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Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Non-Western philosophy
This book examines Gandhi's idea of Swaraj as an alternative to the
modern concept of political authority. It also introduces the
readers with Gandhi's ideas of moral interconnectedness and
empathetic pluralism. It explores the Gandhian belief that
'nonviolence' as a moral and political concept is essentially the
empowerment of the Other through spiritual and political
realization of the self as a non-egocentric subject. Further, it
highlights Swaraj as an act of conscience and therefore a
transformative force, essential to the harmony between spirituality
and politics. The volume will be of great interest to scholars and
researchers of philosophy, politics and South Asian Studies.
This book investigates 'capitalism and freedom'-the guiding forces
of many political systems-in African philosophy. It builds on
classical and neoliberal capitalism rooted in private property and
freedom, and argues for the presence of these elements in the
traditional and modern African political systems. The author argues
that while these elements are partly imported from Western
capitalists, they are equally traceable in African traditional
political systems. Kayange argues that African politics is marred
by a conflict between embracing capitalism and freedom
(individualism), on the one hand, and socialism founded on African
communitarianism and communist ideas, on the other. This conflict
has affected policy development and implementation, and has
significantly contributed towards the socio-economic and ethical
crises that are recurrent in most of the African countries.
Narasimha is one of the least studied major deities of Hinduism.
Furthermore, there are limited studies of the history, thought, and
literature of middle India. Lavanya Vemsani redresses this by
exploring a range of primary sources, including classical Sanskrit
texts (puranas and epics), and regional accounts (sthalapuranas),
which include texts, artistic compositions, and oral folk stories
in the regional languages of Telugu, Oriya, and Kannada. She also
examines the historical context as well as contemporary practice.
Moving beyond the stereotypical classifications applied to sources
of Hinduism, this unique study dedicates chapters to each region of
middle India bringing together literary, religious, and cultural
practices to comprehensively understand the religion of Middle
India (Madhya Desha). Incorporating lived religion and textual
data, this book offers a rich contribution to Hindu studies and
Indian studies in general, and Vaishnava Studies and regional
Hinduism in particular.
New Waves of China's Philosophical Studies collects important
research findings of China's philosophical studies conducted by the
academics at East China Normal University (ECNU) in recent years.
The book covers topics including Confucian ethics and virtue
ethics, true value semantics vs. commonsensible reasoning
semantics, criticisms of dogmatism, consequentialism, among
others.This book is the first volume of the WSPC-ECNU Series on
China. This Series showcases the significant contributions to
scholarship in social sciences and humanities studies about China.
It is jointly launched by World Scientific Publishing, the most
reputable English academic publisher in Asia, and ECNU, a top
University in China with a long history of exchanges with the
international academic community.
Engaging in existential discourse beyond the European tradition,
this book turns to Asian philosophies to reassess vital questions
of life's purpose, death's imminence, and our capacity for living
meaningfully in conditions of uncertainty. Inspired by the dilemmas
of European existentialism, this cross-cultural study seeks
concrete techniques for existential practice via the philosophies
of East Asia. The investigation begins with the provocative
writings of twentieth-century Korean Buddhist nun Kim Iryop, who
asserts that meditative concentration conducts a potent energy
outward throughout the entire karmic network, enabling the radical
transformation of our shared existential conditions. Understanding
her claim requires a look at East Asian sources more broadly.
Considering practices as diverse as Buddhist merit-making
ceremonies, Confucian/Ruist methods for self-cultivation, the
ritual memorization and recitation of texts, and Yijing divination,
the book concludes by advocating a speculative turn. This
'speculative existentialism' counters the suspicion toward
metaphysics characteristic of twentieth-century European
existential thought and, at the same time, advances a program for
action. It is not a how-to guide for living, but rather a
philosophical methodology that takes seriously the power of mental
cultivation to transform the meaning of the life that we share.
The notion of qi/gi ( ) is one of the most pervasive notions found
within the various areas of the East Asian intellectual and
cultural traditions. While the pervasiveness of the notion provides
us with an opportunity to observe the commonalities amongst the
East Asian intellectual and cultural traditions, it also allows us
to observe the differences. This book focuses more on understanding
the different meanings and logics that the notion of qi/gi has
acquired within the East Asian traditions for the purpose of
understanding the diversity of these traditions. This volume begins
to fulfill this task by inquiring into how the notion was
understood by traditional Korean philosophers, in addition to
investigating how the notion was understood by traditional Chinese
philosophers.
