Hi! I am Anand Jayprakash Vaidya, professor of philosophy at San Jose State University and occasional director of the Center for Comparative Philosophy. On this site you can find information about me, a list of my recent and upcoming talks, and links to my publications. If you are a student in one of my courses, you can find information about your course under the courses tab. I can be contacted by email at:

anand.vaidya@sjsu.edu

OR 

dr.vaidya@gmail.com
Curriculum Vitae:
​Anand Jayprakash Vaidya
Personal History:
​The Story of One Male Asian American Philosopher in The Asian and Asian American Philosophers and Philosophies Newsletter of the American Philosophical Association
Public Lecture:
Concepts of Consciousness and Artificial Intelligence: Analyzing Google's LaMDA  at OAP Workshop on Post-humanism.

Public Philosophy:
If a Robot is Conscious, is it OK to Turn it Off?  in The Conversation

 The Ethics of Suicide in The Philosopher’s Magazine

Public Interview:
​The Morals of Artificial Intelligence on Irish Newstalk's Moncrieff Show.
Recent Publications:
​Epistemology of Modality and Philosophical Methodology​: Cross-Cultural and Multi-Disciplinary Philosophy of Mind and Epistemology: Critical Thinking Education and Theory:​Book Reviews:
Upcoming and Recent Talks
  • "Argumentation and Certification" at World Congress of Logic, Sinaia, Romania. September 3-8, 2023.
  • "Moral Grounding and Grading: An Intelligent Systems-Based Approach" at Trinity College Dublin. August 25-27, 2023.
  • "A Nyāya Response to Nanay on Amodal Completion Illusions as a Threat to Relationalism about Perception" at European Society for Analytic Philosophy Conference, Vienna. August 20-26, 2023.
  • "Cross-Cultural Conceptual Engineering "On Certification" at University of Warsaw. June 10-11, 2023.
  • "Nyāya Perceptual Theory and the Problem of Amodal Illusions" at The Science of Consciousness Conference, Taormina. May 25-31, 2023.
  • "The Moral Grounding Problem: An Engagement Between David Chalmers' Reality+ and Umasvati's Tattvārtha Sūtra at University of Stockholm. May 21-23, 2023.
  • "On Certification" at Ghent University. May 17, 2023.
  • "Multi-Factor Causal Disjunctivism about Perception and the Problem of Illusion." at University of Antwerp. May 4, 2023.
  • "On Certification: A New Architecture for Contemporary Epistemology based on Nyāya Epistemology" at UC Irvine, California, USA, April 28. 
  • "Samkhya-Yoga and the Status of Artificial Minds in Nature" at Samkhya-Yoga Conference at University of San Francisco, California, USA, April 13-15, 2023.
  • "The Parable of the Elephant: How Indian Philosophy Illuminates the Study of Consciousness" at MindFest at FAU, Florida, USA, March 16-17, 2023.
  • "A Classical Indian Philosophical Engagement with David Chalmers' Reality+" at Siena College, New York, USA, March 9, 2023.
  • "Advaita Vedānta and the Mind Extension Hypothesis" at RUND University, Moscow, Russia, March 2, 2023.
  • "The Epistemic Limit of Illusionism about Consciousness" at JNU, Delhi, India, Feb 1, 2023.
  • ”Can Contributions from Jaina Logic to Logical Theory Also Contribute to the Debate over Logical Pluralism? An Exploration with Some Suggestions” at BHU, Varanasi, India, Jan 17, 2023.
  • ”Can Machines Have Emotions?” at India International Center, Delhi, India, Jan 12-13, 2023. 
  • "Concepts of Consciousness in Advaita Vedānta and Analytic Philosophy of Mind" at Advaita Society Delhi University, Jan 10, 2023
  • ​“Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, Frankish, Goff, Strawson, Bradford, and Chalmers on Consciousness, Self, Reality, and Moral Standing” at Sree Shankaracharya Sanskrit University, Kalady, Kerala, India, January 3-9, 2023.
  • ”What is Wrong with Conferalism, Normativism, and Modalism About the Epistemology of Modality?” At University of Miami, December 2, 2022.
  • Cross-Cultural and Multi-Disciplinary Methods in Philosophy and Logic Across Indian and Greek Systems At King’s College London Login Podcast Project November 24, 2022.
  • ”Can Machines Have Emotions?” At University of Hawaii, November 4, 2022.
  • “Kripke’s Account of the Epistemology of Modality” at 50th Anniversary of “Naming and Necessity” at City University of New York, October 19, 2022.
  • ”Can Machines Have Emotions?” At Florida Atlantic University, October 12, 2022.
