This volume is based on the ongoing studies on post-Avicennian philosophy in the context of naturalising philosophy and science in Islam from the 12th to the 14th century - a topic that deserves the special attention of historians of Islamic intellectual history. The contributors address the following questions using case studies: What was philosophy all about from the 12th to the 14th century? And how did Muslim scholars react to it during the period under consideration? The present volume approaches complex (...) philosophical topics from different angles and is structured around six main sections: 1. Historical and Social Approaches to Philosophy, 2. Knowing the Unknown, 3. God, Man and the Physical World, 4. Universals, 5. Logic and Intellect, and 6. Anthropomorphism and Incorporealism"--Back cover. (shrink)

How is a philosophical tradition created? What role does literary biography play in the formation of intellectual reception history? Through a detailed analysis of the lives and works of post-Avicennan philosophers, this monograph traces the intellectual history and development of the Avicennan tradition from the fifth/eleventh to the eighth/fourteenth century. Section 1 investigates the genres of Arabo-Islamic biobibliographical and prosopographical writings as a source for the history of Arabic philosophy, delineating their literary topoi, the construction of philosophical authority, and the (...) relationship of Sunnī and Twelver-Šīī Islam to Aristotelian logic and philosophy. Section 2 presents fourteen discrete biobibliographical studies with a critical inventory of the works, including those written in the neglected exegetical genres of commentary, supercommentary, gloss, and supergloss, of Avicenna's immediate disciples and the following generations of philosophers who created the Avicennan philosophical heritage in the Islamicate world.--Provided by Publisher. (shrink)

The thirteenth century mystic Ibn ʻArabi was the foremost Sufi theorist of the premodern era. For more than a century, Western scholars and esotericists have heralded his universalism, arguing that he saw all contemporaneous religions as equally valid. In Rethinking Ibn ʻArabi, Gregory Lipton calls this image into question and throws into relief how Ibn ʻArabi's discourse is inseparably intertwined with the absolutist vision of his own religious milieu-- that is, the triumphant claim that Islam fulfilled, superseded, and therefore (...) abrogated all previous revealed religions. Lipton juxtaposes Ibn ʻArabi's absolutist conception with the later reception of his ideas, exploring how they have been read, appropriated, and universalized within the reigning interpretive field of Perennial Philosophy in the study of Sufism. The contours that surface through this comparative analysis trace the discursive practices that inform Ibn ʻArabi's Western reception back to the eighteenth and nineteenth century study of 'authentic' religion, where European ethno-racial superiority was wielded against the Semitic Other - both Jewish and Muslim. Lipton argues that supersessionist models of exclusivism are buried under contemporary Western constructions of religious authenticity in ways that ironically mirror Ibn ʻArabi's medieval absolutism. (shrink)

This study challenges the conventional image of the tenth-century Sufi mystic Al-Husayn Ibn Manṣūr al-Ḥallāğ (d. 929) as an anti-philosophical mystic. Unlike the predominantly theological or text-historical studies which constitute much of the scholarly literature on Ḥallāğ, this study is completely philosophical in nature, placing Ḥallāğ within the tradition of Graeco-Arabic philosophy and emphasizing, in a positive light, his continuity with the pagan Neoplatonism of Plotinus and Proclus.

This new English translation of François Jullien's work is a compelling summation of his thinking on the comparison and divergences between Western and Chinese thought. Jullien argues that Western thinking is preoccupied with the question of 'being', whereas Chinese thought concerned itself principally with that of 'living'. Organised as a lexicon around some 20 concepts that juxtapose Chinese and Western thought, including propensity (vs causality), receptivity (vs freedom), maturation (vs modelisation),between (vs beyond) and resource (vs truth). Jullien (...) explores the ways the two traditions have evolved, and how many aspects of Chinese thought developed in isolation from the West, revealing a different way of relating to the world and the fault lines of western thinking. (shrink)

Ce volume offre l'édition critique de la traduction latine médiévale (partielle) de la troisième partie de la Physique du Shif?' d'Avicenne. Pour l'édition de la peine première partie traduite à Tolède, qui couvre le prologue et le début du premier chapitre, les mêmes principes ont été maintenus que pour l'édition du second traité. Quant à l'édition de la majeure partie, qui fut traduite à Burgos quasiment un siècle après la tolédane et qui n'a été conservée que dans un seul témoin, (...) les cas où la traduction latine ne correspond pas à la lecture du texte arabe sont analysés de façon particulière et, autant que possible, expliqués sur la base de considérations philologiques et/ou doctrinales. En outre, dans la mesure du possible, les sources historiques des doctrines évoquées par Avicenne dans l'ensemble de ces chapitres ont été précisés. (shrink)

Informative and mind-opening, this text uniquely provides a comprehensive overview of a range of non-western approaches to educational thought and practice. Its premise is that understanding the ways that other people educate their children--as well as what counts for them as "education"--may help readers to think more clearly about some of their own assumptions and values, and to become more open to alternative viewpoints about important educational matters. The approach is deliberately and profoundly pedagogical, based in the author's own (...) teaching practice. Designed to be used in pre-service and in-service teacher education courses where substantial critical discussion and debate are encouraged, the text is enhanced by Questions for Discussion and Reflection in each chapter. Updates and Features of the Fourth Edition * NEW! Chapter 2 exploring key features of the 'western educational tradition', and information about the contemporary educational systems in different countries * NEW! Chapter 10 on traditional educational thought and practice in Oceania, with special focus on the Maori in New Zealand, the Hawai'ians, and the Australian Aboriginal peoples * Updated chapter on Africa includes fuller explanation of the diversity within the indigenous African experience, as well as several contemporary cases of state education in Africa * Updated Chapter 4 is designed to help non-Muslims to understand the Muslim educational heritage and the growing issue of Islamophobia * Exploration of Chinese education now includes a special emphasis on the thought of Confucius, the role of the imperial examination system, and the impact of political and economic changes in the 20th century * Updated analysis of contemporary educational practices in Hindu and Buddhist educational thought and practice and brief discussions of Jainism and Sikhism. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Philosophy Pitfalls, and What Is Needed to Avoid Them Institutional History at Cambridge Cambridge Philosophy Reference.

