Anand Vaidya (2024)

Anand Jayprakash Vaidya, professor of philosophy at San José State University, has died. Professor Vaidya worked in philosophy of mind, epistemology (especially the epistemology of modality), perception, logic, and critical thinking, among other areas, with an emphasis on cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary philosophy. You can learn more about his research here and here. Professor Vaidya joined the faculty at San José State University in 2005. He earned his PhD at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his BA at the University of California, Los Angeles (though he began his undergraduate studies at Humboldt State University). A lengthy interview with Professor Vaidya can be found here (with a discussion of an aspect of it here). Discussing his interests in different approaches to philosophy, and the resistance he has encountered to work that brings together different philosophical methodologies, he says: I think we get a better conversation, at least for the purposes of bringing philosophy to the public, when we mix [different approaches] together. Sometimes I worry that because I want to pursue all of these, some members of these groups will try to exclude me from them. The reason why is because professional philosophy for most practitioners is territorial. If you are part of one group, Analytic philosophy, you are not supposed to talk to another group, Experimental philosophy, and if you like either of those than you should not hangout with Comparative philosophers. This is sad, and I am a trespasser who likes to go across boundaries and genuinely take other philosophers seriously. Somehow professional philosophy is at odds with what it is really supposed to be about. This is likely because of jobs and economic factors. My hope is that both theoretically, through my aim at unification, and practically through my participation with a variety of communities I will be able to bring people together for a larger more significant conversation. Just because you bat for one team on one day, doesn’t mean you cannot bat for another, and then return to the former, or even move on, yet still be involved in the others. It is all about seeing which point of view is most important in a specific debate at a specific period of inquiry. Professor Vaidya died..
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