This paper traces the development of “cultural philosophy,” distinguishes it from the “philosophy of culture,” discusses African and Filipino philosophical dimensions, and then makes the concluding remarks. This paper argues that while cultural philosophy is a significant development in the history of ideas, any given culture must opt to develop its own philosophical tradition.

This work argues that an opportunity is being missed by the philosophical tradition, especially within philosophy of culture: an opportunity not just to philosophize “about” culture, but to embody culture and put it into practice. It argues that philosophy itself is a powerful form of culture – one that needs to be better understood and more explicitly practiced. To highlight this blind spot, the work introduces a distinction between “philosophy of culture,” and “cultural philosophy.” Cultural (...) philosophy should be better explored by the discipline for two reasons: a clearer understanding of cultural philosophy would benefit all practitioners of philosophy; also, a philosopher of culture who engages cultural philosophy will be a more effective philosopher of culture. The goal of the project is to highlight the possibility of (and value in) a “cultural philosophy,” and to serve as something of a prolegomenon toward further work in that area. (shrink)

Culture is the source of fostering the systems of philosophy, the philosophical ideologies/thoughts, and is the condition and material, the origin and condition for development of philosophy. A nation may have no its own system of philosophy, but cannot have no its own culture. Without its own culture, such nation cannot exist. Culture is the necessary conditions, requisites for existence of each nation in both aspects of the material and spiritual life. According to that meaning, (...) class='Hi'>culture is also the requisites for the existence and development of the systems of philosophy. Different from the systems of scholarly philosophy in which the thinkers, scientists completely define and create the philosophies, the universals are commonly nameless, appear and exist in the different forms such as: folkverse, folk-speech, in the daily life, in architecture, etc... Cannot determine exactly the time of generating one certain universal, one specific philosophy. But can determine the author and the appearance time of one specific system of philosophy. Such philosophies, abundant and diverse universals have existed for a long time in the life of each national community, however they can exist only side by side, reflect the specific aspects, processes of the social life, but they cannot incorporate into a system of philosophy having an internal structure, a system of reasons/arguments. Their generalization level cannot be high and closely systematical like the systems of scholarly philosophy. The life reality of the nations shows the national cultures cannot be short of philosophies, universals because they are the orientations for their activities, communication and communication. The more and more a culture develops, the bigger and bigger quantity and depth of philosophies get. The farther and farther go towards the modernity, the bigger and bigger quantity, depth and polyhedral diversity of the entire philosophies become. The more and more go backward the ancient past, the smaller and smaller quantity, depth and polyhedral diversity of the entire philosophies become. The most important is that when the system of philosophies increases in both quantity and depth, the other factors in the national culture also develop in both width and depth according to the development orientation of system of philosophies, since how far philosophies develop and expand,they will pave the way, create the direction, form the patterns for actions, communication and activities in order to create new cultural value, new cultural environment, new cultural products. Another aspect in the relationship between culture and philosophy that relates to the philosophies in the national culture is the role of the philosophies for the systems of scholarly philosophy. Only a few nations have the systems of scholarly philosophy. The systems of philosophy are normally at the high argumentative level in comparison with the philosophies in the national culture. The systems of philosophy are also an important component of the national culture. Can say, the doctrines of the scholarly philosophy is the high-leveled crystallization at the high argumentative level presenting the world outlook and the outlook on life of the nation in that era which were refracted through the concrete philosophists’ prism. The philosophies in the national culture are the direct materials for forming the structure for all factors of the systems of scholarly philosophy. On another side, the philosophies can take part more or less by their contents of knowledge, way of thinking, and deduction... into the systems of philosophy in the form of archetype. On the other hand, many philosophies indirectly take part in the doctrines of the scholarly philosophy through influencing the philosophist’s thought, consciousness during the study process, throughthe life experience, through adopting the experiences of the other people, in order to take part into the system of the scholarly philosophy since such system appeared, formed, developed and was expressed to become the systematical argumentation. The national culture is the living environment of the systems of scholarly philosophy, is the place supplying food, drinking water, oxygen and sunlight to those systems of scholarly philosophy. Like fruit trees in the garden being planted in the national culture gardens, the fatter, the richer with appropriate temperature, humidity, light they are, the more they develop with the more fruit. The systems of scholarly philosophy are the products firstly of the national culture that were piled up, distilled and sublimed through talent of the awareness, meditation, skill and spirit combined with the other virtues of the philosophists who have created the systems of scholarly philosophy that were also sprouted, fostered in the national culture. Can say there is no national culture that developed to a certain degree, cannot have the systems of scholarly philosophy. Culture is the spiritual foundation of society, at the same times is the spiritual foundation of philosophy. Culture in the broad sense of the word is the foundation of the existence of the humankind, at the same time is the decisive foundation for the birth, existence, development and perdition of the systems of philosophy.Culture despite the broad sense of the word or the narrow meaning is regularly the motive force of the social development in general in which there is the development of philosophy. A nation without a developed culture cannot have the abundant, diverse philosophies, even cannot have the systems of philosophy. A nation may be enslaved for thousands years, but it has not lost, eliminated its own culture, then that nation can exist as an independent nation. The nations can borrow the systems of philosophy, but cannot borrow the philosophies, moreover cannot borrow the culture in general. That is the relative independence of philosophy with culture and the role of culture for philosophy. (shrink)

