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.

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.

In this original work of systematic philosophy, David Dilworth places the major texts of Western and Oriental philosophy and religion, both ancient and modern, into one comparative framework. His study reveals affinities between thinkers who lived centuries and continents apart and produces numerous insights by bringing great philosophical texts together into a single purview. "This is a provocative and challenging book: far-reaching in scope and implication, worldwide in its vision, yet inescapably Aristotelian in its grounding. It is to be hoped that it will acquaint more Western readers with Chinese philosophy, while spurring Asian thinkers to offer counterproposals about the crucial issues of philosophy in their respective traditions and the best methods to compare them."-Carl Becker, Journal of Asian Studies "The work opens new interpretive possibilities for intra- and inter-textual reflection on a grand scale."-Edith Wyschogrod, Queens College "Philosophers East or West should buy and read this book."-Robert Magnolia, Tamkang University and National Taiwan University, Taiwan

In addition to being a political thinker, Gandhi was also a political activist leading the largest anti-colonial movement in history and fighting against racial injustices in South Africa and the social economic and political injustices in India. He drew upon the Indian and Western, Hindu and Christian philosophical and religious traditions to develop a uniquely bicultural political philosophy. It was designed to illuminate the nature of oppression and violence, and explore both new ways of fighting against them and the basis of a non-violent social order. This study attempts to provide a critical account of Gandhi's moral and political philosophy. It places him in a historical context and examines his central philosophical assumptions, drawing on his original Gujarati works and is based on discussions with his associates and followers.

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).

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.

An attempt to provide a critical account of Gandhi's moral and political philosophy. It places him in an historical context and examines his central philosophical assumptions, drawing on his original Gujarati works and discussions with his associates and followers.

"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.

Medieval Philosophy: A Multicultural Reader comprises a comparative, multicultural reading of the four main traditions of the medieval period with extensive sections on Greek-Byzantine, Latin, Jewish, and Islamic traditions. The book also includes an initial 'Predecessors' section, presenting readings (with introductions) from figures of antiquity upon whom all four traditions have drawn. Representative readings from each of the four great traditions are presented chronologically in four different tracks, along with engaging and accessible introductions to the traditions themselves, as well as each individual thinker-all selected and presented by noted scholars within each respective tradition. This groundbreaking collection: -Offers readings from early thinkers that contextualize the medieval traditions. -Presents, for the first time, extensive readings from the Byzantine Christian tradition that has wielded an important cultural influence from Russia and the Balkans to the Middle East and Northern Africa. -Chooses and interprets texts that are integrally important within each of these four traditions-living traditions that continue to shape values and beliefs today-rather than seen from an external point of view, such as that of a later school of philosophy. -Juxtaposes extensive readings from poetic and mystical elements within these traditions alongside the usual, often more analytical readings. -Features a timeline of the entire period, a map indicating the locations associated with philosophers included in this volume, an annotated guide to further reading on each of these traditions, and an index of names and of subjects that appear in the volume. Given its relevance for approaching the medieval world on its own terms, as well as for understanding the foundations of our own world, the volume is intended not only as an academic textbook and reference work, but as a readable and informative guide for the general reader who wishes to understand these great philosophical and religious traditions that continue to influence our world today-or perhaps to simply glean the wisdom from these enduring texts. This is a culturally inclusive title, which seeks to provide the reader with a rich, varied and comprehensive insight into the entirety of the medieval philosophical world.

Investigating connections between philosophical hermeneutics and neighbouring traditions of thought, this volume considers the question of how post-Heideggerian hermeneutics, as represented by Gadamer, Ricoeur and recent scholars following in their wake, relate to these traditions, both in general terms and bearing upon specific questions. The traditions covered in this volume-existentialism, pragmatism, poststructuralism, Eastern philosophy, and hermeneutics itself-are all characterized by significant internal diversity, adding to the difficulty in reaching an interpretation that is at once comparative and critical. None of these traditions represent a unified system of belief; all are umbrella terms which are at once useful and imprecise, and the differences internal to each must not to be understated. An innovative work of comparative philosophy, this volume avoids oversimplification and offers specific analyses that treat hermeneutics in relation to particular themes and key figures in each of these traditions of thought. Philosophical hermeneutics is explicitly dialogical, and it is in this spirit that the authors of this book approach their subjects, revealing the important affinities and opportunities for mutually enriching conversations which have until now been overlooked.

