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section: comparative philosophy

161. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 7
Bo Mou

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In this paper, I give a metaphilosophical examination of three major orientations in comparative studies (i.e., historical one, interpretation-concerned one, and philosophical-issue-concerned one) and four 'sins' that are oft-cited in critically evaluating a comparative study, namely over-simplification, over-use of external resources, exaggerated distinction, and blurring assimilation. I argue that the appropriateness of these 'sins' depends on orientations, purposes and methodological approaches in comparative studies and that, in those comparative studies with the interpretation-concerned and philosophicalissue- concerned orientations, due simplification, use of external resources and assimilation are not merely legitimate but also adequate or even necessary. In so doing, I explain how constructive engagement between Chinese and Western philosophy, or, more generally speaking, between different philosophical traditions, is related to contemporary development and resources of philosophy.
162. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 7
Franklin Perkins

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If the problem of evil is one of justifying how a perfect God could create evil, then there is no problem of evil in early Chinese thought, but my claim in this paper is that the problem of evil is one manifestation of a deeper problem, which is the conflict between the world and human values and desires. This deeper problem appears in early Chinese thought in ways analogous to the problem of evil in theistic traditions. Daoists respond to this problem with a call to harmonize with heaven by overcoming conventional values and desires. Mencius, a Confucian, offers a more complex response, in which it is natural to cultivate virtue and certain desires even though nature itself is indifferent to them. My paper focuses on this Confucian response.
163. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 7
Marina Čarnogurská

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The purpose of this paper is to discover an important contribution of classical Chinese ontological conceptions for the future world philosophy and the modern human Weltanschauung in the process of its globalization. Through a brief mosaic of a development of mutual Euro-Chinese encounters, from the Middle Ages to the present, the paper presents the view that both Chinese and European philosophical complexes were quite indispensable parts of the history of world philosophy; and in the future, perhaps, they will be the leading factors that decide (in their serious confrontation) the basic determination of the roots of the global world metaphilosophy. At the same time the author, long having carried out scholarly research and published translations of Laozi 's Dao De Jing, Confucius' Lunyu, the Books of Xunii, Huang Lao, Huang di si jing, etc., wants to demonstrate, on the basis of specific examples of original Chinese dialectical metaphysics, their unique philosophical value for the future world philosophy and the modern human Weltanschauung.
164. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 7
Joseph Lieh Liu

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165. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 7
Jens Schlieter

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In Anbetracht der jüngsten biotechnologischen Forschung, die das Klonen des Menschen konkret in Aussicht stellt, wird im Folgenden die Haltung der buddhistischen/ Traditionen, soweit sich diese bisher dazu geäußert haben, zu Fragen des "therapeutischen" und "reproduktiven" Klonens vorgestellt und diskutiert. Bestimmte Aspekte der buddhistischen Ethik und Anthropologie führen dazu, dass aus Sicht buddhistischer Ethiker das Klonen des Menschen eine insgesamt weniger dramatische Herausforderung darstellt. Aus ihrer Sicht wird durch die Idee und mögliche Praxis des reproduktiven Klonens kein normatives "anthropologisches" Prinzip wie jenes der menschlichen Natur, des Geschöpfseins oder der menschlichen Identität bedroht. Dennoch stehen auch buddhistische Ethiker dem Klonen skeptisch gegenüber, wenn z.B. durch den Vorgang Lebewesen in großer Zahl verletzt und getötet werden. Dass hingegen die traditionellen europäischen Wertvorstellungen der .Natur der Person' auch in den philosophischen Diskurs mit einfliessen, zeigt ein komparativer Blick auf die bioethischen Argumente von Jürgen Habermas (2001). Der Vergleich beider Positionen zeigt, dass es lohnt, in Bezug auf Techniken, die derzeit sowohl in Asien, wie Europa und den USA entwickelt werden, kulturübergreifende Perspektiven einzubringen, durch die mögliche Grunddifferenzen wie auch ethische Grundübereinstimmungen besser sichtbar werden.
166. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 7
Eva Kit Wah Man

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One of the common targets that contemporary feminists are critical of concerning the problem of the body is Rene Descartes' mind and body relation. Feminist scholars can identify at least three lines of investigation of the body in contemporary thought that may be regarded as legacies of the Cartesian view, which treat the body as primarily an object for: 1) the natural sciences, particularly for the life sciences, biology, and medicine; 2) as an instrument or a machine at the disposal of consciousness or allocating an animating, willful subjectivity; and 3) as a vehicle of expression of private thoughts and feelings; that is, as fundamentally passive and transparent. Recently, feminist scholars are seriously thinking of a new conceptual model that can displace Cartesian dualism and that can emancipate notions of the body from Cartesian dominant mechanistic models and metaphors. In this light, this paper turns to a Confucian theory of the body for revelation and the case of Mencius is introduced, in which the mind is regarded as the major component of the body and a coherent model is adopted. Can we then conclude to ask in what ways the reclaiming of the body in the Contemporary Western discussion may learn from the Confucian ideas of the body...?
167. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 7
John Vattanky