This article reconstructs the forgotten friendship between Georges Bataille and the Russian émigré poet and philosopher Boris Poplavsky. Comparing their solar metaphysics, I focus on conceptions of friendship, sacrifice and depersonalisation. First, I retrace Bataille’s relationship to early Surrealis and Russian circles in interwar Paris, with a focus on his friendship with Irina Odoevtseva. I then offer a novel reading of Poplavsky’s poetry through the lens of Bataille’s philosophy, analysing a recurring motif that I call ‘dark solarity’. Uncovering a hidden (...) intertextual dialogue between Poplavsky and Bataille, I argue for Poplavsky’s lasting impact on Bataille’s anti-Icarian sun cult. Finally, my paper demonstrates how Poplavsky’s writings on solar sacrifice, excess and friendship left marks on Bataille’s vision of a solar community, embodied in the secret society Acéphale. The dialogue between Poplavsky and Bataille, I finally suggest, is a missing piece in the entangled history of Russian and French philosophy, as well as an original contribution to discourses on friendship in twentieth-century continental thought. (shrink)

Does cross-cultural philosophy stand in need of a hermeneutical expansion? In engaging with this question, the symposium focuses upon methodological issues salient to cross-cultural inquiry. Douglas L. Berger lays out the ground for the debate by arguing for a methodological approach, which is able to rectify the discipline’s colonial legacies and bridge the hermeneutical distance with its objects of study. From their own perspectives, Hans-Georg Moeller, Paul Roth and A. Raghuramaraju analyze whether such a processual and hermeneutically-sensitive approach can indeed (...) open up new hermeneutic horizons. Their responses shed light upon cross-cultural philosophy’s continued embedment in Euroamerican professional philosophy and how the locality of its knowledge-seeking endeavors may indeed have repercussions on attempts to bridge temporal and spatial distances. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: In the place of the traditional sequence ascendingfrom culture to philosophy, and then to wisdom —where the progressive internalisation of exteriority is valued—Hegel substitutes a different path. This path leads from wisdom, in which the spirit originally gathers itself into its solitary emptiness, on through culture, which gives itform as determined through the exchange of diverse collective modalities of world mastery, tophilosophy, in its germanic completion. The differentiated identity of philosophy in its Germanic conclusion accomplishes the interiority (...) of wisdom found within cultural alienation, by going beyond both, as does real life. (shrink)

The “Human/Nature” relationship is a topic that has occupied both Greek and Chinese philosophers since ancient times. While both similarities in human nature and differences in human culture have become better understood empirically, the actual relationship between what is “Natural” and what is “Human” remains obscure. How is one to know where “Nature” ends and where the “Human” begins? In order to engage in cross-cultural work, comparative philosophy must somehow orient itself toward this question. Recently, “naturalistic hermeneutics” has recommended (...) itself as one such orientation, whereby it is understood that certain core intuitions such as substance, essence, and teleological purpose are held by all members of the species. How to account for cultural variation, however, still remains a problem. Here, the philosophies of William James and John Dewey are used to develop what will be called an “intra-cultural” orientation to comparative philosophy. Such an orientation, primarily inspired by Dewey’s late-period writings, attempts to both acknowledge human universals and allow for cultural diversity without reducing either phenomenon to “Nature” or to the “Human.” The basic premise of intra-cultural philosophy is that philosophical activity, like all human activity, remains embedded in a “Nature-Human” continuum, an irreducible synthesis that Dewey came to define as “Culture.” This was the main premise of what is known as his late-period “Cultural Turn.” The implications of such an approach for comparative philosophy will be explored, and John Scotus Eriugena’s concept of “Analytike” will be evoked in arriving at its central methodological insight. (shrink)

