The long Japanese tradition of Korean ceramics appreciation, closely associated with the Zen tea ceremony _(chanoyu), _has played an important role in the development of Korean aesthetics in the twentieth century. The art critic and philosopher Yanagi Soetsu was instrumental in this process during the occupation period, since, continuing in this tradition, he particularly valued Joseon ceramics for their aesthetic qualities - such as naturalness, nonchalance, and simplicity - akin to praised values in Zen Buddhism. Yanagi’s pioneering (...) writings might have been influential in the prevalence of those traits when defining Korean art and aesthetics in general. After a brief presentation of key expressions defining Korean art and aesthetics, the paper focuses on Yanagi’s aesthetic assessment of Joseon ceramics and particularly on his proposal of its appreciation beyond the modern Western division between art and craft. (shrink)

This report analyzes the role Japanese women play in the traditional art of the tea ceremony and its meaning for their lives. It is based on data collected for a larger study which explored the ways in which a cultural art transmits its practice and values to Japanese and foreign learners, conducted in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Yokohama, Japan, from 1983 to 1985. Using the Urasenke school, which accounts for approximately 70 percent of all practitioners as a case study, this (...) report explores the impact of women's participation as professionals and students on the organizational structure and activities of the school. Interviews with 31 teachers and 55 students, professionals, and amateurs provided the data to explore the ways in which the art has accommodated women's interests. (shrink)

Dominic McIver Lopes and Yuriko Saito claim that the Japanese tea ceremony, or chadō, is a non‐Western art form. Stephen Davies also defends that claim. In this article, I utilize the tea ceremony as a test case for pancultural definitions of art that claim to be inclusive of non‐Western cultures without relying on Western ethnocentrism to justify their status as artworks. I argue that Davies's (2015) hybrid definition is not justified in assuming a homogenous art tradition and/or a (...) unified conception of artistic practices in a non‐Western culture. Moreover, the cladistic structure of his definition fails to accommodate the spontaneous instantiation of new art traditions. Additionally, Jerrold Levinson's Intentional‐Historical definition cannot satisfactorily accommodate chadō. First, the nonart origins that were formative for the regard that is required for appreciation of the tea ceremony mean that the relational interpretation of the definition fails. Second, Rikyū’s tea ceremony does not count as art incidentally, as it is not a form of mimesis nor does the Japanese wabi aesthetic that is central to chadō have a precursor in known Western art. Third, if chadō does satisfy Levinson's extended theory, it comes at the cost of embracing Western ethnocentrism. (shrink)

본 논문은 한국불교의 대표적인 재(齋)의식에서 공통적인 요소로 자리매김하고 있는 ‘승려에 대한 공양’의 의미의 연원을 밝히는 데 있다. 일반적으로 재(齋)의식의 기원을 포살(布薩)이라고 하고, 이 포살(upoṣadha)은 베다 의례의 우파바스타(upavasatha)에서 연원한다. 예비제인 우파바스타는 본 의례를 잘 치르기를 원하는 제주(祭主)가 신들과 함께 머물면서 본 의례까지의 시간을 기다리는 ‘성스러운’ 날을 의미한다. 신성함을 유지하기 위한 기본은 ‘금식’을 실천하는 것이다. 우파바스타는 기본적으로 출가자가 아닌 세속의 삶을 살아가는 바라문교의 가장을 위한 의례이며, 일상에서 벗어난 상태 즉 성스러움을 경험할 수 있는 청정함을 요구하며 구체적 실천 방법은 금식이다. 불교의 포살은 출가자와 (...) 재가자를 위한 두 방향의 의례로 변용되어 확장된다. 출가자와 재가자 모두 포살 기간 동안 금식을 준수하는 것이 중요한 의무 중의 하나이다. 포살의 중요한 특징은 출가자와 재가자가 금식 이후의 행위와 이에 대한 관계의 설정이다. 베다 의례에서 공양의 대상은 신들이나 신들의 화현이 되지만, 포살에서는 출가 수행자가 대상이며, 재의식에서는 상단의 불보살뿐만아니라 중단에서 설행되는 식당작법의 목적인 반승(伴僧)의 승려도 포함된다. 우파바스타에서 음식은 신에게 바치는 신성한 것이지만, 인간에게는 절제해야 하는 일종의 터부의 대상이다. 포살에서 음식은 출가자와 재가자 모두 포살 기간 동안에는 절제해야 하는 것이지만, 포살 이후에는 공경의 대상인 승가의 위상을 상징하는 매체로 사용되었다. (shrink)

