Asserting that traditional Western religious groundings for ethics neither reach a modern international audience nor solve the interpersonal and global problems ...

With an inside view from an expert in the field and a clear and engaging writing style, Asian Philosophies, Seventh Edition invites students and professors to think along with the great minds of the Asian traditions. Eminent scholar and teacher John M. Koller has devoted his life to understanding and explaining Asian thought and practice. He wrote this text to give students access to the rich philosophical and religious ideas of both South and East Asia. New (...) to this seventh edition: Added material on Confucianism, including focused coverage of (1) the Analects and society and (2) ren and nature; Additional information on Theravada Buddhism, Vajrayana Buddhism, and Zen Buddhism as well as new in-depth coverage of ecological attitudes in Buddhism; Expanded coverage of ecological attitudes in all of the Asian traditions; Brief excerpts from primary sources to help better explain the key concepts; Added timelines for essential texts in each tradition; Improved Glossary and Pronunciation Guide; Additional text boxes, to help students quickly understand key ideas, texts, and concepts; Updated Further Reading sections. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer an expansionist view of the Frickerian central case of testimonial injustice, citing examples from the South Asian context. To defend this expansionist position, I provide an argument in three parts. First, I argue that credibility deficit and credibility excess are entangled with each other in such a way that often, one produces the other. Secondly, I contend that we should not say that systematic testimonial injustice is a consequence of credibility deficit only because (...) of the entanglement between them. I also contend that for being the central case of testimonial injustice, identity prejudice should not be necessarily negative; it can be positive as well. Propounding a twofold condition of the status of a knower, the last part claims that testimonial injustice occurs when one of the two conditions remains unmet. (shrink)

Modernism is often implicitly known and understood from the “Western modernist” perspective and history. The wide recognition of the Western modernist canon as centre and universal displaces the contribution and significance of the non-Western world in the modern movement. Within Asia, the modernisms that arose from various nations in the region had subtly different notions of culture, identity, nationhood, and modernity, although almost every Asian country was related in one way or another to the history of Western imperialism. Using (...) a comparative analysis, this article examines modernism in twentieth-century Asia from a multicultural viewpoint, and bringing into picture the place of Asia in the history of modernism. (shrink)

Modernism is often implicitly known and understood from the “Western modernist” perspective and history. The wide recognition of the Western modernist canon as centre and universal displaces the contribution and significance of the non-Western world in the modern movement. Within Asia, the modernisms that arose from various nations in the region had subtly different notions of culture, identity, nationhood, and modernity, although almost every Asian country was related in one way or another to the history of Western imperialism. Using (...) a comparative analysis, this article examines modernism in twentieth-century Asia from a multicultural viewpoint, and bringing into picture the place of Asia in the history of modernism. (shrink)

When assessing North American students' oral participation in classes, should all students be subject to the same evaluation criteria or should teachers make reasonable allowances for Asian students practicing humility? How do we weigh the promotion of 'courage' through character education initiatives with traditional Asian dispositions? Viewing Asian humility in Western classrooms and as it rubs up against liberal principles of equality or justice, and a virtue ethic raises a number of philosophical questions around authenticity, polyvalence, and (...) relativity. I approach first through the lens of liberal philosophy as the 'dilemma of diversity' meets a boundary with communitarianism, and then through the contextualist lenses of Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Foucault. Drawing on Tully's political philosophy, I inspect humility as embedded in language-games and then open it to revision through comparative history, inviting participants in the teacher's game of assessment to renegotiate the rules: a process complicated by their reticence to speak up. I also use Medina and Scheman's political reading of Wittgenstein to discuss how teachers can discern humility as performative silence within the classroom, distinguishing between genealogical accounts that show how comportments could be otherwise from perspicuous inspection of interconnected language-games in current educational settings. (shrink)

Naturalism is a pan-Asian view of the world and way of life. Unlike the atheistic naturalism in the West, Asian naturalism, which rests upon an organic view of the world as represented by key concepts such as the Dao, Heaven, and Emptiness, is basically spiritual. Going beyond the traditional Western antithesis of naturalism and supernaturalism, matter and spirit, it can even be called “supernatural naturalism.” As a living example of Asian naturalism, this article examines the (...) ethics of threefold reverence: reverence toward Heaven, all human beings, and all beings, animate and inanimate. Threefold reverence constitutes the cardinal teaching of Cheondogyo or the Eastern Learning, a native Korean religio-philosophical movement which arose in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The ecological-environmental crisis of our age cannot be overcome without a fundamental change in our attitude toward nature. Recovering humanity’s primal sense of reverence toward all beings in nature is a vital part of this change. (shrink)

Southeast Asian landscapes have been shifting from natural landscapes to the modified landscapes at a rate faster than ever. Ecological integrity is under tremendous pressure due to the anthropogenic developmental activities. Little attention, however, has been paid to identify the major underlying causes of this rapid landscape transformation. This article discusses these issues from the point of view of a landscape ecologist. Landsat TM 30 m satellite images of 1988, 1996, and Landsat ETM+ 30 m image of 2005 (...) were classified using ERDAS Imagine 9.2. Vector-based Landscape Analysis Tools Extension software was used in analyzing landscape patterns. Landscape size and shape metrics have revealed that the main transformation occurred in the first period (between the years 1988 and 1996) which was due to the rapid extension of the commercial agriculture. However, in the second period (between the year 1996 and 2005), the main driver of rapid landscape transformation occurred due to the expansion of urban areas, transportation networks, housing, and township. The pace of developmental activities breaks all previous records at a faster rate in the second period as compared with the first. These findings will provide necessary information about the driving forces which have a potential use for sustainable management decision processes. Additionally, results and data on landscape patterns may help scientists, academics, and researchers in further study. They can also be of potential use for the sustainable management of natural resources, urban planning, and livable green cities. (shrink)

