Philosophy claims that its goal is to search for truth. The history of philosophy, however, demonstrates that this search for truth has not been free from the power dynamics of respective eras. In this article, I claim that the formation of modern East Asian philosophy is one occasion in which the power structure of the time was visibly reflected. The East–West power imbalance at the beginning of the modern period was both implicitly and explicitly imbedded in the formation of modern (...) Buddhist philosophy in East Asia. To demonstrate this point, I will examine the life and thought of two East Asian Buddhist thinkers, Paek Sŏnguk 白性郁 and Inoue Enryō 井上円了, as paradigmatic examples of... (shrink)

Through a close analysis of Zen encounter dialogues and Huayan Buddhist philosophy, Buddhism and Postmodernity offers a new ethical paradigm for Buddhist-postmodern philosophy.

Buddhisms and Deconstructions considers the connection between Buddhism and Derridean deconstruction, focusing on the work of Robert Magliola. Fourteen distinguished contributors discuss deconstruction and various Buddhisms—Indian, Tibetan, and Chinese —followed by an afterword in which Magliola responds directly to his critics.

The life and work of Kim Iryŏp (1896–1971) bear witness to Korea’s encounter with modernity. A prolific writer, Iryŏp reflected on identity and existential loneliness in her poems, short stories, and autobiographical essays. As a pioneering feminist intellectual, she dedicated herself to gender issues and understanding the changing role of women in Korean society. As an influential Buddhist nun, she examined religious teachings and strove to interpret modern human existence through a religious world view. Originally published in Korea when Iryŏp (...) was in her sixties, Reflections of a Zen Buddhist Nun (Ŏnŭ sudoin ŭi hoesang) makes available for the first time in English a rich, intimate, and unfailingly candid source of material with which to understand modern Korea, Korean women, and Korean Buddhism. -/- Throughout her writing, Iryŏp poses such questions as: How does one come to terms with one’s identity? What is the meaning of revolt and what are its limitations? How do we understand the different dimensions of love in the context of Buddhist teachings? What is Buddhist awakening? How do we attain it? How do we understand God and the relationship between good and evil? What is the meaning of religious practice in our time? We see through her thought and life experiences the co-existence of seemingly conflicting ideas and ideals—Christianity and Buddhism, sexual liberalism and religious celibacy, among others. -/- In Reflections of a Zen Buddhist Nun, Iryŏp challenges readers with her creative interpretations of Buddhist doctrine and her reflections on the meaning of Buddhist practice. In the process she offers insight into a time when the ideas and contributions of women to twentieth-century Korean society and intellectual life were just beginning to emerge from the shadows, where they had been obscured in the name of modernization and nation-building. (shrink)

Why and how do women engage with Buddhism and philosophy? The present volume aims to answer these questions by examining the life and philosophy of a Korean Zen Buddhist nun, Kim Iryŏp (1896–1971). The daughter of a pastor, Iryŏp began questioning Christian doctrine as a teenager. In a few years, she became increasingly involved in women’s movements in Korea, speaking against society’s control of female sexuality and demanding sexual freedom and free divorce for women. While in her late twenties, an (...) existential turn in her thinking led Iryŏp to Buddhism; she eventually joined a monastery and went on to become a leading figure in the female monastic community until her death. -/- After taking the tonsure, Iryŏp followed the advice of her teacher and stopped publishing for more than two decades. She returned to the world of letters in her sixties, using her strong, distinctive voice to address fundamental questions on the scope of identity, the meaning of being human, and the value of existence. In her writing, she frequently adopted an autobiographical style that combined her experiences with Buddhist teachings. Through a close analysis of Iryŏp’s story, Buddhist philosophy and practice in connection with East Asian new women’s movements, and continental philosophy, this volume offers a creative interpretation of Buddhism as both a philosophy and a religion actively engaged with lives as they are lived. It presents a fascinating narrative on how women connect with the world—whether through social issues such as gender inequality, a Buddhist worldview, or existential debates on human existence and provides readers with a new way of philosophizing that is transformative and deeply connected with everyday life. Women and Buddhist Philosophy: Engaging Zen Master Kim Iryŏp will be of primary interest to scholars and students of Buddhism, Buddhist and comparative philosophy, and gender and Korean studies. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty and Buddhism explores a new mode of philosophizing through a comparative study of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology and philosophies of major Buddhist thinkers including Nagarjuna, Chinul, Dogen, Shinran, and Nishida Kitaro. The book offers an intercultural philosophy in which opposites intermingle in a chiasmic relationship, and which brings new understanding regarding the self and the self's relation with others in a globalized and multicultural world.

