_The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Chinese Philosophy Methodologies_ offers rich, productive discussion of methodological best practices in Chinese philosophy. The participants to this exchange are largely representative of the diverse methodologies currently undertaken in Chinese philosophy, and their contributions illuminate key dimensions of the nature of comparative work and its possibilities. The volume serves as a valuable introduction to the methodological perspectives of established figures in the field, rehearsing influential views and offering diverse insights. The return to shared themes serves (...) well to connect the essays and draw the reader into a rich conversation over how to approach comparative philosophy. Its diversity of methodological views is complemented by variety in the methods of discussing and understanding those methodological views. (shrink)

While Stephen Davies argues that a debate on cross-cultural aesthetics is possible if we adopt an attitude of mutual respect and forbearance, his fellow symposiasts shed light upon different aspects which merit a closer scrutiny in such a dialogue. Samer Akkach warns that an inclusivistic embrace of difference runs the risk of collapsing the very difference one sought to understand. Julie Nagam underscores that local knowledge carriers and/or the medium should be involved in such a cross-cultural exploration. Enrico Fongaro searches (...) for a way of experiencing cross-cultural art such that it can lead to a transformative experience Relatedly, Meilin Chinn uses the analogy of friendship to explore the edifying dimension of experiencing an art form. Lastly, John Powell studies whether Dickie’s Institutional Theory can be meaningfully used to identify works of art in Western and non-Western traditions. (shrink)

In the conclusion to “A World of Pure Experience”, William James writes, “experience grows by its edges.” I explore what this may mean vis-à-vis Chicanx culture and Spanglish to argue that Chicanxs are neither a bastardization of Anglo or Mexican people and culture, nor is Spanglish a bastardization of English or Español, and that in some ways Chicanxs feel their Mexicanidad more palpably than Mexicans who live in the interior of Mexico, where one’s Mexicanidad is not a predominant identifier. I (...) first explain the process metaphysics that James espouses as well as his view of the lived experience. I build on these two Jamesian concepts and work with the chapter “The Pachuco and Other Extremes” from Octavio Paz’s The Labyrinth of Solitude, as well as Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera to explore the experience of being a Chicana and speaking Spanglish on the U.S-Mexico border. (shrink)

As visual art becomes more international, ways of writing about art become more uniform. This essay proposes that two disciplines concerned with contemporary visual art, art criticism and art theory, are on the verge of being effectively homogeneous around the world. They share concepts, artists, artworks, institutions, and bibliographic references. For comparison, I consider two other fields that may also be increasingly uniform: studio art instruction and the novel. The last, in particular, is the subject of a large literature; critics (...) and historians debate whether contemporary global novels are becoming more self-similar if not more predictable. The literature on the novel allows me to conclude that it is likely writing on art is following the same tendency. (shrink)

Bryan Van Norden’s _Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto_ draws on his expertise in Chinese philosophy to launch a comprehensive and often scathing critique of contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. I focus on the sense in which “China” figures as a “non-Western culture” in Van Norden’s argument. Here I identify an equivocation between what I call a “functional” and a “substantive” account of culture. I argue that Van Norden, like perhaps most others who have discussed Chinese philosophy, presupposes a “functional” conception, whereby (...) the relevant sense in which “China” matters is exactly as “non-Western,” which ends up incorporating some exogenous influences such as Indian Buddhism but not any of the Western philosophies that made major inroads in the twentieth century. I explore the implications of the functional/substantive distinction for the understanding of cross-cultural philosophy generally. (shrink)

This article reviews the 2017 English translation of Achille Mbembe’s book _Critique of Black Reason._ It suggests that a key to understanding the work concerns the theme of the double, for instance, the critique of the double discourse on Blackness which explains the title of the book. Despite some passages of the text being overly poetic and difficult to understand, Mbembe’s critical contribution in this work, to not only the philosophical debate on otherness but also critical race theory, is the (...) attempt to rethink the relation of the particular and the universal, or in this instance Africa and the world, in order to think more critically about the responsibility of repairing the dignity of humanity in thinking our shared world beyond race and racism. (shrink)

