Jay L. Garfield

Jay L. Garfield is Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at Smith College. He is also Professor in the Graduate Faculty of Philosophy at the Univeristy of Massachusetts, Professor of Philosophy at Melbourne University (Australia), and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies (India). He was an undergraduate at Oberlin and received his doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh. His main areas of interest are: in the philosophy of mind, foundations of cognitive science, logic, philosophy of language, Buddhist philosophy, cross-cultural hermeneutics, theoretical and applied ethics, and epistemology. His principal book in cognitive science is Belief in Psychology (1988) and his most recent book is Empty Words: Buddhist Philosophy and Cross-Cultural Interpretation (2002). He is at work on projects on the development of the theory of mind in children with particular attention to the role of pretence in that process; the impact of teaching philosophy in primary schools on the development of citizenship values; the law of non-contradiction; and the history of Buddhist idealism in India and Tibet (especially the impact of Sthiramati). He recently co directed a year-long research institute, Trans-Buddhism: Transmission, Translation and Transformation, investigating the interaction of Buddhist societies with the West.