The encroachment of globalization and demands for greater regional autonomy have had a profound effect on the way we picture Ireland. This challenging new look at the key of sovereignty asks us how we should think about the identity of a postnationalist' Ireland. Richard Kearney goes to the heart of the conflict over demand for communal identity - traditionally expressed by nationalism, and the demand for a universal model of citizenship - traditionally expressed by republicanism. In so doing, he asks (...) us to question whether the sacrosanct concept of absolute national sovereignty is becoming a luxury ill afforded in the emerging new Europe. Kearney then takes us beyond the political with chapters on the influence of philosophers such as George Berkeley, John Toland and John Tyndall and looks at some of the myths in Irish poetry and nationhood. Postnationalist Ireland provides a recasting of contemporary Irish politics, culture, literature and philosophy and will appeal to students of these subjects and Irish studies in general. (shrink)

Though I have been a member of this Institute, I think from its foundation, I have been a steadily inactive member, and have resisted with what grace I could the blandishments of our Secretary when he has suggested that I should address my fellow-members. For I am not a philosopher, either by training or, I fear, by instinct; and, now that I have allowed myself to be inveigled into this place, I feel that I am brawling in church. I am (...) the most ill-informed of laymen, and, if you feel any interest at all in what I am about to say, it will, I fear, only be the rueful interest that the expert sometimes takes in an exhibition of ignorance. (shrink)

This book examines the philosophy of the nineteenth-century Indian mystic Sri Ramakrishna and brings him into dialogue with Western philosophers of religion, primarily in the recent analytic tradition. Sri Ramakrishna’s expansive conception of God as the impersonal-personal Infinite Reality, Maharaj argues, opens up an entirely new paradigm for addressing central topics in the philosophy of religion, including divine infinitude, religious diversity, the nature and epistemology of mystical experience, and the problem of evil.

In “Global Knowledge Frameworks and the Tasks of Cross-Cultural Philosophy,” Leigh Jenco searches for the conception of knowledge that best justifies the judgment that one can learn from non-local traditions of philosophy. Jenco considers four conceptions of knowledge, namely, in catchwords, the esoteric, Enlightenment, hermeneutic, and self- transformative conceptions of knowledge, and she defends the latter as more plausible than the former three. In this critical discussion of Jenco’s article, I provide reason to doubt the self-transformative conception, and also advance (...) a fifth, pluralist conception of knowledge that I contend best explains the prospect of learning from traditions other than one’s own. (shrink)

This paper seeks to lay down the theoretical groundwork for the emergence of holistic cross-cultural philosophical investigations of personal identity ¾ investigations that approach the theoretical, phenomenological, psychological, and practical-ethical dimensions of selfhood as indissociable. My strategy is to discuss three closely connected conceptual distinctions that the Buddhist approach to personal identity urges us to draw, and a lucid understanding of which is essential for the emergence of appropriately comprehensive and thus genuinely cosmopolitan discussions at the cross-road between Western and (...) Buddhist philosophical traditions. The first, primary distinction is that between the “visceral sense of self” and the “substance view of self”. This in turn gives rise to two derivative distinctions, namely between “harbouring VSS” and “believing SVS”, and between “overcoming VSS” and “rejecting SVS”. After discussing these distinctions, I consider and respond to three philosophical objections to features of Buddhist approach to selfhood that are thrown into sharper relief when attention is paid to these three distinctions. I then discuss some of the ways the foregoing may inform research in cross-cultural philosophy of personal identity. This discussion focuses on: the primacy of the first-person stance in matters of personal identity; the relationship between numerical identity and narrative identity; interdisciplinarity in the study of selfhood; and personal identity and egoism. (shrink)