Dans les années 1900, la cérémonie du thé fut érigée en art total, comme la quintessence même de l’esprit japonais. Par-delà le biais des enjeux politiques de cette artification, le discours académique portant sur la cérémonie du thé a également été perméable à l’esprit contradictoire inhérent à cette pratique. Nous tentons de dépasser ces difficultés par une vision réticulaire de l’art telle que la défend Simondon dans sa techno-esthétique, tandis que la Glass Tea House Mondrian de Sugimoto Hiroshi offre une (...) métaphore permettant d’approfondir la place de l’abstraction dans la voie du thé. Dans cette réflexion, au détriment de l’objet réel conçu comme une entité isolée, le geste technique, outillé, s’avère jouer un rôle plus déterminant que ne lui accorde la tradition. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Idealization of Contingency in Traditional Japanese AestheticsRobert Wicks (bio)In many popular writings that date from the initial decades of the twentieth century, and also in recent scholarly studies, "Japanese aesthetics"—insofar as we can speak sweepingly of a complicated, multidimensional, and dynamic historical phenomenon—is characterized with a set of adjectives whose present linguistic entrenchment is clearly evident. Specifically we read that traditional Japanese aesthetics is an aesthetics of imperfection, (...) insufficiency, incompleteness, asymmetry, and irregularity, not to mention perishability, suggestiveness, and simplicity.1 Given this collection of qualities, we are presented with a matching set of paradigmatic Japanese aesthetic experiences and objects, both as illustrations and as legitimations of this close-to-standard portrait. Examples include the suggestive moon covered by drifting clouds, the irregularly formed ceramics of ceremonial teacups, the simple and asymmetrical arrangement of unpolished rocks in the dry landscape garden, the bold and dashing monochromatic strokes typical of Zen calligraphy, transient cherry blossoms, serene and cloud-capped mountain summits, lonely thatched huts, sunsets in the foggy twilight, the call of a crane that breaks through the silence, and the light autumn rain that drizzles upon a secluded pond.Upon further reflection, it becomes noticeable that some familiar Japanese aesthetic objects do not easily conform to this standard picture, and this raises doubts about the typical characterization of Japanese aesthetics. The quintessentially Japanese shōji screens and tatami mats, for instance, are uniformly rectangular rather than irregular in form. They are, moreover, neither asymmetrical, nor imperfect, nor incomplete, nor insufficient. How then, can these perfectly regular screens and mats—items crucial to the aesthetics of Japanese domestic architecture—fit neatly into the usually encountered portrait of traditional Japanese aesthetics, if it is said to be fundamentally "the worship of imperfection"?2 Or similarly if "imperfection" is [End Page 88] the keynote of this aesthetics, how does one explain the meticulously raked surfaces of the dry landscape garden or the impeccably perfected movements requisite for performing the Japanese tea ceremony?3Since such examples do not obviously fit into an "aesthetics of imperfection and insufficiency," some reconsideration of the prevailing characterization of Japanese aesthetics is needed to accommodate these, along with other examples of "perfected" items and arrangements. In short, the main difficulty is that the concept of "perfection" has been underthematized.4 To develop a revaluation of the presently submerged status of "perfection" in most scholarly discussions of Japanese aesthetics, I will highlight the familiar principle of aesthetic complementarity but contextualize the experiential foundations of this principle in a specifically Japanese-philosophic manner, namely, in reference to a fundamental feature of time-consciousness, as described by Dōgen (1200-53). This historical grounding will align the principle of complementarity with some of the acknowledged Zen Buddhist sources of traditional Japanese aesthetics.5 The upshot will be that the above-cited collection of adjectives typically used to describe the prevailing atmosphere of Japanese aesthetics—imperfection, asymmetry, incompleteness, suggestibility, etc.—presents only half of the aesthetic and philosophic story and, moreover, tends to pass over what can be appreciated as a more consequential underlying concept, namely, the idea of "contingency."In what follows, basic reflections on the phenomenology of time-consciousness will lead to the claim that, in many paradigmatic instances of traditional Japanese aesthetics, we have before us a situation that is aptly describable as "the idealization of contingency." This involves the assertion of a philosophic proposition through an aesthetic presentation (i.e., the proposition is expressed using metaphor, symbolism, or analogy). In the case of traditional Japanese aesthetics, the main proposition is the Buddhist-associated one that the foundation of things is contingent, conditional, and nonabsolute (i.e., there are no absolute foundations). The aesthetic presentation of this proposition will, as we shall see, make ample room for "perfection" in understanding Japanese aesthetics: By means of juxtaposing contingent, perishable individuals (which usually have an "imperfect" appearance) against a perfected, polished, and idealized background, the contingency of the individuals is thereby aesthetically highlighted and made more readily appreciable.The resulting criticism of the standard characterization is thus a simple one: The typical group of concepts used to describe traditional Japanese aesthetics has neglected to give due... (shrink)

“If good design tells the truth,” writes Robert Grudin in this path-breaking book on esthetics and authority, “poor design tells a lie, a lie usually related... to the getting or abusing of power.” From the ornate cathedrals of Renaissance Europe to the much-maligned Ford Edsel of the late 1950s, all products of human design communicate much more than their mere intended functions. Design holds both psychological and moral power over us, and these forces may be manipulated, however subtly, to surprising (...) effect. In an argument that touches upon subjects as seemingly unrelated as the Japanese tea ceremony, Italian mannerist painting, and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello plantation, Grudin turns his attention to the role of design in our daily lives, focusing especially on how political and economic powers impress themselves on us through the built environment. Although architects and designers will find valuable insights here, Grudin’s intended audience is not exclusively the trained expert but all those who use designs and live within them every day. (shrink)

“If good design tells the truth,” writes Robert Grudin in this path-breaking book on esthetics and authority, “poor design tells a lie, a lie usually related... to the getting or abusing of power.” From the ornate cathedrals of Renaissance Europe to the much-maligned Ford Edsel of the late 1950s, all products of human design communicate much more than their mere intended functions. Design holds both psychological and moral power over us, and these forces may be manipulated, however subtly, to surprising (...) effect. In an argument that touches upon subjects as seemingly unrelated as the Japanese tea ceremony, Italian mannerist painting, and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello plantation, Grudin turns his attention to the role of design in our daily lives, focusing especially on how political and economic powers impress themselves on us through the built environment. Although architects and designers will find valuable insights here, Grudin’s intended audience is not exclusively the trained expert but all those who use designs and live within them every day. (shrink)