Though I loved Sanskrit, I had a skeptical and heretical attitude towards many beliefs cherished in Sanskrit knowledge systems. I found philosophy to be the right platform to pursue noble ideals without compromising my skeptical and heretical approach. While criticizing Śaṅkara’s Advaita-Vedānta perspective, I tried to present a reconstruction of the Lokāyata perspective, which is traditionally identified with Indian materialism, by making it more intelligible and relevant. The orthodox-heterodox division of Indian Philosophy was also important for me for its moral-social (...) implications. Hence, I was interested in Jainism and Buddhism. My research interests in these schools covered their ethics, epistemology, and logic. My studies in Buddhism led me to take seriously the impact of Buddhism on Indian culture, and also the rational and secular reconstruction of Buddhism rendered by the thinkers like Satyanarayan Goenka, Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, and B. R. Ambedkar. One of the driving forces in my intellectual journey has been my view that if the Indian social order is to be rid of the caste system and made more rational and moral as well as less superstitious and unjust, the centrality of Brahmanical schools has to be replaced by that of non-Brahmanical schools. (shrink)

This is a composite review of three intriguing and provocative books that address the interconnections between East Asian and Western philosophy. Firstly, in _Phenomenology and Intercultural Understanding: Toward a New Cultural Flesh_, Kwok-Ying Lau thinks that phenomenology can help construct a “cultural flesh” between civilizations that encourages East-West philosophical dialogues, and that China needs to adopt Western terminology to facilitate an intercultural engagement. Merleau-Ponty’s “inter-world” can help this bridge. Secondly, in _Fundamentals of Comparative and Intercultural Philosophy_, Lin Ma and Jaap (...) van Brakel argue that Chinese thinkers of the modern world invent “Chinese philosophy” in order to engage with Western thought. In a distinct fashion, they incorporate a Wittgenstein-inspired scenario whereby the necessary precondition for comparative intercultural philosophy is the “attitude-toward-a-soul principle” alongside the “family resemblance principle” which includes the “no need to speak the same language principle” or no need for one tradition to adopt another’s terminology. Thirdly, in _Chinese and Buddhist Philosophy in Early Twentieth-Century German Thought_, Eric S. Nelson proposes that intertextual analysis opens multi-dimensional spaces of interpretation to situate changing views of East-West encounters in Germany ranging from Hegel and Kant to Buber and Heidegger. Daoism, Confucianism, Chan and Zen Buddhism are sites for examination by Western thinkers that open portals to East Asian culture and philosophy. (shrink)

The Shi’ah Institute in London arranged the publication of an English translation of one of the most popular Iranian textbooks of the Avicennan tradition of metaphysics in Islam. First printed in Persian in 1956, Mahdī Ḥaʾirī Yazdī’s _Universal Science_ gives an un-contextualized presentation of the most important discussions that happened within Avicennan metaphysics since its inception in the 11th century.

_This article makes the following comparative claims about the contributions of Song- and Ming-dynasty Chinese discourses to recent work in the related fields of new materialism and speculative realism: emerging trends in so-called new materialism can be understood through the Chinese study of _qi _, which can be translated as “lively material” or “vital stuff”; and the notion of “speculation” as this is used in recent speculative realism can be understood as the study of, engagement with, and ultimate transformation by (...) _li _, a term meaning “principle” or “structure.” However, the focus of the article is as much polemical as it is comparative. By arguing that these contemporary Western movements be categorized by Chinese schools, I challenge and reverse the tendency to subsume non-Western philosophies under Western categories and intervene in the academic practices that continue to define the “new” on Eurocentric models alone._. (shrink)

What might it be to write a post-colonial social science? And how might the intellectual legacy of Chinese classical philosophy—for instance Sun Tzu and Lao Tzu—contribute to such a project? Reversing the more usual social science practice in which EuroAmerican concepts are applied in other global locations, this paper instead considers how a “Chinese” term, _shi_ might be used to explore the UK’s 2001 foot-and-mouth epidemic. Drawing on anthropological insights into mis/translation between different worlds and their alternative ways of knowing (...) and being, the paper explores that epidemic in three differently inspired _shi_-inflected “empirical” accounts. The first uses Sun Tzu’s strategic understanding of _shi_ to tell a conventionally representational story. The second resists the causes and background factors implied in standard social science by offering a “light” and _shi_-inflected form of knowing. And the third combines the referentiality of social science with a Lao Tzu-informed commitment to the paradoxes of normative epigram. This third narrative thus illustrates the possible features of a situated and _shi_-inflected social science that recognizes that it participates in the contexted and immanent flows and counterflows of things in the world. The paper concludes by noting that such a _shi_-inflected social science is experimental, and suggests that it is important to explore a range of ways of reversing the flow of concepts between EuroAmerica and other global locations. (shrink)