Aesthetics and arts are strongly linked across East Asia (China, Japan and Korea) and (through pottery and gardens) throughout Southeast Asia as well. This paper outlines eight aesthetic issues pertaining across arts in East Asia, appropriate for K-12: 1) the intimate interrelations among arts (gardens, painting, poetry, calligraphy, music, tea ceremony); 2) nature and the seasons (architecture, poetry, gardens, food); 4) collaboration (poetry, gardens, festivals, and tea ceremony); 5) self-cultivation; 6) symbolism versus allusion; 7) the importance of active imagination in (...) viewing East Asian arts; 8) relations of arts to philosophy. It then explores five areas of East Asian arts and aesthetics that are easy to teach even young students, have interest for high-school and college students (on the introductory or advanced level), and pave the way for the individual student's personal development throughout her life as an adult: 1) Writing Systems, Calligraphy and Painting; 2) Poetry and Painting; 3) Gardens; 4) Aesthetics of Pottery; 5) Tea ceremony. This is followed by brief discussion of 1) special categories of Japanese aesthetics (wabi and sabi, the aesthetics of loneliness and simplicity/impoverishment; kasuri, the embellishment of everyday objects; and aware, recognition of the poignance and brevity of life), 2) gender issues, 3) Zen aesthetics. The final section discusses five issues specifically related to teaching in districts where teaching about either Asia or arts/aesthetics might be in need of justification: 1) the conceptual, intellectual, emotional and artistic advantages for students in learning this material (developing the imagination, analytical skills, and concentration); 2) gender issues (including homosexuality and feminist aesthetics); 3) Asian religion in the classroom; 4) financing (inexpensive aesthetics projects); 5) Asian aesthetics for minority students. The bibliography includes books and articles for teachers and for students (at different levels), videos/ DVDs, and websites, including some guiding you to sites for field trips. (shrink)

Meditation has flourished in different parts of the world ever since the foundations of the great civilizations were laid. It played a vital role in the formation of Asian cultures that trace much of their heritage to ancient India and China. This volume brings together for the first time studies of the major traditions of Asian meditation as well as material on scientific approaches to meditation. It delves deeply into the individual traditions while viewing each of them from (...) a global perspective, examining both historical and generic connections between meditative practices from numerous historical periods and different parts of the Eurasian continent. It seeks to identify the cultural and historical peculiarities of Asian schools of meditation while recognizing basic features of meditative practice across cultures, thereby taking the first step toward a framework for the comparative study of meditation. The book, accessibly written by scholars from several fields, opens with chapters that discuss the definition and classification of meditation. These are followed by contributions on Yoga and Tantra, which are often subsumed under the broad label of Hinduism; Jainism and Sikhism, Indian traditions not usually associated with meditation; Buddhist approaches found in Southeast Asia, Tibet, and China; and the indigenous Chinese traditions, Daoism and Neo-Confucianism. The final chapter explores recent scientific interest in meditation, which, despite its Western orientation, remains almost exclusively concerned with practices of Asian origin. Until a few years ago a major obstacle to the study of specific meditation practices within the traditions explored here was a widespread scholarly orientation that prioritized doctrinal issues and sociocultural contexts over actual practice. The contributors seek to counter this bias and supplement concerns over doctrine and context with the historical study of meditative practice. Asian Traditions of Meditation will appeal broadly to readers interested in meditation, mindfulness, and spirituality and those in the emerging field of contemplative education, as well as students and scholars of Asian and religious studies. (shrink)

Meditation has flourished in different parts of the world ever since the foundations of the great civilizations were laid. It played a vital role in the formation of Asian cultures that trace much of their heritage to ancient India and China. This volume brings together for the first time studies of the major traditions of Asian meditation as well as material on scientific approaches to meditation. It delves deeply into the individual traditions while viewing each of them from (...) a global perspective, examining both historical and generic connections between meditative practices from numerous historical periods and different parts of the Eurasian continent. It seeks to identify the cultural and historical peculiarities of Asian schools of meditation while recognizing basic features of meditative practice across cultures, thereby taking the first step toward a framework for the comparative study of meditation. The book, accessibly written by scholars from several fields, opens with chapters that discuss the definition and classification of meditation. These are followed by contributions on Yoga and Tantra, which are often subsumed under the broad label of Hinduism; Jainism and Sikhism, Indian traditions not usually associated with meditation; Buddhist approaches found in Southeast Asia, Tibet, and China; and the indigenous Chinese traditions, Daoism and Neo-Confucianism. The final chapter explores recent scientific interest in meditation, which, despite its Western orientation, remains almost exclusively concerned with practices of Asian origin. Until a few years ago a major obstacle to the study of specific meditation practices within the traditions explored here was a widespread scholarly orientation that prioritized doctrinal issues and sociocultural contexts over actual practice. The contributors seek to counter this bias and supplement concerns over doctrine and context with the historical study of meditative practice. Asian Traditions of Meditation will appeal broadly to readers interested in meditation, mindfulness, and spirituality and those in the emerging field of contemplative education, as well as students and scholars of Asian and religious studies. (shrink)

_Asian-American Education: Historical Background and Current Realities_ fills a gap in the study of the social and historical experiences of Asians in U.S. schools. It is the first historical work to provide American readers with information about highly individual ethnic groups rather than viewing distinctly different groups as one vague, global entity such as "Asians." The people who populate each chapter are portrayed as active participants in their history rather than as passive victims of their culture. Each of the twelve (...) country-specific chapters begins with a description of the kind of education received in the home country, including how widely available it was, how equal or unequal the society was, and what were the circumstances under which the emigration of children from the country occurred. The latter part of each of these chapters deals with the education these children have received in the United States. Throughout the book, instead of dwelling on a relatively narrow range of children who perform spectacularly well, the author tries to discover the educational situation typical among average students. The order of chapters is roughly chronological in terms of when the first sizable numbers of immigrants came from a specific country. (shrink)

