Intercultural Modes of Philosophy, Volume One

Intercultural Modes of Philosophy, Volume One
Author: Eli Kramer
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2021-08-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9004468986

Until rather recently, philosophy, when practiced as a way of life, was, for most, a communal enterprise of mutually reinforced personal cultivation. It is time, yet again, to revitalize this lost, but vital, intercultural mode of philosophy.

Philosophies of Place

Philosophies of Place
Author: Peter D. Hershock
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2019-06-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 082487658X

Humanity takes up space. Human beings, like many other species, also transform spaces. What is perhaps uniquely human is the disposition to qualitatively transform spaces into places that are charged with distinctive kinds of intergenerational significance. There is a profound, felt difference between a house as domestic space and a home as familial place or between the summit of a mountain one has climbed for the first time and the “same” rock pinnacle celebrated in ancestral narratives. Contemporary philosophical uses of the word “place” often pivot on the distinction between “space” and “place” formalized by geographer-philosopher Yi-fu Tuan, who suggested that places incorporate the experiences and aspirations of a people over the course of their moral and aesthetic engagement with sites and locations. While spaces afford possibilities for different kinds of presence—physical, emotional, cognitive, dramatic, spiritual—places emerge as different ways of being present, fuse over time, and saturate a locale with distinctively collaborative patterns of significance. This approach to issues of place, however, is emblematic of what Edward S. Casey has argued are convictions about the primacy of absolute space and time that evolved along with the progressive dominance of the scientific imagination and modern imaginations of the universal. The recent reappearance of place in Western philosophy represents a turn away from abstract and a priori reasoning and back toward phenomenal experience and the primacy of embodied and emplaced intelligence. Places are enacted through the sustainably shared practices of mutually-responsive and mutually-vulnerable agents and are as numerous in kind as we are divergent in the patterns of values and intentions. The contributors to this volume draw on resources from Asian, European, and North American traditions of thought to engage in intercultural reflection on the significance of place in philosophy and of the place of philosophy itself in the cultural, social, economic, and political domains of contemporary life. The conversation of place that results explores the meaning of intercultural philosophy, the critical interplay of place and personal identity, the meaning of appropriate emplacement, the shared place of politics and religion, and the nature of the emotionally emplaced body.

Philosophy of Culture as Theory, Method, and Way of Life

Philosophy of Culture as Theory, Method, and Way of Life
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 429
Release: 2022-05-16
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9004515798

The authors of this collection argue that all philosophy is really philosophy of culture and that through it we can live more meaningful, flourishing, and wisely guided lives.

Chinese and Buddhist Philosophy in Early Twentieth-Century German Thought

Chinese and Buddhist Philosophy in Early Twentieth-Century German Thought
Author: Eric S. Nelson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2017-08-24
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1350002569

Presenting a comprehensive portrayal of the reading of Chinese and Buddhist philosophy in early twentieth-century German thought, Chinese and Buddhist Philosophy in Early Twentieth-Century German Thought examines the implications of these readings for contemporary issues in comparative and intercultural philosophy. Through a series of case studies from the late 19th-century and early 20th-century, Eric Nelson focuses on the reception and uses of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism in German philosophy, covering figures as diverse as Buber, Heidegger, and Misch. He argues that the growing intertextuality between traditions cannot be appropriately interpreted through notions of exclusive identities, closed horizons, or unitary traditions. Providing an account of the context, motivations, and hermeneutical strategies of early twentieth-century European thinkers' interpretation of Asian philosophy, Nelson also throws new light on the question of the relation between Heidegger and Asian philosophy. Reflecting the growing interest in the possibility of intercultural and global philosophy, Chinese and Buddhist Philosophy in Early Twentieth-Century German Thought opens up the possibility of a more inclusive intercultural conception of philosophy.

Philosophical Health

Philosophical Health
Author: Luis de Miranda
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2023-12-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 135035306X

Bringing together leading international and interdisciplinary scholars, this ground-breaking volume examines the theory and practice of philosophical health in contemporary contexts of care broadly understood, care for the self, care for the other, and care for the world. But what do we mean by philosophical health? Whilst this book does not seek to provide a normative definition, as it explores disparate perspectives and encourages pluralism in philosophical ways of life, one may envision philosophical health as a state of creative coherence between a person's or a group's way of thinking and their way of acting, such that the possibilities for a good life are increased, and the needs for flourishing satisfied. An idea central to philosophical health is the concept of 'possibility'. Without a sense of self-possibility and openness to the future, health loses meaning, and conversely, pathologies are defined by various kinds of impossibilities. As such, philosophical health reconsiders care as a process of cultivating or pruning the compossible in embodied, psychological, and social terms, of allowing things to re-generate, or in some cases to vanish. Drawing on the history of philosophy, phenomenology, new materialism, post-colonialism but also a wide range of contemporary approaches to philosophical practice, Philosophical Health sheds light on the understudied philosophical dimension of care and the healing dimension of philosophizing. Advocating philosophy as a lived practice, it uncovers the increasing relevance of philosophical health to contemporary debates on well-being, well-belonging, counselling, and development.