When people talk about religion, most soon mention the major religious traditions of our times, but then, thinking further, most mention as well the religions of Indigenous peoples and of such vanished civilizations as ancient Greece and Egypt and Persia. That is, we have come to understand that there are-and have been-many different religions; anthropologists estimate the total in the thousands. They also estimate that there have been thousands of human cultures, which is to say that the making of a (...) culture and the making of its religion go together: each religion is embedded in its cultural history. True, certain religions have attempted, and variously succeeded, in crossing cultural boundaries to "convert the heathens," but the invaded cultures usually put their unmistakable stamp on what they import, as evinced by the pulsating percussive Catholic masses sung in Africa. In the end, each of these religions addresses two fundamental human concerns: How Things Are and Which Things Matter. How Things Are is articulated as a Cosmology or Cosmos: How the natural world came to be, how humans came to be, what happens after we die, the origins of evil and tragedy and natural disaster and love. Which Things Matter becomes codified as a Morality or Ethos: the Judaic Ten Commandments, the Christian Sermon on the Mount, the Five Pillars of Islam, the Buddhist Vinaya, the Confucian Five Relations, and the understandings inherent in numerous Indigenous traditions. The role of a religion is to integrate the Cosmology and the Morality, to render the cosmological narrative so rich and compelling that it elicits our allegiance and our commitment to its attendant moral understandings. As a culture evolves, a distinctive Cosmos and Ethos appears in its co-evolving religion. For billions of us, back to the early humans, the stories, ceremonies and art associated with our religions-of-origin have been central to our lives. I stand in awe of these religions. I have no need to take on their contradictions or immiscibility, any more than I would quarrel with the fact that Scottish bagpipe ceremonies coexist with Japanese tea ceremonies. And indeed, the failure of Soviet Marxism to obliterate Russian Orthodoxy, and of Maoism to obliterate Buddhism, Confucianism, or Daoism, and of Christianity to obliterate Indigenous understandings, reminds us that projects designed to overthrow religious traditions face strong headwinds. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 247-248 [Access article in PDF] Christ and Buddha: Weaving a Path for the New Millennium Thomas G. Hand, S.J.Mercy Center, Burlingame, CAThis dialogue conference/retreat was held at Mercy Center, Burlingame, CA, August 10-15, 1999. Well over the stated limit of 150 people joined a faculty of ten in presentations, discussions, sharing, meditation, and rituals. The conference was born primarily out of the personal and social (...) need for dialogue felt by Sandi Peters, who joined the program staff of Mercy Center after three years spent at Insight Meditation East, Barre, Massachusetts.Besides Peters as presider, the faculty members were: representing the Buddhist side--Nigel Edmonds (Mahayana and Christianity), Chris Phillips (Theravada), Ven. Thubten Chodron (Vajrayana), Rev. Heng Sure (Chinese Mahayana), and Patrick Thornton (Theravada and Christianity); representing the Christian side--Thomas G. Hand, S. J. (Catholic), Kevin Hunt, OCSO (Cistercian monk), Roshi Jinne Richardson (Zen and Christianity), and Rev. Shari Young (Episcopal and Zen).In a well-received keynote talk, Thomas Hand offered as the basis for the whole dialogue "The Primacy of Experience" in both traditions. The major themes were: (1st day) "The Challenges of Buddhist-Christian Dialogue," (2nd day) "The Language and Symbols of the Traditions," (4th day) "Weaving a Path for the New Millennium" as a joint venture of the two traditions together. On the third day, participants engaged in "Practice--East and West," including presentations geared toward practice both then and there and in the future.One marked difference between this conference and those that Mercy Center put on from 1985 to 1988 was the quality of the participants. In the earlier conferences, many were seekers and intellectual questioners. This year, besides such qualities, the participants were sincere practitioners. In fact, a great many were practicing in both traditions. They often classified themselves as Buddhist Christians or as Christian-root Buddhists. The greater depth of dialogue that has developed in less than fifteen years was clearly apparent. What is more, the sharing and insights of both Buddhist and Christian presenters seemed to have become increasingly relaxed, articulate, and vital. Their presentations were met with much deeper understanding and enthusiasm by all the participants. [End Page 247]Besides the presentations, participants deeply appreciated the chi kong and tai chi sessions, the daily meditation together, the day of practice, the tea ceremony, and the closing ritual. In a word, the conference was holistic dialogue.Those of dual practice were especially happy to find that they are not alone, that many are coming together to weave a new Path for the new millennium.Tapes are available. Contact Sandi Peters at (650) 340-7486.... (shrink)

Aesthetics and arts are strongly linked across East Asia (China, Japan and Korea) and (through pottery and gardens) throughout Southeast Asia as well. This paper outlines eight aesthetic issues pertaining across arts in East Asia, appropriate for K-12: 1) the intimate interrelations among arts (gardens, painting, poetry, calligraphy, music, tea ceremony); 2) nature and the seasons (architecture, poetry, gardens, food); 4) collaboration (poetry, gardens, festivals, and tea ceremony); 5) self-cultivation; 6) symbolism versus allusion; 7) the importance of active (...) imagination in viewing East Asian arts; 8) relations of arts to philosophy. It then explores five areas of East Asian arts and aesthetics that are easy to teach even young students, have interest for high-school and college students (on the introductory or advanced level), and pave the way for the individual student's personal development throughout her life as an adult: 1) Writing Systems, Calligraphy and Painting; 2) Poetry and Painting; 3) Gardens; 4) Aesthetics of Pottery; 5) Tea ceremony. This is followed by brief discussion of 1) special categories of Japanese aesthetics (wabi and sabi, the aesthetics of loneliness and simplicity/impoverishment; kasuri, the embellishment of everyday objects; and aware, recognition of the poignance and brevity of life), 2) gender issues, 3) Zen aesthetics. The final section discusses five issues specifically related to teaching in districts where teaching about either Asia or arts/aesthetics might be in need of justification: 1) the conceptual, intellectual, emotional and artistic advantages for students in learning this material (developing the imagination, analytical skills, and concentration); 2) gender issues (including homosexuality and feminist aesthetics); 3) Asian religion in the classroom; 4) financing (inexpensive aesthetics projects); 5) Asian aesthetics for minority students. The bibliography includes books and articles for teachers and for students (at different levels), videos/ DVDs, and websites, including some guiding you to sites for field trips. (shrink)

