This book is a sustained analytical exploration of the rich philosophy of self of the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa. Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) has become many things to many people in the years that have passed since his untimely death. For some he is simply the greatest Portuguese poet of the 20th century. For others he has gradually emerged as a forgotten voice in 20th century modernism. And yet Pessoa was also a philosopher, and it is only very recently that the philosophical importance of his work has begun to attract the attention it deserves. Pessoa composed systematic philosophical essays in his pre-heteronymic period, defending rationalism in epistemology and sensationism in the philosophy of mind. His heteronymic work, decisively breaking with the conventional strictures of systematic philosophical writing, is a profound and exquisite exploration in the philosophy of self. Virtual Subjects, Fugitive Selves pulls together the strands of this philosophy and rearticulates it in a way that does justice to its breathtaking originality. It reveals the extraordinary power of Pessoa's theory by applying it to the analysis of some of the trickiest and most puzzling problems about the self to have appeared in the global history of philosophy.

This book uses the mutual interactions between Chinese and Western culture as a point of departure in order to concisely introduce the origins and evolution of Chinese culture at the aspects of constitution, thinking, values and atheistic. This book also analyzes utensil culture, constitution culture and ideology culture, which were perfected by absorbing classic arguments from academia. As such, the book offers an essential guide to understanding the development, civilization and key ideologies in Chinese history, and will thus help to promote Chinese culture and increase cultural awareness.

The ABC-CLIO World History Companion to Utopian Movements is a unique reference work devoted to actual and theoretical utopian movements. Detailed entries examine major utopian movements, significant utopian thinkers and literary works, and various sects, settlements, and communes. The more than 100 A to Z entries include: Diggers; Ecotopia; Fairhope Colony; Feminist Utopias; Futurism; Huguenot Utopias; Kibbutzim; Lunar Utopias; Millennialism; Native American Utopias; New Age Cults; Oneida Community; Ranters; Transcendentalism; and Welfare State.

This translation captures the terse and enigmatic beauty of the ancient original and resists the tendency toward interpretive paraphrase found in many other editions. Along with the complete translation, Lombardo and Addiss provide one or more key lines from the original Chinese for each of the eighty-one sections, together with a transliteration of the Chinese characters and a glossary commenting on the pronunciation and meaning of each Chinese character displayed. This greatly enhances the reader's appreciation of how the Chinese text works and feels and the different ways it can be translated into English.

As the final work by Ye Xiushan, one of the most famous philosophers and scholars of philosophy in China, this two-volume set scrutinizes the historical development of both Chinese and Western philosophy, aiming to explore the convergence between the two philosophical traditions. Combining historical examination and argumentation based on philosophical problematics, the author discusses the key figures and schools of thought from both traditions. Far from being a cursory comparison between different philosophical concepts and categories, the author discusses the logical paths and conceptual approaches of the two traditions on the same philosophical issues, thus giving insights into conceptual categories commonly used in both Chinese and Western philosophies. The two volumes illuminate the different core spirits and dilemmas of Western philosophy and Chinese philosophy, encouraging a constructive dialogue between the two and a new transformation of Chinese philosophy in itself. The title will appeal to scholars, students, and general readers interested in philosophical history, comparative philosophy, Chinese philosophy, and Western philosophy ranging over Greek philosophy, German classic philosophy, and contemporary continental philosophy.

Mou Zongsan (1909-1995) is one of the representatives of Modern Confucianism and an important Chinese philosopher of the twentieth century. This two-volume book critically examines the philosophical system of moral metaphysics proposed by Mou, which combines Confucianism and Kantianism philosophy. The author looks into the problems in the moral metaphysics by Mou and his systematic subversion of Confucianism on three levels: ethics, metaphysics and historical philosophy. The first volume discusses Mou's distortion of traditional Confucian ethos on the ethical level by introducing Kantian moral concept and misappropriating Kant's concept of autonomy. In the second volume the author critiques Mou's philosophical development of Confucianism in terms of conscience as ontology and historical philosophy respectively, which draws on ideas of Kant and Hegel while deviating from the classical context and tradition of Confucian thoughts. The title will appeal to scholars, students and philosophers interested in Chinese philosophy, Confucian ethics, Neo-Confucianism and Comparative Philosophy.

