|
Books > Philosophy > Non-Western philosophy > Oriental & Indian philosophy
In the last 30 years, embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended
(4E) accounts of mind and experience have flourished. A more
cosmopolitan and pluralistic approach to the philosophy of mind has
also emerged, drawing on analytic, phenomenological, pragmatist,
and non-Western sources and traditions. This is the first book to
fully engages the 4E approach and Buddhist philosophy, drawing on
and integrating the intersection of enactivism and Buddhist
thought. This book deepens and extends the dialogue between
Buddhist philosophy and 4E philosophy of mind and phenomenology. It
engages with core issues in the philosophy of mind broadly
construed in and through the dialogue between Buddhism and
enactivism. Indian philosophers developed and defended
philosophically sophisticated and phenomenologically rich accounts
of mind, self, cognition, perception, embodiment, and more. As a
work of cross-cultural philosophy, the book investigates the nature
of mind and experience in dialogue with Indian and Western
thinkers. On the basis of this cross-traditional dialogue, the book
articulates and defends a dynamic, non-substantialist, and embodied
account of experience, subjectivity, and self.
CandrakÄ«rti's Introduction to the Middle Way (MadhyamakÄvatÄra)
is a central work of Buddhist philosophy for two reasons. First, it
provides an introduction to Madhyamaka, one of the three major
philosophical schools of Buddhist thought (the other two being
Abhidharma and YogÄcÄra). Second, within Madhyamaka,
Candrakīrti's text occupies a very prominent role. This is
primarily due to its enormous influence in Tibet, where
Candrakīrti's work became the main entry-point into the study of
Madhyamaka thought. While the historical importance of the
Introduction to the Middle Way for understanding a major section of
Buddhist thought is evident, what makes it particularly interesting
for students is the role it plays as an 'introduction'. It is one
of Candrakīrti's earlier works and presents a comprehensive guide
to the key philosophical ideas and problems of Madhyamaka thought.
This Oxford Guide is for the philosophically interested student or
scholar reading the Introduction to the Middle Way. Westerhoff's
commentary focuses on the philosophical content of the text, using
Candrakīrti's auto-commentary as the main explicatory resource.
A renowned philosopher of the mind, also known for his
groundbreaking work on Buddhism and cognitive science, Evan
Thompson combines the latest neuroscience research on sleep,
dreaming, and meditation with Indian and Western philosophy of
mind, casting new light on the self and its relation to the brain.
Thompson shows how the self is a changing process, not a static
thing. When we are awake we identify with our body, but if we let
our mind wander or daydream, we project a mentally imagined self
into the remembered past or anticipated future. As we fall asleep,
the impression of being a bounded self distinct from the world
dissolves, but the self reappears in the dream state. If we have a
lucid dream, we no longer identify only with the self within the
dream. Our sense of self now includes our dreaming self, the "I" as
dreamer. Finally, as we meditate-either in the waking state or in a
lucid dream-we can observe whatever images or thoughts arise and
how we tend to identify with them as "me." We can also experience
sheer awareness itself, distinct from the changing contents that
make up our image of the self. Contemplative traditions say that we
can learn to let go of the self, so that when we die we can witness
its dissolution with equanimity. Thompson weaves together
neuroscience, philosophy, and personal narrative to depict these
transformations, adding uncommon depth to life's profound
questions. Contemplative experience comes to illuminate scientific
findings, and scientific evidence enriches the vast knowledge
acquired by contemplatives.
For more than two thousand years, Confucius (551-479 B.C.) has been
a fundamental part of China's history. His influence as a moral
thinker remains powerful to this day. Yet despite his fame and the
perennial interest in his life and teachings, Confucius the man has
been elusive, and no definitive biography has emerged. In this
book, the scholar and writer Annping Chin negotiates centuries of
reconstructions, guess-work, and numerous Chinese texts in order to
establish an absorbing and original account of the thinker's life
and legacy. She shows with new insight how Confucius lived and
thought, his habits and inclinations, his relation to his
contemporaries, his work as a teacher and as a counsellor, his
worries about the world and the generations to come. Chin brings
the historical Confucius within reach so that he can lead us into
his idea of the moral and explain his timeless teachings on family
and politics, culture and learning. "Confucius "is the culmination
of years of research, a book that makes an important and
fascinating contribution to biography and Chinese history.
Fakhry discusses Islamic thought and its effect on the cultural
aspects of Muslim life. In the final chapters, he examines the rise
of pan-Islamism and the many currents it has generated in the last
two centuries, including secularism and fundamentalism, which are
still pitted against each other throughout the Muslim world. He
shows how Islamic philosophy has followed from the earliest times a
distinctive line of development, which gives it the unity and
continuity that are the marks of the great intellectual movements
of history. Many of the discussed texts have not been translated
into English; the book includes Majid Fakhry's masterful
translations of these excerpts as well as updates throughout in
light of current events and recent Islamic scholarship.
|
You may like...
The Tao of Pooh
Benjamin Hoff
Paperback
(1)
R265
R212
Discovery Miles 2 120
Ikigai
Hector Garcia, Francesc Miralles
Hardcover
(3)
R420
R328
Discovery Miles 3 280
|