In-person November Annual Meeting 2026 Program Book

This paper argues that Augustine’s account of beatific enjoyment offers a theologically and metaphysically robust alternative to two contemporary eschatological trajectories. Eschatological naturalism locates human fulfilment largely within the imminent order of nature while radical divine immanence collapses the distinction between God and creatures. Surveying proposals from biblical studies, philosophy of religion, and theology, the paper highlights how these trends either naturalize the creature’s end or imply an already realized divinizing participation of nature in God. By contrast, Augustine depicts created being as dependent, fragile, and oriented beyond itself towards its transcendent origin–fulfillable only in the intellectual vision of God. Drawing on texts from the Cassiciacum dialogues to the Confessions and City of God and important letters and sermons, this paper shows how Augustine’s conception of createdness, grace, and divine agency enriches current debates by recentring divine transcendence and the gratuity of beatitude. 

In her book Motherhood, Natalie Carnes speaks on behalf of many mothers when she expresses her dismay with Augustine’s neglect of his experience as a parent in his Confessions. Indeed, Augustine barely mentions his son and leaves his feelings about Adeodatus’ life and death unusually hidden. However, a close reading of Augustine's earlier texts written shortly after Adeodatus died suggests that there is more of Adeodatus in the Confessions than the few words Augustine devotes explicitly to him. In those earlier texts, Augustine introduces his doctrine of ordered love through the metaphor of temporal syllables in a poem “passing away.” This metaphor and doctrine, later incorporated into the Confessions, suggest that he was confronting his dysphoria over Adeodatus’ young death. Reading the Confessions with an eye toward unearthing Adeodatus’ hidden presence there opens up new possibilities for parents to engage with it in understanding their relationships with their children.

This paper sheds new light on the debate over the philosophical origins of the uti-frui distinction by examining the influence of Scripture on Augustine’s interpretation of uti-frui. Several candidates have been proposed for having influenced Augustine’s understanding of uti-frui: Varro, Cicero, and Stoicism. In response, I argue that there is no special source for Augustine’s formulation of the distinction, since this distinction was widespread in antiquity. Augustine’s own interpretation of uti and frui, while indebted to ancient philosophy, took its shape from three Scriptural texts: Ephesians 5:29, 1 Corinthians 7:31, and 1 Timothy 1:5-8. Ephesians helped him articulate an account of the goodness of natural goods, in line with the Old Academy but opposed to Manicheism. 1 Corinthians 7:31 gave him the insight that everything should be used in this life. 1 Timothy 1:5-8 specifies the end of use: love of God and all things as related to God. 

The key development in the history of logic in India is the formulation and application of the trirupahetu, or the three forms of a (logical) reason. The Tarkasastra (Ru Shi Lun T1633) adopts the trirupahetu to distinguish good arguments from bad arguments (T1633 31b11 ff.).

The Tarkasastra (Ru Shi Lun), as we have it, comprises three chapters. The first chapter is an extended debate pertaining to the claim that there are truths. The second chapter enumerates and critically discusses 16 fallacies (jati). The third lists and explains 22 situations in which a participant in a debate is deemed to have lost (nigrahasthana). The paper critically assesses the text's treatment of five fallacies: the first, the second and the fourth, where the text applies the trirupahetu; and the fifth and sixth, where the text discusses two arguments typically associated with Nagarjuna (3rd century ce).

The famed Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna appears to talk in contradictions, denying both that some P is the case and that it is not the case. Both ancient and contemporary interpretations fall in two camps: (1) let the contradiction stand dialethically or (2) qualify Nāgārjuna's negata to escape a contradiction. I offer a third interpretation, drawing on parallels to Brouwer's (1881-1966) intuitionism. To put it succinctly: no qualification is needed, but because Nāgārjuna is in the business of denying without assertion, he also escapes contradiction.

To build my case of interpreting Nāgārjuna in this vain, I focus on his Vigrahavyāvartanī, namely verses 28-29 and their commentary. I give a philosophical defense of my interpretation following Arend Heyting's (1898-1980) intuitionistic logic, which allows for the weak denial of both P and ~P without contradiction. I argue that both Nāgārjuna and the intuitionist advance cases where neither P nor ~P is provable.

Buddhist logicians from Dignāga onward require that a valid logical reason satisfy three modes (trairūpya): (1) the reason holds of the subject; (2) it is present wherever the probandum is present (anvaya); (3) it is absent wherever the probandum is absent (vyatireka). In first-order logic, modes (2) and (3) — ∀x(Hx → Sx) and ∀x(¬Sx → ¬Hx) — are contrapositives, i.e., logically equivalent. Yet Buddhist logicians unanimously insist both are necessary. I call this the “Trairūpya Puzzle.” After examining Oetke’s epistemic solution and Dharmakīrti’s treatment of the equivalence, I argue that the puzzle exposes a genuine limit of extensional formalization. Drawing on Dharmottara’s niyamavat doctrine and Durvekamiśra’s concept of svagata dharma — intrinsic capacities of the reason itself — I conclude that the second and third modes encode intensional content that the material conditional of first-order logic cannot capture. The trairūpya is a presentation of phenomenological relation. 

