From early on, comparative philosophy has had on offer a high variety of goals, approaches and methodologies. Such high variety is still today a trademark of the discipline, and it is not uncommon of representatives of one camp in comparative philosophy to think of those in other camps as not really being about ‘comparative philosophy’. Much of the disagreement arguably has to do with methodological problems related to the concept of comparison and with the widely prevailing but unwarranted assumption that (...) comparative philosophy should be about comparing ‘culturally different philosophies’. This paper seeks to problematize this assumption by clarifying conceptually the notions of ‘comparative philosophy’ and of ‘comparison’, by showing the prevalence of the assumption in recent second-order discussions of methodology in comparative philosophy and its restraining implications in a randomly selected contribution of ‘Chinese philosophy’. At the end, a rallying call for a (self-)critical comparative philosophy is issued. (shrink)

Comparison is fundamental to the practice and subject-matter of philosophy, but has received scant attention by philosophers. This is even so in “comparative philosophy,” which literally distinguishes itself from other philosophy by being “comparative.” In this article, the need for a philosophy of comparison is suggested. What we compare with what, and in what respect it is done, poses a series of intriguing and intricate questions. In Part One, I offer a problematization of the tertium comparationis (the third of comparison) (...) by examining conceptualizations of similarity, family resemblance, and analogy, which it is sometimes argued can do without a tertium comparationis. In Part Two, I argue that a third of comparison is already required to determine what is to be compared, and insofar as that determination precedes the comparison that tertium may be called “pre-comparative.” This leads me to argue against incomparability and to show how anything can indeed be compared to anything. In Part Three, I relate my arguments to what is today commonly labelled “comparative philosophy.” Finally, I raise some questions of ontology and politics in order to demonstrate the relevance of a philosophy of comparison. (shrink)

One theme that unites many, if not all, pragmatists is the theme of community, whether in the form of communal matters of truth production and verification in shared experience or in the search for the ideal sociopolitical public. Thus Richard Bernstein closes his study of community, a concern “so fundamental in the pragmatic tradition,” by connecting it to the communicative interests of all the pragmatist thinkers he examines: “Fallibility, openness, criticism, mutual respect, and recognition are essential dimensions of their understanding (...) of communities” (1998, 154). Bernstein reminds us that individuality and community are inseparably linked: individuals are the “matter” that gives existence to a community .. (shrink)

This is an essay in comparative philosophy and philosophy of religion building on the ontological claims espoused by two major thinkers in the Buddhist and Christian philosophical traditions: Nāgārjuna (c. 150–250) and Hegel (1770–1831). I use Nāgārjuna’s fourfold tetralemma (catuṣkoṭi) and Hegel’s threefold dialectic (Dialektik) to propose a novel understanding of the ontological status of the self in its relation to itself and to its other, the no-self. Thus, I apply the tetralemma to the self, arguing that, to attain ontic (...) completion, the self must itself reflect the tetralemmic form in the totality of its being – nothing – both-being-and-nothing – neither-being-nor-nothing. These in turn correspond to the Hegelian in-itself, for-another, both-in-itself-and-for-another, and neither-in-itself-nor-for-another. (shrink)

This article proposes that the study of non-Western philosophical traditions ought to include a critical awareness of the experience, impact, and legacy of colonialism. In this regard, Latin American philosophy offers us a key concept—the coloniality of power. It will be shown that coloniality enriches and complicates our understanding of both the history of Western and non-Western philosophies. More specifically, coloniality helps to clarify and answer the following questions: First, how was it that the discipline of philosophy came to be (...) centrally understood as Western? And second, to what degree did the modern distinction between West and non-West affect our understanding and the formation of non-Western thought? Ultimately, the methodological upshot of coloniality for the study of non-Western philosophical traditions is that it focuses our attention on the epistemic violence that was part and parcel of colonialism and therefore it frames the study of non-Western philosophical thought within the practi.. (shrink)

El texto traducido como el ‘Tratado de los derechos’ fue escrito por el cuarto imam chiita, Zayn al-‘Abidin. La traducción es, a la vez, acertada e imprecisa, pues huqūq incluye el sentido de ‘derechos’ pero no se reduce, en absoluto, a él. El propósito de este ensayo es hacer una contribución al entendimiento del término haqq, cuyo plural es huqūq, apelando a un texto del islam temprano y considerando la pluralidad y superposición de sus niveles semánticos, con miras a nutrir (...) potenciales ejercicios de teoría política y jurídica comparada. Como resultado pueden identificarse 8 niveles de sentido diferentes, pero interconectados, que comprenden dimensiones ético-religiosas, jurídicas y ontológicas. (shrink)

I shall examine in this paper the distinctive way in which the prominent Indian philosopher Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya engaged with Advaita Vedānta during the terminal phase of the colonial period. I propose to do this by looking, first, at ways in which Krishnachandra understood the role of his own philosophizing within the colonial predicament. I will call this his agenda in ‘confrontative’ philosophy. I shall proceed, then, by sketching out the unique manner in which this agenda was successfully enacted through his (...) engagement with the Advaitic notion of self-knowledge. Finally, I will suggest that putting K. C. Bhattacharyya’s thought into the historical perspective of cross-cultural philosophy will reveal a number of shortcomings that need to be revised in a postcolonial setup. (shrink)