Explains how to develop one's Ki, or vital energy, through calligraphy, martial arts, massage, Noh drama, the tea ceremony, and the game of Go, and discusses self-defence and personal effectiveness.

The arrow of time has been invoked to bridge all gaps between the 'two cultures'. Would time also help to mediate between the sphere of cognition (epistemic meaning) and the sphere of Bedeutsamkeit (meaning-as-relevance) when taking ritual to be a strongly idiosyncratic representative of the latter? What is the role of time in the modes of meaning in the realm of scientific concepts in their most rigorous shape (the mathematical) on the one hand, in ritual on the other hand? Taking (...) an external point of view, surprising connections can be laid, especially when focussing on the relations of form and materiality or content in the respective fields. Ritual can be considered — according toits formal structure — as an embodiment of the notion of an algorithm. When looking at the temporal structure of the respective symbolic practices from an internal point of view however, their contrasting modes of creating meaning become irreducible. In particular, the algorithmic-sequential mode in ritual is a shell for another time, constitutive of a proper Bedeutsamkeit. This is analyzed in terms of the role of the past in ritualized meaning (and illustrated via the art of time in the Japanese tea ceremony). Whereas a paradoxical creation of a past as something lost and nevertheless to be recollected is constitutive for the meaning of the ritual gesture, the proper element of the concept is time's arrow always pointing forward, to the next stage. Here the past, while embodied in the scientist's gesture as trace of epistemic styles and traditions, at the same time has to be suppressed in the interest of the creation of the new. (shrink)

Zen and Japanese Culture is one of the twentieth century's leading works on Zen, and a valuable source for those wishing to understand its concepts in the context of Japanese life and art. In simple, often poetic, language, Daisetz Suzuki describes his conception of Zen and its historical evolution. He connects Zen to the philosophy of the samurai, and subtly portrays the relationship between Zen and swordsmanship, haiku, tea ceremonies, and the Japanese love of nature. Suzuki's contemplative work is enhanced (...) by anecdotes, poetry, and illustrations showing silk screens, calligraphy, and examples of architecture. Since its original publication in 1938, this important work has played a major role in shaping conceptions of Zen's influence on Japanese traditional arts. Richard Jaffe's introduction acquaints a new generation of readers with Suzuki's life and career in both Japan and America. Jaffe discusses how Zen and Japanese Culture was received upon its first publication and analyzes the book in light of contemporary criticism, especially by scholars of Japanese Buddhism. (shrink)

> この道や行く人なしに秋の暮れ Matsuo Basho 16941 The surface is asymmetrical, the pigment flecked and uneven. Looking close, what seems at a distance to be smooth is actually covered in tiny gentle indentations and irregularities. On one edge, there are a series of fine lines—evidence of past damage, and repair. It is obviously old. But its age is part of its specialness. It is simple, one of a kind, beautiful. The above is a description of a Japanese stoneware tea bowl, like the (...) one in figure 1, embodying an aesthetic dating back to at least the 16th century called wabi-sabi (侘び寂び). Figure 1 Wabi-sabi tea bowl. ottmarliebert.com from Santa Fe, Turtle Island, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons. Wabi-sabi is famously difficult to translate, but derives from the words wabi 侘– indicating austerity, simplicity, the quiet life and sabi 寂—indicating maturity, solitude, naturalness. Wabi-sabi refers to the aesthetic appreciation of natural imperfection and impermanence.2 It is embodied in a tradition of handmade pottery, sometimes including repair of past breaks with gold inlay (kintsugi). But it is also reflected in stone gardens, in bonsai, in haiku, and some forms of the Japanese tea ceremony. What, you might ask, does this have to do with medicine? Pottery and aesthetics seem a long way from pathology and medical ethics. First, some …. (shrink)

Zen Masters of Japan is the second book in a series that traces Zen's profoundly historic journey as it spread eastward from China and Japan, toward the United States. Following Zen Masters of China, this book concentrates on Zen's significant passage through Japan. More specifically, it describes the lineage of the great teachers, the Pioneers who set out to enlighten an island ready for an inner transformation based on compassionate awareness. While the existing Buddhist establishment in Japan met early Zen (...) pioneers like Dogen and Eisai with fervent resistance, Zen Buddhism ultimately perservered and continued to become further transformed in its passage through Japan. The Japanese culture and Japanese Buddhism practices further deepened and strengthened Zen training by combining it with a variety of esoteric contemplative arts--the arts of poetry, the tea ceremony, calligraphy, and archery. Zen Masters of Japan chronicles this journey, and shows how the new practices soon gained in popularity among all walks of life--from the lowly peasant, offering a hope of reincarnation and a better life; to the Samurai warrior due to its casual approach to death; to the ruling classes, challenging the intelligentsia because of its scholarly roots. A collection of Zen stories, meditation, and their wisdom, Zen Masters of Japan also explores the illusive state of 'No Mind' achieved in Japan that is so fundamental to Zen practices today. (shrink)

The essence of Japanese art lies in the peculiar character of the people and the influence of "life-affirming" Zen. Painting, poetry, and even the tea ceremony are "ways" to the Absolute Nothing. The aesthetic qualities of Japanese art are "limitlessness," "unfinishedness," and naturalness.--A. B.

