Jean Danielou's 'Philo of Alexandria' illuminates the life and work of a key figure in the history of religious thought. Philo of Alexandria was a first-century Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who was born into a wealthy and prominent family in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt. Educated in both Jewish culture and Greek philosophy, Philo believed that literal interpretations of the Hebrew Bible would distort the Jewish people's perceptions of a God too complex to be understood in literal, human terms. He became one of the first religious thinkers to initiate a strong allegorical reading of Scripture. Jean Danielou places Philo's writing in context, detailing the remarkable events of the philosopher's life, including a diplomatic mission to present himself before the Roman Emperor Caligula on behalf of the persecuted Jews of Alexandria. James Colbert's English translation provides a highly accessible introduction to this important figure, a pioneer of biblical commentary whose work has had a lasting influence on Christian theology. It is essential reading for those interested in patristics, exegesis, or the history of religious and philosophical thought.

Indian Epistemology and Metaphysics introduces the reader to new perspectives on Indian philosophy based on philological research within the last twenty years. Concentrating on topics such as perception, inference, skepticism, consciousness, self, mind, and universals, some of the most notable scholars working in classical Indian philosophy today examine core epistemological and metaphysical issues. Philosophical theories and arguments from a comprehensive range of Indian philosophical traditions (including the Nyaya, Mimamsa, Saiva, Vedanta, Samkhya, Jain, Buddhist, materialist and skeptical traditions, as well as some 20th century thought) are covered. The contributors to this volume approach the topics from both a philosophical and a philological perspective. They demonstrate the importance of the subject matter for an understanding of Indian thought in general and they highlight its wider philosophical significance. By developing an appreciation of classical Indian philosophy in its own terms, set against the background of its unique assumptions and historical and cultural development, Indian Epistemology and Metaphysics is an invaluable guide to the current state of scholarship on Indian philosophy. It is a timely and much-needed reference resource, the first of its kind.

This volume is a comprehensive Handbook of Russian thought that provides an in-depth survey of major figures, currents, and developments in Russian intellectual history, spanning the period from the late eighteenth century to the late twentieth century. Written by a group of distinguished scholars as well as some younger ones from Russia, Europe, the United States, and Canada, this Handbook reconstructs a vibrant picture of the intellectual and cultural life in Russia and the Soviet Union during the most buoyant period in the country's history. Contrary to the widespread view of Russian modernity as a product of intellectual borrowing and imitation, the essays collected in this volume reveal the creative spirit of Russian thought, which produced a range of original philosophical and social ideas, as well as great literature, art, and criticism. While rejecting reductive interpretations, the Handbook employs a unifying approach to its subject matter, presenting Russian thought in the context of the country's changing historical landscape. This Handbook will open up a new intellectual world to many readers and provide a secure base for its further exploration.

This book starts with the classification of the main views of different thinkers after the study of the original materials, which covers all the thinkers' thoughts and conceptions. A major objective of this book is to reveal the ideas of the philosophers. Key ideological opinions are stated with the former discussion of exact questions and further clarification of their philosophical meaning, which enables the readers to better understand the meaning and value of the philosophical thoughts. Since the logic and history are in accordance with each other, a frame of conception is formed then. Then, the author clearly explains the logical relationship in the frame mentioned before, as well as the formation of the key concepts and their relationship.

How a hybrid Confucian-engendered form of governance might solve today's political problems What might a viable political alternative to liberal democracy look like? In Against Political Equality, Tongdong Bai offers a possibility inspired by Confucian ideas. Bai argues that domestic governance influenced by Confucianism can embrace the liberal aspects of democracy along with the democratic ideas of equal opportunities and governmental accountability to the people. But Confucianism would give more political decision-making power to those with the moral, practical, and intellectual capabilities of caring for the people. While most democratic thinkers still focus on strengthening equality to cure the ills of democracy, the proposed hybrid regime-made up of Confucian-inspired meritocratic characteristics combined with democratic elements and a quasi-liberal system of laws and rights-recognizes that egalitarian qualities sometimes conflict with good governance and the protection of liberties, and defends liberal aspects by restricting democratic ones. Bai applies his views to the international realm by supporting a hierarchical order based on how humane each state is toward its own and other peoples, and on the principle of international interventions whereby humane responsibilities override sovereignty. Exploring the deficiencies posed by many liberal democracies, Against Political Equality presents a novel Confucian-engendered alternative for solving today's political problems.