In this paper we argue that the approach for teaching non-Western, and specifically Chinese philosophy to undergraduate Western students, does not have to be significantly different than that for teaching philosophies from “Western” traditions. Four areas will be explored. Firstly, we look at debates on teaching non-Western philosophy from the perspective of themes or traditions, suggesting that, as an overarching guideline, it is mote discussion. Secondly, in terms of making generalizations, we argue that no more explanation (...) of the “Chineseness” of Chinese philosophy be offered than the “Germanness” of German philosophy, or “Greekness” of Greek philosophy. Thirdly, that lines of philosophical coherences are not limited to regional or cultural bounds. Finally, that foreign language be used in a way that invites understanding and does not close ideas off to students. In sum, we suggest applying well proven methods of teaching “Western” philosophy to Chinese (and other “Non-Western”) philosophies. After all, value of Chinese and other “Non-Western” philosophies comes not from their being “Chinese” or “Non-Western,” but from being philosophical. (shrink)

Western philosophers still tend to think that philosophy, in a sense that they can take with professional interest, does not exist in non-Western traditions. To persuade them otherwise would require them to make an effort that they prefer to evade. I attempt to begin to persuade them by closely paraphrasing a few arguments by the early Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu and a few by the Indian skeptic and mystic Shriharsha. One of Chuang Tzu's arguments has some resemblance to (...) Plato's Third-Man argument, another with the impossibility of distinguishing between waking reality and dream, and a third with the impossibility of objective victories in debates. The skeptic Shriharsha, in a way that can be taken to parallel Wittgenstein's attack on conventional philosophy, shows that philosophical definitions cannot be rigorous enough to fulfill the task that philosophers set for them. The rest of this paper is devoted to the problem of commensurability. I contend that philosophies are either commensurable or incommensurable depending on the light in which one prefers to see them. Each way of seeing them involves a loss of a possibility that may be considered precious, but the Westerner who continues to insist on the full incommensurability of non-Western philosophies with his or her own is losing a great deal that might be intellectually helpful. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Comparative Introduction to Chinese, Western, and Indian Philosophies by Xianglong ZhangYing Liu (bio)Zhongxiyin Zhexue Daolun 中西印哲學導論 ( A Comparative Introduction to Chinese, Western, and Indian Philosophies). By Xianglong Zhang 張祥龍. Beijing: Peking University Press, 2022. Pp. 555. Hardcover RMB128, isbn 9787301329146. A Comparative Introduction to Chinese, Western, and Indian Philosophies (hereafter Comparative Introduction) is not only the culmination of Zhang Xianglong's 張祥龍 two decades (...) of teaching, but also a comprehensive account of Zhang's understanding of philosophy East and West. Since Liang Shuming's 梁漱溟 pioneering work in the comparative study of Chinese, Western, and Indian philosophies in the 1920s, Chinese philosophers have contributed to the development of comparative philosophy for more than a century. Zhang's Comparative Introduction is unique among comparative works in how it guides readers to reflect on philosophical issues from the perspective of the three major civilizations of China, the West, and India in a more comprehensive way. The book consists of twenty-one chapters further divided into seven sections. The first section (Chapters 1-3) discusses "The Meaning of Philosophy and Philosophers East and West." Here, the author puts forth the insightful idea that the discipline of philosophy deals with "boundary problems" (bianyuan wenti 邊緣問題) (p. 11), namely, that philosophy is the thinking and learning that rationally explores the question of boundaries (p. 22). The main characteristic of boundary problems is their "non-deterministic nature" (fei dingyuxing 非定域性), illustrated in quantum mechanics. The book does not present us with the standard answer to the question of boundaries. It rather opens up a vast world of thought in which, faced with the problem of boundaries, the three independent and intersecting paths of Chinese, Western, and Indian philosophies interact and converse. The second section (Chapters 4-6) discusses the issue of "ultimate reality" (zhongji shizai 終極實在). According to the author, ultimate reality refers to the most real thing, that is, the thing that is able to maintain the continuity of its own identity in the process of change (p. 67), and is the most important existential characteristic of human beings and the world explored by philosophy (p. 71). Zhang presents the respective features of mainstream thought in the Chinese, Western, and Indian traditions on the concept of ultimate reality, from which we can see differences in expressions of spirituality. The third section (Chapters 7-9), focuses on epistemology and discusses [End Page 1] the different approaches to the question "How is genuine knowledge possible?" in the Chinese, Western, and Indian philosophical traditions. The author summarizes the basic tendencies and ideas of traditional Western philosophy on epistemology, namely, that truth or genuine knowledge must be universal and necessary in itself; that genuine knowledge appears between human beings as subjects and objects as objects; and that genuine knowledge is about finding what is shared between subject and object (pp. 158-160). Zhang argues that Western epistemology often relies on a sense of assurance derived from God (p. 160). As he points out, unlike the core view in traditional Western philosophy (which asserts that ultimate reality is unchanging existence itself), ancient Chinese philosophy conceives ultimate reality as being in the midst of change. The crux of the problem of genuine knowledge for Chinese thinkers, therefore, does not lie in the static conformity of subject and object. Knowing the truth is not primarily a matter of overcoming the heterogeneity of subject and object and attaining universal necessity, but rather a kind of dynamic (pp.161-162) characterized by the transformation of subject and object. The Indian philosophical concept of intuitive genuine knowledge, in turn, negates the subject-object dichotomy and emphasizes separation and severance (p. 201): the overcoming of mental laxity through yogic practice and the separation of the divine self from the non-self, so that consciousness can be freed from suffering (p. 203). The fourth section of the book (Chapters 10-12), addresses the question "What kind of life is good?" It mainly discusses the characteristics of Western ethics and ancient Chinese ethical thought, and explores the meaning and value of life. According to Zhang, Western ethics is about how one should live and act, and is generally divided into virtue ethics and moral ethics (pp. 215-216). Zhang summarizes... (shrink)