Résumé: Fruit du colloque "Spiritualité japonaise - Perceptions et représentations, entre tradition et occidentalisation" organisé par les Universités Libre de Bruxelles et Catholique de Louvain, cet ouvrage propose des recherches en philosophie de la religion sur le Japon comparativement à l’Occident.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Little Eternities: Henry James’s Horatian Sense of Time KATHLEEN RILEY Summer’s lease hath all too short a date. —Shakespeare, Sonnet 18 On a visit to Bodiam Castle in Sussex in 1908, Henry James remarked to Edith Wharton: “Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”1 The potency of those two words derives from their immediate evocation of an arrested (...) moment between the day’s halcyon perfection and its imminent dying fall. Small wonder that those same words were later used to mythologize an Edenic Edwardian England poised on the brink of war, to preserve in aspic the fancy of a gilded innocence and order, and the promise of “blue remembered hills,”2 careless of the teeming, tumultuous reality of an England already in the shadow of the Tree of Knowledge. James’s masterpiece of 1881, The Portrait of a Lady, begins with a luxuriously redolent depiction of a summer afternoon, of the hours before dusk that constitute a pleasurable little eternity, of the languorous rhythms and rituals of what Disraeli called “the sustained splendour of [a] stately life.”3 Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not—some people of course never do,—the situation is in itself delightful. Those that I have in mind in beginning to unfold this simple history offered an admirable setting to an innocent pastime. The implements of the little feast had been disposed upon the lawn of an old English country-house, in what I should arion 27.1 spring/summer 2019 call the perfect middle of a splendid summer afternoon. Part of the afternoon had waned, but much of it was left, and what was left was of the finest and rarest quality. Real dusk would not arrive for many hours; but the flood of summer light had begun to ebb, the air had grown mellow, the shadows were long upon the smooth, dense turf. They lengthened slowly, however, and the scene expressed that sense of leisure still to come which is perhaps the chief source of one’s enjoyment of such a scene at such an hour. From five o’clock to eight is on certain occasions a little eternity; but on such an occasion as this the interval could be only an eternity of pleasure.4 This passage, it strikes me, is essentially Horatian in its Epicurean delight in the passing moment. For the Augustan poet Horace, this delight, which is intrinsically elegiac, is expressed in the sympotic pleasures of wine and friendship, in the freedom aestivam sermone benigno tendere noctem (“to prolong the summer night with genial conversation,” Epistles i.5.11). For Henry James, it rests in “the ceremony known as afternoon tea,” in the lengthening shadows on an English lawn by “the reedy, silvery Thames” (PL 32). In both cases the evanescence of these simple pleasures is deeply felt and pleasure itself heightened by an undertone of melancholy, by a nostalgic apprehension of the present. LOCI AMOENI in his review of Augustus J. C. Hare’s Days near Rome (1875), Henry James commented: “The smallest pretext for quoting from Horace—the most quotable of the ancients— should always be cultivated.”5 His own facility for quoting from Horace was evident from his earliest published works, and belied an “extraordinarily haphazard and promiscuous” education shuttling, at his father’s restless instigation, between New England, Britain and Continental Europe.6 James’s biographer, Leon Edel, recorded the family legend that William James (Henry’s Irish grandfather), “who was eighteen in 1789, when he set foot in the New World, 22 little eternities brought with him a ‘very small sum of money,’ a Latin grammar and a desire to visit the fresh battlefields of the Revolutionary War.”7 Young Henry’s instruction in Latin grammar seems to have begun in the Old World, under a private tutor in London in 1855, a Scotsman named Robert Thomson who later ran a small school in Edinburgh attended by Robert Louis Stevenson. It... (shrink)

Ayahuasca, an ancient Amazonian psychedelic tea traditionally used ceremonially among indigenous peoples, has recently become known as a possible treatment for a wide range of disorders. The awareness of this sacred medicine has grown exponentially over the past decade, attracting westerners from a wide variety of backgrounds, hoping to find treatment for a myriad of emotional and physical illnesses, as well as spiritual needs. In the wake of the commercialization and westernization of the use of ayahuasca, and the subsequent proliferation (...) of ayahuasca treatment centers, this paper examines the benefits and possible risks of this form of therapy in an effort to create a safety protocol for Westerners in this context. The most practical approach to increasing safety for Westerners attending these Amazonian treatment centers is to educate the seeker prior to treatment and to provide access to specialized therapeutic aftercare services. (shrink)

