Mario D’Amato is a scholar of Buddhist philosophy whose work centres on the translation and interpretation of Sanskrit doctrinal texts from the Yogācāra school — the tradition that developed a distinctively Buddhist conception of the unconscious. His research reads that tradition alongside Hegel, semiotics, and above all psychoanalysis, treating Buddhist thought not as an object of area study but as a live philosophical interlocutor for contemporary Continental theory.

He completed his PhD at the University of Chicago in 2000, working in the philosophy of religion. His courses range across Buddhist philosophy and ethics, Sanskrit, semiotics, psychoanalytic theories of religion, and the philosophy of religion.

He is the author of a study and annotated translation of the fourth-century treatise Distinguishing the Middle from the Extremes (Madhyāntavibhāga), together with Vasubandhu’s commentary (Columbia / American Institute of Buddhist Studies, 2012), and co-editor of Pointing at the Moon: Buddhism, Logic, Analytic Philosophy (Oxford, 2009). His articles on Buddhist thought have appeared in the Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, the Journal of Indian Philosophy, Semiotica, and the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory, among others.