While the story of Stanislav Petrov – the Soviet Lieutenant Colonel who likely saved the world from nuclear holocaust in 1983 – is often trotted out to advocate for the view that human beings ought to be kept “in the loop” of automated weapons’ responses, I argue that the episode in fact belies this reading. By attending more closely to the features of this event – to Petrov’s professional background, to his familiarity with the warning system, and to his decisions (...) to defy his protocol – it becomes clear that Petrov was not seamlessly working “in his loop,” but reassessing it entirely. I claim that this exhibits a paradox intrinsic to all automated loops: namely, that their optimum function in fact rests on unforeseen human interventions that cannot be reliably codified ex ante, that is, that good judgment cannot simply be “programmed into” their protocols. This dependence, moreover, reveals automation’s ineluctable need for virtue ethics – not in the usual sense (whereby ethics deliberates about, say, possible damages and loss of life), but in the sense that ethical judgment, rightly understood, entails the reassessment of all of the conditions surrounding a decision, including whether a protocol should be followed at all. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Making the Best of Things: Character Skepticism and Cross-Cultural PhilosophyJohn M. Doris (bio)With your spirit settled, accumulate practice day by day, and hour by hour.—Miyamoto MusashiLike many of my colleagues in moral psychology, I’ve focused almost exclusively on Western philosophy, so I was pleasantly surprised when practitioners of cross-cultural and comparative philosophy responded to character skepticism with resources drawn from Eastern traditions.1 [End Page 571]As a reminder: the character (...) skeptic asserts a descriptive claim, to the effect that traditional conceptions of character are empirically inadequate, accompanied by a prescriptive claim to the effect that, as a result of this inadequacy, traditional notions of character should receive considerably diminished emphasis in ethical thought (e.g., Doris 2022, p. 2).2 The antiskeptic rejects both claims: a suitably nuanced conception of character has nothing to fear from empirical moral psychology and may safely retain its focal role in ethical thought.Near as I can see, cross-cultural philosophers commenting on the issues have generally been anti-skeptical. This anti-skepticism might be either contrastive or complementary in tenor. In a contrastive approach, Eastern conceptions of character, while bearing some affinities to Western conceptions (if there are no affinities, we’d have a change of subject), are supposed to be substantially different than Western notions, so defending the West by way of the East marks a departure from the Western characterological tradition. In a complementary approach, the Eastern and Western conceptions are substantially similar, so defending the West by way of the East is fundamentally a continuation of the Western characterological tradition. (Though continuation can’t be quite the right word, since the referenced Eastern traditions are often older than the Western.)While this dichotomy, like most dichotomies, oversimplifies, my sense is that cross-cultural philosophy’s contributions have tended to be complementary: consideration of Eastern traditions, often times Confucian, is said to illuminate what’s valuable in Western, frequently Aristotelian, traditions.3 This circumstance is both surprising to, and convenient for, me. Surprising, for my reading of the one Eastern text I have studied closely,4 over my thirty-five-year avocation as a martial artist, the legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi’s Book of Five Rings (Musashi/Harris 1974), suggests a contrastive reading: courage seems nearly invisible in Musashi’s treatment of success in combat, while martial valor is central to Aristotle’s understanding of courage. In any case, that those with vastly more scholarly credibility than I have favored complementary projects is a welcome convenience for me, since it allows me to enter discussion of cross-cultural philosophy and character along my usual pathways in contemporary Western moral psychology.Paul Condon, Seth Robertson, and Matthew Spencer, the gracious and insightful commentators for this symposium on my essay collection, Character Trouble (2022), seem generally to favor a complementary approach: while careful to note the existence of differences, they find in Eastern traditions resources to blunt the force of character skepticism as applied to its usual target, virtue ethics in a broadly Aristotelian tradition.5 Quite expectedly, in my responses, I’ll beg to differ. The essays in question span over twenty years, and on the main points of character skepticism, I’ve failed to change my mind in the face of (sometimes strident) criticism, so it’s [End Page 572] unlikely I would do so now, despite my commentators’ astute recommendations. In fact, I’m now more convinced of character skepticism than when I started, or at least have better arguments for it (more on this below). Nevertheless, my commentators have done much to enrich the issues; in this unavoidably and regrettably incomplete response, I’ll attempt to enrich things a bit more.Framing the Rhetorical SpaceI take it my commentators and I are united in thinking that the kind of empirical moral psychology embodied in character skepticism and celebrated in Character Trouble (CT) has important implications for how philosophers and psychologists should think about character and virtue.6 This makes refreshing contrast with early responses to character skepticism from the 2000s, which often insisted that things could go on pretty much as they had before interdisciplinary moral psychologists set to work... (shrink)