Chidambaram Ramalingam (1823 – 1874) was a nineteenth century Indian-Tamilian poet, mystic, and visionary moral thinker well-known for his seminal contributions to Tamil religious and moral literature. He initiated a new moral and spiritual community and movement, Suddha Sanmargam, or “The Pure Path to True Harmony”, in the nineteenth century in the province of Tamilnadu in Southern India. One of Ramalingam’s texts which laid the philosophical foundation for this community and movement is his great unfinished essay “The Ethic of Compassion (...) for Sentient Beings”. In this talk, I will attempt a systematic presentation of the moral vision and ethical system in his essay. Among Ramalingam’s central claims are the following: a) Compassion involves understanding or discernment of the ultimate metaphysical truth pertaining to sentient beings, b) Compassion is the foundation of all other moral virtues, c) Compassion provides the standard of the moral worth of actions, d) Compassion is the basis of morality itself, and e) Compassion is an essential condition of attaining spiritual liberation or enlightenment. In my talk, I will clarify, develop, and critically examine these five theses on compassion and consider relevant views and objections in the Western and Asian philosophical traditions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Asian Eels and Global Warming:A Posthumanist Perspective on Society and the EnvironmentAndrew Pickering (bio)My idea in this essay is to talk about how some recent developments in my field—science and technology studies—might pass over into environmental studies. In particular, I want to talk about a certain posthumanist perspective, as I call it, on the relation between people and things, because I think that it transfers nicely from thinking (...) about people and machines to thinking about people and the environment.1 I want to say in advance that while the word 'posthumanist' might sound a bit peculiar, the posthumanist perspective is straightforward enough. If scholars have taken a long time to arrive it, the difficulty lies, I believe, in a disciplinary division of labor rather than in any intrinsic incomprehensibility. And I can start with a few general remarks about that.The basic point to note is that the academic disciplines carve up the visible world in a systematic way. On the one hand, the natural sciences, engineering, and so on, like to talk about a world of things from which people are notably absent. This is clear in fields like physics and chemistry, but it is probably true enough in the environmental sciences, too. Human beings might disturb ecosystems, say, but the job of the ecologist [End Page 29] is to understand the systems themselves, not the disturbances. The social sciences and humanities, in contrast, like to talk about people but not about things. Durkheimian sociology is a great example. Durkheim insisted that the social was a separate reality, sui generis, and that the social therefore has its own pure dynamics, cut off from, say, the material world.We find, then, a beautiful disciplinary dualism: to the harder sciences goes the world of things; to the softer sciences goes the world of people. What about the interface of people and things, the zone of intersection? This is of no concern to the hard sciences: one can easily imagine the world of things going on without people. But what about the soft sciences? One can't really imagine a world of people without things. Here various maneuvers have traditionally served to maintain the humanist purity of disciplines like sociology; I will just mention one. We encounter the material world, it is said, not in its raw state (as studied by physicists or ecologists, say) but as drenched in meaning. The world means something, or many different things, to us. And the point to note is that 'meaning' functions here as a cut-off, a circuit-breaker. Meanings are in our heads and in society; they are not in the material world. So, sociologists can go ahead and study the meanings that people attach to machines or nature without encroaching on the territory of the hard sciences, and the disciplinary division of labor, enshrined in the universities since the 19th century, can live on. The social sciences are about the human meanings of, or attitudes towards, machines, the environment, or whatever; the hard sciences are about things in themselves. That is the basic split that I want to focus on in what follows—actually, to undo it. But I can quickly mention one further twist for the sake of clarity.The basic split between meanings and things-in-themselves is an index of a certain realism—a bow from the soft sciences to the harder sciences, an acknowledgment that the latter somehow gets things right and that what the soft sciences study is a soggy social residue. But some social scientists have refused to bend the knee. They argue that we are all humans, even hard scientists. Therefore we can never get beyond meanings. And therefore we should think of the material world as itself somehow constructed in social practice. The harder sciences find this view absurd, but it is manifest in a split in the social sciences between 'realists' [End Page 30] and 'constructivists'—a split which shows up in many places, including geography and environmental studies. The point I would stress, however, is that the social retains its purity, even in social constructivism—it is simply that there 'the social' expands without limit to encompass... (shrink)

Summary This paper presents an analysis and discussion of the opinions of two generations of Asian parents with regard to their young children's education. A large number of parents (n = 200) were interviewed during 1970-1974 and a smaller number (n = 40) during 1995 to ascertain their views on a variety of topics relating to their children's early education. The findings are discussed in a qualitative way and reveal the increasing satisfaction of Asian parents with their children's (...) education. A higher proportion of the mothers of the 1990s help their children with homework, read them stories and are generally more participatory in their children's education compared with the 1970s group. The second generations are concerned with the lack of facilities for the teaching of mother tongues in schools. These and other findings are discussed within the changing lifestyles of second-generation Asians. (shrink)