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One of the classical systems of Indian Philosophy is specially concerned with the problems of logic c This system is called Nyaya which has a long history of about two thousand years. In the extent of the literature it has produced and in the depth of the philosophical problems it discusses, it is of considerable interest and importance. However, the spirit of pure rationality in which Nyaya discusses these problems and the techniques it makes use of in handling them are quite different from other systems of Indian thought and at once renders it a unique achievement of the Indian mind. The term Nyaya means the method of coming to a conclusion with certainty and the system of Indian philosophy in which philosophical problems are discussed according to this method came to be called Nyayadarsana or just Nyaya. Nyaya has been sedulously cultivated in restricted circles of traditional learning. Nyaya and in particular, Navyanyaya studies with unparalleled rigour and exactitude the nature, the dimensions and conditions of human knowledge. And by common consent the philosophical problem par excellence is the problem of knowledge. With rare insight, both the old and modern Nyaya analyse the problems connected with human knowledge and sets forth in detail the exact conditions in which valid knowledge is possible. This essay highlights the nature and scope of Nyaya logic comparing and contrasting it with other systems of logic especially the Buddhist and Aristotelian.
168. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 7
Makoto Ozaki

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Hajime Tanabe (1885-1962), the Kyoto- School philosopher of modern Japan, attempts to interpret Aristotle's ontology as being involved in the logic of self-identical being without self-negative conversion in action from his own dialectical perspective. For Tanabe, the eternal essence or Form is to be mediated by the dynamic character of matter, i.e., the temporality pertinent to the changing movement. For Aristotle, however, the essence or pure activity as the principle of being is devoid of such a dynamic mediation, but is rather regarded as the past being, i.e., what it should be originally and eternally. In other words, for Aristotle, evil and matter are the lacks of goodness and the eternal Form that are identical with the essence of the individual substance. Evil is to be self-negatively mediated to goodness in free action through conversion in Tanabe's perspective. Movement pertaining to matter is not simply an incompletion of pure activity, but is rather self-negatively converted into the activity as the transcendent principle of the dialectical unification of time and eternity, matter and Form, evil and Goodness. The individual existence has freedom to unify the self-contradistinctive opposed moments, i.e., subjective action and objective being in a way of mutually negating conversion. The difference between Tanabe and Aristotle lies in that for Tanabe practice is relevant to the future, whereas for Aristotle contemplation is concerned with eternity as invariable and imperishable being since the past. While Aristotle's logic is confined to the self-identity of being in contemplation, Tanabe's logic is structured by the triadic elements of individuality, species as the relative universal, and genus as the absolute universal in terms of the negative conversion in action.
169. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 7
Mohammed Maruf

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Muhammad Iqbal propounds a much wider view of knowledge and the universe than does Immanuel Kant. According to him, the fundamental pattern of knowledge remains the same whether we are dealing with the perceptual type of knowledge of everyday life or with a special type of knowledge called mystic or religious knowledge. This insight was not within the purview of Kant, who was working his way through specific limitations imposed by his Western legacy. Iqbal, no doubt, drew inspiration from his Muslim legacy as bequeathed by thinkers like al-Farabi, according to whom higher thought (or 'intellect' as he called it) "rises to the level of communion, ecstasy, and inspiration". It was under the inspiration of Muslim Sufis and thinkers that he could enlarge his vision regarding the knowledge of man. In fairness to Kant, however, it may be said that Iqbal accepted his epistemic model in toto and extended its application beyond the pale of sensible and empirical knowledge into the non-sensible realm of entities with which religion deals - a venture which, if accepted, will extend human knowledge beyond its present limits into various directions and dimensions.
170. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 7
Kamuran Gödelek

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Sufism, as a mystic sect of Islam, can be defined as a philosophy of inner experience. The process of inner thought and experience plays an important role in sufism. Existentialism is also a philosophy of being. In existentialism being cannot be rationalized; it can be experienced in a personal venture which philosophy is the way to achieve. The aim of this paper is to compare sufi philosophers with theist existentialist philosophers mainly on the concept of person. How religious elements play a role in forming the concept of person in each philosophical system is investigated by means of several basic parameters such as being, existence, transcendent self, despair, death, knowledge and freedom. Both in sufism and theological existentialism a religious significance is given to the concept of existence. In both philosophical systems, the finitude a person experiences in this world drives one to an alienation from one's essential being to the more profound dread of guilt and anxiety, and salvation can be reached by the unification of oneself with God.
171. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 7
Kai Kresse