My purpose in this essay is to suggest, via case study, that if Anglo-American philosophy is to become more inclusive of non-western traditions, the discipline requires far greater efforts at self-scrutiny. I begin with the premise that Confucian ethical treatments of manners afford unique and distinctive arguments from which moral philosophy might profit, then seek to show why receptivity to these arguments will be low. I examine how ordinary good manners have largely fallen out of philosophical moral discourse in (...) the west, looking specifically at three areas: conditions in the 18th and 19th centuries that depressed philosophical attention to manners; discourse conventions in contemporary philosophy that privilege modes of analysis not well fitted to close scrutiny of manners; and a philosophical culture that implicitly encourages indifference or even antipathy toward polite conduct. I argue that these three areas function in effect to render contemporary discourse inhospitable to greater inclusivity where Confucianism is concerned and thus, more broadly, that greater self-scrutiny regarding unexamined, parochial western commitments and practices is necessary for genuine inclusivity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"What Is Philosophy?"The Status of World Philosophy in the ProfessionRobert C. SolomonThe question "What is philosophy?" is both one of the most virtuously self-effacing and one of the most obnoxious that philosophers today tend to ask. It is virtuously self-effacing insofar as it questions, with some misgivings, its own behavior, the worth of the questions it asks, and the significance of the enterprise itself. It is obnoxious when it (...) refuses to question its own behavior but instead takes that same behavior as the exclusive standard to delegitimize any other activity that dares to call itself "philosophy." Thus, for most of this century, Anglo-American and most European philosophers have simply ignored the rich philosophical traditions of Africa, Asia, Latin and Native America, and the rest of the world. Some leading African American and African European philosophers have dismissed "ethnophilosophy" as "not philosophy," presumably to protect their own analytic credentials. Universities as far flung as Singapore, Sierra Leone, and New Delhi have prided themselves on their fidelity to Oxbridge philosophy. It seems that the globalization of free market economics goes with the globalization of one brief moment in philosophy, with similarly devastating effects on local cultures and the rich varieties of human experience.Philosophy might be thought of as made up of two components: critical thinking and passionate vision. But "critical thinking" does not necessarily imply the hermeneutics of suspicion, skepticism, or intellectual paranoia—all too often the trademarks of the bright young professional philosopher. One can be "critical," that is, reflective, while at the same time be committed, even devoted, to an idea or a way of thinking. The emphasis on passionate vision, however, is just as essential, and any philosophy that doesn't include both components just isn't worthy of the name. Without passionate vision, we get that utterly eviscerated focus on forms of argumentation—philosophia minimalia—devoid of "empirical" content (that is to say, content) and, as far as most people are concerned, devoid of any interest. Without critical reflection, we get gullibility and the worst of New Age philosophy, accepting of any kind of nonsense, just because it stirs the passions. But simply to assume that philosophy must be as rigorously self-questioning as modern European and Anglo-American philosophy is a subtle form of ethnic chauvinism. It eliminates from the realm of philosophy not only African ethnophilosophy and Latin and Native American and South Pacific mythology but a good deal of the philosophy of religion, the basis (for better or worse) of the development of Western philosophy over much of the past two thousand years. [End Page 100]I have just withdrawn from a recent dispute, in a respectable and supposedly eclectic philosophy journal, in which my worst fears in this regard were rather bluntly confirmed. I had made the point mentioned above—rather matter-of-factly, I thought—that if (analytic) philosophy dismisses or ignores modes of thinking that are not obviously self-critical and are presented poetically instead of by way of positions to be argued for, then a good deal of the world's philosophy, including a good deal of Western philosophy, would be left out of the arena. The journal's board reacted indignantly, to put it mildly, to the suggestion that anything should count as "philosophy" that was not sufficiently self-critical in just this sense. But what about the millennium or so of religious philosophy in the West? Does anyone believe that thinkers like Anselm, or Alvin Plantiga for that matter, are seriously skeptical of the truth of Christianity, as they go through their admittedly brilliant argumentative routines? For that matter, to what extent is the emphasis on logical form and argument subjected to scrutiny in contemporary analytic philosophy? (As one of the foremost practitioners of that art commented, "Metaphilosophy makes me sick.")Some of the hostility to world philosophy, to be sure, turns on the conflict between philosophy and religion, which may have its origins in ancient and medieval philosophy but emerges full-blown with the Enlightenment and its campaign against "superstition." But many people and a good many cultures do not distinguish between philosophy and religion. If we consider the word "philosophy... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"What Is Philosophy?"The Status of World Philosophy in the ProfessionRobert C. SolomonThe question "What is philosophy?" is both one of the most virtuously self-effacing and one of the most obnoxious that philosophers today tend to ask. It is virtuously self-effacing insofar as it questions, with some misgivings, its own behavior, the worth of the questions it asks, and the significance of the enterprise itself. It is obnoxious when it (...) refuses to question its own behavior but instead takes that same behavior as the exclusive standard to delegitimize any other activity that dares to call itself "philosophy." Thus, for most of this century, Anglo-American and most European philosophers have simply ignored the rich philosophical traditions of Africa, Asia, Latin and Native America, and the rest of the world. Some leading African American and African European philosophers have dismissed "ethnophilosophy" as "not philosophy," presumably to protect their own analytic credentials. Universities as far flung as Singapore, Sierra Leone, and New Delhi have prided themselves on their fidelity to Oxbridge philosophy. It seems that the globalization of free market economics goes with the globalization of one brief moment in philosophy, with similarly devastating effects on local cultures and the rich varieties of human experience.Philosophy might be thought of as made up of two components: critical thinking and passionate vision. But "critical thinking" does not necessarily imply the hermeneutics of suspicion, skepticism, or intellectual paranoia—all too often the trademarks of the bright young professional philosopher. One can be "critical," that is, reflective, while at the same time be committed, even devoted, to an idea or a way of thinking. The emphasis on passionate vision, however, is just as essential, and any philosophy that doesn't include both components just isn't worthy of the name. Without passionate vision, we get that utterly eviscerated focus on forms of argumentation—philosophia minimalia—devoid of "empirical" content (that is to say, content) and, as far as most people are concerned, devoid of any interest. Without critical reflection, we get gullibility and the worst of New Age philosophy, accepting of any kind of nonsense, just because it stirs the passions. But simply to assume that philosophy must be as rigorously self-questioning as modern European and Anglo-American philosophy is a subtle form of ethnic chauvinism. It eliminates from the realm of philosophy not only African ethnophilosophy and Latin and Native American and South Pacific mythology but a good deal of the philosophy of religion, the basis (for better or worse) of the development of Western philosophy over much of the past two thousand years. [End Page 100]I have just withdrawn from a recent dispute, in a respectable and supposedly eclectic philosophy journal, in which my worst fears in this regard were rather bluntly confirmed. I had made the point mentioned above—rather matter-of-factly, I thought—that if (analytic) philosophy dismisses or ignores modes of thinking that are not obviously self-critical and are presented poetically instead of by way of positions to be argued for, then a good deal of the world's philosophy, including a good deal of Western philosophy, would be left out of the arena. The journal's board reacted indignantly, to put it mildly, to the suggestion that anything should count as "philosophy" that was not sufficiently self-critical in just this sense. But what about the millennium or so of religious philosophy in the West? Does anyone believe that thinkers like Anselm, or Alvin Plantiga for that matter, are seriously skeptical of the truth of Christianity, as they go through their admittedly brilliant argumentative routines? For that matter, to what extent is the emphasis on logical form and argument subjected to scrutiny in contemporary analytic philosophy? (As one of the foremost practitioners of that art commented, "Metaphilosophy makes me sick.")Some of the hostility to world philosophy, to be sure, turns on the conflict between philosophy and religion, which may have its origins in ancient and medieval philosophy but emerges full-blown with the Enlightenment and its campaign against "superstition." But many people and a good many cultures do not distinguish between philosophy and religion. If we consider the word "philosophy... (shrink)