This paper presents a comprehensive review of the African cultural philosophy. The aim of the study is to focus on identifying the elements present in the African ontology and epistemology which may contribute towards the consecution of a harmonious coexistence in the increasing plurality of today society. Based on an understanding of reality in which everything dwells in complementarity, interdependence and mutuality, the African worldview approaches difference and particularity as opportunities for mutual growth and cooperation. The acknowledgement of such an (...) intimate mutual relatedness among all human groups which form a given society is the African key to understand the process towards coexistence. This sheds light on the understanding of social dialogue, the peacebuilding processes, and the means for the resolution of conflicts. (shrink)

Rousseau has been seen as the inventor of the concept of nature; in this collective volume philosophers and literary specialists from France and the United States examine how Rousseau's philosophy can be reinterpreted from the point of view of a constant dialectical debate between nature and culture. In this, Rousseau is our true contemporary.

Résumé: O design cultural integra o conteúdo cultural no processo de design. É um meio importante para perceber a inovação da cultura tradicional na herança. O comportamento do design cultural é sutilmente influenciado pela filosofia cultural. Especificamente, a análise do ambiente cultural, a associação semântica cultural e a extração de imagens culturais, na perspectiva da filosofia cultural, ajudam a perceber a explicitação do conhecimento implícito no processo de codificação e decodificação de genes culturais. Selecionamos Ningbo como uma amostra, aprofundamos os (...) genes culturais regionais, exploramos o modelo de geração de design cultural e ainda propusemos a estrutura para a construção de um sistema de serviços de conhecimento de design cultural para fornecer orientação metodológica, para a prática de design cultural regional, a fim de construir capacidades de design cultural sustentável. (shrink)

This paper focuses on evaluating Odera Oruka’s role as an expert witness in customary law for the Luo community during the Nairobi, Kenya-based trial in 1987 to decide on the place of the burial of S.M. Otieno. During that trial, an understanding of Luo burial and widow guardianship (ter) practices was essential. Odera Oruka described the practices carefully and defended them against misunderstanding and stereotype. He revisited related topics in several delivered papers, published articles, and even interviews and columns in (...) the Kenyan newspapers. The paper will raise the questions: How does Odera Oruka’s role as expert on Luo customs fit in with his sage philosophy project? In his testimony at the trial and subsequent public addresses and published work, does he accomplish two important goals, the first being defending African traditions against prejudice and anti-African bias, and secondly, does he champion reform of traditions when reform is needed? And, can Odera Oruka’s participation in the famous trial avoid seeming ethnic chauvinism and marginalization of women? My conclusion is that he achieves the first goal, but some problems remain in the achievement of the other goals. While he often asserted the need to evaluate traditions and to jettison those that have become unhelpful, in this context he evaluated traditions so strongly that the need for evaluation and possible change was muted. (shrink)

Introduction I am a nuance. Nietzsche Reading is always a risky business: we confront an enigma or run the risk of roaming. But doesn't reading Nietzsche ...

Commented Article: ZUYAO, Wang; XIN, Xin; SONG, Qiao. Cultural design methodology from the perspective of cultural philosophy: a case of ningbo. Trans/Form/ Ação: Unesp journal of philosophy, v. 46, Special Issue, p. 239- 256, 2023.

Philosophy is a radical inquiry whose task is to interrogate the fundamental assumptions of some given activity, discipline, or set of beliefs. In doing so, philosophical inquiry must attempt to delineate a problem and to develop a method for resolving that problem. However, to be true to its intention, philosophy must be able to examine not only the object of its inquiry but also its own method of interrogation. To accomplish this task, philosophical inquiry must be able to create a (...) distance not only from the assumptions under investigation but also from its own assumptions, which is to say, that it must be able to raise questions about its own method. This self-reflexivity requires that any given philosophical investigation must be examined from an alternative vantage point. Since the assumptions which inform the inquiry are deeply imbedded within a given culture, immanent critique is insufficient. The only way to step outside the boundaries of these cultural presuppositions is to reflect on the given problem from the vantage point of another culture's philosophical tradition. Thus, I argue that philosophical inquiry is unable to go beyond certain limits without being cross-cultural philosophy. I illustrate the way in which cross-cultural philosophy does this with respect to the problem of the self by placing the Western philosophical approach to this problem in dialogue with the Indian Hindu-Buddhist narrative. (shrink)