Although George Lukacs's work has been widely read and reviewed, and has exerted a significant influence on recent international discussions of literature, philosophy, and Marxism, no comprehensive and up-to-date bibliography of the wide range of critical response to his writings has appeared in book form to date. This bibliography contains in Part I books devoted to Lukacs, including all available reviews, and the books are classified by language. Part II lists dissertations and theses, and reproduces the text in Dissertation Abstracts International when available. Part III includes essays and articles devoted to Lukacs, and these also are classified by language. Part IV lists items by proper names. It includes material in which Lukacs is being compared, or contrasted with other major figures in philosophy, literary theory and criticism, aesthetics and Marxism. Late entries are included in the addendum, and author and editor indexes also are included.

This innovative volume demonstrates how and to what ends the writings of Xiong Shili, Ma Yifu, Tang Junyi and Mou Zongsan adopted and repurposed conceptual models derived from the Buddhist text Treatise on Awakening Mahayana Faith. It shows which of the philosophical positions defended by these New Confucian philosophers were developed and sustained through engagement with the critical challenges advanced by scholars who attacked the Treatise. It also examines the extent to which twentieth-century New Confucians were aware of their intellectual debt to the Treatise and explains how they reconciled this awareness with their Confucian identity.

To the horrors of war and genocide in the twentieth century there were witnesses, among them Hermann Cohen, Emmanuel Levinas, Ernst Bloch, Leo Strauss, Franz Rosenzweig, Gershom Scholem, Walter Benjamin, Martin Buber, and Hans Jonas. All defined themselves as Jews and philosophers. Their intellectual concerns and worldviews often in conflict, they nevertheless engaged in fruitful conversation: through the dialogue between Zionist activism and heterodox forms of Marxism, in the rediscovery of hidden traditions of Jewish history, at the intersection of ethics and metaphysics. They shared a common hope for a better, messianic future and a deep interest in and reliance on the cultural sources of the Jewish tradition.

In this magisterial work, Pierre Bouretz explores the thought of these great Jewish philosophers, taking a long view of the tenuous survival of German-Jewish metaphysical, religious, and social thought during the crises and catastrophes of the twentieth century. With deep passion and sound scholarship, Bouretz demonstrates the universal significance of this struggle in understanding the present human condition. The substantial and established influence of the book's subjects only serves to confirm this theory.

Profoundly learned and amply documented, "Witnesses for the Future" explains how these important philosophers came to understand the promise of a Messiah. Its significant bearing on a number of fields--including religious studies, literary criticism, philosophy of history, political theory, and Jewish studies--encourages scholars to rethink and reassess the intellectual developments of the past 100 years.

It is widely claimed that notions of gods and religious beliefs are irrelevant or inconsequential to early Chinese ("Confucian") moral and political thought. Rejecting the claim that religious practice plays a minimal philosophical role, Kelly James Clark and Justin Winslett offer a textual study that maps the religious terrain of early Chinese texts. They analyze the pantheon of extrahumans, from high gods to ancestor spirits, discussing their various representations, as well as examining conceptions of the afterlife and religious ritual. Demonstrating that religious beliefs in early China are both textually endorsed and ritually embodied, this book goes on to show how gods, ancestors and afterlife are philosophically salient. The summative chapter on the role of religious ritual in moral formation shows how religion forms a complex philosophical system capable of informing moral, social, and political conditions.

