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Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Non-Western philosophy
This book contains short analyses (kaidai) of Ogyu Sorai's
(1666-1728) most important works, as well as a biography and a
number of essays. The essays explore various aspects of his
teachings, of the origins of his thought, and of the reception of
his ideas in Japan, China, and Korea before and after
"modernization" struck in the second half of the nineteenth
century. Ogyu Sorai has come to be considered the pivotal thinker
in the intellectual history of Early Modern Japan. More research
has been done on Sorai than on any other Confucian thinker of this
period. This book disentangles the modern reception from the way in
which Sorai's ideas were understood and evaluated in Japan and
China in the century following his death. The joint conclusion of
the research of a number of the foremost specialists in Japan,
Taiwan, and the West is that Sorai was and remains an original,
innovative, and important thinker, but that his position within
East-Asian thought should be redefined in terms of the East-Asian
tradition to which he belonged, and not in the paradigms of
European History of Philosophy or Intellectual History. The book
represents up-to-date scholarship and allows both the young scholar
to acquaint himself with Sorai, and the intellectual historian to
compare Sorai with other thinkers of other times and of other
philosophical traditions.
Each essay in this volume provides a cultural perspective on shame.
More specifically, each chapter focuses on the question of how
culture can differentially affect experiences of shame for members
of that culture. As a collection, this volume provides a
cross-cultural perspective on shame, highlighting the various
similarities and differences of experiences of shame across
cultures. In Part 1, each contributor focuses primarily on how
shame is theorized in a non-English-speaking culture, and address
how the science of shame ought to be pursued, how it ought to
identify its object of study, what methods are appropriate for a
rigorous science of shame, and how a method of study can determine
or influence a theory of shame. In Part 2, each contributor is
primarily concerned with a cultural practice of shame, and
addresses how shame is related to a normative understanding of our
self as a person and an individual member of a community, how
culture and politics affect the value and import of shame, and what
the relationship between culture and politics is in the
construction of shamed identities. Cultural Perspectives on Shame
will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in
cross-cultural philosophy, philosophy of emotion, moral psychology,
and the social sciences.
Indian philosopher, poet, mystic and Yogi, Sri Aurobindo, argued
that human society has evolved throughout history and is destined
to move towards better organization of life. Applying his ideas to
problems confronting the world today, this collection presents an
in-depth exploration of Aurobindo's evolutionary philosophy and
Integral Yoga. Written by an international team of scholars and
practitioners, each chapter takes a theoretical aspect of Sri
Aurobindo's philosophy, positions it alongside policy debates on
the individual and the state and explains its practical and
educational benefits. Contributors discuss his vision of unity in
diversity, shed light on his poetry and offer a comprehensive view
of his concept of ethics as well as his metaphysics of
consciousness. They examine his contribution to the Indian response
to post-Enlightenment modernity and reveal how his philosophy
illuminates some of the fundamental problems of our times, offering
possible solutions. By presenting the first sustained discourse
between Sri Aurobindo and the contemporary world, this collection
addresses the relevance of his philosophy for everyday life and
highlights the lasting work of this important 20th-century Indian
thinker.
In Rescuing Humanity, Willem H. Vanderburg reminds us that we have
relied on discipline-based approaches for human knowing, doing, and
organizing for less than a century. During this brief period, these
approaches have become responsible for both our spectacular
successes and most of our social and environmental crises. At their
roots is a cultural mutation that includes secular religious
attitudes that veil the limits of these approaches, leading to
their overvaluation. Because their use, especially in science and
technology, is primarily built up with mathematics, living entities
and systems can be dealt with only as if their "architecture" or
"design" is based on the principle of non-contradiction, which is
true only for non-living entities. This distortion explains our
many crises. Vanderburg begins to explore the limits of
discipline-based approaches, which guides the way toward developing
complementary ones capable of transcending these limits. It is no
different from a carpenter going beyond the limits of his hammer by
reaching for other tools. As we grapple with everything from the
impacts of social media, the ongoing climate crisis, and divisive
political ideologies, Rescuing Humanity reveals that our
civilization must learn to do the equivalent if humans and other
living things are to continue making earth a home.
