Three Pillars of Skepticism in Classical India

Three Pillars of Skepticism in Classical India
Author: Ethan Mills
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2018-09-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1498555705

Beginning with the earliest strata of Indian philosophy, this book uncovers a distinct tradition of skepticism in Indian philosophy through a study of the “three pillars” of Indian skepticism near the beginning, middle, and end of the classical era: Nāgārjuna (c. 150-200 CE), Jayarāśi (c. 770-830 CE), and Śrī Harṣa (c. 1125-1180 CE). Moving beyond the traditional school model of understanding the history of Indian philosophy, this book argues that the philosophical history of India contains a tradition of skepticism about philosophy represented most clearly by three figures coming from different schools but utilizing similar methods: Nāgārjuna, Jayarāśi, and Śrī Harṣa. This book argues that there is a category of skepticism often overlooked by philosophers today: skepticism about philosophy, varieties of which are found not only in classical India but also in the Western tradition in Pyrrhonian skepticism. Skepticism about philosophy consists of intellectual therapies for those afflicted by the quest for dogmatic beliefs. The book begins with the roots of this type of skepticism in ancient India in the Ṛg Veda, Upaniṣads, and early Buddhist texts. Then there are two chapters on each of the three major figures: one chapter giving each philosopher’s overall aims and methods and a second demonstrating how each philosopher applies these methods to specific philosophical issues. The conclusion shows how the history of Indian skepticism might help to answer philosophy’s detractors today: while skeptics demonstrate that we should be modest about philosophy’s ability to produce firm answers, philosophy nonetheless has other uses such as cultivating critical thinking skills and lessening dogmatism. This book is situated within a larger project of expanding the history of philosophy. Just as the history of Western philosophy ought to inform contemporary philosophy, so should expanding the history of philosophy to include classical India illuminate understandings of philosophy today: its value, limits, and what it can do for us in the 21st century.

The Crowd

The Crowd
Author: Gustave Le Bon
Publisher:
Total Pages: 680
Release: 1897
Genre: Crowds
ISBN:

Sophie's World

Sophie's World
Author: Jostein Gaarder
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 735
Release: 2007-03-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1466804270

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

The Modes of Scepticism

The Modes of Scepticism
Author: Julia Annas
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 220
Release: 1985-05-23
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780521276443

Although the Hellenistic classic has had an enormous impact on Western thought when rediscovered in the sixteenth century, it has remained neglected in recent times. This new translation should interest laymen as well as professional scholars and philosophers.

Vital Post-Secular Perspectives on Chinese Philosophical Issues

Vital Post-Secular Perspectives on Chinese Philosophical Issues
Author: Lauren F. Pfister
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2020-10-27
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1498593577

Vital Post-Secular Perspectives on Chinese Philosophical Issues presents a number of contemporary philosophical issues from a wide range of Chinese philosophical texts, figures, and sub-traditions that are usually not addressed in English studies of Chinese philosophical traditions. Lauren F. Pfister presents new perspectives in three parts: the first part offers critical perspectives on the life and works of one of the most significant 20th century Chinese philosophers and historian of Chinese philosophical traditions, Feng Youlan (1895-1990); the second part explores questions related to Ruist (“Confucian”) theism and the complicated textual developments within two canonical Ruist texts, ending with a critique of a 21st century translation and interpretation of one of those two classical texts; the third part presents philosophical assessments of 20th and 21st century cultural issues that have had immense social and interpretive impacts in contemporary Chinese contexts – Chinese utopian projects, Chinese netizens in “Human Flesh Searches,” and questions about the links between sageliness and saintliness in Ruist and Christian communities.

Oriental Thought

Oriental Thought
Author: Yong Choon Kim
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 150
Release: 1981
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780822603658

Dr. Yong Choon Kim is a distinguished scholar and educator. He wrote this book to fill the need for a concise introduction to the philosophical and religious ideas of the East. The work is analytical, comparative, and critical presentation in three parts: Indian Thougt, Chinese Thought, abd the Thoughts of Korea and Japan. It can serve for such courses as Oriental Philosophy, Eastern Religions, World Religions, Comparative Religion, and Comparative Thought. It may also be used in other introductory courses in Religion, Philosophy, and Asian Culture. The book should be very useful to the general reader interested in Oriental Thought and culture.