This paper presents an analysis and discussion of the opinions of two generations of Asian parents with regard to their young children's education. A large number of parents were interviewed during 1970-1974 and a smaller number during 1995 to ascertain their views on a variety of topics relating to their children's early education. The findings are discussed in a qualitative way and reveal the increasing satisfaction of Asian parents with their children's education. A higher proportion of the mothers (...) of the 1990s help their children with homework, read them stories and are generally more participatory in their children's education compared with the 1970s group. The second generations are concerned with the lack of facilities for the teaching of mother tongues in schools. These and other findings are discussed within the changing lifestyles of second-generation Asians. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Asian Eels and Global Warming:A Posthumanist Perspective on Society and the EnvironmentAndrew Pickering (bio)My idea in this essay is to talk about how some recent developments in my field—science and technology studies—might pass over into environmental studies. In particular, I want to talk about a certain posthumanist perspective, as I call it, on the relation between people and things, because I think that it transfers nicely from thinking (...) about people and machines to thinking about people and the environment.1 I want to say in advance that while the word 'posthumanist' might sound a bit peculiar, the posthumanist perspective is straightforward enough. If scholars have taken a long time to arrive it, the difficulty lies, I believe, in a disciplinary division of labor rather than in any intrinsic incomprehensibility. And I can start with a few general remarks about that.The basic point to note is that the academic disciplines carve up the visible world in a systematic way. On the one hand, the natural sciences, engineering, and so on, like to talk about a world of things from which people are notably absent. This is clear in fields like physics and chemistry, but it is probably true enough in the environmental sciences, too. Human beings might disturb ecosystems, say, but the job of the ecologist [End Page 29] is to understand the systems themselves, not the disturbances. The social sciences and humanities, in contrast, like to talk about people but not about things. Durkheimian sociology is a great example. Durkheim insisted that the social was a separate reality, sui generis, and that the social therefore has its own pure dynamics, cut off from, say, the material world.We find, then, a beautiful disciplinary dualism: to the harder sciences goes the world of things; to the softer sciences goes the world of people. What about the interface of people and things, the zone of intersection? This is of no concern to the hard sciences: one can easily imagine the world of things going on without people. But what about the soft sciences? One can't really imagine a world of people without things. Here various maneuvers have traditionally served to maintain the humanist purity of disciplines like sociology; I will just mention one. We encounter the material world, it is said, not in its raw state (as studied by physicists or ecologists, say) but as drenched in meaning. The world means something, or many different things, to us. And the point to note is that 'meaning' functions here as a cut-off, a circuit-breaker. Meanings are in our heads and in society; they are not in the material world. So, sociologists can go ahead and study the meanings that people attach to machines or nature without encroaching on the territory of the hard sciences, and the disciplinary division of labor, enshrined in the universities since the 19th century, can live on. The social sciences are about the human meanings of, or attitudes towards, machines, the environment, or whatever; the hard sciences are about things in themselves. That is the basic split that I want to focus on in what follows—actually, to undo it. But I can quickly mention one further twist for the sake of clarity.The basic split between meanings and things-in-themselves is an index of a certain realism—a bow from the soft sciences to the harder sciences, an acknowledgment that the latter somehow gets things right and that what the soft sciences study is a soggy social residue. But some social scientists have refused to bend the knee. They argue that we are all humans, even hard scientists. Therefore we can never get beyond meanings. And therefore we should think of the material world as itself somehow constructed in social practice. The harder sciences find this view absurd, but it is manifest in a split in the social sciences between 'realists' [End Page 30] and 'constructivists'—a split which shows up in many places, including geography and environmental studies. The point I would stress, however, is that the social retains its purity, even in social constructivism—it is simply that there 'the social' expands without limit to encompass... (shrink)

A variety of crucial and still most relevant ideas about nothingness or emptiness have gained profound philosophical prominence in the history and development of a number of South and East Asian traditions--including in Buddhism, Daoism, Neo-Confucianism, Hinduism, Korean philosophy, and the Japanese Kyoto School. These traditions share the insight that in order to explain both the great mysteries and mundane facts about our experience, ideas of "nothingness" must play a primary role. This collection of essays brings together the work (...) of twenty of the world's prominent scholars of Hindu, Buddhist, Daoist, Neo-Confucian, Japanese and Korean thought to illuminate fascinating philosophical conceptualizations of "nothingness" in both classical and modern Asian traditions. The unique collection offers new work from accomplished scholars and provides a coherent, panoramic view of the most significant ways that "nothingness" plays crucial roles in Asian philosophy. It includes both traditional and contemporary formulations, sometimes putting Asian traditions into dialogue with one another and sometimes with classical and modern Western thought. The result is a book of immense value for students and researchers in Asian and comparative philosophy. (shrink)

Drawing from the example of Asian elephant conservation in Laos, this article primarily intends to reveal the elephantocentric vision adopted by mainstream conservation project in direction to the species. In the second part, I will present some ethnographic notes collected among local population who daily live and work with pachyderms. These notes will help in opening up a broader and more ecocentric approach of elephant conservation by highlighting links between biological and cultural diversity. By revealing the cosmo-ecological view (...) of elephants as thought locally, I will then propose an enlarged vision of elephant conservation. (shrink)

Over the last twenty-five years, philosophers have offered increasingly more sophisticated accounts of the nature and wrongness of racism. But very little in this literature discusses what is distinctive to anti-Asian racism. This gap exists partly because philosophy, like much of U.S. culture, has been influenced by civic narratives that center anti-black racism in ways that leave vague anti-Asian racism. We discuss this conceptual gap and its effects on understanding anti-Asian racism. In response to this problem, we (...) offer an account of anti-Asian racism not beholden to the black-white binary. In our view, xenophobia, as a form of civic ostracism, plays a distinctive role in anti-Asian racism and admits of a complexity that is worth philosophical study. We also begin an exploration of a correlated phenomenon, namely xenophilia. It has a peculiar, often pernicious, presence in anti-Asian racism and sexism, but it is morally more complex than xenophobia. (shrink)

We may understand natural science as part of the attempt by human beings to understand themselves and their place in the world in which they find themselves. In this sense, as Karl Rahner has suggested, natural science flows naturally into anthropology. Consciously or unconsciously, science is always part of the drive to self-understanding. In an age of religious pluralism like ours, Christian faith in Asia is also brought face to face with the living reality of other religions, and that, too, (...) cannot but affect how we understand our shared humanity. (shrink)

This chapter examines Indian views of the mind and consciousness, with particular focus on the Indian Buddhist tradition. To contextualize Buddhist views of the mind, we first provide a brief presentation of some of the most important Hindu views, particularly those of the S¯am . khya school. Whereas..