This book argues that a general understanding of traditional Chinese philosophy can be achieved by a concise elaboration of its truth, goodness and beauty; that goodness and beauty in Chinese philosophy, combined with the integration of man and heaven, knowledge and practice, scenery and feeling, reflect a pursuit of an ideal goal in traditional Chinese philosophy characterized by the thought mode uniting man and nature.This book also discusses the anti-traditionalism of the May Fourth Movement, explaining that the true value of "sagacity theory" in traditional Chinese philosophy, especially in Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming dynasties, lies in its insights into universal life. In addition, existing ideas, issues, terminologies, concepts, and logic of Chinese philosophical thought were actually shaped by Western philosophy. It is necessary to be alienated from traditional status for the creation of a viable "Chinese philosophy." "Modern Chinese philosophy" in the 1930s and 1940s was comprised of scholarly work that characteristically continued rather than followed the traditional discourse of Chinese philosophy. That is to say, in the process of studying and adapting Western philosophy, Chinese philosophers transformed Chinese philosophy from traditional to modern.In the end of the book, the author puts forward the idea of a "New Axial Age." He emphasizes that the rejuvenation of Chinese culture we endeavor to pursue has to be deeply rooted in our mainstream culture with universal values incorporating cultures of other nations, especially the cultural essence of the West.

This book approaches the topic of intercultural understanding in philosophy from a phenomenological perspective. It provides a bridge between Western and Eastern philosophy through in-depth discussion of concepts and doctrines of phenomenology and ancient and contemporary Chinese philosophy. Phenomenological readings of Daoist and Buddhist philosophies are provided: the reader will find a study of theoretical and methodological issues and innovative readings of traditional Chinese and Indian philosophies from the phenomenological perspective. The author uses a descriptive rigor to avoid cultural prejudices and provides a non-Eurocentric conception and practice of philosophy. Through this East-West comparative study, a compelling criticism of a Eurocentric conception of philosophy emerges. New concepts and methods in intercultural philosophy are proposed through these chapters. Researchers, teachers, post-graduates and students of philosophy will all find this work intriguing, and those with an interest in non-Western philosophy or phenomenology will find it particularly engaging.

This book offers a powerful new reading of Spinoza's philosophy of mind, the aspect of Spinoza's thought often regarded as the most profound and perplexing. Michael Della Rocca argues that interpreters of Spinoza's philosophy of mind have not paid sufficient attention to his causal barrier between the mental and the physical. The first half of the book shows how this barrier generates Spinoza's strong requirements for having an idea about an object. The second half of the book explains how this causal separation underlies Spinoza's intriguing argument for mind-body identity. Della Rocca concludes his analysis by solving the famous problem of whether for Spinoza the distinction between attributes is real or somehow merely subjective.

This book identifies that "Xiang thinking" is the eidetic connotation and a fundamental trait of traditional Chinese thinking, offering insights of considerable methodological significance. "Xiang thinking" is a mode of thinking different from conceptual thinking or idealized rational thinking and, in a certain sense, it is more primal. In the past century, particularly since 1949, the primary works on Chinese philosophical history have, as a rule, addressed the ancient Chinese tradition of philosophical ideas by virtue of the philosophies of Plato, Descartes and Hegel: methods that inherently challenge Chinese philosophical insights. This has naturally led to the fact that the insights as such remained obscured. This book starts to reverse this trend, intending to help Chinese people understand and appraise themselves in a more down-to-earth fashion. In addition, it is particularly helpful to people of other cultures if they want to understand ancient Chinese philosophy and culture in a context of fresh and inspiring philosophical ideas. (By Zhang Xianglong)

The Emptiness of Emptiness presents the first English translation of the complete text of the Madhyamakavatara (Entry into the Middle Way) a sixth century Sanskrit Buddhist composition that was widely studied in Tibet and, presumably, in its native India as well. In his lengthy introduction to the translation, Huntington offers a judiciously crafted, highly original discussion of the central philosophy of Mahayana Buddhism. He lays out the principal ideas of emptiness and dependent origination not as abstract philosophical concepts, but rather as powerful tools for restructuring the nature of human experience at the most fundamental level. Drawing on a variety of Indian and Western sources, both ancient and modern, Huntington gradually leads the reader toward an understanding of how it is that sophisticated philosophical thinking can serve as a means for breaking down attachment to any idea, opinion or belief. All of this on the Buddhist premise that habitual, unreflective identification with ideas, opinions, or beliefs compromises our appreciation of the ungraspable miracle that lies at the heart of everyday, conventional reality. The author shows how the spiritual path of the bodhisattva works to transform the individual personality from a knot of clinging into a vehicle for the expression of profound wisdom (prajna) and unconditional love (karuna).