Jewish philosophy is often presented as an addendum to Jewish religion rather than as a rich and varied tradition in its own right, but the History of Jewish Philosophy explores the entire scope and variety of Jewish philosophy from philosophical interpretations of the Bible right up to contemporary Jewish feminist and postmodernist thought. The links between Jewish philosophy and its wider cultural context are stressed, building up a comprehensive and historically sensitive view of Jewish philosophy and its place in the development of philosophy as a whole. Includes: Detailed discussions of the most important Jewish philosophers and philosophical movements Descriptions of the social and cultural contexts in which Jewish philosophical thought developed throughout the centuries Contributions by 35 leading scholars in the field, from Britain, Canada, Israel and the US Detailed and extensive bibliographies Haggai Ben-Shammai, Department of Arabic Language and Literature, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Alexander Broadie, Department of Philosophy, University of Glasgow; Elisheva Carlebach, Department of

This book explores and discusses emerging perspectives of Ubuntu from the vantage point of "ordinary" people and connects it to human rights and decolonizing discourses. It engages a decolonizing perspective in writing about Ubuntu as an indigenous concept. The fore grounding argument is that one's positionality speaks to particular interests that may continue to sustain oppressions instead of confronting and dismantling them. Therefore, a decolonial approach to writing indigenous experiences begins with transparency about the researcher's own positionality. The emerging perspectives of this volume are contextual, highlighting the need for a critical reading for emerging, transformative and alternative visions in human relations and social structures.

This volume brings together diverse Asian religious perspectives to address critical issues in the encounter between tradition and modern western evolutionary thought. Such thought encompasses the biological theories of Charles Darwin, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Earnest Haeckel, Thomas Huxley, and later "neo-Darwinians," as well as the more sociological evolutionary theories of thinkers such as Herbert Spencer, Pyotr Kropotkin, and Henri Bergson. The essays in this volume cover responses from Hindu, Jain, Buddhist (Chinese, Japanese, and Indo-Tibetan), Confucian, Daoist, and Muslim traditions. These responses come from the decades immediately after publication of The Origin of Species up to the present, with attention being paid to earlier perspectives and teachings within a tradition that have affected responses to Darwinism and western evolutionary thought in general. The book focuses on three critical issues: the struggle for survival and the moral implications read into it; genetic variation and its seeming randomness as related to the problems of meaning and purpose; and the nature of humankind and human exceptionalism. Each essay deals with one or more of the three issues within the context of a specific tradition.

What are the still-unknown horizons of world thought? This book brings together prominent scholars from varying disciplines to speculate on this obscure question and the many crossroads that face intellectuals in our contemporary era and its aftermath. The result is a collection of "manifestos" that contemplate a potential global future for thinking itself, venturing across some of the most marginalized sectors of East and West (with particular emphasis on the Middle Eastern and Islamicate) in order to dissect crucial issues of culture, society, philosophy, literature, art, religion, and politics. The book explores themes such as universality, translation, modernity, language, history, identity, resistance, ecology, catastrophe, memory, and the body, offering a groundbreaking alignment of texts and ideas with far-reaching implications for our time and beyond.

