Jay L. Garfield

Jay Lazar Garfield (born 13 November 1955) is an American professor of philosophy who specializes in Tibetan Buddhism. He also specializes on the philosophy of mind, cognitive science, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, ethics, and hermeneutics. He is currently the Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy, Logic and Buddhist Studies at Smith College, professor of philosophy at the University of Melbourne, visiting professor of philosophy and Buddhist studies at Harvard Divinity School, and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the Central University of Tibetan Studies.

Academic career

Garfield received an A.B. from Oberlin College in 1975, and a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 1986, where he worked with Wilfrid Sellars and Annette Baier. At the Central University of Tibetan Studies in India, he studied Nagarjuna with Geshe Yeshe Thabkhas.

He taught from 1980 to 1995 at Hampshire College, from 1996 to 1998 at the University of Tasmania, and since 1999 at Smith College.

He is editor-in-chief of the journal Sophia, and is on the editorial boards of Philosophical Psychology, Journal of Indian Philosophy and Religion, Australasian Philosophical Review, Philosophy East and West, American Institute of Buddhist Studies/Columbia Center for Buddhist Studies/Tibet House, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and the Journal of Buddhist Philosophy.

Garfield was the inaugural Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple Professor of Humanities and

Head of Studies, Philosophy, at Yale-NUS from 2013-2016. He said, "This Professorship has given me the opportunity of a lifetime – working with motivated, creative and talented students and colleagues and working in a community committed to building something entirely new, an Asian liberal arts college with a truly global curriculum." During his professorship at Yale-NUS, Garfield was one of six scholars who participated in a conference with the 14th Dalai Lama on "Mapping the Mind: A Dialogue between Modern Science and Buddhist Science."

Controversy over "If Philosophy Won't Diversify"

Garfield has long been a critic of what he sees as the narrow approach of Western philosophers. He has noted that "people in our profession are still happy to treat Western philosophy as the 'core' of the discipline, and as the unmarked case.