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Books > Philosophy > Non-Western philosophy
**Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2021** Coping with the climate
crisis is the greatest challenge we face as a species. We know the
main task is to reduce our emissions as rapidly as possible to
minimise the harm to the world’s population now and for
generations to come. What on earth can philosophy offer us? In this
compelling account of a problem we think we know inside out, the
philosopher Graham Parkes outlines the climatic predicament we are
in and how we got here, and explains how we can think about it anew
by considering the relevant history, science, economics, politics
and, for the first time, the philosophies underpinning them.
Introducing the reality of global warming and its increasingly dire
consequences, he identifies the immediate obstructions to coping
with the problem, outlines the libertarian ideology behind them and
shows how they can be circumvented. Drawing on the wisdom of the
ancients in both the East-Asian and Western traditions (as embodied
in such figures as Confucius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Dogen, Plato,
Epicurus, Marcus Aurelius and Nietzsche), Parkes shows how a
greater awareness of non-Western philosophies, and especially the
Confucian political philosophy advocated by China, can help us deal
effectively with climate change and thrive in a greener future. If
some dominant Western philosophical ideas and their instantiation
in politics and modern technology got us into our current crisis,
Parkes demonstrates persuasively that expanding our philosophical
horizons will surely help get us out.
Michael Slote is one of the most prominent philosophers working in
the discipline today. By creating a two-way dialogue between
philosophers specializing in Chinese philosophy and a central
thinker from the Anglo-American tradition, this volume brings
cross-cultural philosophy to life. From his early contributions in
ethics, metaethics, philosophy of mind, moral psychology and
epistemology to his recent investigations into the relationship
between Western philosophy and Chinese philosophy, an international
team of scholars of Chinese philosophy cover Slote’s
sentimentalism, his understanding of Chinese concepts Yin and Yang
and explores the role Early Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism can
play in his work. Each chapter extends Slote’s ideas by
considering them from a Chinese philosophical perspective and Slote
is given the opportunity to respond to each of the contributors’
interpretation of his work. Applied to Classical works such as the
Zhuangzi and the Yijing, his ground-breaking thoughts on morality,
care ethics and empathy are taken in new, exciting directions.
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