The Companion Encyclopedia is the first comprehensive work to cover all the principal lines and themes of the history and philosophy of mathematics from ancient times up to the twentieth century. In 176 articles contributed by 160 authors of 18 nationalities, the work describes and analyzes the variety of theories, proofs, techniques, and cultural and practical applications of mathematics. The work's aim is to recover our mathematical heritage and show the importance of mathematics today by treating its interactions with the (...) related disciplines of physics, astronomy, engineering and philosophy. It also covers the history of higher education in mathematics and the growth of institutions and organizations connected with the development of the subject. Part 1 deals with mathematics in various ancient and non-Western cultures from antiquity up to medieval and Renaissance times. Part 2 treats developments in all the main areas of mathematics during the medieval and Renaissance periods up to and including the early 17th century. Parts 3-10 are divided into the main branches into which mathematics developed from the early 17th century onwards: calculus and mathematical analysis, logic and foundations, algebras, geometries, mechanics, mathematical physics and engineering, and probability and statistics. Parts 11-13 review the history of mathematics from an international perspective. The teaching of mathematics in higher education is examined in various countries, and mathematics in culture, art and society is covered. The Companion Encyclopedia features annotated bibliographies of both classic and contemporary sources; black and white illustrations, line figures and equations; biographies of major mathematicians and historians and philosophers of mathematics; a chronological table of main events in the developments of mathematics; and a fully integrated index of people, events and topics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Japanese Philosophy in the Making 1: Crossing Paths with Nishida by John MaraldoJohn KrummelJohn Maraldo, Japanese Philosophy in the Making 1: Crossing Paths with Nishida Nagoya: Chisokudō, 2017The present volume by John Maraldo is a collection of his essays, mostly on Nishida. It constitutes the first volume of a two-part collection on Japanese philosophy, this one focusing on Nishida while the second volume includes works on other Japanese (...) philosophers surrounding Nishida. I have long considered Maraldo to be the foremost scholar in English language works in this field, who has consistently produced thought-provoking and well-grounded work, based on his extensive erudition regarding both Japanese and Western traditions. For the last decade and a half, while reading through his fine articles on Japanese philosophy, I was hoping that eventually a book of his own on this topic would be published. Such a book has finally appeared. It is a book that would certainly benefit Anglophone students and scholars of Nishida and Japanese philosophy worldwide. The essays collected here have been previously published in journals or other volumes, or otherwise presented in conferences. But they have been “lightly revised” (1) for the present volume. The volume could have used additional copyediting to clean up some typos. Nevertheless, I would recommend this book to anyone studying or working on Nishida.The volume begins with the prologue’s caveat that “identities we call Japan, Europe, and philosophy are as shifting as they are settled...” (1). A recurring question, therefore, is how philosophy is defined, how it has traversed through time and place, how Nishida’s thought conveys philosophy, and how we can continue this process of translating philosophy (1). Maraldo’s commentary throughout this volume thus proves to be more than just intellectual history but is itself philosophical as he thinks along with the thinkers he discusses, and invites the reader to do likewise. In this he seeks to bring Nishida’s work into philosophical dialogue with the rest of the world, asking “how does the work of Nishida... contribute to the momentum of philosophy?” (1). Maraldo also inquires what the term “Japanese philosophy” (日本哲学) may mean and provides four possibilities [End Page 135] that were given previously in Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook that he edited with James Heisig and Thomas Kasulis some years ago,1 while in addition providing possible objections to them (6–8). He tells us that he has come to understand Japanese philosophy as an “ongoing, creative endeavor,” as “philosophy in the making”—a phrase that describes for him all philosophical investigation as a “work in progress, subject to reappraisal and reformation, to rethinking” (10). This seems a reasonable—realistic and viable—approach to understanding philosophy, including Japanese philosophy. Moreover, this process of philosophy, as it crosses cultural and historical borders, inevitably involves translation, the “transmission and transmutation through time and through multiple languages” (11). Even within the West, the origin of philosophy cannot be reduced to its Greek origin when, as Maraldo points out, the ancient Greeks themselves drew from wellsprings of “non-Western” thought (17) and the question of a single origin thus proves to involve “crossroads and contingencies” (17). Philosophy as such “occurs via the trans-lation of texts, spoken and written” (11), which not only means the transference of texts through languages but also “the transformation of textually embedded problems, methods and terminologies both across and within natural languages,” “an inter-lingual and an intra-lingual transmission” entailing “the formation of textual traditions” (12). It not only transmits texts but transforms the language, which in turn transforms cultures and traditions (12). Maraldo views Nishida as such a “consummate trans-lator” of philosophy, who reworked both Asian and European sources into his own language while refining his positions throughout his life (13). But even while refusing to confine philosophy to its Greek origins, Maraldo refuses to exoticize Nishida’s works as yet another product of the Orient. Instead, he treats Nishida’s work as worthy of the philosophical attention of the rest of the world. That is to say that he treats Nishida foremost as a philosopher in the global setting, an equal partner in dialogue with philosophers of the... (shrink)

