Chinese and Greek ethics remain influential in modern philosophy, yet it is unclear how they can be compared to one another. This volume, following its predecssor 'How should one live?' (DeGruyter 2011), is a contribution to comparative ethics, loosely centered on the concepts of life and the good life. Methods of comparing ethics are treated in three introductory chapters (R.A.H.King, Ralph Weber, G.E.R. Lloyd), followed by chapters on core issues in each of the traditions: human nature (David Wong, Guo Yi), ghosts (Paul Goldin), happiness (Christoph Harbsmeier), pleasure (Michael Nylan), qi (Elisabeth Hsu & Zhang Ruqing), cosmic life and individual life (Dennis Schilling), the concept of mind (William Charlton), knowledge and happiness (Joerg Hardy), filial piety (Richard Stalley), the soul (Hua-kuei Ho), and deliberation (Thomas Buchheim). The volume closes with three essays in comparison - Mencius and the Stoics (R.A.H. King), equanimity (Lee Yearley), autonomy and the good life (Lisa Raphals). An index locorum each for Chinese and Greco-Roman authors, and a general index complete the volume.

The single most influential work in Chinese history is Lunyu, the Confucian Analects. Its influence on the Chinese people is comparable to that of the bible on the Western world. It is neither a tract of prosaic moralism contained in the fortune cookies in Chinese restaurants nor a manual of political administration that prescribes do's and don't's for new initiates. A book claiming a readership of billions of people throughout the history in China and East Asia and now even in the Western world must be one that has struck a chord in the readers, one which appears to arise from the existential concerns that Confucius shared: How can one overcome the egoistic tendency that plagues life? How does one see the value of communal existence? What should be one's ultimate concern in life?These questions call for a line of inquiry on the Analects that is explicitly existential. An existential reading of the Analects differs from other lines of inquiry in that it not only attempts to reveal how the text spoke to the original audience but also to us today. It is not only a pure academic exercise that appeals to the scholarly minded but also an engagement with all who feel poignantly about existential predicaments.In this existential reading of the Analects, the author takes Paul Tillich as an omnipresent dialogical partner because his existential theology was at one time very influential in the West and currently very popular in Chinese academia. His analysis of ontological structure of man can be applied to the Analects. This conceptual analysis reveals that that this foundational text has three organically connected levels of thought, proceeding from personal cultivation through the mediation of the community to the metaphysical level of Ultimate Reality. Few scholarly attempts like this one have been made to reveal systematically the interconnectedness of these three levels of thought and to the prominence to their theological underpinnings.This existential reading of the Analects carries with it a theological implication. If one follows the traditional division of a systematic theology, one will find that the Analects has anthropological, ethical, and theological dimensions, which correspond to the three levels of thoughts mentioned. If one understands soteriology more broadly, one will find the Analects also has a soteriological dimension. The Analects points to the goal of complete harmony in which a harmony within oneself, with the society and cosmos are ensured.If one is to construct a theology of the Analects, the existential reading enables the drawing of certain contrasts with Paul Tillich's existential theology. The Confucian idea of straying from the Way differs from the symbol of fall. The Confucian reality of social entanglement differs from the reality of estrangement. The Confucian paradoxical nature of Heaven differs from trinitarian construction of God. The most important contribution of this study is that it reveals the religious or theological dimension of the Confucian Analects.This is an important book for those engaged in the study of the Confucian Analects, including those in Chinese studies as well as comparative theology and religion.

The Psychology of the Yogas explores the dissonance between the promises of the yogic quest and psychological states of crisis. Western practitioners of yoga and meditation who have embarked upon years-long spiritual quests and who have practiced under the guidance of a guru tell of profound and ongoing experiences of love, compassion and clarity: the peaks of spiritual fulfillment. However, after returning to the West, they reported difficulties and crises in different areas of their lives. Why did these practitioners, who had apparently touched the heights of fulfillment, still suffer from these crises? The author explores the psychological theory of yoga and its concrete yogic psychological methods such as 'cultivating of the opposite' (pratipaksa bhavana), transforming it to 'imagining the opposite', a practice aimed at healing negative habitual tendencies. These methods are extracted from an in-depth study of the Yoga of Patanjali and the Tibetan-Buddhist Ati-Yoga of Longchenpa - the Dzogchen. The works of Patanjali (3rd century) and Longchenpa, (14th century) provide a profound psychological framework for understanding the human psyche. These methods are effective but at times difficult to implement. However, as demonstrated through a case study Western psychology can effectively undo habitual tendencies in a manner which may complement yoga practice, enhancing the integration of one's spirituality and psychology.

Persia is home to one of the few civilizations in the world that has had a continuous tradition of philosophical thought for over two and a half millennia. As Islamic theology developed in the Middle Ages, many of its schools interacted with existing Persian philosophical currents and evolved into a distinctive philosophical 'Kalam', or dogmatic theology. Among the definitive masters of both Shi'i and Sunni theologians were numerous Persians, chief among them Al-Ghazzali and Fakhr al-Din Al-Razi, who are prominently represented here. Important selections from both Shi'i and Sunni theological schools (including Mu'tazila and Ash'ariyya) are included in the volume, many of which have never before been available in translation in the West until now.