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 299-303 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Asian Religions in America: A Documentary History Asian Religions in America: A Documentary History. Edited by Thomas A. Tweed and Stephen Prothero. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. 416 pp. Although this book is not about interreligious dialogue per se, it makes several important contributions to it. Two of the necessities for successful interreligious dialogue are (...) a knowledge of the religions of other cultures and an awareness of one's own culture's past misinterpretations of these religions in order to guard against repeating them. This book helps accomplish both of these aims very well. First it helps to understand Asian religions as they are practiced in the United States. This book discusses Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, and Chinese religions in America, and it includes selections on Jainism and Sikhism; (it excludes Islam as a monotheistic religion with Middle Eastern roots). Second, the book adroitly catalogues the ways that Americans have misinterpreted Asian religions in the past. Its selections demonstrate that two of the worst errors that Americans commit in dealing with Asian religions is either romanticizing them as being all "spiritual," and thus categorically different from the "worldly" West, or of ignoring their diversity. Anyone reading these selections will be less likely to repeat these errors.The book is an anthology of primary documents with well-written, brief introductions to the selections. Its aim is not just to describe Asian religions in America, but also to document American encounters with Asian religions since the American Revolution. The book is organized historically in four major sections: 1784-1840, 1840-1924, 1924-1964, and 1965 to the present. Within each historical section, the authors have chosen selections that illustrate how Americans during that time viewed Asian religions, how Asian religions were practiced in the U.S., and how Asian religions influenced American culture during that time period.The first section (1784-1840) is, not surprisingly, the shortest. It has one chapter on how Americans abroad viewed Asian religions and another chapter on how those at home viewed Asian religions. This period is dominated by a belief that Christianity is the one, true religion; Asian religions by contrast, are full of "debasing superstitions and cruel abominations" (p. 58). Even those who try to get beyond such crude views demonstrate a gross ignorance of Asian religions. For example, Hannah Adams (the first woman in America to support herself through writing) claimed that the Dalai Lama was the spiritual leader or "pope" of China as well as Tibet (p. 55). Better informed and more balanced are the comments from two of the period's most important intellectuals, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams. Franklin, like other Deists, admired Confucian naturalism and humanism, and he reprinted excerpts of Confucius in the Pennsylvania Gazette. John Adams defended the sublimeness of Indian religion, claiming that it had heavily influenced Greek philosophy because Pythagoras had learnt his most important doctrines there.The second section (1840-1924) has six chapters covering missionaries and their [End Page 299] critics, literary encounters with Asian religions, the World Parliament of Religions, the immigrant experience in America, academic discussions, and American sympathizers and converts to Asian religions. Several selections from nineteenth-century dictionaries and books show how Asian religions were commonly perceived at the time. While there was growing sophistication about Asian religions, the period's most popular book on the subject (James Freeman Clarke, Ten Great Religions) still maintained that only Christianity had the fullness of truth and Asian religions were static and stunted. On the other hand, this section balances out Christian triumphalism with some excerpts from Henry Steel Olcott and other Americans who converted to Asian religions. Substantial selections from Emerson, Whitman, Thoreau, and T. S. Eliot reveal how Asian religions deeply influenced the most important writers of the time.The third section (1924-1964) has four chapters dealing with the closing of America to Asian immigrants, Hindu gurus and their disciples in America, Buddhist masters and their students, and one on artists and missionaries. It reprints sections of the Asian exclusion act of 1924... (shrink)

This article briefly examines six centres of learning and witness representing Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Zoroastrian and Muslim faiths. It explores the implications of five potential insights arising from these historical models for the Asian contexts of today. These insights are approached from the perspective of the Christian world view, but are equally applicable to other faiths. An attempt has been made to do two main things. First is to highlight historically the importance of pre-modern centres of learning and (...) witness that can perhaps also be called universities, or 'proto-universities'. There has also been the desire to encourage the 'Global South' in their history of education, and suggest implications for the future. (shrink)

This paper challenges the view that justice leads to or generates peace. Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, Daoist and Chinese military philosophical perspectives on violence and peace are reviewed. Based on insights derived from these Asian traditions concerning the relationship between violence and peace, the author argues that the quest for world peace is not attainable. The author proposes that people need to direct their attention, energy and action to support personal and community peace, and to support justice, which (...) entails legitimate and sanctioned acts of violence, and just war. (shrink)

A variety of crucial and still most relevant ideas about nothingness or emptiness have gained profound philosophical prominence in the history and development of a number of South and East Asian traditions—including in Buddhism, Daoism, Neo-Confucianism, Hinduism, Korean philosophy, and the Japanese Kyoto School. These traditions share the insight that in order to explain both the great mysteries and mundane facts about our experience, ideas of "nothingness" must play a primary role. This collection of essays brings together the work (...) of twenty of the world’s prominent scholars of Hindu, Buddhist, Daoist, Neo-Confucian, Japanese and Korean thought to illuminate fascinating philosophical conceptualizations of "nothingness" in both classical and modern Asian traditions. The unique collection offers new work from accomplished scholars and provides a coherent, panoramic view of the most significant ways that "nothingness" plays crucial roles in Asian philosophy. It includes both traditional and contemporary formulations, sometimes putting Asian traditions into dialogue with one another and sometimes with classical and modern Western thought. The result is a book of immense value for students and researchers in Asian and comparative philosophy. (shrink)

A variety of crucial and still most relevant ideas about _nothingness _or _emptiness _have gained profound philosophical prominence in the history and development of a number of South and East Asian traditions—including in Buddhism, Daoism, Neo-Confucianism, Hinduism, Korean philosophy, and the Japanese Kyoto School. These traditions share the insight that in order to explain both the great mysteries and mundane facts about our experience, ideas of "nothingness" must play a primary role. This collection of essays brings together the work (...) of twenty of the world’s prominent scholars of Hindu, Buddhist, Daoist, Neo-Confucian, Japanese and Korean thought to illuminate fascinating philosophical conceptualizations of "nothingness" in both classical and modern Asian traditions. The unique collection offers new work from accomplished scholars and provides a coherent, panoramic view of the most significant ways that "nothingness" plays crucial roles in Asian philosophy. It includes both traditional and contemporary formulations, sometimes putting Asian traditions into dialogue with one another and sometimes with classical and modern Western thought. The result is a book of immense value for students and researchers in Asian and comparative philosophy. (shrink)

This work concerns the oneness hypothesis--the view, found in different forms and across various disciplines, that we and our welfare are inextricably intertwined with other people, creatures, and things--and its implications for conceptions of the self, virtue, and human happiness.