"In 12 excellent essays by scholars East and West, this collection explores the many dimensions of Heidegger's relation to Eastern thinking.... Because of the quality of the contributions, the eminence of the many contributors... this volume must be considered an indispensable reference on the subject. Highly recommended." --Choice.

Featuring the Chinese text on the left and the English translation on the right, this beautifully bound edition of Sun Tzu's classic text makes a unique gift or collector's item. Written in the sixth century BCE, Sun Tzu's The Art of War is still widely read and consulted today for its timeless, piercing insights into strategy and tactics. Napoleon, Mao Zedong, General Vo Nguyen Giap, and General Douglas MacArthur all claimed to have drawn inspiration from it. Beyond the world of war, business and management gurus have also applied Sun Tzu's ideas to office politics and corporate strategy. This edition of The Art of War is printed on high-quality paper and bound by traditional Chinese book-making techniques. It contains the full 13 chapters on such topics as laying plans, attacking by stratagem, weaponry, terrain, and the use of spies. Sun Tzu addresses different campaign situations, marching, energy, and how to exploit your enemy's weaknesses. This edition is an essential addition to any library, whether you're fascinated by the philosophy of warfare, Chinese history, or even twenty-first-century business.

Thabit ibn Qurra (826a "901) was one of historya (TM)s most original thinkers and displayed expertise in the most difficult disciplines of this time: geometry, number theory, and astronomy as well as ontology, physics, and metaphysics. Approximately a dozen of this shorter mathematical and philosophical writings are collected in this volume. Critically edited with accompanying commentary, these writings show how Thabit Ibn Qurra developed and reconceived the intellectual inheritance of ancient Greece in all areas of knowledge.

It is a commonplace that while Asia is nondualistic, the West, because of its uncritical reliance on Greek-derived intellectual standards, is dualistic. Dualism is a deep-seated habit of thinking and acting in all spheres of life through the prism of binary opposites leads to paralyzing practical and theoretical difficulties. Asia can provide no assistance for the foreseeable future because the West finds Asian nondualism, especially that of Mahayana Buddhism, too alien and nihilistic. On the other hand, postmodern thought, which purports to deliver us from the dualisms embedded in modernity, turns out to be merely a pseudo-postmodernism. This book's novel idea is that the West already contains within one of its more marginalized roots, that of ancient Hebrew culture, a pre-philosophical form of nondualism which makes possible a new form of nondualism, one to which the West can subscribe. This new nondualism, inspired by Buddhism but not identical to it, is an epistemological, ontological, metaphysical, and praxical middle way both for the West and also between East and West.>

Buddhas, gods, prophets and oracles are often depicted as asking questions. But what are we to understand when Jesus asks "Who do you say that I am?", or Mazu, the Classical Zen master asks, "Why do you seek outside?" Is their questioning a power or weakness? Is it something human beings are only capable of due to our finitude? Is there any kind of question that is a power? Focusing on three case studies of questions in divine discourse on the level of story - the god depicted in the Jewish Bible, the master Mazu in his recorded sayings literature, and Jesus as he is depicted in canonized Christian Gospels - Nathan Eric Dickman meditates on human responses to divine questions. He considers the purpose of interreligious dialogue and the provocative kind of questions that seem to purposefully decenter us, drawing on methods from confessionally-oriented hermeneutics and skills from critical thinking. He allows us to see alternative ways of interpreting religious texts through approaches that look beyond reading a text for the improvement of our own religion or for access to some metaphysically transcendent reality. This is the first step in a phenomenology of religions that is inclusive, diverse, relevant and grounded in the world we live in.