In “The evolutionary argument against naturalism: a Wittgensteinian response,” DeVito and McNabb (Int J Philos Relig 92(2):91–98, 2022, 10.1007/s11153-022-09832-3) propose a Wittgensteinian argument against Alvin Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism. In their paper, they seek to establish symmetry between a component of Plantinga’s premise and the premise of the radical skeptic. The first premise of Plantinga’s argument assumes the possibility of doubting the reliability of our cognitive abilities. The Radical skeptic doubts we have rational grounds to refute being brains in (...) vats. DeVito and McNaab use hinge epistemology and Pritchard’s strategy against the radical skeptic to undermine Plantinga’s premise. This paper offers an alternative argument based on hinge epistemology against Plantinga’s argument. Relying on the various types of certainties Wittgenstein discussed, I argue that some scientific facts are among our certainties and hinges. Evolution (i.e., the theory of evolution by natural selection) is a well-established scientific fact and a hinge. As a result, in Plantinga’s first premise, we have two hinges: evolution and the reliability of our cognitive abilities. I will argue that given that hinges cannot trump one another, we can have these two hinges in place, and therefore, by endorsing hinge epistemology, there is another argument that shows why Plantinga’s argument cannot undermine naturalism if one accepts evolution. (shrink)

Two of the terms in the title are from Vidyānandin’s Tattvārtha-śloka-vārttika, which is his commentary on Umāsvāti’s Tattvārtha-sūtra. Sūtra 6 of the TAS states the following: pramāṇa-nayair adhigamaḥ, ‘knowledge—of the seven categories—is obtained through the pramāṇas and the nayas’). Vidyānandin’s commentary on this sūtra 6 entails a total of 56 ślokas, with his own prose vārttika on each of them in varying lengths. TAŚV 1, 6, 1–8 deal with particulars and universals, for which he uses the synonymous pairs aṃśa/aṃśin and (...) avayava/avayavin. That he is attacking the Buddhist position regarding this age old theme in Indian philosophy, is evident also in that he quotes Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇa-vārttika. By the time he comes to his TAŚV 1, 6, 6, he establishes that an object as a whole is open to perception and that the Buddhist also accepts perception as a valid means of knowledge, but does not accept the perception of an object as a whole. From TAŚV 1, 6, 11 onwards Vidyānandin continues with the same theme, elaborating his attack of the Buddhist view even further, doing so in terms of svasaṃvedana, pratyakṣa and pramāṇa. The presentation will attempt to deal with these concepts in order to see how Vidyānandin vindicates the Jaina position vis-à-vis the Buddhist one. This presentation will continue from my previous study of Vidyānandin’s TAŚV 1, 6, 1–10. (shrink)