Cultural Revolutions

Cultural Revolutions
Author: Lawrence E. Cahoone
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2007-05-02
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780271045917

In this probing examination of the meaning and function of culture in contemporary society, Lawrence Cahoone argues that reason itself is cultural, but no less reasonable for it. While recent political and philosophical movements have recognized that cognition, the self, and politics are embedded in culture, most fail to appreciate the deep changes in rationalism and liberal theory this implies, others leap directly into relativism, and nearly all fail to define culture. Cultural Revolutions systematically defines culture, gauges the consequences of the ineradicably cultural nature of cognition and action, yet argues that none of this implies relativism. After showing where other “new culturalists” have gone wrong, Cahoone offers his own definition of culture as teleologically organized practices, artifacts, and narratives and analyzes the notion of cultural membership in relation to race, ethnicity, and “primordialism.” He provides a theory of culture’s role in how we form our sense of reality and argues that the proper conception of culture dissolves “the problem” of cultural relativism. Applying this perspective to Islamic fundamentalism, Cahoone identifies its conflict with the West as representing the break between two of three historically distinctive forms of reason. Rather than being “irrational,” he shows, fundamentalism embodies a rationality only recently devalued—but not entirely abandoned—by the West. The persistence of plural forms of reason suggests that modernization in various world cultures is compatible with continued, even magnified, cultural differences.

Cultural Universals and Particulars

Cultural Universals and Particulars
Author: Kwasi Wiredu
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 1996
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780253210807

"Wiredu's discussion of culturally defined values and concepts, as well as his attention to such timely issues as human rights, makes this book invaluable interdisciplinary reading." —D. A. Masolo Ghanaian philosopher Kwasi Wiredu confronts the paradox that while Western cultures recoil from claims of universality, previously colonized peoples, seeking to redefine their identities, insist on cultural particularities. Wiredu asserts that universals, rightly conceived on the basis of our common biological identity, are not incompatible with cultural particularities and, in fact, are what make intercultural communication possible. Drawing on aspects of Akan thought that appear to diverge from Western conceptions in the areas of ethics and metaphysics, Wiredu calls for a just reappraisal of these disparities, free of thought patterns corrupted by a colonial mentality. Wiredu's exposition of the principles of African traditional philosophy is not purely theoretical; he shows how certain aspects of African political thought may be applied to the practical resolution of some of Africa's most pressing problems.

Worldviews and Cultures

Worldviews and Cultures
Author: Nicole Note
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2008-12-23
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1402057547

Globalization brings people and cultures together, producing, in addition to deep and rich encounters, exclusion, racism, xenophobia and asymmetries. The present book takes these issues implicitly as its starting point by thoroughly reflecting on them from a perspective of worldviews, as one of many approaches. More specifically, it focuses on people’s implicit and explicit interpretations and assumptions of the world, of themselves and of others. Often deeply rooted and hard to change, they have an important function, for without them we would continually need to question what we do and what we think. In their absolutist form, these assumptions may become a barrier for open-mindedness, and hence for deep intercultural understanding and exchange. We need to find a balance between both stances. Intercultural philosophy tries to fulfil this role, on the one hand by comparing different cultures on a deep philosophical level, and as a way to better understand each other’s core assumptions, and on the other hand by arguing for an intercultural philosophy grounded in specific cases. The contributions of this book conceive of "another possible world" which does not condemn cultural and religious diversity as a detonator for "Clashes of Civilizations", but rather welcomes it as a source of inspiration for all and of respect for the "different".

The Routledge Companion to Indian Ethics

The Routledge Companion to Indian Ethics
Author: Purushottama Bilimoria
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 796
Release: 2024-01-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1003817394

This companion volume focuses on the application and practical ramifications of Indian ethics. Here Indian dharma ethics is moved from its preeminent religious origins and classical metaethical proclivity to, what Kant would call, practical reason – or in Aristotle’s poignant terms, ēhikos and phronēis –and in more modern parlance normative ethics. Our study examines a wide range of social and normative challenges facing people in such diverse areas as women’s rights, infant ethics, politics, law, justice, bioethics and ecology. As a contemporary volume, it builds linkages between existing theories and emerging moral issues, problems and questions in today’s India in the global arena. The volume brings together contributions from some 40 philosophers and contemporary thinkers on practical ethics, exploring both the scope and boundaries or limits of ethics as applied to everyday and real-life concerns and socio-economic challenges facing India in the context of a troubled globalizing world. As such, this collection draws on multiple forms of writing and research, including narrative ethics, interviews, critical case studies and textual analyses. The book will be of interest to scholars, researchers and students of Indian philosophy, Indian ethics, women and infant issues, social justice, environmental ethics, bioethics, animal ethics and cross-cultural responses to dominant Western moral thought. It will also be useful to researchers working on the intersection of Gandhi, sustainability, ecology, theology, feminism, comparative philosophy and dharma studies.