The Arabo-Islamic heritage of the Islam is among the richest, most diverse, and longest-lasting literary traditions in the world. Born from a culture and religion that valued teaching, Arabo-Islamic learning spread from the seventh century and has had a lasting impact until the present.In The Heritage of Arabo-Islamic Learning leading scholars around the world present twenty-five studies explore diverse areas of Arabo-Islamic heritage in honor of a renowned scholar and teacher, Dr. Wadad A. Kadi (Prof. Emerita, University of Chicago). The volume includes contributions in three main areas: History, Institutions, and the Use of Documentary Sources; Religion, Law, and Islamic Thought; Language, Literature, and Heritage which reflect Prof. Kadi's contributions to the field. Contributors:Sean W. Anthony; Ramzi Baalbaki; Jonathan A.C. Brown; Fred M. Donner; Mohammad Fadel; Kenneth Garden; Sebastian Gunther; Li Guo; Heinz Halm; Paul L. Heck; Nadia Jami; Jeremy Johns; Maher Jarrar; Marion Holmes Katz; Scott C. Lucas; Angelika Neuwirth; Bilal Orfali; Wen-chin Ouyang; Judith Pfeiffer; Maurice A. Pomerantz; Ridwan al-Sayyid ; Aram A. Shahin; Jens Scheiner; John O. Voll; Stefan Wild.

This book is based on the study of the traditional Chinese philosophy, and explores the relationship between philosophy and people's fate. The book points out that heaven is an eternal topic in Chinese philosophy. The concept of heaven contains religious implications and reflects the principles the Chinese people believed in and by which they govern their lives. The traditional Chinese philosophy of fate is conceptualized into the "unification of Heaven and man". Different interpretations of the inter-relationships between Heaven, man and their unification mark different schools of the traditional Chinese philosophy. This book identifies 14 different schools of theories in this regard. And by analyzing these schools and theories, it summarizes the basic characteristics of traditional Chinese philosophy, compares the Chinese philosophy of fate with the Western one, and discusses the relationship between philosophy and man's fate.

This collection of twenty-one essays constitutes the first history of modern Japanese aesthetics in any language. It introduces readers through lucid and readable translations to works on the philosophy of art written by major Japanese thinkers from the late nineteenth century to the present. Selected from a variety of sources, the essays cover topics related to the study of beauty in art and nature.

This book is a compilation of several sections of a larger work, a book by the name of African Origins of Civilization, Religion, Yoga Mysticism and Ethics Philosophy. It also contains some additional evidences not contained in the larger work that demonstrate the correlation between Ancient Egyptian Religion and Buddhism. This book is one of several compiled short volumes that has been compiled so as to facilitate access to specific subjects contained in the larger work which is over 680 pages long. These short and small volumes have been specifically designed to cover one subject in a brief and low cost format. This present volume, The Ancient Egyptian Buddha: The Ancient Egyptian Origins of Buddhism, formed one subject in the larger work; actually it was one chapter of the larger work. However, this volume has some new additional evidences and comparisons of Buddhist and Neterian (Ancient Egyptian) philosophies not previously discussed. It was felt that this subject needed to be discussed because even in the early 21st century, the idea persists that Buddhism originated only in India independently. Yet there is ample evidence from ancient writings and perhaps more importantly, iconographical evidences from the Ancient Egyptians and early Buddhists themselves that prove otherwise. This handy volume has been designed to be accessible to young adults and all others who would like to have an easy reference with documentation on this important subject. This is an important subject because the frame of reference with which we look at a culture depends strongly on our conceptions about its origins. in this case, if we look at the Buddhism as an Asiatic religion we would treat it and it'sculture in one way. If we id as African Ancient Egyptian] we not only would see it in a different light but we also must ascribe Africa with a glorious legacy that matches any other culture in human history and gave rise to one of the present day most important religious philosophies. We would also look at the culture and philosophies of the Ancient Egyptians as having African insights that offer us greater depth into the Buddhist philosophies. Those insights inform our knowledge about other African traditions and we can also begin to understand in a deeper way the effect of Ancient Egyptian culture on African culture and also on the Asiatic as well. We would also be able to discover the glorious and wondrous teaching of mystical philosophy that Ancient Egyptian Shetaut Neter religion offers, that is as powerful as any other mystic system of spiritual philosophy in the world today.

Modern biomedical technologies managed to revolutionise the End-of-Life Care (EoLC) in many aspects. The dying process can now be "engineered" by managing the accompanying physical symptoms or by "prolonging/hastening" death itself. Such interventions questioned and problematised long-established understandings of key moral concepts, such as good life, quality of life, pain, suffering, good death, appropriate death, dying well, etc. This volume examines how multifaceted EoLC moral questions can be addressed from interdisciplinary perspectives within the Islamic tradition. Contributors Amir Abbas Alizamani, Beate Anam, Hamed Arezaei, Asma Asadi, Pieter Coppens, Hans Daiber, Khalid Elzamzamy, Mohammed Ghaly, Hadil Lababidi, Shahaboddin Mahdavi, Aasim Padela, Rafaqat Rashid and Ayman Shabana. . " " . : . . .

In tenth-century Baghdad, the Mu'tazila theologians believed good and evil could be distinguished through human reason, while in the Indian subcontinent in the sixteenth century, rationalism served to express both the connections and boundaries of Islam in a sphere of religious pluralism. Universality in Islamic Thought discusses specific applications of rationalism in Islamic thought - from the Mu'tazila of Iraq and the Hanafi school of Islamic Law to the Chishti mystics of Mughal India - to explore the boundaries, morality and utility of the universalist principle as conceived by Islamic scientists, scholars, theologians and mystics across half a millennium. Providing a long-overdue and groundbreaking study of rationalism in Islam, this is the first methodological examination of how rationalism served - or did not serve - as a bridge between Muslims and non-Muslims during one of the most vital periods of Islamic intellectual activity. Bringing together contributions from leading academics such as Wilferd Madelung and Carl W Ernst, this is essential reading for scholars and students of intellectual history and Islamic studies.