An Examination of Tibetan Debate Practices
Date of Lecture: April 20, 2018
About the Speaker: Georges Dreyfus, Jackson Professor of Religion at Williams College, is a Tibetan Monk and the first Westerner to receive the title of “Geshe,” traditionally the highest degree awarded by Tibetan Buddhist monastic universities and presented by the Dalai Lama himself. He is author of “The Sound of Two Hands Clapping: The Education of a Tibetan Buddhist Monk” (University of California Press, 2003).
About the Talk: Dreyfus explains the intellectual technologies of Tibetan scholasticism: memorization, commentary, and inquiry. Dreyfus focuses his talk on the Tibetan monks' unique and animated tradition of debate as a practice to develop inquiry skills.
His talk is co-sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and the McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture.