Pedagogy of Life takes its readers through the echoing stories of the half-century, historical Cultural Revolution of China to the literate lifeworld today. Rosa Hong Chen offers a gripping array of personal and kindred stories woven into the power of words and empathy of art through the volutes of writing and dancing for life, expressing genera of warm melancholy, weighty sensations, compulsive sobs, and refrained elation. It is for the existential history of individual lives and communal sharing that life creates a pedagogical condition of possible experiences. Life itself forms a historical and social path of human growth and maturation. In a philosophical and educational autoethnographical inquiry, the author examines the nature of literacy for those marginalized and oppressed; Chen explores how one's name and the ways in which that name is used affect a person's self-knowing and knowing of the world. This book exemplifies the idea that individuals' autobiographical stories are importantly connected to wider cultural, political, and social meaning and understanding. Pedagogy of Life echoes readers' musings, affects, relations, imagination, choice, learning, teaching, and much more, because we, each and all, have our own names, ways of uttering, writing, and dancing, and, ultimately, our own ways of living, knowing, and becoming.

The Mahabharata, one of the major epics of India, is a sourcebook complete by itself as well as an open text constantly under construction. This volume looks at transactions between its modern discourses and ancient vocabulary. Located amid conversations between these two conceptual worlds, the volume grapples with the epic's problematisation of dharma or righteousness, and consequently, of the ideal person and the good life through a cluster of issues surrounding the concept of agency and action. Drawing on several interdisciplinary approaches, the essays reflect on a range of issues in the Mahabharata, including those of duty, motivation, freedom, selfhood, choice, autonomy, and justice, both in the context of philosophical debates and their ethical and political ramifications for contemporary times. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers engaged with philosophy, literature, religion, history, politics, culture, gender, South Asian studies, and Indology. It will also appeal to the general reader interested in South Asian epics and the Mahabharata.

This book introduces the vast topic of Indian philosophy. Beginning with a study of the major Upanishads, it surveys the philosophical ideas contained in the Bhagavadgita. After a short excursion into Buddhism, it summarises the salient ideas of the six systems of Indian philosophy: Nyaya, Vaisesika, Samkhya, Yoga, Purva Mimamsa, and Vedanta. It concludes with an introduction to contemporary Indian thought.

What does the Confucian heritage mean to modern East Asian education today? Is it invalid and outdated, or an irreplaceable cultural resource for an alternative approach to education? And to what extent can we recover the humanistic elements of the Confucian tradition of education for use in world education? Written from a comparative perspective, this book attempts to collectively explore these pivotal questions in search of future directions in education. In East Asian countries like China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, Confucianism as a philosophy of learning is still deeply embedded in the ways people think of and practice education in their everyday life, even if their official language puts on the Western scientific mode. It discusses how Confucian concepts including rite, rote-learning and conformity to authority can be differently understood for the post-liberal and post-metaphysical culture of education today. The contributors seek to make sense of East Asian experiences of modern education, and to find a way to make Confucian philosophy of education compatible with the Western idea of liberal education. This book was originally published as a special issue of Educational Philosophy and Theory.

In Metaphorical Metaphysics in Chinese Philosophy: Illustrated with Feng Youlan s New Metaphysics, Derong Chen explores Chinese philosophy through a comprehensive study and critical analysis of Feng Youlan s new metaphysics, proposing a systematic analysis of meaning that differs from the approach of the comparative linguistic analysis that A.C. Graham and Chad Hasen employed in their studies of Chinese philosophy. This detailed analysis of Feng Youlan s new metaphysics demonstrates that Feng s system is not the completely Westernized philosophical system many scholars identify it as, nor is it the pure logical and analytical system Feng himself intended to construct. Rather, the essence and characteristics of the new metaphysics at the core of Feng s philosophical system expose his philosophy as a continuation of the Chinese philosophical tradition in a new era. This approach is most applicable to scholars of comparative philosophy and of any era of Chinese philosophy.

• This book presents the landscape of consciousness and psychology and connects the possibilities of grounding the discussions in experiential, social, cognitive, and ecological contexts. • It decolonizes the understanding of consciousness connects the possibilities of grounding the discussions in experiential, social, cognitive, and ecological contexts. • Will be of interest to students, teachers, and researchers of psychology, consciousness studies, cognitive science, philosophy, social psychology, yoga studies, and yoga psychology across UK and US. It will also be useful for yoga professionals, therapists, social workers, and anyone who is interested to learn about consciousness.

A comprehensive manual for living a spiritual life, based on a verse-by-verse commentary on India's timeless scripture - from the author of its best-selling translation. (The ebook The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living 9781586381455 includes all three volumes in this series.) The Bhagavad Gita is set on the battlefield of an apocalyptic war between good and evil. Faced with a dire moral dilemma, the warrior prince Arjuna turns in anguish to his spiritual guide, Sri Krishna, for answers to the fundamental questions of life. Easwaran points out that Arjuna's crisis is acutely modern. The Gita's battlefield is the struggle for self-mastery that every human being must wage. Arjuna represents each of us, and Sri Krishna is the Lord, instructing us in eighteen chapters of lofty wisdom as we face the social, environmental, and global challenges that threaten our world today. Easwaran is a spiritual teacher and author of deep insight and warmth. His verse-by-verse commentary interprets the Gita's teachings for modern readers, explaining the Sanskrit concepts and philosophy and applying them with practicality, wisdom, and humor to every aspect of our work, our relationships, and our lives. With everyday anecdotes, stories, and examples, he shows that the changes we long to see in the world start with the transformation of our own consciousness. The practical exercises recommended by Easwaran to achieve transformation are part of a spiritual program he developed for his own life. They are accessible to people from all backgrounds and cultures. Urging us to adopt a higher image of the human being, he assures us that peace and unity are within reach. Each volume of this series covers six chapters of the Gita. Each may be read on its own, but all three volumes together form an in-depth, verse-by-verse explanation of this ancient scripture and its relevance today. Each volume includes instructions in Easwaran's eight-point program of passage meditation. Volume 1: The first six chapters of the Gita explore the concept of the innermost Self and source of wisdom in each of us. Easwaran explains how we can begin to transform ourselves, even as householders engaged in busy lives. Volume 2: The next six chapters of the Gita go beyond the individual Self to explore the Supreme Reality underlying all creation. Easwaran builds a bridge across the seeming divide between scientific knowledge and spiritual wisdom, and explains how the concept of the unity of life can help us in all our relationships. Volume 3: The final six chapters put forth an urgent appeal for us to begin to see that all of us are one - to make the connection between the Self within and the Reality underlying all creation. Global in scope, the emphasis is on what we can do to make a difference to heal our environment and establish peace in the world. Easwaran's commentary is for all students of the Gita, whatever their background, and for anyone who is trying to find a path to wisdom, love, and kindness in themselves and our troubled world. Written as an authoritative, accessible guide to a much-loved scripture, it is a handbook for finding peace and clarity within. This second edition incorporates revisions made across all three volumes following the author's final instructions.

Yang Guorong is one of the most prominent Chinese philosophers working today and is best known for using the full range of Chinese philosophical resources in connection with the thought of Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Heidegger. In The Mutual Cultivation of Self and Things, Yang grapples with the philosophical problem of how the complexly interwoven nature of things and being relates to human nature, values, affairs, and facts, and ultimately creates a world of meaning. Yang outlines how humans might live more fully integrated lives on philosophical, religious, cultural, aesthetic, and material planes. This first English translation introduces current, influential work from China to readers worldwide.

Jan Westerhoff unfolds the story of one of the richest episodes in the history of Indian thought, the development of Buddhist philosophy in the first millennium CE. He starts from the composition of the Abhidharma works before the beginning of the common era and continues up to the time of Dharmakirti in the sixth century. This period was characterized by the development of a variety of philosophical schools and approaches that have shaped Buddhist thought up to the present day: the scholasticism of the Abhidharma, the Madhyamaka's theory of emptiness, Yogacara idealism, and the logical and epistemological works of Dinnaga and Dharmakirti. The book attempts to describe the historical development of these schools in their intellectual and cultural context, with particular emphasis on three factors that shaped the development of Buddhist philosophical thought: the need to spell out the contents of canonical texts, the discourses of the historical Buddha and the Mahayana sutras; the desire to defend their positions by sophisticated arguments against criticisms from fellow Buddhists and from non-Buddhist thinkers of classical Indian philosophy; and the need to account for insights gained through the application of specific meditative techniques. While the main focus is the period up to the sixth century CE, Westerhoff also discusses some important thinkers who influenced Buddhist thought between this time and the decline of Buddhist scholastic philosophy in India at the beginning of the thirteenth century. His aim is that the historical presentation will also allow the reader to get a better systematic grasp of key Buddhist concepts such as non-self, suffering, reincarnation, karma, and nirvana.

