Engaging Japanese Philosophy

Engaging Japanese Philosophy PDF Author: Thomas P. Kasulis
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824873831
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 785

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Book Description
Philosophy challenges our assumptions—especially when it comes to us from another culture. In exploring Japanese philosophy, a dependable guide is essential. The present volume, written by a renowned authority on the subject, offers readers a historical survey of Japanese thought that is both comprehensive and comprehensible. Adhering to the Japanese philosophical tradition of highlighting engagement over detachment, Thomas Kasulis invites us to think with, as well as about, the Japanese masters by offering ample examples, innovative analogies, thought experiments, and jargon-free explanations. He assumes little previous knowledge and addresses themes—aesthetics, ethics, the samurai code, politics, among others—not in a vacuum but within the conditions of Japan’s cultural and intellectual history. For readers new to Japanese studies, he provides a simplified guide to pronouncing Japanese and a separate discussion of the language and how its syntax, orthography, and linguistic layers can serve the philosophical purposes of a skilled writer and subtle thinker. For those familiar with the Japanese cultural tradition but less so with philosophy, Kasulis clarifies philosophical expressions and problems, Western as well as Japanese, as they arise. Half of the book’s chapters are devoted to seven major thinkers who collectively represent the full range of Japan’s historical epochs and philosophical traditions: Kūkai, Shinran, Dōgen, Ogyū Sorai, Motoori Norinaga, Nishida Kitarō, and Watsuji Tetsurō. Nuanced details and analyses enable an engaged understanding of Japanese Buddhism, Confucianism, Shintō, and modern academic philosophy. Other chapters supply social and cultural background, including brief discussions of nearly a hundred other philosophical writers. (For additional information, cross references to material in the companion volume Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook are included.) In his closing chapter Kasulis reflects on lessons from Japanese philosophy that enhance our understanding of philosophy itself. He reminds us that philosophy in its original sense means loving wisdom, not studying ideas. In that regard, a renewed appreciation of engaged knowing can play a critical role in the revitalization of philosophy in the West as well as the East.

Engaging Japanese Philosophy

Engaging Japanese Philosophy PDF Author: Thomas P. Kasulis
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824873831
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 785

Get Book

Book Description
Philosophy challenges our assumptions—especially when it comes to us from another culture. In exploring Japanese philosophy, a dependable guide is essential. The present volume, written by a renowned authority on the subject, offers readers a historical survey of Japanese thought that is both comprehensive and comprehensible. Adhering to the Japanese philosophical tradition of highlighting engagement over detachment, Thomas Kasulis invites us to think with, as well as about, the Japanese masters by offering ample examples, innovative analogies, thought experiments, and jargon-free explanations. He assumes little previous knowledge and addresses themes—aesthetics, ethics, the samurai code, politics, among others—not in a vacuum but within the conditions of Japan’s cultural and intellectual history. For readers new to Japanese studies, he provides a simplified guide to pronouncing Japanese and a separate discussion of the language and how its syntax, orthography, and linguistic layers can serve the philosophical purposes of a skilled writer and subtle thinker. For those familiar with the Japanese cultural tradition but less so with philosophy, Kasulis clarifies philosophical expressions and problems, Western as well as Japanese, as they arise. Half of the book’s chapters are devoted to seven major thinkers who collectively represent the full range of Japan’s historical epochs and philosophical traditions: Kūkai, Shinran, Dōgen, Ogyū Sorai, Motoori Norinaga, Nishida Kitarō, and Watsuji Tetsurō. Nuanced details and analyses enable an engaged understanding of Japanese Buddhism, Confucianism, Shintō, and modern academic philosophy. Other chapters supply social and cultural background, including brief discussions of nearly a hundred other philosophical writers. (For additional information, cross references to material in the companion volume Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook are included.) In his closing chapter Kasulis reflects on lessons from Japanese philosophy that enhance our understanding of philosophy itself. He reminds us that philosophy in its original sense means loving wisdom, not studying ideas. In that regard, a renewed appreciation of engaged knowing can play a critical role in the revitalization of philosophy in the West as well as the East.

Japanese Philosophy

Japanese Philosophy PDF Author: James W. Heisig
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 082483707X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 1362

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Book Description
With Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook, readers of English can now access in a single volume the richness and diversity of Japanese philosophy as it has developed throughout history. Leading scholars in the field have translated selections from the writings of more than a hundred philosophical thinkers from all eras and schools of thought, many of them available in English for the first time. The Sourcebook editors have set out to represent the entire Japanese philosophical tradition—not only the broad spectrum of academic philosophy dating from the introduction of Western philosophy in the latter part of the nineteenth century, but also the philosophical ideas of major Japanese traditions of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shinto. The philosophical significance of each tradition is laid out in an extensive overview, and each selection is accompanied by a brief biographical sketch of its author and helpful information on placing the work in its proper context. The bulk of the supporting material, which comprises nearly a quarter of the volume, is given to original interpretive essays on topics not explicitly covered in other chapters: cultural identity, samurai thought, women philosophers, aesthetics, bioethics. An introductory chapter provides a historical overview of Japanese philosophy and a discussion of the Japanese debate over defining the idea of philosophy, both of which help explain the rationale behind the design of the Sourcebook. An exhaustive glossary of technical terminology, a chronology of authors, and a thematic index are appended. Specialists will find information related to original sources and sinographs for Japanese names and terms in a comprehensive bibliography and general index. Handsomely presented and clearly organized for ease of use, Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook will be a cornerstone in Japanese studies for decades to come. It will be an essential reference for anyone interested in traditional or contemporary Japanese culture and the way it has shaped and been shaped by its great thinkers over the centuries.