After a century during which Confucianism was viewed by academics
as a relic of the imperial past or, at best, a philosophical
resource, its striking comeback in Chinese society today raises a
number of questions about the role that this ancient
tradition-re-appropriated, reinvented, and sometimes
instrumentalized-might play in a contemporary context. The Sage and
the People, originally published in French, is the first
comprehensive enquiry into the "Confucian revival" that began in
China during the 2000s. It explores its various dimensions in
fields as diverse as education, self-cultivation, religion, ritual,
and politics. Resulting from a research project that the two
authors launched together in 2004, the book is based on the
extensive anthropological fieldwork they carried out in various
parts of China over the next eight years. Sebastien Billioud and
Joel Thoraval suspected, despite the prevailing academic consensus,
that fragments of the Confucian tradition would sooner or later be
re-appropriated within Chinese society and they decided to their
hypothesis. The reality greatly exceeded their initial
expectations, as the later years of their project saw the rapid
development of what is now called the "Confucian revival" or
"Confucian renaissance". Using a cross-disciplinary approach that
links the fields of sociology, anthropology, and history, this book
unveils the complexity of the "Confucian Revival" and the relations
between the different actors involved, in addition to shedding
light on likely future developments.
This Key Concepts pivot discusses the contemporary relevance of the
ancient Chinese concept of Tianxia or 'All-Under-Heaven' and argues
the case for a new global political philosophy. 'All-under-heaven'
is a conceptualization of the world as the composition of three
realms: the physical, psychological and political, which places
inclusivity and harmony at the heart of a global world view above
other considerations, transcending the notion of nation state. In a
highly interconnected and globalized world, the idea of Tianxia can
offer a new 21st century vision of international relations and
world order, based on a harmonized global organization defined by
the "all-inclusiveness principle." Promoting the ontology of
co-existence and relational rationality hand in hand with rational
risk aversion in a globalized world, this pivot makes the case that
Tianxia could offer a new vision for contemporary world order,
redefining the universality and legitimacy of politics.
If we thought that reality were changeable, fragile, and fleeting,
would we take life more seriously or less seriously? This book
contemplates the notion of "hakanasa," the evanescence of all
things, as understood by the Japanese. Their lived responses to
this idea of impermanence have been various and even contradictory.
Asceticism, fatalism, conformism. Hedonism, materialism, careerism.
What this array of responses have in common are, first, a grounding
in "hakanasa," and, second, an emphasis on formality. "Evanescence
and Etiquette" attempts to illuminate for the first time the ties
between an epistemology of constant change and Japan's formal
emphasis on etiquette and visuality.
This comprehensive collection brings out the rich and deep
philosophical resources of the Zhuangzi. It covers textual,
linguistic, hermeneutical, ethical, social/political and
philosophical issues, with the latter including epistemological,
metaphysical, phenomenological and cross-cultural (Chinese and
Western) aspects. The volume starts out with the textual history of
the Zhuangzi, and then examines how language is used in the text.
It explores this unique characteristic of the Zhuangzi, in terms of
its metaphorical forms, its use of humour in deriding and parodying
the Confucians, and paradoxically making Confucius the spokesman
for Zhuangzi's own point of view. The volume discusses questions
such as: Why does Zhuangzi use language in this way, and how does
it work? Why does he not use straightforward propositional
language? Why is language said to be inadequate to capture the
"dao" and what is the nature of this dao? The volume puts Zhuangzi
in the philosophical context of his times, and discusses how he
relates to other philosophers such as Laozi, Xunzi, and the
Logicians.
This book presents detailed discussions from leading intercultural
philosophers, arguing for and against the priority of immanence in
Chinese thought and the validity of Western interpretations that
attempt to import conceptions of transcendence. The authors pay
close attention to contemporary debates generated from critical
analysis of transcendence and immanence, including discussions of
apophasis, critical theory, post-secular conceptions of society,
phenomenological approaches to transcendence, possible-world
models, and questions of practice and application. This book aims
to explore alternative conceptions of transcendence that either
call the tradition in the West into question, or discover from
within Western metaphysics a thoroughly dialectical way of thinking
about immanence and transcendence.
This book engages in a dialogue with Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya
(K.C. Bhattacharyya, KCB, 1875-1949) and opens a vista to
contemporary Indian philosophy. KCB is one of the founding fathers
of contemporary Indian philosophy, a distinct genre of philosophy
that draws both on classical Indian philosophical sources and on
Western materials, old and new. His work offers both a new and
different reading of classical Indian texts, and a unique
commentary of Kant and Hegel. The book (re)introduces KCB's
philosophy, identifies the novelty of his thinking, and highlights
different dimensions of his oeuvre, with special emphasis on
freedom as a concept and striving, extending from the metaphysical
to the political or the postcolonial. Our contributors aim to
decipher KCB's distinct vocabulary (demand, feeling, alternation).