Analyses of religious and cultural perspectives on the use of force continue to receive criticism for questionable motives, for insufficient holism, and for exaggerating uniqueness. Claims of recurrent problems educe consideration of interdisciplinary proposals designed to resolve related challenges. Thought together, some suggest that a transversal research program into ethical orientations toward war can facilitate fair and rigorous exploration of crosscultural similarities and differences. Tentative findings emphasizing textual precepts indicate some resonance amid diversity across eleven ethical frameworks including Western just (...) war thinking. Maximizing relevance depends upon expanding the range of orientations and practices studied. Future results might be integrated with knowledge about the influence of other variables to more completely capture the phenomenon of making judgments regarding the use of force in all its manifestations. (shrink)

This essay seeks to understand the nature of both interpersonal and intercultural dialogue from the perspective of Zen Buddhism as it has been interpreted, in dialogue with Western philosophy and religion, by the central figure of the third generation of the Kyoto School: Ueda Shizuteru (1926–2019). It examines how Ueda develops a philosophy of interpersonal dialogue on the basis of Zen teachings and practices. In particular, it reveals how Ueda draws on Huayan and Zen Buddhist notions of “host” and “guest” (...) to unfold the dialogical implications of the tenth of The Ten Oxherding Pictures, kōan interviews, linked verse poetry, and the Japanese greeting of the bow. The final sections of this article then explore the implications for intercultural dialogue of Ueda’s account of human existence as dwelling in a “twofold world” through a circulating process of “exiting language and exiting into language.”. (shrink)

This article elucidates and interpretively develops Raimon Panikkar's hermeneutics of intertraditional dialogue by way of setting it into sympathetic and critical dialogue with the predominantly intratraditional hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer. It argues that Panikkar's thought enables us not only to appreciate, but also to question the limits of the fundamental roles played by language and tradition in Gadamer's hermeneutics. Panikkar's own hermeneutical reflections arise directly out of intertraditional as well as interlinguistic experience; and they ultimately direct us toward the profoundest (...) dimension of dialogue, a dimension in which the words we share arise out of and gesture back into the depths of an originary silence. (shrink)

By drawing on the insights of a number of continental as well as Asian thinkers, this article reflects on the "significance" of comparative philosophy—both in the sense of discussing the "meaning" and in the sense of arguing for the "importance" of this endeavor. Encountering another culture allows one to deepen one's self-understanding by learning to "see oneself from the outside"; this deeper self-understanding in turn allows one to listen to what the other culture has to say. These two moments, or (...) movements, are interdependent and mutually supportive. Without the step back to self-understanding, we unknowingly reduce the other to the unrecognized categories of our own thinking; but without encountering another culture, our understanding of our own culture remains shallow. This article argues that an engagement with non-Western philosophy, particularly with a set of traditions as rich and radically different as those of Asian thought, can and should take place as a hermeneutic circling between self-understanding and openness to encounter: the dialogical step back and step forward are mutually supportive endeavors. For only by way of such dialogue do we attain the concrete freedom and possibility for transformation and change, that is, the ability to critically and creatively develop old customs or modes of thought and to critically and creatively adopt new ones. Moreover, only through such dialogue can we learn to not only let others be, but to share insights with them, and to build together a global community which neither reifies nor abolishes cultural differences. (shrink)

Este artículo defiende el entendimiento adecuado de la cultura como una base para apoyar el concepto de desarrollo, en vez del concepto propuesto por muchos economistas y científicos sociales.

We spend our lives protecting an elusive self - but does the self actually exist? Drawing on literature from Western philosophy, neuroscience and Buddhism (interpreted), the author argues that there is no self. The self - as unified owner and thinker of thoughts - is an illusion created by two tiers. A tier of naturally unified consciousness (notably absent in standard bundle-theory accounts) merges with a tier of desire-driven thoughts and emotions to yield the impression of a self. So while (...) the self, if real, would think up the thoughts, the thoughts, in reality, think up the self. (shrink)

The paper presents the idea of cross‐cultural philosophy, which have inspired the organizers of the cyclic global conferences held at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, USA, since 193 First, the author discusses some definitions of the comparative method applied in contemporary philosophy and promoted, among others, through the project of the “East‐West Philosophers’ Conference”. Then, she reports the major themes and panel topics raised during the eleventh conference organized in Honolulu, May 25–31, 2016.