This article proposes that the study of non-Western philosophical traditions ought to include a critical awareness of the experience, impact, and legacy of colonialism. In this regard, Latin American philosophy offers us a key concept—the coloniality of power. It will be shown that coloniality enriches and complicates our understanding of both the history of Western and non-Western philosophies. More specifically, coloniality helps to clarify and answer the following questions: First, how was it that the discipline of philosophy (...) came to be centrally understood as Western? And second, to what degree did the modern distinction between West and non-West affect our understanding and the formation of non-Western thought? Ultimately, the methodological upshot of coloniality for the study of non-Western philosophical traditions is that it focuses our attention on the epistemic violence that was part and parcel of colonialism and therefore it frames the study of non-Western philosophical thought within the practi.. (shrink)

L’effort récent pour diversifier les cours de philosophie est souvent motivé par le désir d’inclure les étudiants sous-représentés. Bien que l’incorporation de la philosophie non-occidentale permettrait d’atteindre une plus grande diversité, il ne semble y avoir aucune raison particulière de choisir des traditions non-occidentales à cette fin. Je soutiens que cette apparence est trompeuse. Les données suggèrent qu’une absence de contenu non-occidental dans le programme d’études provoque l’aliénation de certains de nos étudiants de couleur. Étant donné le fardeau minimal que (...) cela imposerait aux instructeurs de philosophie de faire face à cette souffrance, nous avons de bonnes raisons d’inclure du contenu non-occidental dans nos cours d’introduction, où il est susceptible d’avoir le plus grand impact. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Philosophy in Non‐Philosophy Departments Definitions and Wittgensteinean Themes Tradition and Philosophy's Pitfalls Science, Poetry, Real Politics, and History: Antidotes to Scholasticism, and Their Side Effects Institutional Structures and the Road Not Taken Acknowledgments References.

In his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Hegel treats the religions of the world under the rubric "the determinate religion." This is a part of his corpus that has traditionally been neglected since scholars have struggled to understand what philosophical work it is supposed to do. In Hegel's Interpretation of the Religions of the World, Jon Stewart argues that Hegel's rich analyses of Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Egyptian and Greek polytheism, and the Roman religion are not simply irrelevant historical (...) material, as is often thought. Instead, they play a central role in Hegel's argument for what he regards as the truth of Christianity. Hegel believes that the different conceptions of the gods in the world religions are reflections of individual peoples at specific periods in history. These conceptions might at first glance appear random and chaotic, but there is, Hegel claims, a discernible logic in them. Simultaneously, a theory of mythology, history, and philosophical anthropology, Hegel's account of the world religions goes far beyond the field of philosophy of religion. The controversial issues surrounding his treatment of the non-European religions are still very much with us today and make his account of religion an issue of continued topicality in the academic landscape of the twenty-first century. (shrink)

The history of education, as it has been conceived and taught in the United States (and in the West generally), has focused almost entirely on the ways in which our own educational tradition emerged, developed, and changed over the course of the centuries. Although understandable, this means that the many other ways that societies have sought to meet the same challenges have been ignored. This book seeks to redress this oversight by providing a brief yet comprehensive review of a small (...) number of other, non-Western approaches to educational thought and practice. Understanding the ways that other peoples have tried to educate their children--as well as what counted for them as "education"--may help us to think more clearly about some of our own assumptions and values. It should also help us to become more open to alternative viewpoints about important educational matters. (shrink)

The idea of ‘Western Philosophy’ is the product of a legitimation project for European colonialism, through to post-second world war Pan-European identity formation and white supremacist projects. Thus argues Ben Kies (1917-1979), a South African public intellectual, schoolteacher, trade unionist, and activist-theorist. In his 1953 address to the Teachers’ League of South Africa, The Contribution of the Non-European Peoples to World Civilisation, Kies became one of the first people to argue explicitly that there is no such thing as ‘ (...) class='Hi'>Western philosophy’. In this paper, I introduce Kies as a new figure in the historiography of philosophy with important insights, relevant today. I outline his three key arguments: that ‘Western Philosophy’ is the product of political mythmaking, that it is a recent, largely mid-twentieth century fabrication, and that there is an alternative to ‘Histories of Western Philosophy’, namely ‘mixed’ or entangled histories. I show that Kies’ claims are supported both by contemporary scholarship and bibliometric analysis. I thus argue that Kies is right to claim that the idea of a distinctive, hermetically sealed ‘Western Philosophy’ is a recent, political fabrication and should be abandoned. We should instead develop global, entangled historiography to make sense of philosophy and its history today. (shrink)

This text provides a brief, yet comprehensive, overview of a number of non-Western approaches to educational thought and practice. The history of education, as it has been conceived and taught in the United States (and generally in the West), has focused almost entirely on the ways in which our own educational tradition emerged, developed, and changed over the course of the centuries. Although understandable, this means the many ways that other societies have sought to meet many of the same (...) challenges have been ignored. This book seeks to redress this omission. Its premise is that gaining an understanding of the ways that other peoples educate their children--as well as what counts for them as "education"--may help us to think more clearly about some of our own assumptions and values, as well as to become more open to alternative viewpoints about important educational matters. Because it is not traditionally included in the training of educators, very few have had any real exposure to non-Western educational traditions. Thus, the audience for this book is broad and diverse. Intended as a text for both preservice and in-service teachers, each chapter includes pedagogically helpful "Questions for Discussion and Reflection" and "Recommended Further Readings." The book is equally appropriate for advanced students in graduate programs as well as faculty members. New in the Second Edition: The text has been thoroughly revised to expand and clarify points, update chapters as needed, and improve the pedagogical usefulness of the text. A section on Mayan education has been added to the chapter on the Mesoamerican educational experience. One entirely new chapter "'Familiar Strangers': The Case of the Rom" has been included. (shrink)

God, free will, and time: the free will offense part II Content Type Journal Article Category Article Pages 1-10 DOI 10.1007/s11153-011-9328-z Authors J. L. Schellenberg, Mount Saint Vincent University, 166 Bedford Highway, Halifax, NS B3M2J6, Canada Journal International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Online ISSN 1572-8684 Print ISSN 0020-7047.