Expanding the scope of existential discourse beyond the Western tradition, this book engages Asian philosophies to reassess vital questions of life's purpose, death's imminence, and our capacity for living meaningfully in conditions of uncertainty. Inspired by European existentialism in theory, the book explores concrete techniques for existential practice via the philosophies of East Asia. The investigation begins with the provocative existential writings of twentieth-century Korean Buddhist nun Kim Iryop, who asserts that meditative concentration conducts a potent energy outward throughout (...) the entire karmic network, enabling the radical transformation of our shared existential conditions. Understanding her claim requires a study of East Asian traditions more broadly. Considering practices as diverse as Song-dynasty Chinese views on mental cultivation, Buddhist merit-making ceremonies, the ritual memorization and recitation of texts, and Yijing divination, the book concludes by advocating a speculative turn. This 'speculative existentialism' counters the suspicion toward metaphysics characteristic of twentieth-century European existential thought and, at the same time, advances a program for action. It is not a how-to guide for living, but rather a philosophical methodology that takes seriously the power of mental cultivation to transform the meaning of the life that we share. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 21.1 (2001) v-vi [Access article in PDF] In Memoriam: Wilfred Cantwell Smith Wilfred Cantwell Smith, a Canadian who taught for most of the first half of his career at McGill University in Montreal and for most of the second half at Harvard, died February 7, 2000, in his native Toronto at the age of eighty-three. His wife and companion of sixty years, Muriel, survives him, as do (...) five children and a dozen grandchildren.Smith, a Protestant Christian and clergyman, played an influential role among both academics and church bodies in advocating open dialogue and personal encounter with the adherents of diverse religious traditions. As one of his students, Professor John Ross Carter of Colgate University, put it, "Before I met Wilfred, I had studied Buddhism as a system. Under him, I came to appreciate the faith of Buddhists as persons."As an undergraduate, Smith studied Middle Eastern languages at the University of Toronto. He then studied theology in Cambridge, England, and taught during the early 1940s at Forman Christian College, Lahore, in what was then India but is now Pakistan. He became involved in the vital contemporary life of Muslims, and in the Hindu-Muslim-Sikh interface in the Punjab. The partition of India along communal lines in 1947 reinforced his strong sense of the moral urgency of interreligious understanding.After completing a Ph.D. degree at Princeton University with a dissertation on modern Islam, Smith took up the chair of comparative religion in McGill University's Faculty of Divinity and soon organized McGill's Institute of Islamic Studies, which he directed until 1963. The institute was innovative in two respects. First, it treated Islam as the faith of millions in southern Asia today, where the numerical majority of Muslims live, in contrast with the emphasis of most Orientalist scholarship on classical Arabic, Persian, and Turkish literature. Second, it strove to include roughly equal numbers of Muslims and Westerners in both its faculty and its student body.Though he had already made seminal contributions to comparative studies, Smith moved fully into that realm when in 1964 he took over the directorship of Harvard Divinity School's Center for the Study of World Religions, and later, of Harvard's entire graduate program in religion in arts and sciences. Through two decades, until his 1984 retirement, the world religions Ph.D. graduates emerging from Harvard, including a significant cohort of specialists in Buddhist studies, were inspired by Smith to focus on the faith dimension of the traditions they studied.Religious bodies turned to Smith for scholarly advice. To take one important example, he served in 1967 on a commission on world mission of the United Church of Canada. As a result of his input, the commission's report, adopted by the denomination, [End Page v] affirmed God to be working creatively and redemptively in the religious traditions of humankind. Some view this as the first declaration by any church to go so far in the entire history of Christianity.Numerous responsibilities and honors came to Smith. He became president of practically every organization to which he belonged, such as the American Academy of Religion, the American Society for the Study of Religion (which he said was his favorite), the Canadian Society for the Study of Religion, and the Canadian Theological Society. His writings have been translated into many languages, as diverse as Spanish, Turkish, Urdu, and Korean. He received a dozen honorary degrees, was elected to the Royal Society of Canada, and less than a month before the end of his life was inducted in a special bedside ceremony as an Officer of the Order of Canada, the nearest honor that country has to a title of nobility awarded for merit.Smith was primarily a historian, ever fascinated by process and change. He observed it not only in the societies and traditions of world culture, but in the conceptual vocabulary with which we describe it. His landmark book, from this point of view, is TheMeaning and End of Religion(1963), in which he traced both the emergence of the view of particular traditions... (shrink)

This paper explores Ham's role as a maverick thinker, a pacifist and an innovator of religious pluralism in twentieth century Korea. Ham saw an individual's spiritual quest and the struggle for social justice as interrelated. As an idealist, Ham viewed human beings basically as moral beings, and perceived the Supreme Being or God not only as a transcendental being, but also as an imminent being both in the sense of existing everywhere and also in the sense of existing as `inner (...) voice'. On this basis, my paper examines Ham as an intermediary between East Asia and the West and between `losers' and `winners' in history, and assesses how he was shaped by, and responded to, the challenges of his time. Firstly, I will look at Ham's search for Korea's national identity under Japaneseimperialism and his determination to write an account of Korean history from the standpoint of the oppressed, in order to inspire his downhearted countrymen. I will also examine how, using his own Biblical interpretation of Korean history, Ham provided a mission and vision not only for oppressed Koreans under Japanese colonialism, but also for 'losers' and ordinary people everywhere. In the second section, I will further explore Ham's sense of pacifism by examining how Ham's ideas were open-ended not only towards the Asian classical philosophies of Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism and Hinduism, but also towards traditional Christianity, the non-church movement, Quakerism, Western sciences and rationalism. I will also consider why he had to respond as an individual to the challenges both of society and of the historical era. In the third section, I will concentrate on how Ham's Christo-centric views had fundamentally altered to a more universal perspective and also how he asserted the necessity for the restoration of Christianity from the ceremonial and `weird' to the ethical and socially just. Lastly, I will look at Ham's definition of Jesus and why he used the new terminology the 'Ssial' instead of the archaic expressions 'people' or 'national.' By doing so, I will examine how Ham achieved what is one of the most difficult things in this world, to be a genuinely conscientious leader despite corrupt surroundings. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Philosopher's Coffee Buzz Preliminary Proposal: Coffee's Philosophical Advantages Analysis: What Has Coffee Got to Do with Philosophy? Topical and Historic Considerations: Coffee's Advantages Beyond Philosophy Critical Perspectives: Challenges to the Coffee‐Charged Philosophy Thesis Afterthoughts: The Worldly Advantages of Coffee.