Chapter 1 What Do Zen Masters Teach Us Today? The Case of Sŏn Master Hyeam Sŏnggwan Jin Y. Park Introduction Korean Sŏn Master Hyeam Sŏnggwan (慧菴性觀, 1920–2001) is a relatively unknown figure within English-language scholarship.1 However, among Korean Buddhists, his rigorous Zen practice has been well recognized. One-meal-per-day (K. ilchongsik 一種食), no-meal-in-the-afternoon (K. ohu pulsik 午後不食), and staying-sitting-in-meditation-without-lying-down (K. changjwa purwa 長坐不臥) are all well-known practices that frequently appear when describing Hyeam as a Zen master. What is less frequently (...) asked is what these rigorous Zen practices might mean to us commoners who live in a secular world or to monastics whose practice might not be as rigorous as Hyeam’s. Should Zen masters such as Hyeam who appear to exhibit superhuman capacity for religious practice be only an object of awe and admiration in our secular modern times? Even if so, what do the awe and admiration indicate? In this chapter, I try to bridge the gap between the rigorous practice typically seen in Korean Zen masters’ lives and its meaning for people living in modern times. What questions does a Zen master like Hyeam raise for us, and how should scholars address these issues? These are the inquiries with which I hope to engage. (shrink)

Zen philosophy of language is discussed by exploring the concepts of live and dead words, involvement with meaning and involvement with words, and the three mysterious gates as they are employed in Pojo Chinul's huatou meditation. A comparison is made between the Zen use of language and Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of visibility, Julia Kristeva's idea of the semiotic and the symbolic, and Kierkegaard's concept of anxiety, in an attempt to provide a paradigm to understand the Zen Buddhist vision.

This essay considers an ethical paradigm that can be drawn from Buddhist and postmodern philosophy. Ethics is a practical branch of philosophy and an ethical paradigm is closely connected to the fundamental structure and tenets of a philosophical system. That ethics is a practical branch of philosophy also indicates that meaning and value of a certain ethical paradigm is directly related to the environments in which the paradigm is understood and practiced. In considering an ethical paradigm based on Buddhist and (...) postmodern philosophy, and doing so in the context of the 21st century in which we live, we will examine a paradigm I call an "ethics of tension." I will first outline the concept, and discuss how this paradigm can be a form of ethics that can be envisioned in Buddhist and postmodern philosophy. Finally, I will consider the meaning of ethics and the ethical that the ethics of tension would like to underline as an ethical discourse and for an ethical life. (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.