D?gen Zenji was a Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher born in Ky?to, and the founder of the S?t? school of Zen in Japan after travelling to China and training under the Chinese Caodong lineage there. D?gen is known for his extensive writing including the Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma or Sh?b?genz?, a collection of ninety-five fascicles concerning Buddhist practice and enlightenment. The primary concept underlying D?gen's Zen practice is "oneness of practice-enlightenment". In fact, this concept is considered so fundamental to D?gen's variety of Zen-and, consequently, to the S?t? school as a whole-that it formed the basis for the work Shush?-gi, which was compiled in 1890 by Takiya Takush? of Eihei-ji and Azegami Baisen of S?ji-ji as an introductory and prescriptive abstract of D?gen's massive work, the Sh?b?genz? ("Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma"). Dogen is a profoundly original and difficult 13th century Buddhist thinker whose works have begun attracting increasing attention in the West. Admittedly difficult for even the most advanced and sophisticated scholar of Eastern thought, he is bound, initially, to present an almost insurmountable barrier to the Western mind. Yet the task of penetrating that barrier must be undertaken and, in fact, is being carried out by many gifted scholars toiling in the Dogen vineyard.

The Ch'ing scholar-thinker Tai Chen (1724-1777) was a passionate explorer. He loved words, and his most important philosophical treatise, the Meng Tzu tzu-I shu-cheng (An evidential study of the meaning of terms in the Mencius), is an exhaustive search for the meaning of the words first uttered by Mencius in the fourth century B.C. This book by Ann-ping Chin and Mansfield Freeman is the first complete and annotated English translation of that treatise. Drawing on scholarship from the eighteenth century to the present, it also includes two essays that reconstruct Tai Chen's life and time and reinterpret his thought. Unlike most of the evidential scholars of his day, Tai Chen was not satisfied merely with providing reason and proof for his reading. He was interested in the life of words as their meaning changes with the vicissitudes of time. Tai Chen felt that the terms in the Mencius, garbled by the Sung and Ming thinkers who had come under the influence of Buddhism and Taoism, would no longer have made sense to Mencius himself. Key Confucian concepts, such as "principle" and "nature," had become "blood-less" moral constructs. Tai Chen preferred their primeval meaning. Intellectual historians of this century have hailed him as a progressive thinker and a social critic, but he saw himself in a simpler role: as a reader striving to understand every word in his text.

Comparing the liberal Jewish ethics of the German-Jewish philosophers Ernst Cassirer and Hannah Arendt, this book argues that both espoused a diasporic, worldly conception of Jewish identity that was anchored in a pluralist and politically engaged interpretation of Jewish history and an abiding interest in the complex lived reality of modern Jews. Arendt's indebtedness to liberal Jewish thinkers such as Moses Mendelssohn, Abraham Geiger, Hermann Cohen, and Ernst Cassirer has been obscured by her modernist posture and caustic critique of the assimilationism of her German-Jewish forebears. By reorienting our conception of Arendt as a profoundly secular thinker anchored in twentieth century political debates, we are led to rethink the philosophical, political, and ethical legacy of liberal Jewish discourse.

A world ever more extensively interlinked is calling out for serving human interests broader and more compelling than those inspiring our technological welfare. The interface between cultures - at the moment especially between the Occident and Islam - presents challenges to mutual understandings and calls for restoring the resources of our human beings forgotten in the struggle of competition and rivalry at the vital spheres of existence. In the evolutionary progress of the living beings the strictly vital concerns, emotions, attributes become sublimed and elevated to the spiritual sphere at which human beings encounter each other and share. Studies presented here bring forth sublimity, generosity, forgiveness, beauty, and are exalting the quest after ciphers and symbols which lead to our sharing the common deepest stream of fraternal reality.