In a modern society arguably disenchanted with religion, numerous Western women are transfixing their reality by making God in their own image. This compelling phenomenon is known as ‘the Goddess Movement’: a non-centralised religious current of neo-pagan origin that reveres the Divine as feminine. The revival of Goddess worship in a vastly secular age which appears not to favour religious devotion is a peculiar occurrence and leads to the following question: Why are women returning to a previously defunct spiritual practice? (...) Building on the research scholars Paul Reid-Bowen and Janet L. Jacobs conducted on Western Goddess worship, as well as drawing on testimonies of Goddess followers, this article aims to elucidate the appeal the Goddess Movement holds for women. It argues that it represents a notable turn in female spirituality which demonstrates that images of feminine divinity offer women the opportunity to find meaningfulness, empowerment, and sexual or psychological healing. (shrink)

The dispute over Socrates’ apparent endorsement of hedonism in the Protagoras has persisted for ages among scholars and students of Plato’s work. The solution to the query concerning the seriousness and sincerity of Socrates’ argument from hedonism established in the dialogue is of considerable importance for the interpretation of Plato’s overall moral theory, considering how blatantly irreconcilable the defense of this doctrine is with Plato’s other early dialogues. In his earlier works, Socrates puts supreme importance on virtue and perfection of (...) the soul, so the puzzle apparent in the Protagoras merits a thorough examination.Several scholars have argued that, since Socrates’ defense of hedonism in this work clashes significantly with his views on morality in other dialogues, Socrates must only have been defending hedonism ironically, or with the intention of “diagnosing” his opponent’s point of view. In this paper, I examine the approaches according to which Socrates didn’t in fact mean to defend hedonism, but merely used it as a diagnostic tool; I argue that there is no compelling evidence for this resolution of Socrates’ defense of hedonism, and that the views that attempt to defend it really have no convincing grounds for it apart from the desire to reconcilethe Protagoras with other Socratic dialogues. (shrink)

BackgroundMany of the important elements of a valid informed consent – comprehension, voluntariness, and capacity – can be compromised or unmet in the context of psychiatric research. The inability to protect their own interests puts mentally ill subjects at an increased likelihood of being wronged or harmed and makes them particularly vulnerable in the context of clinical research. Therefore, they are due extra protection. Sometimes, these additional safeguards can significantly limit the possibilities for research involving subjects deemed unable to consent (...) due to their mental illness. Montenegro, a middle-income country in Southern-Eastern Europe, goes so far in their policy to protect these subjects from harms of research, as to ban all biomedical research on mentally ill persons who are unable to provide consent.Main bodyMental health research is often neglected and very low on the list of health research priorities, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Despite the fact that mental health disorders are among leading causes of disability, the need for evidence-based services and interventions for those affected remains unmet.To exclude all members of a certain group of subjects seems extremely restrictive and unnecessary. Such a policy is discriminatory and unethical, because it inflicts further harms and exclusion of those patients from participation in society. This unjust exclusion policy obstructs research of certain psychiatric disorders and implies that new treatments for conditions that directly affect these incapacitated subjects will not be developed.ConclusionsScientific and clinical development must not be precluded by overly restrictive, discriminatory and unjust practices, such as the normative ban on research on decisionally-impaired mentally ill subjects. Rather, there should be a regulative framework that ensures that those who cannot consent for themselves are respected and protected in research, the anticipated benefits maximized, risks minimized, their autonomy recognized and extended. These patient-subjects must be appropriately included unless there is a clear and compelling rationale and justification that inclusion is inappropriate with respect to the health of the participants or the purpose of the research. (shrink)

The dispute over Socrates’ apparent endorsement of hedonism in the Protagoras has persisted for ages among scholars and students of Plato’s work. The solution to the query concerning the seriousness and sincerity of Socrates’ argument from hedonism established in the dialogue is of considerable importance for the interpretation of Plato’s overall moral theory, considering how blatantly irreconcilable the defense of this doctrine is with Plato’s other early dialogues. In his earlier works, Socrates puts supreme importance on virtue and perfection of (...) the soul, so the puzzle apparent in the Protagoras merits a thorough examination.Several scholars have argued that, since Socrates’ defense of hedonism in this work clashes significantly with his views on morality in other dialogues, Socrates must only have been defending hedonism ironically, or with the intention of “diagnosing” his opponent’s point of view. In this paper, I examine the approaches according to which Socrates didn’t in fact mean to defend hedonism, but merely used it as a diagnostic tool; I argue that there is no compelling evidence for this resolution of Socrates’ defense of hedonism, and that the views that attempt to defend it really have no convincing grounds for it apart from the desire to reconcile the Protagoras with other Socratic dialogues. (shrink)

A discussion of Christine Korsgaard's The Sources of Normativity.

The relation between aisthesis and interiority manifests in Wittgenstein’s account of the subject and his private language argument. But it is also an overlooked leitmotif in Dostoevsky’s novels—one of Wittgenstein’s favorite authors, and in W.G. Sebald’s work—who was inspired by Wittgenstein’s philosophy. This book reflects on the role literature can play in answering the philosophical question of an adequate presentation of intention and pain.