The origin of culture remains in the sphere of hypotheses. Although the hypotheses derive from two presumptions: first, how the structure of culture is envisaged, and secondly, how culture is thought to function. Juri Lotman dealt with both aspects of culture, initially the structural and typological and later the dynamic aspects. Thereby, he arrived at the culturalphilosophical hypothesis of the autocatalytic origin of culture. A catalyst is a component of a chemical reaction which itself doesn’t (...) transform during the reaction, but whose presence is needed to guarantee the reaction (or to stimulate it). Thus, autocatalysis is a paradoxical situation in which the genesis of something presumes the pre-existence of the final product. The paradox of the autocatalysis of culture lies in the fact that culture cannot emerge from anything other than from culture itself, from its own germination. In 1988, speaking about the autocatalysis of culture, Lotman refered tothe cultural historicist Nikolai I. Konrad (1891–1970), who undoubtedly borrowed this idea from Jacob Christopher Burckhardt (1818–1897). This undiscovered connection reminds us of the fact, that a model for autocatalysis (or an autopoiesis) was basic to Naturphilosophie of the 19th century. In the 20th century, this was represented by Vladimir I. Vernadsky (1863–1945), from whom Lotman in 1982 received the impetus to formulate the concept of semiosphere as well as of the autocatalysis of culture. The autocatalysis model of culture is culturally diachronical, the semiosphere is, however, a synchronical one. In both cases, the natural philosophical cytology of the 19th century was Lotman’s semiotical meta-language. (shrink)

Comparative Political Theory and Cross-Cultural Philosophy explores new forms of philosophizing in the age of globalization by challenging the conventional border between the East and the West, as well as the traditional boundaries among different academic disciplines. This rich investigation demonstrates the importance of cross-cultural thinking in our reading of philosophical texts and explores how cross-cultural thinking transforms our understanding of the traditional philosophical paradigm.

" La philosophie des formes symboliques " est une tentative pour fonder une philosophie de la culture - la culture non seulement entendue comme la pratique humaine en général, ce qui inclut aussi bien l'usage de l'outil et les troubles du langage (tome I) que les cérémonies religieuses et l'organisation d'une cité (tome II) ou la pensée scientifique et ses catégories (tome III). A l'interprétation " allégorique " des produits culturels, qui s'efforce de les rapporter à (...) une instance extérieure, ce qui a pour effet d'annihiler leur spécificité et leur diversité, Cassirer veut substituer une interprétation symbolique. La fonction symbolique, la " forme symbolique ", n'est donc rien d'autre que la loi de production de ces produits, l'orientation générale qui, par exemple, transforme une pratique magique en geste religieux, et qui confère à un objet resté identique un sens inédit. On abandonne ici les lois universelles de la nature humaine puisque, à l'inverse, ce sont les lois de production elles-mêmes, les " formes symboliques ", qui distinguent et définissent (génétiquement, à la manière de Spinoza) les domaines culturels. (shrink)

Traditional theistic proofs are often understood as evidence intended to compel belief in a divinity. John Clayton explores the surprisingly varied applications of such proofs in the work of philosophers and theologians from several periods and traditions, thinkers as varied as Ramanuja, al-Ghazali, Anselm, and Jefferson. He shows how the gradual disembedding of theistic proofs from their diverse and local religious contexts is concurrent with the development of natural theologies and atheism as social and intellectual options in early modern Europe (...) and America. Clayton offers a fresh reading of the early modern history of philosophy and theology, arguing that awareness of such history, and the local uses of theistic argument, offer important ways of managing religious and cultural difference in the public sphere. He argues for the importance of historically grounded philosophy of religion to the field of religious studies and public debate on religious pluralism and cultural diversity. (shrink)