This ambitious study presents Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) as the most outstanding and influential thinker of modernity--and examines the question of whether he was the "first secular Jew." A number-one bestseller in Israel, "Spinoza and Other Heretics" is made up of two volumes--The Marrano of Reason and The Adventures of Immanence. Yirmiyahu Yovel shows how Spinoza grounded a philosophical revolution in a radically new principle--the philosophy of immanence, or the idea that this world is all there is--and how he thereby anticipated secularization, the Enlightenment, the disintegration of ghetto life, and the rise of natural science and the liberal-democratic state.

The Marrano of Reason

The Marrano of Reason finds the origins of the idea of immanence in the culture of Spinoza's Marrano ancestors, Jews in Spain and Portugal who had been forcibly converted to Christianity. Yovel uses their fascinating story to show how the crypto-Jewish life they maintained in the face of the Inquisition mixed Judaism and Christianity in ways that undermined both religions and led to rational skepticism and secularism. He identifies Marrano patterns that recur in Spinoza in a secularized context: a "this-worldly" disposition, a split religious identity, an opposition between inner and outer life, a quest for salvation outside official doctrines, and a gift for dual language and equivocation. This same background explains the drama of the young Spinoza's excommunication from the Jewish community in his native Amsterdam. Convention portrays the Amsterdam Jews as narrow-minded and fanatical, but in Yovel's vivid account they emerge as highly civilized former Marranos with cosmopolitan leanings, struggling to renew their Jewish identity and to build a "new Jerusalem" in the Netherlands.

The general characteristics of the decades after the last World War, so far as the human situation goes, include two phenomena: these decades are marked by man's dissatisfaction with himself, his confession of ignorance of himself, his anxiety about his future, and also his earnest search for the ground of his being, which can give him a feeling of security with reference to his life here and hereafter; they are also marked by man's pride about his achievements in science and tech nology, a hope of a better life on earth, and a faith in himself as capable of engineering the individual and society for realizing peace, harmony, and happiness for all men. The contemporary thinking man is conscious of the predicament these two kinds of characteristics have created for him, admits failures, hopes for improvements, and works for them. In carrying out this work, he has to and wants to know what human life is, what the meaning and purpose of life are, and why his struggles and achievements have not succeeded in giving every man a reasonable amount of comfort and happiness. He has come to realize also that the accumulation of material comforts does not necessarily lead to happi ness, although happiness for man - except for the monk, fakir, or sannyiisin - is not possible without material comforts. Here we have the problem."

Western Christians often despair of finding meaning in the paradoxical statement that God is both "One" and "Three". The problem, says Jung Young Lee, is not with the doctrine of the Trinity itself; rather, it is with the Western conceptual tendency to view reality in exclusive, "either/or" terms. The Trinity is at its heart an inclusive doctrine of one God who is nonetheless three distinct persons. In order to grasp this fact, we need different conceptual categories, not only with which to view God, but all of reality. The Asian philosophical construct of yin and yang can offer a way out of this problem, with its inherently "both/and" way of thinking. Drawing on a variety of East Asian religious traditions, Lee offers a creative reinterpretation of this central Christian doctrine. He shows how a global perspective can illuminate Western theological constructs as he establishes the necessity of a contextual approach to the doctrine of the Trinity.

Exploring the subject of Jewish philosophy as a controversial construction site of the project of modernity, this book examines the implications of the different and often conflicting notions that drive the debate on the question of what Jewish philosophy is or could be. The idea of Jewish philosophy begs the question of philosophy as such. But "Jewish philosophy" does not just reflect what "philosophy" lacks. Rather, it challenges the project of philosophy itself. Examining the thought of Spinoza, Moses Mendelssohn, Heinrich Heine, Hermann Cohen Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, Margarete Susman, Hermann Levin Goldschmidt, and others, the book highlights how the most philosophic moments of their works are those in which specific concerns of their "Jewish questions" inform the rethinking of philosophy's disciplinarity in principal terms. The long overdue recognition of the modernity that informs the critical trajectories of Jewish philosophers from Spinoza and Mendelssohn to the present emancipates not just "Jewish philosophy" from an infelicitous pigeonhole these philosophers so pointedly sought to reject but, more important, emancipates philosophy from its false claims to universalism.

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.