This volume brings together contributions from distinguished
scholars in the history of philosophy, focusing on points of
interaction between discrete historical contexts, religions, and
cultures found within the premodern period. The contributions
connect thinkers from antiquity through the Middle Ages and include
philosophers from the three major monotheistic faiths-Judaism,
Islam, and Christianity. By emphasizing premodern philosophy's
shared textual roots in antiquity, particularly the writings of
Plato and Aristotle, the volume highlights points of
cross-pollination between different schools, cultures, and moments
in premodern thought. Approaching the complex history of the
premodern world in an accessible way, the editors organize the
volume so as to underscore the difficulties the premodern period
poses for scholars, while accentuating the fascinating interplay
between the Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Latin philosophical
traditions. The contributors cover many topics ranging from the
aims of Aristotle's cosmos, the adoption of Aristotle's Organon by
al-Farabi, and the origins of the Plotiniana Arabica to the role of
Ibn Gabirol's Fons vitae in the Latin West, the ways in which
Islamic philosophy shaped thirteenth-century Latin conceptions of
light, Roger Bacon's adaptation of Avicenna for use in his moral
philosophy, and beyond. The volume's focus on "source-based
contextualism" demonstrates an appreciation for the rich diversity
of thought found in the premodern period, while revealing
methodological challenges raised by the historical study of
premodern philosophy. Contextualizing Premodern Philosophy:
Explorations of the Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Latin Traditions is
a stimulating resource for scholars and advanced students working
in the history of premodern philosophy.
This book traces the trajectory of traditional Chinese ethics from
West Zhou Dynasty (1046-771 BC) through Qing Dynasty (1616-1912)
and covers a myriad of Chinese philosophers who have expressed
their ideas about the relationships between Heavenly Dao vs.
Earthly Dao, Good vs. Evil, Morality vs. Legality, Knowledge vs.
Behavior, Motive vs. Result, Righteousness vs. Profitability,
Rationality vs. Animality. In this book, the readers can find
Confucius's discussion on Rite and Benevolence, Lao Zi's meditation
on Inaction of Great Dao, Zhuang Zi's elaboration on
"Transcendental Freedom", Mohist utilitarian "Universal Love", and
Mencian theory of "Primordial Good Humanity", to name just a few
phenomenal figures. A compact yet elaborate, panoramic yet profound
guidebook to traditional Chinese ethical thought, this book is an
excellent window to showcase traditional Chinese mental and
spiritual legacy. Composed, translated, and proofread by brilliant
scholars, it produces a fluent and coherent English discourse of
Chinese morality and ethics, nimbly spinning together the threads
of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and other ideological schools
with brief references to the historical situation. Consequently, it
provides English readers, especially those curious about Chinese
psychology and rationality, with thought-provoking and
horizon-expanding perspectives, and provides Chinese readers,
especially those of philosophy and translation, with a great number
of typical and characteristic quotes of archaic Chinese that have
never been translated before. Ultimately, it is a fundamental
threshold to learning about Chinese people, Chinese culture,
Chinese morality, Chinese mentality, Chinese policy, and Chinese
diplomacy.
Krishnamurti shows how people can free themselves radically and immediately from the tyranny of the expected, no matter what their age--opening the door to transforming society and their relationships.
Uniting analytic philosophy with Buddhist, Indian, and Chinese
traditions, this collection marks the first systematic
cross-cultural examination of one of philosophy of mind's most
fascinating questions: can consciousness be conceived as
metaphysically fundamental? Engaging in debates concerning
consciousness and ultimate reality, emergence and mental causation,
realism, idealism, panpsychism, and illusionism, it understands
problems through the philosophies of East and South-East Asia, in
particular Buddhism and Vedanta. Each section focuses on a specific
aspect or theory of consciousness, and examines a particular
subject from different disciplinary perspectives including
philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science. These different
angles allows readers to gain insight into the intellectual
challenges and problems of the study of consciousness and its place
in the thought traditions of both Eastern and Western philosophy.
