Association of Scholars (CAS) since July, 1992. The CAS is widely regarded as the principal force fighting political correctness (PC) on California's campuses. Like its parent organization, the National Association of Scholars, the CAS consists of faculty, administrators, trustees and advanced graduate students who are committed to rational discourse as the foundation for academic life in a democratic society.

Wood received his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1969, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from U.C. Berkeley in 1975. His doctoral theses, Empiricism and current linguistic theory, examined the philosophy of language and linguistic theory. He was also a recipient of a Ford Foundation Fellowship for his work.

Wood taught in the Departments of Philosophy and Religion at California State University, Fresno and the State University of New York, New Paltz. He was also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco from 1989 to 1993.

Dr. Wood is an active scholar, author, and reviewer of academic books. His work is extensive including three books published by the University of Hawaii Press for the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy: The Mandukya Upanisad and the Agama Sastra (1990), Mind Only (1991) and Nagarjunian Disputations (1994).

Dr. Wood is committed to high academic standards and academic freedom in university life, and is concerned about government regulation of higher education and inequitable strategies for faculty recruitment and student admissions.

Contents

Part I: Sunyata and the Doctrine of the Three Self Natures

Part II: Nirvana and Buddhahood

Part III: The Exiostence of Other Minds and the Omniscience of the Buddha

Part IV: Te Doctrine of Collective Hallucinationi

Conclusion
Appendixes
Notes
Bibliography
Index