Accelerationism is the bastard offspring of a furtive liaison between Marxism and science fiction. Its basic premise is that the only way out is the way through: to get beyond capitalism, we need to push its technologies to the point where they explode. This may be dubious as a political strategy, but it works as a powerful artistic program. Other authors have debated the pros and cons of accelerationist politics; No Speed Limit makes the case for an accelerationist aesthetics. Our present moment is illuminated, both for good and for ill, in the cracked mirror of science-fictional futurity. Forerunners: Ideas First is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital publications. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.

Consisting of a group of stories bound together by a pilgrimage, this great twelfth-century poem is an allegorical rendering of the Way of the Sufi—the secretive and paradoxical form of Islamic mysticism.

..". a great read. It is masterfully presented, and is an ideal textboth for advanced undergraduates and graduate students." -- InternationalJournal of African Historical Studies

..". a detailed, critical guide to fifty years of African philosophy... " -- TeachingPhilosophy

"Masolo offers an expansive and lucidly panoramicview of the origin and developments in African philosophy." -- AfricaToday

"The excellence of this book lies in the wealth ofperspectives that it brings to the discussion on what constitutes philosophy, rationality, and meaningful reflection. It is both thought provoking andilluminating." -- Ethics

A Kenyan philosopher surveys themesand debates in African philosophy over the last five decades. Masolo's purviewincludes Francophone and Anglophone philosophers in both the analytic andphenomenological traditions.

Imagination: Cross-Cultural Philosophical Analyses is a rare intercultural inquiry into the conceptions and functions of the imagination in contemporary philosophy. Divided into East Asian, comparative, and post-comparative approaches, it brings together a leading team of philosophers to explore the concepts of the illusory and illusions, the development of fantastic narratives and metaphors, and the use of images and allegories across a broad range of traditions. Chapters discuss how imagination has been interpreted by thinkers such as Zhuangzi, Plato, Confucius, Heidegger, and Nietzsche. By drawing on sources including Buddhist aesthetics, Daoism, and analytic philosophy of mind, this cross-cultural collection shows how the imagination can be an indispensable tool for the comparative philosopher, opening up new possibilities for intercultural dialogue and critical engagement.

The prominent contributors to this edited volume were asked to discuss neglected classic works in both Western and non-Western philosophy, and to make a case for their contemporary importance in an accessible and inviting way. The result - a successor to an earlier 2016 volume, also edited by Eric Schliesser - is an invitation to consider new ways of defining, and doing, philosophy. The works discussed here are written in a variety of literary styles, in different ages and intellectual cultures. Many contributors note the meta-philosophical features of the works, and how these can be salient today, and thus inspire reflection on the nature of philosophy and the varieties of roles it can play professionally and existentially. In particular, many of the chapters inspire reflection on the gendered, racial, and cultural patterns of exclusion in the development of the contemporary philosophical canon.

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.

In the history of philosophy, few topics are so relevant to today's cultural and political landscape as philosophy in the Islamic world. Yet, this remains one of the lesser-known philosophical traditions. In this Very Short Introduction, Peter Adamson explores the history of philosophy among Muslims, Jews, and Christians living in Islamic lands, from its historical background to thinkers in the twentieth century. Introducing the main philosophical themes of the Islamic world, Adamson integrates ideas from the Islamic and Abrahamic faiths to consider the broad philosophical questions that continue to invite debate: What is the relationship between reason and religious belief? What is the possibility of proving God's existence? What is the nature of knowledge? Drawing on the most recent research in the field, this book challenges the assumption of the cultural decline of philosophy and science in the Islamic world by demonstrating its rich heritage and overlap with other faiths and philosophies.

In this book, a series of interviews offers an accessible, revealing, human and intellectual biography of leading Islamic scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr is one of the preeminent philosophers writing today. Sure to be a key resource for decades to come, In Search of the Sacred: A Conversation with Seyyed Hossein Nasr on His Life and Thought illuminates Nasr's experiences and shares his insights on topics from religion and philosophy to science and the arts. Based on a series of interviews, the book combines traditional autobiography with an exploration of the intellectual and spiritual trajectories of the author's thought during key periods of his life. In doing so, it presents a fascinating panorama, not only of the life and ideas of one man, but also of major events ranging from intellectual life in Iran during the Pahlavi period and the Iranian Revolution to some of the major religious and intellectual debates between Islam and modernism. Nasr writes that his "whole life has been a quest for the sacred." This work connects that quest with some of the most important issues of the day in encounters between Islam and the West.