This essay attempts a paradigmatic comparison between the fourfold worldview of Hua-yen Buddhism and the postmodern philosophy of Jean-François Lyotard. Employing a tension between centripetal and centrifugal forces as a structural underpinning of these two philosophies, the essay illuminates the liberating nature of Hua-yen Buddhism and postmodern thought together with the shadow of skepticism involved in endorsing a vision for a poly-lingual existence. Despite human beings' desire for a totalitarian vision hidden in every aspect of our discourse, Hua-yen Buddhism and (...) postmodern thought demand us to envision the world of the 'inconceivable' in which the diversity of existence raises its own voice beyond the regulating force of our society. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the Huayan Buddhism of Li Tongxuan. At the core of his Buddhism is the claim that sentient beings are equipped with exactly the same qualities as the Buddha. In his analysis of the 80-fascicle version of the Huayan Jing, Li claims that Huayan teaching is a subitist teaching that proposes the awakening in this lifetime. In this context, unlike “orthodox” Huayan thinkers, Li claims that the chapter “Entering the Realm of Reality” is the core of the Huayan (...) Jing and that Sudhana’s pilgrimage in this chapter demonstrates the importance of practice as opposed to theorization.I address these issues by examining Li’s concept of time, which I identify as “non-temporality.” In the first section, I discuss non-temporality in connection with the Buddhist themes of existence and non-existence and Li’s doctrinal classification. In the second, I address Li’s discussion of nature-arising and subitism. In the third, I discuss Li’s comparative interpretation of Sudhana in the Huayan Jing and the Dragon Girl in the Lotus Sūtra. I conclude with a consideration of the ontological and existential implications of Li’s Huayan phenomenology. (shrink)

: Zen philosophy of language is discussed by exploring the concepts of live anddeadwords,involvement with meaningand involvement with words, and the three mysterious gates as they are employed in Pojo Chinul's huatou meditation. A comparison is made betweenthe Zenuse of language and Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of visibility, Julia Kristeva's idea of the semiotic and the symbolic, and Kierkegaard's concept of anxiety, in an attempt to provide a paradigm to understand the Zen Buddhist vision.

These essays engage Jin Y. Park’s recent translation of the work of Kim Iryŏp, a Buddhist nun and public intellectual in early twentieth-century Korea. Park’s translation of Iryŏp’s Reflections of a Zen Buddhist Nun was the subject of two book panels at recent conferences: the first a plenary session at the annual meeting of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy and the second at the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association on a group program session sponsored (...) by the International Society for Buddhist Philosophy. This exchange also includes a response from Park. (shrink)

A TrajectoryIn an essay that is now a classic piece in understanding post-modern culture, Jean-François Lyotard wrote, “[e]clecticism is the degree zero of contemporary general culture: one listens to reggae, watches a western, eats McDonald’s food for lunch and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and ‘retro’ clothes in Hong Kong” (Lyotard 1989: 76). The boundaries have become blurred in both positive and negative senses. Geographical borders have loosened through ever-increasing mobility as cultural exchanges become more accessible (...) and are rapidly flowing through electronic exchanges in the cyberspace arena. Almost a quarter century after Lyotard described the present era as the time of eclecticism, the world has become more global, and the demand for cross-, inter-, and multi-cultural knowledge has become stronger than ever. In this context, globalization, cosmopolitanism, and world-citizenship have become some of the expressions with which the present time is defi. (shrink)

This essay explores Zen hermeneutics by locating gong'an episodes at the juncture of Zen Buddhism, Heideggerian ontological hermeneutics, and Derridean deconstructive hermeneutics. Employing Heidegger's understanding of truth as aletheia and the Derridean deconstruction of the subject oriented metaphysical mode of thinking, this essay aims to shed light on the special function that hermeneutics plays in our understanding of philosophy's and philosophers' relation to truth and meaning and show how Zen gong'an shares some visions with the hermeneutical discipline in our time.

Although Fair Trade has recently experienced rapid growth around the world, there is lack of consumer research that investigates what determines consumers' loyalty toward Fair Trade brands. In this research, we investigate how ethical consumption values (ECV) and two mediating variables, Fair Trade product beliefs (FTPB) and Fair Trade corporate evaluation, (FTCE) determine Fair Trade brand loyalty (FTBL). On the basis of two empirical studies that use samples from the U.S. and Korea, we provide evidence demonstrating that the manner in (...) which ECV influence FTBL differs in the U.S. and Korea. In the U.S., ECV determine FTBL only indirectly via FTPB, whereas in Korea they determine FTBL directly as well as indirectly via FTCE. We discuss theoretical and managerial implications of these findings. (shrink)

In a recent Target Article Naomi Scheinerman (2023a) has offered an important and compelling call to institutionalize popular participation for heritable genome engineering through the inclusion of...