Raising new questions, it provides a more global and holistic
understanding of consciousness, presenting a stimulating and
original contribution to contemporary consciousness studies and the
metaphysics of mind.
This work engages in a constructive, yet subtle, dialogue with the
nuanced accounts of sensory intentionality and empirical knowledge
offered by the Islamic philosopher Avicenna. This discourse has two
main objectives: (1) providing an interpretation of Avicenna's
epistemology that avoids reading him as a precursor to British
empiricists or as a full-fledged emanatist and (2) bringing light
to the importance of Avicenna's account of experience to relevant
contemporary Anglo-American discussions in epistemology and
metaphysics. These two objectives are interconnected.
Anglo-American philosophy provides the framework for a novel
reading of Avicenna on knowledge and reality, and the latter, in
turn, contributes to adjusting some aspects of the former.
Advancing the Avicennian perspective on contemporary analytic
discourse, this volume is a key resource for researchers and
students interested in comparative and analytic epistemology and
metaphysics as well as Islamic philosophy.
First published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor &
Francis, an informa company.
This book represents a series of incursions or philosophical forays
between realms of Byzantine and Russian thought and territory long
claimed by Western philosophy and theology. Beginning with thoughts
inevitably rooted in the West, it seeks to penetrate as deeply as
possible into Byzantine and Russian philosophical and spiritual
landscapes, and to return with fresh insights. These are also
incursions that move back and forth between the visible and the
invisible realms, in the traditions of Plato and his successors as
well as the great monastics of Eastern Christianity. Foltz argues
from various perspectives that the problematic relation between
transcendence and immanence finds its answer in the philosophical
and theological legacy of Eastern Christian thought, which has
always sought to bring together strands tenaciously held separate
in the West. This book transports contemporary readers to an
ancient conceptual landscape as it expertly handles both Western
and Byzantine ideas with a familiarity unusual to contemporary
scholars. It is essential reading for all those wishing to engage
the heart of Byzantine thought and employ its lessons to address
the problems which plague Western philosophy and culture.
Transcultural Theater outlines the idea of a transcultural theater
as enabling an approximation to and an interaction with the foreign
and the alien. In consideration of the allure of fundamentalist and
populist movements that promote the development and practices of
xenophobia worldwide, this book makes a powerful plea for the art
of theater as a medium of conviviality with (the) foreign(er) that
should not be underestimated. This study contributes to
transcultural experience, artistic practice, and education in the
medium of theater. The book’s investigation extends far into
space and time and pays particular attention to the relationship
between aesthetic experience, artistic practice, and academic
representation. This book is for scholars and students as well as
for all those working in the cultural field, especially in the
field of cultural transfer.
The main purpose of this book is to offer to philosophers and
students abroad who show a great interest in Japanese philosophy
and the philosophy of the Kyoto school major texts of the leading
philosophers. This interest has surely developed out of a desire to
obtain from the thought of these philosophers, who stood within the
interstice between East and West, a clue to reassessing the issues
of philosophy from the ground up or to drawing new creative
possibilities.The present condition seems to be, however, that the
material made available to further realize this kind of
intellectual dialogue is far too scarce. This book is intended to
be of some help in this regard.The book presents selected texts of
representative philosophers of the Kyoto school such as Nishida
Kitaro, Tanabe Hajime, Miki Kiyoshi, Nishitani Keiji, and others
who best illustrate the characteristics of this school, and works
that together portray its image as a whole. Those who are
interested in Japanese philosophy or specifically the philosophy of
the Kyoto School can survey a comprehensive representation from
this book.These texts are, of course, quite difficult and cannot be
well understood without sufficient preliminary knowledge.
Expository essays have therefore been included after each text to
provide guidance. In each of these commentaries a scholar of our
time with deep understanding of the philosopher in question has
provided an account of his life, intellectual journey, and the
significance of the text included here.From this book will emerge a
new dialogue of ideas that in turn will engender new developments
in philosophy, thereby further expanding the network of
philosophical thought worldwide.