Nation and Aesthetics is a unique attempt to examine the ambiguous nature of nationalism and nation by examining them through aesthetics. In this translation by Jonathan E. Abel, Darwin H. Tsen, and Hiroki Yoshikuni, Karatani grasps the modern social formation as a nexus of three different "modes of exchange", namely capital-nation-state. Nation here plays the role of complementing capitalism and the state. Benedict Anderson defined nation as an "imagined community". Through rethinking Kant, Karatani suggests that "imagination" here is not a mere fancy, but very real, in the sense that it mediates state and capital. Usually imagination is regarded as fancying what is not present here. Kant grasped imagination as a faculty to imagine what we can understand but cannot sense; that is, to say, a faculty to mediate reason and sensibility. This observation provided the foundation to Modern aesthetics, which in the course of time became an important source of nationalism. In Italy, Germany, and Japan, nationalism appeared as fascism. They found in aesthetics a moment to go beyond capitalism and the state. The key to go beyond nation, Karatani argues, lies also in the thoughts of Kant, a cosmopolitan and an advocate of a world republic. It is well-known that the League of Nations was formed after First World War under the influence of his "Perpetual Peace". Karatani draws attention to the overlooked fact that around the same time Freud made a radical revision of his notion of the "superego". Karatani introduces article nine of Japan's postwar constitution, which renounces the right to wage war, as a crystallization of Kant's ideal of peace and Freud's superego. By providing a unique explanation of, and ways to counter, current nationalistic and imperialistic tendencies, Nation and Aesthetics argues that theories of Kant and Freud, which are usually understood to contrast, are deeply linked and suggest ways to go beyond capital-nation-state.

In this innovative volume contemporary philosophers respond to classic works of Jewish philosophy. For each of twelve central topics in Jewish philosophy, Jewish philosophical readings, drawn from the medieval period through the twentieth century, appear alongside an invited contribution that engages both the readings and the contemporary philosophical literature in a constructive dialogue. The twelve topics are organized into four sections, and each section commences with an overview of the ensuing dialogue and concludes with a list of further readings. The introduction to the volume assesses the current state of Jewish philosophy and argues for a deeper engagement with analytic philosophy, exemplified by the new contributions. Jewish Philosophy Past and Present: Contemporary Responses to Classical Sources is a cutting edge work of Jewish philosophy, and, at the same time, an engaging introduction to the issues that animated Jewish philosophers for centuries and to the texts that they have produced. It is designed to set the agenda in Jewish philosophy for years to come.

The intellectual history of the last quarter of the 20th century has been marked by the growing influence of Africana thought - an area of philosophy that focuses on issues raised by the struggle over ideas in African cultures and their hybrid forms in Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean. This book presents an introduction to the field of Africana philosophy and aims to help define this rapidly growing field. Lewis R. Gordon introduces and discusses Africana existential thought for a general audience, covering a range of both classic and contemporary thinkers - from Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. DuBois to Frantz Fanon, Angela Davis and Naomi Zack.

Zhu Xi (1130-1200) has been commonly and justifiably recognized as the most influential philosopher of Neo-Confucianism, a revival of classical Confucianism in face of the challenges coming from Daoism and, more importantly, Buddhism. His place in the Confucian tradition is often and also very plausibly compared to that of Thomas Aquinas, slightly later, in the Christian tradition. This book presents the most comprehensive and updated study of this great philosopher. It situates Zhu Xi's philosophy in the historical context of not only Confucian philosophy but also Chinese philosophy as a whole. Topics covered within Zhu Xi's thought are metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, hermeneutics, philosophy of religion, moral psychology, and moral education. This text shows both how Zhu Xi responded to earlier thinkers and how his thoughts resonate in contemporary philosophy, particularly in the analytic tradition. This companion will appeal to students, researchers and educators in the field.

A short but comprehensive introduction to the central concerns of Islamic philosophy and its relationship with shari'a law.

Shows Nasafi and his legacy in a new light. Nasafi's works are of particular interest because they contain valuable descriptions of the different Islamic world views of the age. Includes substantial extracts to help illuminate this perceptive study of a neglected figure in the pantheon of Sufi thinkers.