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, shortages of scarce healthcare resources consistently presented significant moral and practical challenges. While the importance of vaccines as a key pharmaceutical intervention to stem pandemic scarcity was widely publicized, a sizable proportion of the population chose not to vaccinate. In response, some have defended the use of vaccination status as a criterion for the allocation of scarce medical resources. In this paper, we critically interpret this burgeoning literature, and describe a framework for thinking about vaccine-sensitive resource (...) allocation using the values of responsibility, reciprocity, and justice. Although our aim here is not to defend a single view of vaccine-sensitive resource allocation, we believe that attending critically with the diversity of arguments in favor (and against) vaccine-sensitivity reveals a number of questions that a vaccine-sensitive approach to allocation should answer in future pandemics. (shrink)

The intent of ethics is to establish a set of standards that will provide a framework to modify, regulate, and possibly enhance moral behaviour. Eleven focus groups were conducted with physicians from six culturally distinct countries to explore their perception of formalized, written ethical guidelines (i.e., codes of ethics, credos, value and mission statements) that attempt to direct their ethical practice. Six themes emerged from the data: lack of awareness, no impact, marginal impact, other codes or value statements supersede, personal (...) codes or values dictate, and ethical guidelines are useful. Overall, codes were valued only when they were congruent with existing personal morality. The findings suggest the need to re-evaluate the purpose, content, and delivery of codes for them to improve their function in promoting ethical conduct. (shrink)

Based on real-life intergroup animosities originating from a historical conflict, the current study examined how the perceived stance of the outgroup about the conflict affects the dehumanization of the outgroup. In Study 1, Korean undergraduates attributed more human nature to the Japanese after reading an article that the Japanese government did issue an official apology for a historical wrong. In turn, the more human nature assigned to the Japanese predicted higher expectations about positive mutual relations in the future. Similarly, in (...) Study 2, Japanese undergraduates attributed more human uniqueness to Koreans after reading an article that an official apology for a historical wrong from Japan was accepted by Koreans. The higher the perceived human uniqueness of Koreans was, the higher were the willingness to help and the expectations of a positive relationship in the future. The findings demonstrate how mutual dehumanization can be reduced as a result of the other side’s reconciliatory stances and can further contribute to improving intergroup relations. (shrink)

This study analyzes the increasing presence and capabilities of wearable computing devices in the cornucopia of personalized digital data. We argue that the institutional data practices typical of Google Glass will pose policy challenges and herald yet another dramatic shift to personalized data marketing. We also highlight the characteristics of Google’s existing synergetic data practices that will shape the development of not only Google Glass, but also all subsequent wearable mobile devices in light of 360-degree data collection. The key organizing (...) concept of our study is the disjuncture between institutional and policy forces in harnessing dual market mechanism, which frames how the new communication industry operates in the marketplace of ubiquitous personal advertising. We conclude by summarizing the three key areas of political-policy concern and suggest future solutions, with the discussion on the future of wearable computing practices related to the freedom of the human body. (shrink)

Public consumption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies has been rarely investigated from the perspective of data surveillance and security. We show that the technology acceptance model, when properly modified with security and surveillance fears about AI, builds an insight on how individuals begin to use, accept, or evaluate AI and its automated decisions. We conducted two studies, and found positive roles of perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived usefulness (PU). AI security concern, however, negatively affected PEOU and PU, resulting (...) in less acceptance of AI—(1) use, (2) preference, and (3) participation. AI surveillance concern also had negative effects on the credibility of AI and its recommendations. We integrated extant literature on socio-demographic differences, providing an insight on how AI acceptance is based on one’s rationality regarding (1) technological risks (security/surveillance) and (2) benefits (PEOU/PU) as well as other contextual factors of socio-demographics. (shrink)