They revisit his discussion of Rasa aesthetics, spotlight the place
of the body in his phenomenological inquiry toward "the subject as
freedom", situate him between classics (Abhinavagupta) and thinkers
inspired by his thought (Daya Krishna), and discuss his lectures on
Samkhya and Yoga rather than projecting KCB as usual solely as a
Vedanta scholar. Finally, the contributors seek to clarify if and
how KCB's philosophical work is relevant to the discourse today,
from the problem of other minds to freedoms in the social and
political spheres. This book will be of interest to academics
studying Indian and comparative philosophy, philosophy of language
and mind, phenomenology without borders, and political and
postcolonial philosophy.
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.
This book explores the integral vision of human development
contained in the original works of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. It
delves into multiple layers of the human personality as envisaged
by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother and explores a new developmental
science of consciousness based on the practice of Integral Yoga.
The book examines the major metatheoretical conceptions that shape
the contemporary discipline of developmental psychology and
discusses the ways in which Sri Aurobindo's philosophical and
psychological perspective can help break fresh ground for
developmental theorisation and research by extending the current
understanding of the human evolutionary potential.
The author proposes a new agenda for human development which
brings together the key ideas of integral individual and collective
development and informs practices in the areas of counselling,
education, parenting and self-development. This book will be of
special interest for researchers of developmental psychology, human
development, counselling psychology, philosophy, social work and
education.
The Anthropology of Islamic Law shows how hermeneutic theory and
practice theory can be brought together to analyze cultural, legal,
and religious traditions. These ideas are developed through an
analysis of the Islamic legal tradition, which examines both
Islamic legal doctrine and religious education. The book combines
anthropology and Islamicist history, using ethnography and in-depth
analysis of Arabic religious texts. The book focuses on higher
religious learning in contemporary Egypt, examining its
intellectual, ethical, and pedagogical dimensions. Data is drawn
from fieldwork inside al-Azhar University, Cairo University's Dar
al-Ulum, and the network of traditional study circles associated
with the al-Azhar mosque. Together these sites constitute the most
important venue for the transmission of religious learning in the
contemporary Muslim world. The book gives special attention to
contemporary Egypt, and also provides a broader analysis relevant
to Islamic legal doctrine and religious education throughout
history.
Whilst accounting for the present-day popularity and relevance of
Alan Watts' contributions to psychology, religion, arts, and
humanities, this interdisciplinary collection grapples with the
ongoing criticisms which surround Watts' life and work. Offering
rich examination of as yet underexplored aspects of Watts'
influence in 1960s counterculture, this volume offers unique
application of Watts' thinking to contemporary issues and
critically engages with controversies surrounding the
commodification of Watts' ideas, his alleged misreading of Biblical
texts, and his apparent distortion of Asian religions and
spirituality. Featuring a broad range of international contributors
and bringing Watts' ideas squarely into the contemporary context,
the text provides a comprehensive, yet nuanced exploration of
Watts' thinking on psychotherapy, Buddhism, language, music, and
sexuality. This text will benefit researchers, doctoral students,
and academics in the fields of psychotherapy, phenomenology, and
the philosophy of psychology more broadly. Those interested in
Jungian psychotherapy, spirituality, and the self and social
identity will also enjoy this volume.
This book examines the works of Medieval Muslim philosophers
interested in intercultural encounters and how receptive Islam is
to foreign thought, to serve as a dialogical model, grounded in
intercultural communications, for Islamic and Arabic education. The
philosophers studied in this project were instructors, tutors, or
teachers, such as Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Al-Ghazali, and Averroes,
whose philosophical contributions directly or indirectly advanced
intercultural learning. The book describes and provides examples of
how each of these philosophers engaged with intercultural
encounters, and asks how their philosophies can contribute to
infusing intercultural ethics and practices into curriculum
theorizing. First, it explores selected works of medieval Muslim
philosophers from an intercultural perspective to formulate a
dialogical paradigm that informs and enriches Muslim education.
Second, it frames intercultural education as a catalyst to guide
Muslim communities' interactions and identity construction,
encouraging flexibility, tolerance, deliberation, and plurality.
Third, it bridges the gap between medieval tradition and modern
thought by promoting interdisciplinary connections and redrawing
intercultural boundaries outside disciplinary limits. This study
demonstrates that the dialogical domain that guides intercultural
contact becomes a curriculum-oriented structure with Al-Kindi, a
tripartite pedagogical model with Al-Farabi, a sojourner experience
with Al-Ghazali, and a deliberative pedagogy of alternatives with
Averroes. Therefore, the book speaks to readers interested in the
potential of dialogue in education, intercultural communication,
and Islamic thought research. Crucially bridging the gap between
medieval tradition and modern thought by promoting
interdisciplinary connections and redrawing intercultural
boundaries outside disciplinary limits, it will speak to readers
interested in the dialogue between education, intercultural
communication, and Islamic thought. .
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