Japanese Philosophy

Japanese Philosophy PDF Author: H. Gene Blocker
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791490386
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
By doing so, and by providing an overview of Japanese philosophy from the seventh century to the present, the authors contribute to a greater cross-cultural understanding between East and West."--BOOK JACKET.

Contemporary Japanese Philosophy

Contemporary Japanese Philosophy PDF Author: John W. M. Krummel
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1786600862
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
This important volume introduces the reader to a variety of schools of thought. Ideal for classroom use, this is the ultimate resource for students and teachers of Japanese philosophy.

Critical Buddhism

Critical Buddhism PDF Author: James Mark Shields
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317157605
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the relative calm world of Japanese Buddhist scholarship was thrown into chaos with the publication of several works by Buddhist scholars Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto Shiro, dedicated to the promotion of something they called Critical Buddhism (hihan bukkyo). In their quest to re-establish a "true" - rational, ethical and humanist - form of East Asian Buddhism, the Critical Buddhists undertook a radical deconstruction of historical and contemporary East Asian Buddhism, particularly Zen. While their controversial work has received some attention in English-language scholarship, this is the first book-length treatment of Critical Buddhism as both a philosophical and religious movement, where the lines between scholarship and practice blur. Providing a critical and constructive analysis of Critical Buddhism, particularly the epistemological categories of critica and topica, this book examines contemporary theories of knowledge and ethics in order to situate Critical Buddhism within modern Japanese and Buddhist thought as well as in relation to current trends in contemporary Western thought.

Engaging Buddhism

Engaging Buddhism PDF Author: Jay L. Garfield
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190204346
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
Articulating the basic metaphysical framework common to Buddhist traditions, this book explores questions in metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, phenomenology, epistemology, the philosophy of language, and ethics as they are addressed in a variety of Asian Buddhist traditions. Focusing on philosophical problems, in each case the connections between Buddhist and contemporary Western debates are examined, as are the distinctive contributions the Buddhist tradition can make to Western discussions.

Engaging the Other: 'Japan' and Its Alter-Egos, 1550-1850

Engaging the Other: 'Japan' and Its Alter-Egos, 1550-1850 PDF Author: Ronald P. Toby
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900439351X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 423

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Book Description
In Engaging the Other: “Japan and Its Alter-Egos”, 1550-1850 Ronald P. Toby examines new discourses of identity and difference in early modern Japan, a discourse catalyzed by the “Iberian irruption,” the appearance of Portuguese and other new, radical others in the sixteenth century. The encounter with peoples and countries unimagined in earlier discourse provoked an identity crisis, a paradigm shift from a view of the world as comprising only “three countries” (sangoku), i.e., Japan, China and India, to a world of “myriad countries” (bankoku) and peoples. In order to understand the new radical alterities, the Japanese were forced to establish new parameters of difference from familiar, proximate others, i.e., China, Korea and Ryukyu. Toby examines their articulation in literature, visual and performing arts, law, and customs.

Zen and Shinto

Zen and Shinto PDF Author: Chikao Fujisawa
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504060199
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 76

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Book Description
This history of Japanese philosophical traditions underscores the importance of Zen and Shinto to the development of Japanese culture. How do the Japanese talk about their native philosophy, Shinto, so many years after the Western Allies abolished it as a state religion? What is its relationship to Buddhism, and particularly to Zen? How modern can this very ancient creed ever be? These are some of the questions considered in this analytic work by Dr. Chikao Fujisawa, who specializes in the study of traditional Japanese philosophy and its effect on modern society. Fujisawa’s work is not only a survey of Zen and Shinto, but also an impassioned plea to restore Shinto as the very substance of Japanese life and thought. At the same time, Zen and Shinto offers new insight into the depth and vitality of Japanese culture, demonstrating its remarkable capacity to assimilate foreign thought and ideas, and thus contribute to the world’s hope for permanent peace.

Inoue Enryo

Inoue Enryo PDF Author: Rainer Schulzer
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438471882
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 430

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Book Description
The first comprehensive treatment of Inoue Enryō, a pioneer of modern Buddhism and a key figure in the reception of Western philosophy in East Asia. Rainer Schulzer provides the first comprehensive study, in English, of the modern Japanese philosopher Inoue Enryō (1858–1919). Enryō was a key figure in several important intellectual trends in Meiji Japan, including the establishment of academic philosophy, the public campaign against superstition, the permeation of imperial ideology, and the emergence of modern Japanese Buddhism. As one of the most widely read intellectuals of his time and one of the first Japanese authors ever translated into Chinese, an understanding of Enryō’s work and influence is indispensable for understanding modern East Asian intellectual history. His role in spreading the terminology of modern East Asian humanities reveals how later thinkers such as Nishida Kitarō and Suzuki T. Daisetsu emerged; while his key principles, Love of Truth and Protection of Country, illustrate the tensions inherent in Enryō’s enlightenment views and his dedication to the rise of the Japanese empire. The book also presents a systematic reconstruction of what was the first attempt to give Buddhism a sound philosophical foundation for the modern world. Rainer Schulzer is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Toyo University, Tokyo, Japan.

The Japanese Mind

The Japanese Mind PDF Author: Charles A. Moore
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 9780824800772
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
A collection of essays that provide insight into Japanese culture. This book is a great buy for anyone interested in Japan.