This book explores the moral place of the dead in our lives and in
our afterlives. It argues that our lives are saturated by the past
intentions and values of the dead, and that we offer the dead a
form of modest immortality by fulfilling our obligations to
remember them.
This volume sheds light on the affective dimensions of
self-knowledge and the roles that emotions and other affective
states play in promoting or obstructing our knowledge of ourselves.
It is the first book specifically devoted to the issue of affective
self-knowledge.
In recent decades there has been a rising interest among scholars
of Hinduism and Judaism in engaging in the comparative studies of
these ancient traditions. Academic interests have also been
inspired by the rise of interreligious dialogue by the respective
religious leaders. Dharma and Halacha: Comparative Studies in
Hindu-Jewish Philosophy and Religion represents a significant
contribution to this emerging field, offering an examination of a
wide range of topics and a rich diversity of perspectives and
methodologies within each tradition, and underscoring significant
affinities in textual practices, ritual purity, sacrifice, ethics
and theology. Dharma refers to a Hindu term indicating law, duty,
religion, morality, justice and order, and the collective body of
Dharma is called Dharma-shastra. Halacha is the Hebrew term
designating the Jewish spiritual path, comprising the collective
body of Jewish religious laws, ethics and rituals. Although there
are strong parallels between Hinduism and Judaism in topics such as
textual practices and mystical experience, the link between these
two religious systems, i.e. Dharma and Halacha, is especially
compelling and provides a framework for the comparative study of
these two traditions. The book begins with an introduction to
Hindu-Jewish comparative studies and recent interreligious
encounters. Part I of the book titled "Ritual and Sacrifice,"
encompasses the themes of sacrifice, holiness, and worship. Part II
titled "Ethics," is devoted to comparing ethical systems in both
traditions, highlighting the manifold ways in which the sacred is
embodied in the mundane. Part III of the book titled "Theology,"
addresses common themes and phenomena in spiritual leadership, as
well as textual metaphors for mystical and visionary experiences in
Hinduism and Judaism. The epilogue offers a retrospective on
Hindu-Jewish encounters, mapping historic as well as contemporary
academic initiatives and collaborations.
This book is a critical examination of the different roles of
conscience and cognition in social research in China and the West,
exploring how the two traditions can enrich each other and help
societies navigate through the complex intellectual and moral
crises of our time. Drawing on a rich array of primary and
secondary sources, this title traces the development of the
Confucian conception of conscience, from Confucius and Mencius to
Xiong Shili and Mou Zongsan, two representatives of
Neo-Confucianism. This primacy of a moral sense is compared and
contrasted with the tension within the Western culture between
strains that place a premium on understanding and a deep commitment
to the search for meaning in such philosophers as Habermas and
Heidegger. The author explicates why such a commitment is essential
to social research and how the focus on instrumental rationality
that has defined modernity may be corrected by recentering the role
of conscience on intellectual inquiry in general. To that end, both
Chinese and Western cultures have plenty to offer both in terms of
substantive insights and research methodologies. The book will be a
crucial reference for scholars and students interested in Western
philosophy, comparative philosophy and Chinese philosophy.
A prominent mystic and renowned anti-colonial warrior from
Indonesia, Shaykh Yusuf of Macassar (1626-1699), was exiled to
South Africa where he played a pioneering role in laying the
foundations of Islam. Offering a rich translation of Shaykh Yusuf's
Arabic writings, Spiritual Path, Spiritual Reality fills an
important gap on the works devoted to the spiritual dimension in
the Muslim intellectual archive. The introduction gives insight
into his life and an understanding of how his mysticism was
connected to his political engagement. Focusing on Islamic
mysticism - known as Sufism - the volume covers areas of spiritual
discipline of the self, metaphysics and gnostic knowledge. The
style is pedagogical with an instructive tone in keeping with the
Sufi path.
Elucidates the key elements of traditional Chinese aesthetic
thinking A masterpiece of aesthetics that integrates the East and
the West, the ancient and the modern Combines aesthetics,
philosophy and hermeneutics Describes the unique appeal of
traditional Chinese cultures
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