Classical Indian Philosophy

Classical Indian Philosophy
Author: Peter Adamson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2020-03-26
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0192592661

Peter Adamson and Jonardon Ganeri present a lively introduction to one of the world's richest intellectual traditions: the philosophy of classical India. They begin with the earliest extant literature, the Vedas, and the explanatory works that these inspired, known as Upaniṣads. They also discuss other famous texts of classical Vedic culture, especially the Mahābhārata and its most notable section, the Bhagavad-Gīta, alongside the rise of Buddhism and Jainism. In this opening section, Adamson and Ganeri emphasize the way that philosophy was practiced as a form of life in search of liberation from suffering. Next, the pair move on to the explosion of philosophical speculation devoted to foundational texts called 'sutras,' discussing such traditions as the logical and epistemological Nyāya school, the monism of Advaita Vedānta, and the spiritual discipline of Yoga. In the final section of the book, they chart further developments within Buddhism, highlighting Nagārjuna's radical critique of 'non-dependent' concepts and the no-self philosophy of mind found in authors like Dignāga, and within Jainism, focusing especially on its 'standpoint' epistemology. Unlike other introductions that cover the main schools and positions in classical Indian philosophy, Adamson and Ganeri's lively guide also pays attention to philosophical themes such as non-violence, political authority, and the status of women, while considering textual traditions typically left out of overviews of Indian thought, like the Cārvaka school, Tantra, and aesthetic theory as well. Adamson and Ganeri conclude by focusing on the much-debated question of whether Indian philosophy may have influenced ancient Greek philosophy and, from there, evaluate the impact that this area of philosophy had on later Western thought.

The Great Synthesis of Wang Yangming Neo-Confucianism in Korea

The Great Synthesis of Wang Yangming Neo-Confucianism in Korea
Author:
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2020-09-24
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1793614709

Translated, edited, and introduced by Edward Y. J. Chung, The Great Synthesis of Wang Yangming Neo-Confucianism in Korea: The Chonŏn (Testament) by Chŏng Chedu (Hagok), is the first study in a Western language of Chŏng Chedu (Hagok, 1649–1736) and Korean Wang Yangming Neo-Confucianism. Hagok was an eminent philosopher who established the unorthodox Yangming school (Yangmyŏnghak) in Korea. This book includes an annotated scholarly translation of the Chonŏn 存言 (Testament), Hagok’s most important and interesting work on Confucian self-cultivation. Chung also provides a comprehensive introduction to Hagok’s life, scholarship, and thought, especially his great synthesis of Wang’s philosophy of mind cultivation and moral practice in relation to the classical teaching of Confucius and Mencius and his critical analysis of Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism and its Sŏngnihak tradition. Chung concludes that Hagok was an original scholar in the Sŏngnihak school, a great transmitter and interpreter of Yangming Neo-Confucianism in Korea, and a creative thinker whose integration of these two traditions inaugurated a distinctively Korean system of ethics and spirituality. This book sheds new light on the breadth and depth of Korean Neo-Confucianism and serves as a primary source for philosophy and East Asian studies in general and Confucian studies and Korean religion and philosophy in particular.

Japanese Philosophers on Society and Culture

Japanese Philosophers on Society and Culture
Author: Graham Mayeda
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2020-12-10
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 149857209X

In every part of the world and in every era, philosophers have reflected on the meaning of culture and its philosophical significance. Japanese Philosophers on Society and Culture:Nishida Kitarō, Watsuji Tetsurō, and Kuki Shūzō explores how three of Japan's preeminent philosophers of the twentieth century—Nishida Kitarō, Watsuji Tetsurō and Kuki Shūzō—defined culture and analyzed what it tells us about social relations. Graham Mayeda also explores little-known aspects of the work of each philosopher, including a philosophical analysis of Watsuji's travel diary, Pilgrimages to the Ancient Temples in Nara, the place of intuition in Kuki's ethics of otherness, and the role of culture in realizing Nishida's concept of reality as the historical world. Each of these three philosophers adapted philosophical methodologies such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, and dialectical logic to studying the traditional sources of Japanese culture: Confucianism, Buddhism, Bushidō and Shintō. This book focuses on the way that Nishida, Watsuji and Kuki critiqued the methodologies that they adopted from European philosophy and modified them to reflect the values that form the basis of their own cultural tradition. Finally, Mayeda engages with the problem of cultural essentialism by identifying the progressive and conservative elements of each philosopher's characterization of Japanese culture.

Exploring the Heart Sutra

Exploring the Heart Sutra
Author: Sarah A. Mattice
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2021-10-18
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1498599419

Exploring the Heart Sutra offers readers an interdisciplinary philosophical approach to this much-loved Buddhist classic, with a new translation and commentary. Situating the Heart Sutra within a Chinese context, Sarah A. Mattice brings together voices past and present, Asian and Western, on topics from Buddhology, translation theory, feminism, religious studies, ethnography, Chinese philosophy, and more, in order to inspire readers to understand the sutra in a new light. Mattice’s argument for the importance of appreciating the Heart Sutra from a Chinese philosophical context includes a new hermeneutic paradigm for approaching composite texts; an argument for translating the text from the Chinese, rather than the Sanskrit; an extended discussion of the figure of Guanyin, bodhisattva of compassion and main speaker of the Heart Sutra, as a distinctively Chinese figure; an inquiry in to the history of women’s practice, with a special focus on China; and a commentary on the text that draws on philosophical resources from Chinese Buddhist, Ruist, and Daoist traditions. Mattice presents the Heart Sutra in its depth and complexity, inviting readers to return to this classic text with fresh perspectives and new insights into its relevance for living well in the contemporary world.