The exemplar of Indo-Persian history, at once a biography of Emperor Akbar and a chronicle of sixteenth-century Mughal India. Akbarnama, or The History of Akbar, by Abu'l-Fazl (d. 1602), is one of the most important works of Indo-Persian history and a touchstone of prose artistry. Marking a high point in a long, rich tradition of Persian historical writing, it served as a model for historians across the Persianate world. The work is at once a biography of the Mughal emperor Akbar (r. 1556-1605) that includes descriptions of his political and martial feats and cultural achievements, and a chronicle of sixteenth-century India. The fourth volume narrates the second eight years of Akbar's reign, including an account of his visit to Ajmer, the arrival of an embassy from the Safavid court, and the beginning of the author's brother Faizi's career as court poet. The Persian text, presented in the Naskh script, is based on a careful reassessment of the primary sources.

A smart and accessible introduction to the most important works of ancient Chinese philosophy-the Analects of Confucius, Mozi, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Sunzi, Xunzi, and Han Feizi This book provides an unmatched introduction to eight of the most important works of classical Chinese philosophy-the Analects of Confucius, Mozi, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Sunzi, Xunzi, and Han Feizi. Combining accessibility with the latest scholarship, Paul Goldin, one of the world's leading authorities on the history of Chinese philosophy, places these works in rich context as he explains the origin and meaning of their compelling ideas. Because none of these classics was written in its current form by the author to whom it is attributed, the book begins by asking, "What are we reading?" and showing that understanding the textual history of the works enriches our appreciation of them. A chapter is devoted to each of the eight works, and the chapters are organized into three sections: "Philosophy of Heaven," which looks at how the Analects, Mozi, and Mencius discuss, often skeptically, Heaven (tian) as a source of philosophical values; "Philosophy of the Way," which addresses how Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Sunzi introduce the new concept of the Way (dao) to transcend the older paradigms; and "Two Titans at the End of an Age," which examines how Xunzi and Han Feizi adapt the best ideas of the earlier thinkers for a coming imperial age. In addition, the book presents clear and insightful explanations of the protean and frequently misunderstood concept of qi-and of a crucial characteristic of Chinese philosophy, nondeductive reasoning. The result is an invaluable account of an endlessly fascinating and influential philosophical tradition.

As a member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, I am necessarily concerned about the future role of Communist China in world affairs. A true understanding of Peking's foreign policy motives and objectives is possible only if one has a grasp of the ideological foundations and conflicts of the contemporary leaders of the Chinese Communist Party. Therein lies the value of Professor Yung Ping Chen's revised edition Chinese Political Thought: Mao Tse-tung and Liu Shao-chi. Within a compact number of pages, Professor Chen's book provides the rt ader with a clear and ready grasp of the fundamentals of Com munist Chinese ideology. Although its scholarship is evident, the work's interpretation do not overwhelm the reader with lengthy quotations or confuse him with excessive speculations-difficulties sometimes associa ted with books about China. Instead, Professor Chen appears to have the ability to reduce complicated ideas to manageable proportions. In his revised edition, the author makes use of source material which recently has become available outside China to clarify issues involved in the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution." That phenomenon, which has caused so much wonder and speculation in the West, is analyzed by Professor Chen. He describes for the reader the underlying ideological factors which have emerged from the great turmoil in China, placing them within a framework of verified historical events while avoiding the pitfall of endless theorizing about situations and events inside China about which too little is yet known."

"An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy" unlocks the mystery of ancient Chinese philosophy and unravels the complexity of Chinese Buddhism by placing them in the contemporary context of discourse.
Elucidates the central issues and debates in Chinese philosophy, its different schools of thought, and its major philosophers.
Covers eight major philosophers in the ancient period, among them Confucius, Laozi, and Zhuangzi.
Illuminates the links between different schools of philosophy.
Opens the door to further study of the relationship between Chinese and Western philosophy.