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Philosophy should not be understood as a Eurocentric project of Greco-Judaic origin, but as a critical and fundamentally reflective intellectual practice which occurs worldwide, in many different forms. If this is so, anthropology has a crucial role to play in the project of reshaping philosophy's self-conception, to include the multiplicity of regional intellectual histories that have been neglected, and thus acknowledge and take seriously philosophical reflections from around the world. Through empirical observation, documentation, and comparative analysis, an anthropology of philosophy can help philosophy reach a better self-understanding, particularly in times of rising awareness of globally operating interdependencies and suspicions that philosophy is a smoke-screen for Eurocentric power interests. Anthropological investigation, if performed carefully and in combination with philosophical expertise, can provide concrete details, accounts and assessments of philosophical practice around the world, different from those that a sociology of philosophies (Collins 1998) or a history of philosophy can offer. It can integrate understanding of local languages and sensitivity for relevant social contexts, and need not be philosophically naive. Philosophy is linked to knowledge, the quest for knowledge, the critique of knowledge, and to the various perspectives from which forms of knowledge can be described and conceptualised. An anthropology of philosophy can be developed in relation to an anthropology of knowledge (Lambek 1993), where various locally relevant forms of knowledge are identified, observed, described and discussed, in relation to social practice. Making the case for an anthropology of philosophy, my paper refers to arguments of African philosophers, and the debate on African philosophy, while also drawing from my own fieldwork experience on philosophical discourse in a Swahili context.

contributors

172. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 7

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index

173. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 7

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series introduction

174. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 6
Ioanna Kuçuradi

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volume introduction

175. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 6
Dermot Moran, Stephen Voss

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section: theory of knowledge

176. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 6
Fred Adams, Murray Clarke

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Since Kripke's attack on Nozick's Tracking Theory of knowledge, there has been strong suspicion that tracking theories are false. We think that neither Kripke's arguments and examples nor other recent attacks in the literature show that the tracking theories are false. We cannot address all of these concerns here, but we will show why some of the most discussed examples from Kripke do not demonstrate that the tracking theories are false.
177. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 6
Matteo Negro

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Conceptual activity is a normative activity, consisting in using or exercising rules which are functional in the formation of language, particularly judgments and propositions. Concepts, the essential elements of propositional content, are not to be considered as simple properties or predicates, but instead as constituting the rules of correct judgment. Two aspects of these claims are to be underlined. First, the dimension of normativity: the concept itself is a rule, a mode of functioning of understanding. Second, the notion of understanding as disposition to judgment. Anyone who expresses a judgment exercises a certain responsibility, an implicit or explicit endorsement of a rule.
178. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 6
Jorge Portilla

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El propösito de esta monografia es presentar el bosquejo de un desarrollo teörico acerca de dominios epistemicos. Tal desarrollo, distinto a enfoques de nombre similar que provienen particularmente de las ciencias de la conducta, ha sido disenado para ser aplicado en evaluaciön y producciön de discurso. La teoria postula que cada discurso estä fuertemente determinado por el dominio epistemico discursante y por la creencia que este sustenta acerca del dominio epistemico oyente. Se percibe que la teoria puede ser ütil en el campo politico, educativo y empresarial, es decir, aquellos que requieren alta producciön y recepciön de discurso. La teoria presenta a los dominios como construcciones objetivas que conforman una unidad compleja de elementos y sus relaciones mutuas, que se modifica (a) segün sus propias estructuras frente a externalidades, o (b) por inferencias que produce segün una razön que le es propia. Esa alteraciön del dominio es el conocimiento. El dominio actüa como validaclor o censor de lo cognoscible. Cualquier configuraciön del dominio es posible. Los elementos del dominio no son representaciones, el sujeto es un elemento opcional y no un soporte de la acciön cognoscitiva, y la externalidad al dominio no se ve como objeto ni como realidad.
179. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 6
Daniel Quesada

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This paper traces the development of transcendental philosophy in the 20th century back to the strongly perceived need to preserve an exclusive area of a priori research for philosophy. It will argue that a genuine sort of aprioristic philosophical inquiry does not in fact require the step from descriptive psychology to transcendental phenomenology taken by Husserl and well attested in his works from at least his 1911 essay "Philosophy as Strict Science", nor does it require the "detranscendentalization" of Husserlian phenomenology carried out in the work of Heidegger. On the contrary, as I will show, recent work in philosophy connected to the development of the cognitive sciences suggests how it is possible to obtain significant a priori knowledge, by a sort of "wide reflexive equilibrium", consistently with the empirical impugnability of knowledge required by Quinean empiricism.
180. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 6
Peter Simpson

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There is a widespread belief among contemporary philosophers that skeptical hypotheses—such as that we are dreaming, or victims of an evil demon, or brains in a vat—cannot definitively be ruled out as false. This belief is ill-founded. In fact it is based on a failure to see that skeptical arguments beg the question. Such arguments assume that reality is not an immediate given of experience in order to prove that reality is not an immediate given of experience. This point is explained and justified in detail. Conversely, however, the realist would beg the question in the opposite way if he tried to prove realism. The conclusion we should reach is that skepticism and realism are problems of immediacy and not of proof. They face us with a choice between alternatives that are not only radically different but also pretty much impregnable and irrelevant to each other. This choice is not arbitrary, for there are grounds to determine it. But the grounds are the immediate evidence and not the arguments.