Western philosophy has been defined through the exclusion of non-Western forms of thought as non-philo-sophical. In this paper, I place the notion of what is “properly” philosophy into question by contrasting the essence/appearance paradigm governing Western metaphysics and its deconstructive critics with the more fluid, dynamic, and participatory forms of encountering and performatively enacting the world that are articulated in Chinese thinking and made apparent in Chinese painting. In this hermeneutical contrast, Western and Chinese thinking themselves (...) are interpeted as co-relational rather than as discrete, mutually indifferent or ethnocentrically nativist traditions. (shrink)

Environmental Ethics and the Mahābhārata : The Case of the Burning of the Forest Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-20 DOI 10.1007/s11841-011-0264-2 Authors Christopher G. Framarin, Department of Philosophy, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr. NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada Journal Sophia Online ISSN 1873-930X Print ISSN 0038-1527.

Introduces systems of knowing and learning different from the Western educational tradition. This book contains chapters on Native American Indigenous Knowledge, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Maori, Latin American Perspectives and African Indigenous Knowledge, which acquaint readers with alternative understandings of learning.

Gathered in this one volume, But Not Philosophy provides useful and thought-provoking introductions to seven major 'schools' of non-Western thought: Mesopotamian, ancient African, Hindu, Confucian, Buddhist, Islamic, and North American Indian. Anastaplo studies ancient literary epics and legal codes and examines religious traditions and systems of thought, providing detailed references to authoritative histories and commentators.

Presents an illuminating interpretation of key 18th- and 19th-century European political thinkers' accounts and assessments of the societies and political institutes of the non-Western world. This book is of interest to students and scholars of both political philosophy and thought as well as historians of this important period of history.

Critics of South Park make claims that are strikingly similar to those that have been leveled against Western philosophy since its beginnings. Philosophy, it's been charged, also mocks religious beliefs, leads younger folks to question accepted authority and values, and corrupts our children and culture. These condemnations formed the basis for Socrates' trial and execution in Athens. This chapter explores the heretical possibility that people perceive South Park as dangerous precisely because it is a form of philosophy. The “danger” (...) South Park poses has to do with its depiction of dialogue and free thought. In the end, one can learned something: like Socrates, the South Park harms no one. Philosophy and South Park actually instruct people and provide them with the intellectual tools they need to become wise, free, and good. (shrink)

This article starts by noting the general lack of acknowledgment of alternative traditions in the dominant western sustainability discourse in education. After critically analyzing the western human–nature relationship in the context of Enlightenment, modernity and colonial expansion, this article introduces two non-western ecological discourses from Eurasia and Asia, Noöspherism and Neo-Confucianism, which offer clear contrasts to the western sustainability framework. Using theoretical argumentations, the article goes on to examine the cosmological and ontological categories expounded by Vladimir (...) Vernadsky of Russia and Yulgok Yi of Korea, whose philosophical foundations with unique foci on the anthropocosmic and cosmoanthropic types of human–nature relationships could well be alternatives and/or additions to the dominant western discourse. The article concludes with a twofold comparison: between Eurasian and Confucian heritages, and these two with the mainstream western ecological discourse. (shrink)

RACINE L and PETRUCKA P. Nursing Inquiry 2011; 18: 12–20 Enhancing decolonization and knowledge transfer in nursing research with non-western populations: examining the congruence between primary healthcare and postcolonial feminist approachesThis article is a call for reflection from two distinct programs of research which converge on common interests pertaining to issues of health, social justice, and globalization. One of the authors has developed a research program related to the health and well-being of non-western populations, while the other author (...) has expanded the field of Aboriginal and international research in Canada and abroad. Based on examples drawn from our respective programs of research, we suggest conciliating the philosophy of primary healthcare to postcolonial feminism for decolonizing research and enhancing knowledge transfer with non-western populations. We contend that applying the theoretical and methodological strengths of these two approaches is a means to decolonize nursing research and to avoid western neocolonization. In conciliating primary health care and postcolonial feminism, the goal is to enhance the pragmatic relevance of postcolonial feminism to generate resistance through transformative research for achieving social justice. In tapping into the synergistic and complementary epistemological assumptions of the philosophy of primary health care and postcolonial ‘feminisms’, nurse researchers reinforce the anti-oppresive goals of postcolonial feminist research. Consequently, this approach may enhance both decolonization and knowledge transfer through strategies like photovoice. (shrink)

The answer to philosophical questions will often depend on the position one takes regarding the fact-value problem. It is, therefore, not surprising that, in the tradition of western philosophy, the past 200 years or so record an animated discussion of it. In the present collection the debate is continued by representatives of various "schools" in contemporary western thought. A number of philosophers from non-western cultures, too, enter into it. The contributions do not all reflect on the same (...) theme, nor do they use the same approach. Essays written by philosophers sympathetic to the analytical tradition are followed by reflections on the part of those inspired by phe nomenology. A third group of contributions is by non-western thinkers, who are more likely to approach the problem in terms of culture. Their engage ment with the issue clearly shows, among other things, that it is almost exclusively in the western tradition that the fact-value distinction is often understood as an outright dichotomy. The occasion for the publication of this collection is Dr. Cornelis Anthonie van Peursen's retirement as Professor of Philosophy. This year he leaves the Free University, Amsterdam; until 1982 he was professor at the University of Leyden as well. In the Netherlands and beyond he has become known for his concern with constructive comparison of diverging philosophical trends and the cross-cultural fertilization of thought. Characteristic of his career are his efforts to render the results of academic philosophizing understand able to a broader audience. (shrink)