For many, the idea that people should be rewarded in proportion to what they deserve is the very essence of distributive justice. However, while the notion of moral desert is otherwise widely accepted, Rawls rejects it entirely in his A Theory of Justice. Many authors have argued that Rawls’s claims about desert have serious and unappealing consequences for his conception of justice as fairness, and also that they deny the possibility of autonomous choice to the very agents whose decisions are (...) supposed to underlie Rawls’s approach to justice. In this paper, I analyze the arguments of those who believe that Rawls can be interpreted in a way that doesn’t in fact deny either desert or the possibility of autonomous action. I conclude by allowing for the interpretation that Rawls does not necessarily deny autonomous action, but I contend that he nevertheless finds the idea of preinstitutional desert entirely off the mark. (shrink)

Scholars criticize privileging aesthetics over social and ecological considerations in park design. I argue that the real culprit is not aesthetics, but aestheticism. Aestheticism treats aesthetic objects as if they were ontologically distinct from everyday objects. Aestheticism in park design—treating parks like artworks to be admired like paintings—dovetails into treating parks like representations of a romanticized wilderness: of pristine, untouched landscapes. I argue that aestheticism is a means of constructing an ontological distinction between the beholder and the beheld, for landscapes (...) are not truly pristine if they are sullied by human presence. As an alternative, and while drawing on the works of John Dewey and Yuriko Saito, I argue for a continuity between everyday objects and aesthetic objects. I also draw attention to the question of whose every day is privileged and propose to introduce Wittgenstein’s concept of multi-aspectivity in the analysis of everyday affordances. (shrink)

Wittgenstein and Dostoevsky both ridicule a hypostasizing and fetishizing picture of interiority: viewing sensations and intentions like discrete material objects. The symbols for this misleading view in their respective works are a beetle and a sachet containing thousand five hundred roubles. The beetle in the box passage in the Philosophical Investigations discredits a Cartesian picture of pain as akin to a thing-like entity. The sachet in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov represents Dmitry’s intention to be honourable. Dostoevsky achieves a perspicuous view (...) of entangled webs of intentions, as opposed to labelling them like object-like entities. I show that Wittgenstein’ account of first-personal thought, including intentions, is not based on the Cartesian dualism of the inner and the outer, the mind and the body. To underscore my argumentation, I refer to The Brothers Karamazov, one of Wittgenstein’s favourite novels. I especially focus on Dmitry’s sachet, which inspired Wittgenstein’s beetle in the box example. I show parallels both in content and in form of Wittgenstein’s and Dostoevsky’s approach to intention as a species of first-personal thought. (shrink)

The genealogy of ethics starts in the polis. Plato and Aristotle had an optimistic view of polis life, even though Plato was born shortly after the plague of Athens, an experience that left a deep imprint in his society, and interestingly not a very good opinion of democracy. The idea of the polis as the ideal locus for human flourishing can be contested because we do not share the same face-to-face form of life with the ancient polis-dwellers. Contemporary megacities do (...) not harbor an agora in which citizens debate current affairs. Such debates have shifted to social media. It is worth investigating the value of face-to-face interaction even today. Despite the risk of spreading airborne lung diseases like the Corona virus, the possibility of face-to-face interactions allows the cultivation of attention necessary for ethics. Knowing your neighbor by acquaintance, seeing her face every day can make pedestrians better attuned to the need to protect her in times of the pandemic, by maintaining distance and wearing a mask. If this is indeed the case, then it has implications for urban design: urban density can be designed in a way that affords functional proximity and more humane neighborhoods. (shrink)

Technology extends human perception and it intervenes in relations to the environment. Life in cities is particularly affected by newest technological developments, and city dwellers are most shielded and disconnected from the natural world by these very same technologies. The term technology stems from the Greek techne, and it refers to an instrumental relation to the world—a manipulation and adaptation of the environment to human needs. However, by intervening in everyday life and modifying relations to the environment, technology also produces (...) new forms of life and is therefore also poetic in the sense of poiesis. It is clearly distinguished from literary works because it opens worlds of possibilities that are not fictional. This makes a reflection on its poeticity all the more urgent, because the large-scale advent of new technologies such as the industrialization or the digitization radically changes the modes of perception and relations to urban environments. Art works like literature absorb and articulate these changes and are therefore useful “strange tools” for putting on display the changing modes of experiencing cities. For instance, industrialization, explosive urban growth and the rapid modernization of cities overwhelmed the senses. In its very form and rhythm, modernist literature performs the fragmented and brisk-paced experience of modernity. The digital age ostensibly promises intelligibility and order, for digital technologies can survey and manage vast amounts of information. Smart cities are designed for this purpose and for offering tailored solutions to the inhabitants’ individual needs. However, data analytics cannot capture the phenomenological quality of lived experience. Art works can, and contemporary literary works put on display urban life-forms characterized by disembodiment and by exhaustive information on any subject that on its own does not translate into any sense of meaning or belonging. (shrink)

Intermediate labour markets provide fixed-term work opportunities and coaching for people in disadvantaged positions in labour markets. We study 46 sequences from six audio-recorded recruitment interviews for an ILM job targetted at people who have been unemployed for a prolonged period. Using an ethnomethodological approach to identity, membership categorisation analysis and conversation analysis, we study how interviewers and candidates construct and negotiate who is fit for the ILM job. We present interactional moves through which the participants jointly construct the ‘fit (...) for the ILM job’ category and treat the candidate’s membership in it as a positive matter. Further, we demonstrate how the candidates are put in an interactionally difficult position in the interview as there are contradictory and ambiguous expectations about the ideal candidate. We discuss the results in relation to the interactional and institutional logics of a recruitment interview and suggest that enhancing the transparency might reinforce ethics of recruitment in ILMs. (shrink)