Abstract. The science and religion discourse in the Western academy, though expansive, has not paid significant enough attention to South Asian views, particularly those from Hindu thought. This essay seeks to address this issue in three parts. First, I present the South Asian standpoint as it currently relates to the science and religion discourse. Second, I survey and evaluate some available literature on South Asian approaches to the science and religion discourse. Finally, I promote three possible steps (...) forward: (1) the literature must shift from high Hindu philosophical religion to the more prevalent bhakti traditions, (2) the Indian context must be understood in its own right without metaphysical assumptions attached to the concepts of science and religion, and (3) most importantly, concepts unique to the Indian worldview, such as dharma, maya, and cit, must receive better treatment in translation in order to facilitate a more accurate exchange of ideas across cultural boundaries. (shrink)

Expanding the scope of existential discourse beyond the Western tradition, this book engages Asian philosophies to reassess vital questions of life's purpose, death's imminence, and our capacity for living meaningfully in conditions of uncertainty. Inspired by European existentialism in theory, the book explores concrete techniques for existential practice via the philosophies of East Asia. The investigation begins with the provocative existential writings of twentieth-century Korean Buddhist nun Kim Iryop, who asserts that meditative concentration conducts a potent energy outward throughout (...) the entire karmic network, enabling the radical transformation of our shared existential conditions. Understanding her claim requires a study of East Asian traditions more broadly. Considering practices as diverse as Song-dynasty Chinese views on mental cultivation, Buddhist merit-making ceremonies, the ritual memorization and recitation of texts, and Yijing divination, the book concludes by advocating a speculative turn. This 'speculative existentialism' counters the suspicion toward metaphysics characteristic of twentieth-century European existential thought and, at the same time, advances a program for action. It is not a how-to guide for living, but rather a philosophical methodology that takes seriously the power of mental cultivation to transform the meaning of the life that we share. (shrink)

What explains white male animus against Asian women? We address this question by examining the murders in Atlanta, GA, which reflect a larger global pattern of violence against what are perceived as hypersexualized Asian women. Dominant discourses on these murders promote either a narrative of racial xenophobia or a stance for or against sex work. Neither discourse adequately accounts for the simultaneous racial and gendered determination of Asian women’s experiences. In this commentary, we provide a racial–gender analysis (...) and underscore how the gendered racialization of Asian women as hypersexual can result in their perception as disposable bodies for white male rage. As we explain, hypersexualization implies immorality, which in turn threatens the social order and thereby justifies Asian women’s disposability. This commentary establishes Asian women’s hypersexualization as a century-old view in American society perpetuated in cinema and the law. (shrink)

High-profile organizations often emphasize fixed giftedness rather than malleable effort-based criteria as critical for excellent achievements. With giftedness being primarily associated with White or Asian males, such organizational implicit theories of excellence may shape individuals’ sense of belonging depending on the extent to which they match the gifted White/Asian male prototype, i.e., the prototypical gifted person which is typically imagined to be a White or Asian male. Previous research has reported fixed excellence theories emphasizing giftedness to impair (...) the sense of belonging of females and negatively stereotyped ethnic minorities. We investigate the combined effects of gender and ethnicity. We predicted that, while individuals whose gender and ethnicity do not match the gifted prototype show a reduced sense of belonging in fixed organizations, White/Asian males who match the gifted prototype show the opposite effect, experiencing a higher sense of belonging in fixed organizations. In an experimental study, we manipulated advertising material used by a highly selective academic institution in Germany and tested effects on students’ belonging. Whereas the original material emphasized giftedness as essential for excelling, our manipulated version stressed effort. As expected, females from stereotyped ethnic minority groups felt less belonging in the fixed organization, while White/Asian males anticipated stronger belonging in the fixed organization. Fixed views of excellence impair negatively stereotyped individuals’ belonging but may even strengthen the belonging of prototypical academic elites. (shrink)

"Paradox drives a good deal of philosophy in every tradition. In the Indian and Western traditions, there is a tendency among many philosophers to run from contradiction and paradox. If and when a contradiction appears in a theory, it is regarded as a sure sign that something has gone amiss. This aversion to paradox commits them, knowingly or not, to the view that reality must be consistent. In East Asia, however, philosophers have reacted to paradox differently. Many East (...) class='Hi'>Asian philosophers-both in the Daoist and the Buddhist traditions-have openly embraced paradox. They have taken compelling arguments for contradictory positions to suggest that the world is-at least in some respects, and often in very deep respects-inconsistent, and that our best theories of the world will therefore be inconsistent. This book is an initial survey of the writings of some influential East Asian thinkers who were committed to paradox, and for good reason. Their acceptance of contradiction allowed them to develop important insights that evaded those who consider paradox out of bounds"--. (shrink)

After expounding the conceptions of harmony that are central to Confucianism and the sub-Saharan ethic of ubuntu, I apply them to three major topics pertaining to age, namely, virtue, the value of life, and care. Roughly speaking, indigenous East Asian and African values of harmony both entail that only the elderly can be truly virtuous, that the elderly have a strong claim to life-saving resources, and that they are entitled to care from their children, views that I show are (...) not characteristic of moral thinking in the contemporary West, neither for prominent philosophies nor the cultures out of which they grew. I suggest that many Anglophone moral philosophers should be given pause by the existence of different perspectives on the part of at least two long-standing philosophies, and conclude by briefly proposing some ways that cross-cultural debate might be undertaken in the future. (shrink)

One of the finest private collections of Indian, Himalayan and Southeast Asian art in America is owned by James and Marilynn Alsdorf. This catalogue provides an opportunity for individuals other than scholars and specialists to view the works of art.

