Ironies of Oneness and Difference

Ironies of Oneness and Difference PDF Author: Brook Ziporyn
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438442890
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Explores the development of Chinese thought, highlighting its concern with questions of coherence. Providing a bracing expansion of horizons, this book displays the unsuspected range of human thinking on the most basic categories of experience. The way in which early Chinese thinkers approached concepts such as one and many, sameness and difference, self and other, and internal and external stand in stark contrast to the way parallel concepts entrenched in much of modern thinking developed in Greek and European thought. Brook Ziporyn traces the distinctive and surprising philosophical journeys found in the works of the formative Confucian and Daoist thinkers back to a prevailing set of assumptions that tends to see questions of identity, value, and knowledgethe subject matter of ontology, ethics, and epistemology in other traditionsas all ultimately relating to questions about coherence in one form or another. Mere awareness of how many different ways human beings can think and have thought about these categories is itself a game changer for our own attitudes toward what is thinkable for us. The actual inhabitation and mastery of these alternative modes of thinking is an even greater adventure in intellectual and experiential expansion.

Ironies of Oneness and Difference

Ironies of Oneness and Difference PDF Author: Brook Ziporyn
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438442890
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Get Book Here

Book Description
Explores the development of Chinese thought, highlighting its concern with questions of coherence. Providing a bracing expansion of horizons, this book displays the unsuspected range of human thinking on the most basic categories of experience. The way in which early Chinese thinkers approached concepts such as one and many, sameness and difference, self and other, and internal and external stand in stark contrast to the way parallel concepts entrenched in much of modern thinking developed in Greek and European thought. Brook Ziporyn traces the distinctive and surprising philosophical journeys found in the works of the formative Confucian and Daoist thinkers back to a prevailing set of assumptions that tends to see questions of identity, value, and knowledgethe subject matter of ontology, ethics, and epistemology in other traditionsas all ultimately relating to questions about coherence in one form or another. Mere awareness of how many different ways human beings can think and have thought about these categories is itself a game changer for our own attitudes toward what is thinkable for us. The actual inhabitation and mastery of these alternative modes of thinking is an even greater adventure in intellectual and experiential expansion.

The Oneness Hypothesis

The Oneness Hypothesis PDF Author: Philip J. Ivanhoe
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231544634
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 487

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Book Description
The idea that the self is inextricably intertwined with the rest of the world—the “oneness hypothesis”—can be found in many of the world’s philosophical and religious traditions. Oneness provides ways to imagine and achieve a more expansive conception of the self as fundamentally connected with other people, creatures, and things. Such views present profound challenges to Western hyperindividualism and its excessive concern with self-interest and tendency toward self-centered behavior. This anthology presents a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary exploration of the nature and implications of the oneness hypothesis. While fundamentally inspired by East and South Asian traditions, in which such a view is often critical to their philosophical approach, this collection also draws upon religious studies, psychology, and Western philosophy, as well as sociology, evolutionary theory, and cognitive neuroscience. Contributors trace the oneness hypothesis through the works of East Asian and Western schools, including Confucianism, Mohism, Daoism, Buddhism, and Platonism and such thinkers as Zhuangzi, Kant, James, and Dewey. They intervene in debates over ethics, cultural difference, identity, group solidarity, and the positive and negative implications of metaphors of organic unity. Challenging dominant views that presume that the proper scope of the mind stops at the boundaries of skin and skull, The Oneness Hypothesis shows that a more relational conception of the self is not only consistent with contemporary science but has the potential to lead to greater happiness and well-being for both individuals and the larger wholes of which they are parts.

The Penumbra Unbound

The Penumbra Unbound PDF Author: Brook Ziporyn
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791487164
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 197

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Book Description
The Penumbra Unbound is the first English language book-length study of the Neo-Taoist thinker Guo Xiang (d. 312 C.E.), commentator on the classic Taoist text, the Zhuangzi. The author explores Guo's philosophy of freedom and spontaneity, explains its coherence and importance, and shows its influence on later Chinese philosophy, particularly Chan Buddhism. The implications of his thought on freedom versus determinism are also considered in comparison to several positions advanced in the history of Western philosophy, notably those of Spinoza, Kant, Schopenhauer, Fichte, and Hegel. Guo's thought reinterprets the classical pronouncements about the Tao so that it in no way signifies any kind of metaphysical absolute underlying appearances, but rather means literally "nothing." This absence of anything beyond appearances is the first premise in Guo's development of a theory of radical freedom, one in which all phenomenal things are "self-so," creating and transforming themselves without depending on any justification beyond their own temporary being.

Beyond Oneness and Difference

Beyond Oneness and Difference PDF Author: Brook Ziporyn
Publisher: Suny Press
ISBN: 9781438448183
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Continues the author's inquiry into the development of the Chinese philosophical concept Li, concluding in Song and Ming dynasty Neo-Confucianism.