Arthur Schopenhauer was the first Western thinker who incorporated thoughts of the Upanishads in his own philosophy. His appreciation for Indian philosophy and culture is quite well known. Presently serious research work is going on in different disciplines in different academic institutions and universities in the West to examine the influence of Indian philosophy and culture in the philosophical thinking of Germany, particularly in relation to Arthur Schopenhauer and vice versa. This book provides a common platform for interaction (...) to the scholars from East and West to express their views on the link between Eastern and Western philosophy. It significantly contributes to a better understanding not only of the connection between Schopenhauer and Indian philosophical systems but also of the increasing interest in this relation. The book includes papers of eminent scholars. The papers shed new light on the relationship between Schopenhauer's philosophy and the different aspects of Indian philosophy and culture, and thus offer a rich source of research material. (shrink)

Now back in print, and in paperback, these two classicvolumes illustrate the scope and quality of Royce'sthought, providing the most comprehensive selection ofhis writings currently available. They offer a detailedpresentation of the viable relationship Royce forgedbetween the local experience of community and thedemands of a philosophical and scientific vision ofthe human situation.The selections reprinted here are basic to any understandingof Royce's thought and its pressing relevanceto contemporary cultural, moral, and religious issues.

On assiste ”a un « surplace » de la recherche philosophique en Occident. L’importance de l’histoire, le caract”ere d’ecisif de la culture, la dimension sociale de l’esprit, ne suscitent plus qu’un int’erêt ’episodique. On a oubli’e les apories de Kuhn. Am’ericains et Occidentaux sont des solipsiste s qui font mine d’ignorer la formation historique de l’esprit, renouvelant l’oubli de Kant et Husserl qui n’avaient pas su prendre en compte le caract”ere contingent, changeant, collectif, fortement historicis’e des comp’etences intellectuelles et (...) cognitives. S’epar’ee des pratiques consensuelles, la science perd son sens. Il faut revenir au probl”eme de l’individuation et reposer la question de l’acquisition de qualit’es uniques et pourtant g’en’erales qui font l’individualit’e. There is a general stagnation in western philosophical research. The importance of History, of Culture, the social nature of the Spirit, is of secondary interest, nowadays the meanest interest. What about the hard and sharp questions raised by Kuhn ? Americans or western nations are but solipsits, who get rid of the historical making of the spirit. To a certain extent, they keep on with Kant’s or Husserl’s tradition. None of them was in fact able to take care of historicism in the contingent and moving constitution of our intellectual capacities. In these conditions, no sense at all can be found in science. So, we must come back to the question of individuation and to these unique qualities of individuality, that is, at the same time, singularity and universality. (shrink)

This article examines contradictions between the theory and practice of comparative philosophy in a global world. Aristotle and Plato had different approaches to these “contradictions” that show a “discrepancy” between these two classical thinkers. The topic unaddressed by Plato is taken up in the topos of Nāgārjuna, the great ancient logician of ontology in Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy (the 3rd century AD). The “contradiction” is a principle that have/had profound influence on creative thought in East Asia. Nishida, the founder of the (...) Kyoto School (20th century), established his philosophy through the principle of “Absolute Contradictory Self-Identity.” This principle may stimulate reflection upon our digitally connected contemporary global world, and the chaos it has to face. (shrink)

_Philosophy in Cultural Theory_ boldly crosses disciplinary boundaries to offer a philosophical critique of cultural theory today. Drawing on the legacy of Walter Benjamin, Peter Osborne looks critically at central philosophical debates in cultural theory, such as: * the relationship between sign and image * the technological basis of cultural form * the conceptuality of art * the place of fantasy in human affairs. It will appeal to those in philosophy, cultural studies and art theory.

La philosophie du langage s'est développée au XXe siècle comme prima philosophia. L'auteure entend montrer que le vivant humain ne peut se réaliser qu'en forgeant sa faculté philosophique de juger à l'aide du dialogue. Mais il ne peut affirmer ses vérités qu'en jaugeant celles-ci aux effets de bonheur qu'elles transmettent. Cette régulation de l'usage du langage par l'esthétique inhérente à l'usage du jugement de vérité est en effet autant une condition de vie qu'une condition de son bonheur. Le tournant (...) esthétique qu'opère la conception de la philosophie comme esthétique culturelle prétend, quant à elle, que l'usage du langage n'est condition de vie de l'être humain qu'en déployant la dynamique d'harmonisation du monde, de soi-même et d'autrui à l'aide de l'imagination dialogique et du jugement de vérité. Seul l'exercice de ce jugement permet de juger si l'harmonie de vie exprimée dans la pensée et la parole rend aussi heureux les interlocuteurs que celle-ci leur fait partager sa vérité"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)