This paper reexamines the origin and ritual character of the Wuzhe Assembly (Ch. wuzhe hui 無遮會), a large-scale Buddhist religious gathering described by the Chinese monk Xuanzang at the court of King Harṣavardhana. Since the nineteenth century, scholars have generally identified the Wuzhe Assembly with the pañcavārṣika (“Five-Year Assembly”). Building on recent philological research, this paper argues instead that the term more likely reflects the Sanskrit nirargaḍamedha, a ritual concept associated with unrestricted generosity and large-scale ceremonial giving that may ultimately derive from the Brahmanical sarvamedha (“universal sacrifice”). By reassessing textual and historical evidence from Indian and Chinese sources, the paper shows how this ritual idea was transformed within Buddhist contexts into large public religious gatherings combining royal patronage, merit-making, and communal participation. The study thus highlights how ritual concepts and forms of religious celebration were transmitted and reinterpreted as Buddhism moved from India to China.

This paper discusses early images depicting Siddhartha as a young prince during his First Meditation, along with epigraphical records attesting to this image cult. Additionally, several passages from the Vinayas of the Sarvāstivādins and Mūlasarvāstivādins preserved in Classical Chinese also document the now largely forgotten image worship of the Bodhisattva Siddhartha and shed light on the cult and iconographic significance of the First Meditation image, helping explain its transregional popularity. These materials demonstrate that the “jambu tree shadow image” once stood at the center of an important monastic cult and formed part of festivals and image processions associated with the major Buddhist festival celebrating Śākyamuni’s Enlightenment, known as the “Great Festival.” The paper also considers the connection between this cult and the emergence of the “Pensive Crown Prince” (Ch. siwei taizi) image, likely originating in Northern India and Gandhāra and later popular across China and East Asia.

Mañju Pañcamī (Śrī Pañcamī) is a major cultural and religious festival of the Kathmandu Valley that commemorates the arrival of Mañjuśrī from China’s sacred Mount Wutai. Celebrated on the fifth day of the waxing moon in Māgha (January–February), the festival venerates Mañjuśrī—revered as the prince of Buddhist Dharma as well as Sarasvatī, the Hindu goddess of learning. This study examines the festival’s syncretic character, in which Buddhist and Hindu traditions converge in shared devotion to wisdom and speech. It also explores associated practices, including ritual bathing at Taudaha Lake for scholarship and prosperity, and the widespread belief that this auspicious day permits life‑cycle ceremonies without astrological consultation. A central rite initiates children into education by guiding them to write “Namo Vāgīśvarāya.” As a nationally observed festival, Mañju Pañcamī integrates religious veneration with educational and social rites of passage, reflecting the Kathmandu Valley’s long-standing cultural harmony.

This paper reexamines the origin and ritual character of the Wuzhe Assembly (Ch. wuzhe hui 無遮會), a large-scale Buddhist religious gathering described by the Chinese monk Xuanzang at the court of King Harṣavardhana. Since the nineteenth century, scholars have generally identified the Wuzhe Assembly with the pañcavārṣika (“Five-Year Assembly”). Building on recent philological research, this paper argues instead that the term more likely reflects the Sanskrit nirargaḍamedha, a ritual concept associated with unrestricted generosity and large-scale ceremonial giving that may ultimately derive from the Brahmanical sarvamedha (“universal sacrifice”). By reassessing textual and historical evidence from Indian and Chinese sources, the paper shows how this ritual idea was transformed within Buddhist contexts into large public religious gatherings combining royal patronage, merit-making, and communal participation. The study thus highlights how ritual concepts and forms of religious celebration were transmitted and reinterpreted as Buddhism moved from India to China.

This paper discusses early images depicting Siddhartha as a young prince during his First Meditation, along with epigraphical records attesting to this image cult. Additionally, several passages from the Vinayas of the Sarvāstivādins and Mūlasarvāstivādins preserved in Classical Chinese also document the now largely forgotten image worship of the Bodhisattva Siddhartha and shed light on the cult and iconographic significance of the First Meditation image, helping explain its transregional popularity. These materials demonstrate that the “jambu tree shadow image” once stood at the center of an important monastic cult and formed part of festivals and image processions associated with the major Buddhist festival celebrating Śākyamuni’s Enlightenment, known as the “Great Festival.” The paper also considers the connection between this cult and the emergence of the “Pensive Crown Prince” (Ch. siwei taizi) image, likely originating in Northern India and Gandhāra and later popular across China and East Asia.

Mañju Pañcamī (Śrī Pañcamī) is a major cultural and religious festival of the Kathmandu Valley that commemorates the arrival of Mañjuśrī from China’s sacred Mount Wutai. Celebrated on the fifth day of the waxing moon in Māgha (January–February), the festival venerates Mañjuśrī—revered as the prince of Buddhist Dharma as well as Sarasvatī, the Hindu goddess of learning. This study examines the festival’s syncretic character, in which Buddhist and Hindu traditions converge in shared devotion to wisdom and speech. It also explores associated practices, including ritual bathing at Taudaha Lake for scholarship and prosperity, and the widespread belief that this auspicious day permits life‑cycle ceremonies without astrological consultation. A central rite initiates children into education by guiding them to write “Namo Vāgīśvarāya.” As a nationally observed festival, Mañju Pañcamī integrates religious veneration with educational and social rites of passage, reflecting the Kathmandu Valley’s long-standing cultural harmony.