In the second edition of this groundbreaking text in non-Western philosophy, fifteen experts introduce some of the great philosophical traditions in the world. The dozen essays collected here unveil exciting, sophisticated philosophical traditions that are too often neglected in the western world. The contributors include the leading scholars in their fields, but they write for students coming to these concepts for the first time. Building on revisions and updates to the original essays on China, India, Japan, and the Americas, this new edition also considers three philosophical traditions for the first time Jewish, Buddhist, and South Pacific (Maori) philosophy."

The more than fifty articles, essays, and reviews in this volume, collected here for the first time, were published by William James over a span of some twenty-five years. The record of a sustained interest in phenomena of a highly controversial nature, they make it amply clear that James's work in psychical research was not an eccentric hobby but a serious and sympathetic concern. James was broad-minded in his approach but tough-minded in his demand that investigations be conducted in rigorous scientific terms. He hoped his study of psychic phenomena would strengthen the philosophy of an open-ended, pluralistic universe that he was formulating during the same period, and he looked forward to the new horizons for human experience that a successful outcome of his research would create.

Robert A. McDermott, in his Introduction, discusses the relation of these essays to James's other work in philosophy, psychology, and religion.