"The papers are marked by a high degree of intellectual perspicacity and help us to reformulate certain "alien" concepts to our indigenous needs.... Oommen gives us a competent analysis of the extant situation. His "reformulation" could act as the springboard of fresh political thinking to resolve the present crises." --The Tribune "The attempt to re-examine some of the prevalent social science theories is a very relevant exercise. It is a book which should be of interest not only to social scientists (...) but also social activists." --Social Action Traditionally, third world countries have been viewed as being useful only in determining the hegemony of either capitalism or socialism. Alien Concepts and South Asian Reality takes a giant leap forward in establishing independent Indian social science thought. Basing his concepts on empirical evidence from Asia, Author T. K. Oommen thoughtfully reformulates various well-known theories and assertively shakes off the "intellectual colonialism" that third-world countries have been subject to in the past. Innovative and bold, this volume offers a synthesis of information for social scientists and scholars all over the world. Recommended for studies in the following subject areas: sociology, social anthropology, social and political thought, political science, psychology, and social movements. (shrink)

The list of saints dragonslayers is long in Western tradition: from archangel Michael, Saint George, Saint Marcel up to captain Nemo from the famous Jules Verne’s novel. It is quite different in East Asia and especially in China, where the dragon benefits from an extremely positive valuation. What are the causes of such a symbolic reversal? This is what we are trying to elucidate in this paper. The dragon, so laden with malignity in the West and requiring a hero to (...) fight it and to restore, against multiple perversity, the solidity of the concept of being, is an auspicious image in the Chinese world that benefits from the riches of multiplicity: assimilated to the “Son of Heaven”, emperor of all under heaven, located in the center of the changing world, he ensures the correct order of political, geographic, calendar, or anthropological pluralities. Two world views stand face to face: one that saves being by slaying the dragon, the other which recognizes the value of changes and transformations. (shrink)

The author was a Bengali officer of India's Foreign Service. On his first foreign assignment during 1948 - 1954, he came across rare manuscripts at the National Library in Bangkok covering Rabindranath Tagore's visit to Thailand in October 1927. Having learnt the Thai language and being a Tagore aficionado, this discovery was fortuitous. "As the Poet travelled mostly without a stenographer, a great many of his speeches would have been lost to posterity. Reports about the Siam visit available in India (...) then were extremely sketchy..... Besides the material on the Poets visit to Thailand, this book contains some other important documents not readily available. The main treatise is split into four chapters: Time to Awake: A Poets Warning, Tagores Conception of History, Message to Asia And Africa and The Toiler for Peace. These chapters show what Tagore considered to be the biggest problem of human history, how he warned humanity for more than half a century against the problems and perils into which the world has been thrown today, what remedies he suggested to counter them. The author also condensed the Poet's ideas about civilisation and culture, freedom, power, diplomacy, colonialism, military alliances, racial prejudice and nationalism." This book, when first published during the Poet's centenary celebrations in 1961, provided for the first time a full account of that visit. It has since been a reference source for many Indian and international scholars on Tagore, with citations in their publications. With increased attention in recent years to Tagore's views on Nationalism, a republication for wider availability would benefit both readers and scholars on Tagore's view of global events during the inter-War period. This is the only republication of the book after sixty years. (shrink)

The Routledge Handbook of South Asian Religions presents critical research, overviews, and case studies on religion in historical South Asia, in the seven nation states of contemporary South Asia: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives, and in the South Asian diaspora. Chapters by an international set of experts analyse formative developments, roots, changes and transformations, religious practices and ideas, identities, relations, territorialisation, and globalisation in historical and contemporary South Asia. The Handbook is divided into (...) two parts which first analyse historical South Asian religions and their developments and second contemporary South Asia religions that are influenced by both religious pluralism and their close connection to nation states and their ideological power. Contributors argue that religion has been used as a tool for creating nations as well as majorities within those nations in South Asia, despite their enormous diversity, in particular religious diversity. The Handbook explores these diversities and tensions, historical developments, and the present situation across religious traditions by utilising an array of approaches and from the point of view of various academic disciplines. Drawing together a remarkable collection of leading and emerging scholars, this handbook is an invaluable research tool and will be of interest to researchers and students in the fields of Asian religion, religion in context, and South Asian religions. (shrink)

Critical analyses of literatures of the Indian diaspora discuss the “home” of origin as a subtext and a site to which diasporas aspire to return even though it remains an unachievable ideal that is refracted through nostalgic retellings of a space that remains at best “imaginary” (Mishra 2007). Alternatively, some critics, as Roger Waldinger and David Fitzgerald point out, view diasporas’ relationship with the homeland in terms of “loyalty,” obscuring in the process the antagonisms that may arise depending upon (...) one’s circumstances, antagonisms that produce “interactions” between homes of residence and those of origin (2012). In South Asian drama in Canada, many of the concerns regarding race, multiculturalism, job discrimination and violence against women and other marginalized groups are propelled by their links to the playwrights’ “home” of origin. With attention to selected plays, this paper will analyze how the networks between home and spaces of residence in multicultural Canada come alive on theatre stages through visual motifs, actors, props, and photographic collages, which confront the different trajectories of “home” that resurface in these plays. Through live scenes of imagination that speak to spectators, several plays under discussion in this essay expose how, while providing emotional sustenance for some, the baggage of “home” may also pose challenges in the home of residence. So the questions I raise are: How does home appear? To what end? And what does returning “home” teach us about the inequalities and injustices underlying the current global order? (shrink)

"This collection provides a powerful and sophisticated analysis of how environmental movements influence politics in Asia, and how politics influences movements." -- John S. Dryzek, Centenary Professor, University of Canberra "This important book reflects the challenges and questions currently foremost in scholars', activists' and policy-makers' minds-the Anthropocene, environmental justice, China's Belt and Road Initiative, and post-politics-all addressed through the lens of environmental movements in Asia. -- Jonathan Rigg, Professor at the School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol "How have authoritarianism, (...) democratization and political change affected environmentalism in East and Southeast Asia? How have environmental mobilization and demands for environmental justice at the grassroots influenced politics there? These are among the vital questions answered by this insightful and well-crafted volume." --Paul G. Harris, Chair Professor of Global and Environmental Studies, Education University of Hong Kong "This book shows convincingly that the concept of Anthropocene is as relevant in Asia as anywhere." -- Philip Hirsch, Emeritus Professor of Human Geography, University of Sydney "Despite its claims to universality, the Anthropocene concept remains largely a Western phenomenon. This book is crucial in correcting this view by putting environmental movements in Asia center stage." -- Eva Horn, Professor of Literature and Cultural History, University of Vienna. (shrink)

