Chinese Philosophy: Topics, Misc

Comparative philosophy and religion can help us to understand the violence and terrror that often dominate our world. These new, creative studies - ranging in scope from ancient Biblical, Greek, Indian, and Chinese formulations to recent religious and philosophical positions - broaden and deepen our understanding of terror and present new possibilities for greater nonviolence, peace, and true security.

Traditional scholars of philosophy and religion, both East and West, often place a major emphasis on analyzing the nature of “the self.” In recent decades, there has been a renewed interest in analyzing self, but most scholars have not claimed knowledge of an ahistorical, objective, essential self free from all cultural determinants. The contributors to this volume recognize the need to contextualize specific views of self and to analyze such views in terms of the dynamic, dialectical relations between self and (...) culture.An unusual feature of this book is that all of the chapters not only focus on traditions and individuals, East and West, but include as primary emphases comparative philosophy, religion, and culture, reinforcing individual and cultural creativity. Each chapter brings specific Eastern and Western perspectives into a dynamic, comparative relation. This comparative orientation emphasizes our growing sense of interrelatedness and interdependency. Culture and Self includes many Asian and Western philosophical, religious, and cultural perspectives. Chapters focus on Vedanta, Samkhya-Yoga, and other Hindu approaches, as well as Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist and other Indian, Chinese, and Japanese perspectives. Studies present Cartesian and other dominant Western perspectives, as well as Marx, Nietzsche, Sartre, feminism, and other Western challenges to the dominant Western interpretations of culture and self.This volume will appeal to students and readers of philosophy, religious studies, Asian studies, and cultural studies. (shrink)

The discovery of a letter in the Niels Bohr archives written by Bohr to a Danish schoolteacher in which he reveals his early knowledge of the Daodejing led the present author on a search to unveil the influence of the philosophy of Yin-Yang on Bohr's famed complementarity principle in Western physics. This paper recounts interviews with his son, Hans, who recalls Bohr reading a translated copy of Laozi, as well as Hanna Rosental, close friend and associate who also confirms the (...) influence of ancient Chinese philosophy on this major figure in Western physics. As with Bohr’s dual perspective approach to the wave-particle, in which describing matter as either wave or particle is not considered inherently contradictory, this article likewise argues that Eastern and Western perspectives about philosophy, reality and life in general need not antagonize one another as is the case in Hegelian dialecticism. Through developing a globally accessible, harmonized system of Eastern and Western thought, this article suggests that individuals can more easily overcome limitations arising from cultural singularity in conventional philosophical approaches and, in turn, achieve a greater degree of social harmony and depth of philosophical understanding, all in the same stroke. (shrink)

These essays represent an attempt to understand the Chinese mind through its philosophy. The first volume of its kind, the collection demonstrates how Chinese philosophy can be understood in light of techniques and categories taken from Western philosophy. Eight philosophers, each of whom is a recognized authority in Western philosophy as well as in some area of Chinese philosophy, contribute chapters from perspectives that indicate the uniqueness of the Chinese way of thinking in categories adapted from Western philosophy. The book (...) covers a wide range of topics including metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, logic, the history of philosophy, philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, and western parallels and non-parallels of philosophical development. (shrink)

Against the backdrop of China’s rapid social change in recent decades, this article explores the social categorizations of class and citizenship and how these have evolved in terms of structure and discourse. In order to do so, possibilities of employing Beck’s theory of second modernity to the case of China are explored. While China does not fit into Beck’s theory on all accounts, it is argued here that his individualization thesis can be fruitfully employed to make sense of China’s ongoing (...) process of modernization. It may provide a welcome new starting point for analyses of China’s current social developments beyond the “simple” modernization theories that still dominate in China studies. (shrink)

A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought Chad Hansen, 1992 New York; Oxford University Press xvi + 448 pp., hb $65.00.

This book broadens the inquiry into emotion to comprehend a comparative cultural outlook. It begins with an overview of recent work in the West, and then proceeds to the main business of scrutinizing various relevant issues from both Asian and comparative perspectives. Original essays by experts in the field. Finally, Robert Solomon comments and summarizes.

As a forum for philosophical discourse of religious studies as related to the world's women, the "Annual Review of Women in World Religions" fails. The first three issues display an unfortunately limited approach. Certain articles are promising, but editorial intellectual constraints appear to have circumscribed the philosophical latitude provided to contributors. In spite of the potential of the journal's topic area, it is doubtful it will soon succeed in emerging as a publication with adequate inclusionary liberality and ideal discursive freedom.

In June of 2008, the International Society for Comparative Studies of Chinese and Western Philosophy (ISCWP) convened its third Constructive Engagement conference, on the theme of “Comparative Philosophy Methodology.” During the opening speeches, Prof. Dunhua ZHAO, Chair of the Philosophy Department at Peking University, challenged the conference’s participants to put forward a minimal definition of “comparative philosophy” and a statement of its methods. Based on the papers from the conference and the extensive discussion that ensued, during my closing reflections at (...) the end of the conference I offered a tentative synthesis of the conference’s conclusions. That summary has already been published on-line as part of the bi-annual ISCWP newsletter (Angle 2008). In this brief essay, I recapitulate the themes of my earlier summary and expand, in my own voice, on some of the key points. (shrink)

Today, unfortunately, we can not speak about the presence of one entire world philosophy. It is connected with the fact that the history of world philosophy is investigated from the position of eurocentrism, and what we consider as world philosophy actually is the West-European philosophy. In world philosophy, Eastern philosophy is represented only by three blocks: classical Chinese, Indian and Arabian philosophies. Even when we speak about Eastern philosophy, frequently it is examined as a marginal part of world philosophy which (...) has not played a significant role in its development. Thus concerning the question of development of world philosophy as a whole, the above given facts and other historical items of information prove: there is an entire world philosophy and it is a synthesis of East and West. So it is necessary to substantiate new methodological principles in studying world philosophy. (shrink)

Offers a summary account of the history of philosophical thought through the 19th century, an unusually updated and balanced account of 20th century thought, and lengthy chapters on the history of Chinese and Indian thought. Selected by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Book of 1988-1989.