  • "Similarity: An independent category of reality, only knowable through an independent knowledge source" at Indian and Analytic Approaches to Similarity Workshop hosted by Malcolm Keating and Ben Blumson, August 4-5, 2022.
  • "Can Indian Logic Contribute to the Debate over Logical Pluralism? ​The Case of Jaina Logic" at University of Calicut, Kerala, India. July 21, 2022.
  • "Can Indian Logic Contribute to the Debate over Logical Pluralism? The Case of Jaina Logic" at Workshop on Approaches to Argumentation at Old Dominion University hosted by Teresa Kouri-Kissel, July 19, 2022. 
  • "Concepts of Consciousness and Artificial Intelligence: Analyzing Google's LaMDA from Analytic Philosophy and Indian Philosophy of Mind" at Organizations, Artifacts, and Practices Workshop on Posthumanists organizing for Posthumanism hosted by San Francisco State University, June 22-24, 2022.
  • "Concepts of Consciousness: Crossing Access and Phenomenal Consciousness with Dual and Non-Dual Consciousness" at People's Friendship University of Russia, May 13, 2022.
  • "Exploring Consciousness, Artificial Consciousness, and Artificial General Intelligence" at Dialexicon. March 27, 2022.
  • "Essence and Possibility: On the Role of Controlling Conceptions in the Acquisition of Modal Knowledge" at Central Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, Chicago, Illinois, USA, February 22-26, 2022.
  • "Epistemic Authority--A Dialogue with Sean Smith at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. January 15, 2022.
  • "Interrogating Varieties of Illusionism: Against Phenomenal, Structural, Foundational, Accuracy, and Fundamental Illusionism" at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India, November 29-30, 2021.
  • "Rāmānuja's Qualified Non-Dualism and Analytic Panpsychism" at Sree Śaṅkacharya University, Kalady, Kerala, India, November 23, 2021. 
  • "Imaginability: From Mind to Morality" at University of Hawaii, Manoa, USA. October 29, 2021. 
  • "Resisting the Allure of Illusionism about Consciousness: Realism and Privacy" at William and Mary, Virginia, USA. October 1, 2021. 
  • "Jain Logic / Epistemology?" at Iranian Association for Logic Conference on Oriental Logic. June 29, 2021.
  • "The Epistemic Argument Against Illusionism about the Self and Consciousness" at Sree Śaṅkacharya University, Kalady, Kerala, India. June 1, 2021.
  • "Controlling Conceptions and the Problem of Epistemic Modal Friction" at Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, Rome, Italy. February 22, 2021.
  • "Public Philosophy: Cross-Cultural and Multi-Disciplinary" ​at University of Delhi hosted by Working Group in Philosophical Methodology, New Delhi, India. October 7, 2020. 
  • "The Epistemology of Modality and the Problem of Modal Epistemic Friction" with M. Wallner at Seminar on Modality hosted by Crispin Wright and Paul Horwich, New York University. March 31, 2020.
  • "What Does a Modal Normativist Know about Metaphysical Modality?" with A. Mallozzi at Workshop on Modal Knowledge hosted by Michael Wallner, University of Graz, Austria. March 13, 2020. 
  • "Perceptual Knowledge in Timothy Williamson and Jay Shaw & Stephen Phillips on Nyāya" at Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture hosted by Jay Shaw, Gol Park, Kolkata. January 6-8, 2020.
  • "Disjunctivism and Knowledge-First in Timothy Williamson and Jay Shaw & Stephen Phillips on Nyāya" at Indian Epistemology Conference hosted by Jennifer Nagel and Ajay Rao, University of Toronto, Canada. November 8, 2019. 
  • "The Epistemic Argument Against Illusionism about the Self and Consciousness" at the Annual Conference of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy, Bath University; Bath, England. June 18-21, 2019.
  • "Which Illusion Should We Accept? -The Epistemic Argument Against Asymmetric and Dual Illusionism about the Self and Consciousness" at East Asian Contributions to Panpsychism hosted by Itay Shani, Sun Yat Sen University; Zhuhai, China. June 11-13, 2019.
  • "Towards an Attention-First Epistemology" at The Virtues of Attention Conference hosted by Jonardon Ganeri, New York University. April 24-26, 2019.
  • "The Project of Cross-Cultural and Scientifically Informed Critical Thinking" at San Jose State University Scholar Series. February 21, 2018.