A Philosophy of Chinese Architecture: Past, Present, Future examines the impact of Chinese philosophy on China's historic structures, as well as on modern Chinese urban aesthetics and architectural forms. For architecture in China moving forward, author David Wang posits a theory, the New Virtualism, which links current trends in computational design with long-standing Chinese philosophical themes. The book also assesses twentieth-century Chinese architecture through the lenses of positivism, consciousness (phenomenology), and linguistics (structuralism and poststructuralism). Illustrated with over 70 black-and-white images, this book establishes philosophical baselines for assessing architectural developments in China, past, present and future.

A proper examination of the world political situation makes it necessary to consider the fact of the increasing importance of Commu nist China in world affairs. It seems that this big and ancient country expects to be considered not only as the most important country of Asia, not to say of the communist world, but as one of the great powers of the second half of this century. Being one of the largest countries in the world, with a larger popu lation than that of the United States and the Soviet Union combined (the two recognized powers of this era), China plays a significant role in world affairs at the same time that she tries to challenge the leader ship of communism. As the years have passed and Communist China has been kept out of the United Nations, her attitude has changed to such a point that one fears the possibility of her forming a new organi zation that may evolve in rivalry with the work of the United Nations. Therefore, there is a deservedly great concern about the way China conducts her international policy. Under these circumstances, it goes without saying that it is important to ascertain the kind of political thought that has motivated Commu nist leaders in China, and the ultimate goal of their revolutionary movement, which has been for some time now responsible for dangerous situations in the Far East and in other areas of the world.

Traditional Chinese philosophy, if engaged at all, is often regarded as an object of antiquated curiosity and dismissed as unimportant in the current age of globalization. Written by a team of internationally renowned scholars, this book, however, challenges this judgement and offers an in-depth study of pre-modern Chinese philosophy from an interdisciplinary perspective. Exploring the relevance of traditional Chinese philosophy for the global age, it takes a comparative approach, analysing ancient Chinese philosophy in its relation to Western ideas and contemporary postmodernist theories. The conversation extends over a broad spectrum of philosophical areas and themes, ranging from metaphysics, hermeneutics, political theory, religion and aesthetics to specific philosophical schools including Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. By engaging many time-honoured philosophical issues from a comparative perspective, this book bridges the gap between Eastern and Western thought and emphasises the need for a newly fortified global humanism and a deeper appreciation of different philosophical and religious values in an age gripped by large-scale crises. Arguing that traditional Chinese philosophy has immediate relevance to the many challenges of modern life, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Asian Philosophy and Asian Studies in general.

Bryan Van Norden's new translation of the Mengzi (Mencius) is accurate, philosophically nuanced, and fluent. Accompanied by selected passages from the classic commentary of Zhu Xi--one of the most influential and insightful interpreters of Confucianism--this edition provides readers with a parallel to the Chinese practice of reading a classic text alongside traditional commentaries. Also included are an Introduction that situates Mengzi and Zhu Xi in their intellectual and social contexts; a glossary of names, places and important terms; a selected bibliography; and an index.

Harmony is a concept essential to Confucianism and to the way of life of past and present people in East Asia. Integrating methods of textual exegesis, historical investigation, comparative analysis, and philosophical argumentation, this book presents a comprehensive treatment of the Confucian philosophy of harmony. The book traces the roots of the concept to antiquity, examines its subsequent development, and explicates its theoretical and practical significance for the contemporary world. It argues that, contrary to a common view in the West, Confucian harmony is not mere agreement but has to be achieved and maintained with creative tension. Under the influence of a Weberian reading of Confucianism as "adjustment" to a world with an underlying fixed cosmic order, Confucian harmony has been systematically misinterpreted in the West as presupposing an invariable grand scheme of things that pre-exists in the world to which humanity has to conform. The book shows that Confucian harmony is a dynamic, generative process, which seeks to balance and reconcile differences and conflicts through creativity. Illuminating one of the most important concepts in Chinese philosophy and intellectual history, this book is of interest to students of Chinese studies, history and philosophy in general and eastern philosophy in particular.