This dissertation is a study of modern Indian philosophy. It examines three engaging articulations of the Advaitic notion of liberating knowledge or brahmajñāna provided by three prominent Indian philosophers of the twentieth century, namely, Badrīnāth Śukla (1898-1988), Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya (1875-1949), and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975). Particular attention is paid to the existing relation between their distinctive conceptualisations of liberating knowledge and the doxastic attitudes that these authors professed towards the Sanskrit intellectual past of South Asia and the presence of the Western (...) Other. In the main, it argues that the profound differences to be found, on the one hand, in Śukla’s elucidation of this key Advaitic notion and, on the other, in Bhattacharyya’s and Radhakrishnan’s take on the same, betray their commitment to two radically different doxastic attitudes. Classifying these into (a) non-dialogical and (b) dialogical in relation to the Western Other as well as into (c) exegetic and (d) hermeneutic in relation to the Sanskrit intellectual past of South Asia, it contends that, in comparison to the conceptual scheme and the parameters of intelligibility that shaped and underpinned the precolonial Advaitic discourse on brahmajñāna in Sanskrit, there is a certain kind of epistemic discontinuity in the dialogical cum hermeneutic stance taken by Bhattacharyya and Radhakrishnan that is not to be found in the non-dialogical cum exegetic engagement enacted by Śukla. It suggests that this particular sort of discontinuity, absent as it is from Śukla’s elucidation of the process of knowing Brahman, reflects the far-reaching commitment of Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan to appropriate the precolonial Advaitic notion of liberating knowledge hermeneutically and to conceptualise it in the face of Western modernity, that is, rendering it meaningful in terms and within the parameters of intelligibility of the Western Other in order to contest what they took to be a troublesome predicament of Western modernity. By examining their ways of engaging with the Advaitic notion of liberating knowledge, this dissertation contributes to the on-going debate about the nature and the driving forces of modern Indian philosophy. (shrink)

O artigo apresenta a discussão acerca da filosofia comparada através das dificuldades de se considerar como parte da disciplina da filosofia pensamentos não-ocidentais. Analisando argumentos contra a aceitação de filosofias não-ocidentais como filosóficas e os desafios da disciplina chamada filosofia comparada, propomos uma redefinição de filosofia comparada; não como comparação de filosofias ou filosofia da comparação, mas como como aquele modo de filosofar que permitiria a ocidentais lidarem com filosofias não-ocidentais de modo inclusivo. Seguindo este programa de filosofia comparada, apontamos (...) dois elementos da hermenêutica filosófica de Hans-Georg Gadamer que poderiam contribuir para esta empreitada: distância e diálogo. A distância vista positivamente, daria origem à experiência hermenêutica da compreensão que inicia-se com o encontro com outro, a alteridade. Colocando-nos em diálogo com o outro, abrimos a possibilidade de termos nossa compreensão transformada ao aceitar a verdade que o outro nos diz. (shrink)

Is a reconciliation possible between Chinese philosophy and woman when taking into account infamous gender-oppressive cultural practices such as foot-binding, concubinage, etc., in premodern Chinese societies? The article tackles the complexity of the subject by calling the readers' attention to texts from Confucian classics that indeed support intellectual equality of the sexes and classless access to education, while noting diverging historical cultural evidences of women's education and their social status in premodern, modern, and postmodern Chinese societies. The article challenges the (...) belief that Confucian philosophy is unequivocally a sexist ideology to be a foregone conclusion. While not intending to exonerate Confucian philosophy from its opponents' charges, the article questions the adequateness of Western liberal feminism as the means to reappropriate Confucian philosophy. It suggests that a more culturally sensitive approach coupling with better historical and contextual analysis would prove to be both helpful and necessary. (shrink)

This study examines the problem of moral considerability and the Other and from two basic standpoints, namely, a phenomenological analysis of alterity and a hermeneutical-comparative encounter between the continental tradition and its "Other." This hermeneutical-comparative engagement places the phenomenological tradition in dialogue with the East Asian tradition concerning the intersection of knowledge and "moral disclosure." ;I argue that we confront the moral considerability of the Other horizontally, which is to say that the presence of knowing shades into the irreducible difference (...) of the situation occupied by the Other . Sincere attempts to identify with the Other realize a morally transformative confrontation with absolute alterity , namely, the direct phenomenological experience of the Other's autonomy, which constitutes the concrete sense of the Other as morally considerable. Moral relationships with the Other, therefore, are defined as those modes of comportment that allow the Other to be disclosed qua absolute alterity and not merely in terms of relative alterity. For example, relationships of intimacy, solidarity, and compassion, optimally disclose and shelter the absolute alterity of the Other. Hence, "intimation," rather than intentionality, defines the proper mode of directedness by which the Other qua Other is disclosed. ;The fundamental ethical question thus becomes the question of moral disclosure, i.e., the clarification of the domain of moral considerables, and, only secondarily, the question of "correct" moral action, i.e., the regulation of the domain of moral considerables. The project of ethics is thereby reconceived as an "inconceivable devotion" towards the Other, namely, a cultivated attention to alterity that situates us within a field of excessive moral obligation. In the end, an ethics of alterity requires an understanding of moral obligation as a commitment to a process of continually enacting new possibilities of intimacy, solidarity, and moral relation, which are rooted in the maturation of moral skill rather than in the refinement of moral theory. (shrink)