1 Buddhist-Christian Dialogue: Its Significance and Future Task1 The contemporary world is rapidly shrinking due to the remarkable advancement of science ...

This volume concludes the two-volume sequel to Masao Abe's Zen and Western Thought. Like its companion, Buddhism and Interfaith Dialogue, this work contains many previously published essays and papers by Abe. Here he clarifies the true meaning of Buddhist emptiness in comparison with the Aristotelian notion of substance and the Whiteheadean notion of process.

Written by one of Japan's foremost contemporary thinkers and scholars, Zen and Modern Society is the third in a series of essay collections on Zen Buddhism as seen in the context of Western thought. Throughout his career, Masao Abe has articulated the meaning of Zen thought in a uniquely compelling way - at once, true to the original tradition and appropriately relevant to a variety of comparative standpoints, ranging from Biblical Judeo-Christianity to modern existentialism, phenomenology, and postmodernism. As a (...) leading representative of the Kyoto School, which has sought a critical, comparative linking of Eastern and Western thought, Abe has based his approach on constructive, mutually respectful yet critical intellectual interaction and dialogue with some of the leading figures in the West (including Paul Tillich, Hans Kung, and Eugene Borowitz) as well as dozens of colleagues, students, and disciples. Together with the previous volumes, this work examines and exemplifies some key features of Kyoto School thought. While the essays presented here should be read in light of the socio-political criticism that has since been lodged against the Kyoto School and, more particularly, i. (shrink)

Understanding consciousness is a truly multidisciplinary project, attracting intense interest from researchers and theorists from diverse backgrounds. Thus, we now have computational scientists, neuroscientists, and philosophers all engaged in the same effort. This book draws together the work of leading researchers around the world, providing insights from these three general perspectives. The work is highlighted by a rare look at work being conducted by Japanese researchers.

サンデルや現代コミュニタリアンは、なぜ今、古代からの西洋政治思想「共通善」を改めて説くのか。新たな実践哲学が、ここから始まる。.

Regional planning has been regarded as a design activity. Usually planners focus on physical design rather than on societal issues. Nowadays, mass communication, environmental issues and social awareness lead to often complex and conflicting needs and interests of the public in regional planning. This paper focuses on the regional planning as a group problem solving process from the view of information processing. It offers an analysis of the causes of conflicts in the group decision process, and defines the characteristics of (...) group decision process support systems. (shrink)

Wegner's monograph presents the view that conscious will is a feeling that we experience when we perform an action through a mechanistic process of the brain, rather than a mental force that causes the action. The view is supported by several lines of evidence in which conscious will is dissociated from the actual performance of voluntary movements, as in automatism. The book further extends an insightful analysis of the mental system behind the illusion of conscious will and inspires neuroscientists to (...) reflect on its neural substrates. (shrink)