Faculty Profile: Elisa Freschi

Elisa Freschi

Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy

Lisa Freschi a symbol used for a portrait picture.Elisa Freschi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy.

Freschi works on philosophy in the Sanskrit cosmopolis and more specifically on topics of epistemology of testimony (How do we identify a reliable speaker?); philosophy of religion (How do we define God and what does atheism mean?); philosophy of language (How does language communicate knowledge and how does language promote action?); deontic logic (Why do people respond to commands and how can we formalize obligations and their interaction?). 

She also studies the re-use of texts in South Asian intellectual traditions. She is a convinced upholder of reading Sanskrit philosophical texts within their history and understanding them through a philosophical approach.

Freschi earned her PhD at Sapienza University of Rome in Italy, where she studied both Sanskrit and philosophy. She has worked as an assistant professor at the University of Vienna and as a research leader of projects on the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta school of philosophy, and on deontic logic and the Mīmāṃsā school of philosophy at the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

She has written articles on deontic logic, and has written other publications. She also shares her thoughts on her blog and on Twitter. She is currently finishing a book on Veṅkaṭanātha, a 14th century philosopher and theologian and working on the intersection of argumentation, logic of commands and epistemology in Sanskrit texts and jurisprudence.

Recent publications include: Veṅkaṭanātha’s impact on Śrīvaiṣṇavism: the case of Hayagrīva iconography; and Duty and Sacrifice: A Logical Analysis of the Mīmāṃsā Theory of Vedic Injunctions.

View Professor Freschi’s departmental profile