Parmenides and Śaṅkara are two ontological non-dualists who regard any division—for instance, between everyday objects or individuals—as conventional. Both Parmenides and Śaṅkara, by arguing for the undividedness of absolute reality, provide a vantage point from which to consider the possible arbitrariness of all divisions, which originate from human distinctions, rather than reflect gaps between different joints of reality. Human distinctions—and words used to draw them—are secondary to a reality that cannot be cut at its natural joints, since it does not (...) have such joints. Reality can only be cut in useful pieces, according to the cutter’s perspective and purpose—thus no individual, science, or discourse can claim to know the allegedly real divisions of reality. In spite of this, Parmenides and Śaṅkara regard distinctions as both useful for everyday life and necessary for doing philosophy. I visualize their non-dual reality as an undivided background that can be both known immediately and non-dually, and foregrounded by means of distinctions, such as being and not-being, atman and non-atman —while they make it clear that such distinctions are just useful words. Epistemological dualism might be a useful tag for both of their philosophies. A reflection on these two philosophers is an example of borderless philosophy: an inquiry into conceptual tools that come from different philosophical traditions, and that provide a vantage point for reflection on our practices—in this case, our use of words that create distinctions rather than divisions. (shrink)

_The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Chinese Philosophy Methodologies_ offers rich, productive discussion of methodological best practices in Chinese philosophy. The participants to this exchange are largely representative of the diverse methodologies currently undertaken in Chinese philosophy, and their contributions illuminate key dimensions of the nature of comparative work and its possibilities. The volume serves as a valuable introduction to the methodological perspectives of established figures in the field, rehearsing influential views and offering diverse insights. The return to shared themes serves (...) well to connect the essays and draw the reader into a rich conversation over how to approach comparative philosophy. Its diversity of methodological views is complemented by variety in the methods of discussing and understanding those methodological views. (shrink)

The central goal of the _cross-cultural critical thinking movement_ is to change the dominant model of critical thinking pedagogy that is used in the US, UK, and those countries that follow this model. At present the model is centered on an Anglo-American and Euro-Centric model of critical thinking that actively and blatantly ignores contributions to logic and critical thinking education from non-Western sources; more importantly, the model implicitly sends the message to students of critical thinking that _critical thinking_ is a (...) valuable set of skills that derives from what is taken to be Western culture. Cross-cultural critical thinking, by contrast, is centered on a globally inclusive model of critical thinking that presents contributions to critical thinking from a variety of different cultures and traditions. This alternative model aims in part to convey the message that critical thinking is part of the human condition and that understanding it within the human condition is essential to the proper deployment of it in a pluralistic society where there is disagreement over matters of ultimate value. In this paper I offer a presentation and defense of a set of contributions deriving from the Jaina tradition of philosophy that could be presented in a globally sensitive critical thinking course. The central concepts I present and interpret are: non-one-sidedness, the theory of epistemic standpoints, intellectual non-violence, and the theory of seven-fold predication. In each case I focus on the relevance that the concept has for critical thinking education at the introductory level. (shrink)

The formation of the discipline of intercultural philosophy reveals its “karmic aspects,” in which dynamic encounters of scholars and students lay its future courses and clear unexpected paths. What was it like for a Japanese female Junior Year Abroad Exchange student to be in the American academic environment in the early 1970s, and her subsequent experience at the University of California Santa Barbara? A slice of her early memories, as well as her observations regarding the present and future of Japanese (...) philosophy and intercultural philosophy in Japan and in the global context are presented in this essay, in which, while Raimon Panikkar and Ninian Smart figure largely, Nishida Kitarō is also significantly in the picture. The essay is a “conversation” with an invisible interlocutor. (shrink)