The Principle of Sufficient Reason is very seldom, if ever, referred to in the works of whom we might think of as the eminent Asian metaphysicians. In spite of this, the big picture metaphysical views available in the thought of philosophers such as Nāgārjuna, Fazang and Nishida appear to share certain structural features with views more familiar to us from our own tradition; views that explicitly accept or reject the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Nāgārjuna looks to develop a kind (...) of metaphysical infinitism, Fazang an extreme form of coherentism, and Nishida a species of foundationalism. These three positions - infinitism, coherentism and foundationalism - are typically thought to exhaust the spread of possibilities by those working within the Western tradition. -/- In spite of their similarities to positions advanced within our own tradition, the cosmologies of many of the giants of Asian philosophy are characterised by their rather striking conclusions. Amongst such conclusions for Nāgārjuna is that everything is empty; for Fazang that everything is identical to everything else; and for Nishida that everything depends on absolute nothingness. If the Principle of Sufficient Reason is playing a role in the derivation of such striking conclusions, then it looks that there are more options regarding the metaphysical structure of the world available to us than our own tradition typically courts. If, on the other hand, these striking cosmological conclusions are arrived at without any consideration of sufficient reason, then there may well be ways of reasoning about the overarching structure of reality that are powerful but unfamiliar to Western thinking. In this contribution, I explore what, if any, role the PSR might be playing in the thought of Nāgārjuna , Fazang and Nishida, and what we might be able to learn from it. (shrink)

This article uses critical discourse analysis to examine how the higher COVID-19 infection rates among South Asians in general, and Punjabis more specifically, have been represented by conservative politicians and their representatives as a consequence of cultural and religious practices. Two counter-narratives are discussed. The first substitutes the negative image of the Sikh Punjabi Canadian community with a celebratory and positive view of Sikh humanitarianism and community service. The second attributes the high numbers to class attributes such as precarious (...) jobs, poverty-level wages, employment insecurity, lack of sick days, over-crowded housing, racism and lack of access to healthcare. We argue that the conservative explanation as well as the first counter-narrative reveal continuities in culturalist understandings of South Asian immigrants, albeit in slightly different ways. The second counter-narrative represents a discursive resistance by advancing a structural analysis of health and disease in immigrant communities. (shrink)

It is illuminating to contrast the views of the great 19th century German philosophy G.F.W. Hegel and the 20th century existentialist—phenomenologist Martin Heidegger in their attitudes towards Asian philosophy. There is a sense in which both philosophies are Eurocentric, but another deeper sense in which Heidegger’s philosophy is much more respectful towards Asian philosophy and, many argue, incorporates ideas of some of the great Asian philosophies, in particular, Taoism and Zen Buddhism.

Persae et Magi omnes qui Persicae regionis incolunt fines ignem praeferunt et omnibus elementis ignem putant debere praeponi. The Persians and all the Magi who dwell in the confines of the Persian land give their preference to fire and think it ought to be ranked above all the other elements.Iulius Firmicus Maternus was a Latin writer who lived in the fourth centurya.d. In the 340s, following his conversion to Christianity, he wrote theDe errore profanarum religionum, which has been preserved only (...) in the tenth-century manuscript Vaticanus Palatinus Latinus 165. In this work he argues against the pagan cults, calling for the emperors to suppress them. The first sections are dedicated to the pagan worship of the natural elements: objects of a cult are water among the Egyptians, earth among the Phrygians, air among the Assyrians. The chapter we are dealing with, the fifth, is dedicated to fire, a central element of the Zoroastrian religion. Greek and Roman writers, pagans and Christians alike, were aware of this, and references to some sort of fire-cult among Persians are numerous in literature and are found as early as Herodotus. Just like Firmicus Maternus, some authors also state that the Magi worship fire as a god or divine element and that they conduct fire-related rituals. In Greek and Latin authors there is a view that the Magi, these specialists of the rituals of the Persian religion, were originally a Median tribe. As shown by the passages of Ammianus and Basil, such knowledge was also available to Firmicus Maternus’ contemporaries, and there do not appear to be particular differences in the way in which Greek and Latin authors viewed the Magi in Achaemenid and Sassanid times. Regrettably, one cannot know for certain which of these sources Firmicus Maternus knew. (shrink)

The popularity of surgical modifications of race-typical features among Asian women has generated debates on the ethical implications of the practice. Focusing on blepharoplasty as a representative racial surgery, this article frames the ethical discussion by viewing Asian cosmetic surgery as an example of medicalization, which can be interpreted in two forms: treatment versus enhancement. In the treatment form, medicalization occurs by considering cosmetic surgery as remedy for pathologized Asian features; the pathologization usually occurs in reference to (...) western features as the norm. In the enhancement form, medicalization occurs by using medical means to improve physical features to achieve a certain type of beauty or physical appearance. Each type of medicalization raises slightly different ethical concerns. The problem with treatment medicalization lies in the pathologization of Asian features, which is oppressive as it continues to reinforce racial norms of appearance and negative stereotypes. Enhancement medicalization is ethically problematic because cosmetic surgery tends to conflate beauty and health as medical goals of surgery, overemphasizing the value of appearance that can further displace women’s control over their own bodies. I conclude that in both forms of medicalization, cosmetic surgery seems to narrowly frame a complex psychosocial issue involving physical appearance as a matter that can be simply solved through surgical means. (shrink)

Anchored in stakeholder theory, the study aimed at examining the extent of voluntary human capital disclosures in annual reports of top 20 Bangladeshi and Indian listed companies. In addition to qualitative content analysis of the annual reports for the year 2010–2011, this study also conducted a series of in-depth interviews with a range of stakeholders of the companies of both the countries to understand their views on voluntary HC disclosures in corporate annual reports. It was found that the level of (...) voluntary HC disclosures was very low in case of the companies of both the countries. Moreover, it was observed that HC disclosures of companies mostly composed of positive information. From the views of stakeholders, it was evident that stakeholders unanimously recognized the necessity of credible HC disclosures in corporate annual reports. The HC disclosure index framed in this study may be useful in developing a South Asian model of corporate HC disclosures. This study contributes to the existing literature on HC disclosures where there has been a distinct lack of engagement-based research works. (shrink)