This book explores cinema and film theory through classical Indian theories. While non-Western philosophies have largely been ignored by existing paradigms, Gopalan Mullik responds through an interrogation of how audio-visual images are processed by the audiences at the basic level of their being outside of Western experience. In the process, this book moves away from the heavily Eurocentric film discourse of today while also detailing how this new platform for understanding cinema at the most basic level of its meaning can build upon existing film theories rather than act as a replacement for them.

Jewish philosophy is often presented as an addendum to Jewish religion, rather than as a rich and varied tradition in its own right. This volume explores the entire scope and variety of Jewish philosophy from the Bible as a source for philosophical interpretation up to Jewish feminist thought. It includes:
* detailed discussions of the most important Jewish philosophers, from Moses Maimonides to Spinoza and Leo Strauss
* chapters on key concepts in Jewish thought, such as mysticism, orthodoxy or zionism
* descriptions of the social and cultural contexts in which Jewish philosophical thought developed throughout the centuries
* a detailed and extensive bibliography
* contributions by 40 leading experts from Britain, Israel and the United States
The links between Jewish philosophy and its wider cultural context emerge, so that an accurate view of the place of Jewish philosophy in the development of philosophy as a whole results.

Anekant is a new political philosophy with ancient spiritual roots. It derives from the teachings of the Jains in India, but is relevant to all cultures and all times, especially our present interconnected yet dangerously divided world. Anekant literally means 'Many-Sidedness'. It recognises that there are an infinite variety of paths towards the same truth and so the search for truth must be undertaken with humility. All beings - including humans - are on the same journey. Those who are certain that they have grasped the truth are likely to be the furthest from it. "Many-Sided Wisdom" teaches us that human supremacy is a delusion - leading to ecological destruction, the oppression of other species and exploitation of human by human. Practising Many-Sidedness is about realising that 'society' means more than just humans, because it embraces all forms of life. We should learn to co-operate instead of competing with each other - and work with nature rather than pointlessly attempting to 'conquer' it.

This book bridges the regions of East Asia and the West by offering a detailed and critical inquiry of educational concepts of the East Asian tradition. It provides educational thinkers and practitioners with alternative resources and perspectives for their educational thinking, to enrich their educational languages and to promote the recognition of educational thoughts from different cultures and traditions across a global world. The key notions of Confucian and Neo-Confucian philosophy directly concern the ideals, processes and challenges of learning, education and self-transformation, which can be seen as the western equivalences of liberal education, including the German concept of Bildung. All the topics in the book are of fundamental interest across diverse cultures, giving a voice to a set of long-lasting and yet differentiated cultural traditions of learning and education, and thereby creating a common space for critical philosophical reflection of one's own educational tradition and practice. The book is especially timely, given that the vocabularies in educational discourse today have been dominantly "West centred" for a long time, even while the whole world has become more and more diverse across races, religions and cultures. It offers a great opportunity to philosophers of education for their cross-cultural understanding and self-understanding of educational ideas and practices on both personal and institutional levels.

This Handbook provides a robust collection of vibrant discourses on African social ethics and ethical practices. It focuses on how the ethical thoughts of Africans are forged within the context of everyday life, and how in turn ethical and philosophical thoughts inform day-to-day living. The essays frame ethics as a historical phenomenon best examined as a historical movement, the dynamic ethos of a people, rather than as a theoretical construct. It thereby offers a bold, incisive, and fresh interpretation of Africa's ethical life and thought.

This book gathers essays that introduce the ideological advances in the philosophy of engineering and technology in contemporary China. It particularly focuses on China's distinctive concepts and methods, revealing different views and academic debates to offer readers a comprehensive overview of this important field. The contributors present unique perspectives based on practical problems and traditional philosophy, examining such issues and concepts as axiology and theories of process, the difference between engineering activities and technology activities, and the core of the relationship between "Dao" and "Technique." Other essays cover the ethics of technology, practical wisdom (phronesis) and practical reasoning, as well as creative concepts and methods concerning the philosophical problems in high technology, architectural technology, and technological innovation. The authors also consider more general issues in the field. This book compiles the relevant research achievements of Chinese scholars in various time periods. Some authors have revised and translated into English papers published in Chinese, while others present their research in English specifically for this study. An annotated bibliography of the major publications in the field completes this collection.