Lost Beyond Telling

Lost Beyond Telling PDF Author: Richard Howard Stamelman
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801424083
Category : Absence in literature
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
In seeking to give voice to absent things or lost experiences, Richard Stamelman says, modern poetry attempts to give absence a shape. Loss, in his view, is both the cause and the subject of the modern poem. Fittingly, in Lost beyond Telling he formulates and develops what he calls a poetics of loss, with which he frames his treatment of modern French poetry.

The Way of Water and Sprouts of Virtue

The Way of Water and Sprouts of Virtue PDF Author: Sarah Allan
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791433850
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
Explicates early Chinese thought and explores the relationship between language and thought. This book maintains that early Chinese philosophers, whatever their philosophical school, assumed common principles informed the natural and human worlds and that one could understand the nature of man by studying the principles which govern nature. Accordingly, the natural world rather than a religious tradition provided the root metaphors of early Chinese thought. Sarah Allan examines the concrete imagery, most importantly water and plant life, which served as a model for the most fundamental concepts in Chinese philosophy including such ideas as dao, the "way", de, "virtue" or "potency", xin, the "mind/heart", xing "nature", and qi, "vital energy". Water, with its extraordinarily rich capacity for generating imagery, provided the primary model for conceptualizing general cosmic principles while plants provided a model for the continuous sequence of generation, growth, reproduction, and death and was the basis for the Chinese understanding of the nature of man in both religion and philosophy. "I find this book unique among recent efforts to identify and explain essential features of early Chinese thought because of its emphasis on imagery and metaphor". -- Christian Jochim, San Jose State University

A Different Christianity

A Different Christianity PDF Author: Robin Amis
Publisher: Praxis Research Institute
ISBN: 9781872292397
Category : Occultism
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
This book presents the esoteric original core of Christianity, with its concern for illuminating and healing the inner life of the individual. It is a bridge to the often difficult doctrines of the early church fathers, explains their spiritual psychology, and provides new insights for studying and following the spiritual path outside a monastery.

Oneness

Oneness PDF Author: Philip J. Ivanhoe
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019084051X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
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.

The Good Is One, Its Manifestations Many

The Good Is One, Its Manifestations Many PDF Author: Robert Cummings Neville
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 143846343X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Building on his long-standing work in metaphysics and Asian philosophy, Robert Cummings Neville presents a series of essays that cumulatively articulate a contemporary, progressive Confucian position as a global philosophy. Through analysis of the metaphysical and moral traditions of Confucianism, Neville brings these traditions into the twenty-first century. According to Confucianism, rituals define most of our relations with other individuals, social institutions, and nature, and while rituals make possible the positive institutions of high human civilization, they may also lead to harmful behaviors, including racism, xenophobia, and sexism. Neville argues that the amendment of rituals that institutionalize oppression is a positive task, which should be undertaken from within a skillfully ritualized life rather than in the form of external criticism. Confucianism, in Neville's hands, is a left-wing, progressive, liberal political philosophy, one that can address institutionalized oppression and suggest a path for moving forward.

The Buddhist Roots of Zhu Xi's Philosophical Thought

The Buddhist Roots of Zhu Xi's Philosophical Thought PDF Author: John Makeham
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190878576
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Zhu Xi (1130-1200) is the most influential Neo-Confucian philosopher and arguably the most important Chinese philosopher of the past millennium, both in terms of his legacy and for the sophistication of his systematic philosophy. The Buddhist Roots of Zhu Xi's Philosophical Thought combines in a single study two major areas of Chinese philosophy that are rarely tackled together: Chinese Buddhist philosophy and Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucian philosophy. Despite Zhu Xi's importance as a philosopher, the role of Buddhist thought and philosophy in the construction of his systematic philosophy remains poorly understood. What aspects of Buddhism did he criticize and why? Was his engagement limited to criticism (informed or otherwise) or did Zhu also appropriate and repurpose Buddhist ideas to develop his own thought? If Zhu's philosophical repertoire incorporated conceptual structures and problematics that are marked by a distinct Buddhist pedigree, what implications does this have for our understanding of his philosophical project? The five chapters that make up The Buddhist Roots of Zhu Xi's Philosophical Thought present a rich and complex portrait of the Buddhist roots of Zhu Xi's philosophical thought. The scholarship is meticulous, the analysis is rigorous, and the philosophical insights are fresh. Collectively, the chapters illuminate a greatly expanded range of the intellectual resources Zhu incorporated into his philosophical thought, demonstrating the vital role that models derived from Buddhism played in his philosophical repertoire. In doing so, they provide new perspectives on what Zhu Xi was trying to achieve as a philosopher, by repurposing ideas from Buddhism. They also make significant and original contributions to our understanding of core concepts, debates and conceptual structures that shaped the development of philosophy in East Asia over the past millennium.