A delightfully illustrated version of Sunzi's classic The Art of War by bestselling cartoonist C. C. Tsai C. C. Tsai is one of Asia's most popular cartoonists, and his editions of the Chinese classics have sold more than 40 million copies in over twenty languages. This volume presents Tsai's delightful graphic adaptation of Sunzi's Art of War, the most profound book on warfare and strategy ever written--a work that continues to be read as a handbook for success not just by military commanders but also by leaders in politics, business, and many other fields. Conceived by a Chinese warrior-philosopher some 2,500 years ago, The Art of War speaks to those aspiring to rise through the ranks and help build successful countries. How can that goal best be achieved, and what is the role of warfare, if any, in the process? What are the powers and limits of the general in command? How can you win without going to war? Sunzi's answers to these and other questions are brought to life as never before by Tsai's brilliant cartoons, which show Sunzi fighting on dangerous ground, launching a surprise attack, spying on his enemies, and much more. A marvelously rich introduction to a timeless classic, this book also features a foreword by Lawrence Freedman, one of the world's leading authorities on military strategy, which illuminates how The Art of War has influenced Western strategic thought. In addition, Sunzi's original Chinese text is artfully presented in narrow sidebars on each page, enriching the books for readers and students of Chinese without distracting from the self-contained English-language cartoons. The text is skillfully translated by Brian Bruya, who also provides an introduction.

I have been thinking about the philosophical issue of truth for more than two decades. It is one of several fascinating philosophical issues that motivated me to change my primary re ective interest to philosophy after receiving BS in mathem- ics in 1982. Some serious academic work in this connection started around the late eighties when I translated into Chinese a dozen of Donald Davidson's representative essays on truth and meaning and when I assumed translator for Adam Morton who gave a series of lectures on the issue in Beijing (1988), which was co-sponsored by my then institution (Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Science). I have loved the issue both for its own sake (as one speci c major issue in the phil- ophy of language and metaphysics) and for the sake of its signi cant involvement in many philosophical issues in different subjects of philosophy. Having been attracted to the analytic approach, I was then interested in looking at the issue both from the points of view of classical Chinese philosophy and Marxist philosophy, two major styles or frameworks of doing philosophy during that time in China, and from the point of view of contemporary analytic philosophy, which was then less recognized in the Chinese philosophical circle.

This book presents the research achievements of Jin Yuelin, the first logician and a prominent philosopher in China, who founded a new philosophical system combining elements from Western and Chinese philosophical traditions, especially the concept of Tao. It consists of three sections: the first section interprets Jin's studies on Chinese philosophy, Russell's ideology and other general discussions in the field; section 2 includes Jin's studies on logic, which made him the founding father of modern logic in China; and section 3 presents Jin's ideas on politics, including his studies on Thomas Hill Green.

Western Buddhist travel narratives are autobiographical accounts of a journey to a Buddhist culture. Dozens of such narratives have since the 1970s describe treks in Tibet, periods of residence in a Zen monastery, pilgrimages to Buddhist sites and teachers, and other Asian odysseys. The best known of these works is Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard; further reflections emerge from thirty writers including John Blofeld, Jan Van de Wetering, Thomas Merton, Oliver Statler, Robert Thurman, Gretel Ehrlich, and Bill Porter. The Buddhist concept of 'no-self' helps these authors interpret certain pivotal experiences of 'unselfing' and is also a catalyst that provokes and enables such events. The writers' spiritual memoirs describe how their journeys brought about a new understanding of Buddhist enlightenment and so transformed their lives. Showing how travel can elicit self-transformation, this book is a compelling exploration of the journeys and religious changes of both individuals and Buddhism itself.