This book presents the views of 22 women philosophers from outside the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian worlds. These eminent thinkers are from Mesopotamia, India, Tibet, China, Korea, Japan, Australia, America, the Philippines and Nigeria. Six philosophers, the earliest of whom predates the Greek pre-Socratics by two thousand years, lived at “the dawn of philosophy”; another six from late Antiquity through the Classical period; five more taught and wrote during the Middle Ages up to the Age of Exploration, and yet five others (...) were active during the modern period to the mid-twentieth century. Most belonged to major philosophical traditions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Zen, or Sufism. The chapters of the book describe the life and views of the philosophers, outline the fundamental features of their respective schools, and contain translations of their writings. The book is intended for scholars of philosophy and women’s studies who wish to expand their knowledge of non-Western philosophical traditions and is ideally suited for undergraduate education. Comprehensive multilingual bibliographies of carefully documented sources offer scholars many promising resources for further research. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Jesus the World-Protector:Eighteenth-Century Gelukpa Historians View Christianity1Michael J. SweetThe assumption that religion was so seamlessly woven into non-Western and preindustrial cultures that it was not even distinguished as a separate entity, let alone regarded as an object for study, has been a commonplace among Western scholars of religion for some decades.2 From this point of view, which can be broadly characterized as postmodernist and postcolonialist, the concept (...) of religion "is not a native category... it is a category imposed from outside... it is the other... colonialists who are solely responsible for the content of the term."3 This is a somewhat reductionistic and Eurocentric perspective that ignores the universal human capacity to empathically understand other belief systems.One counterexample to this school of thought is found in the works of three eighteenth-century religious historians, all of whom were learned monks in the Gelukpa tradition of Tibetan Buddhism: Gombojab (Mgon po Skyabs, late seventeenth century–after 1766),4 Sumba Khembo (Sum pa Mkhan po Yes shes dpal 'byor, 1704–1776), and Tuken (Thu'u Bkwan Blo bzang Chos kyi Nyi ma, 1737– 1802), authors of The History of Buddhism in China, The Auspicious Wish-Fulfilling Tree,5 and The Crystal Mirror,6 respectively. These scholars had clear conceptions of their own and other religious systems (Tib.: chos lugs), and compared to earlier Tibetan accounts they present relatively tolerant evaluations of other religious philosophies—for example, Chinese Buddhism, Daoism, and the Literati Tradition (Ru jiao, "Confucianism")—while asserting the superiority of the Gelukpa form of Tibetan Buddhism.7As a case in point, we will see how they describe and evaluate Christianity, a religion that was quite foreign to them and that they appear to have understood only imperfectly. Earlier Tibetan Buddhist religious histories, of which the best-known are the Blue Annals of 'Gos Lotsawa and Bu ston's "History of the Dharma," are immensely valuable sources, but they are more parochial in their range of interest than those of the eighteenth-century Tibeto-Mongol scholars.8 For the earlier historians Indo-Tibetan Buddhism was the only religious system worth serious consideration, and Chinese Buddhism, Indian non-Buddhist religious philosophies, Bon, [End Page 173] and Islam were dealt with in a polemical or (especially in the case of Islam) a frankly hostile fashion. Something changed in the eighteenth century that produced works closer to modern comparative religion than to medieval heresiography.A major motive for this shift was surely the triumph of the Manchu Qing dynasty, which by the mid-eighteenth century had incorporated Tibet and Mongolia definitively into its sphere. Thus, the horizon of the Tibeto-Mongol intelligentsia widened to include the vast Manchu empire, whose leadership in its turn was becoming increasingly aware of other Asian societies and of the European colonial powers. I believe it is significant that Sumba Khembo, Tuken, and Gombojab were all of Mongol ethnicity, the first two from Amdo and the last from Mongolia; they were able to combine an encyclopedic mastery of Tibetan Buddhist texts and ritual with the greater objectivity available to people stemming from the geographical and cultural periphery of that tradition. All three of them were exposed to the cosmopolitan world of imperial Beijing, where they had ample opportunity to meet followers of non-Buddhist religions of a wide range of ethnicities.9By the mid-eighteenth century there were four Catholic churches in Beijing, serving thousands of Chinese Christian converts. Dozens of European priests were employed by the imperial court as well.10 The prevailing syncretic view of the three major Chinese religious philosophies (sanjiao)—Buddhism, Daoism, and the Literati Tradition—as being mutually complementary,11 prevailed in the capital. This is the view that is approvingly cited by Tuken: "there are three great traditions (lugs srol) which clarify the ultimate nature of things, the Literati Tradition, Daoism, and Buddhism."12In turning to these scholars' treatment of Christianity, we find the earliest notice of this religion in Gombojab's History of Buddhism in China,13 written around the mid-1730s.14 Gombojab renders the name of Jesus in its traditional Chinese form of Yesu; he is called the World... (shrink)

This chapter talks about the power of music, how characters in South Park use it in telling stories, and how music conveys ideas in the context of Western philosophy. But South Park does raise questions about music that philosophers— particularly Plato—have dealt with again and again. Despite their flaws, these Greek thinkers' views were instrumental to asking questions about music's impact (often referred to as ethos), its mathematical properties in relation to the universe, and how these two aspects interact (...) with one another. Phil Collins and Asia may not survive history's merciless aesthetic filter, just as the aulos instrument vanished long ago, but where the underlying philosophy is concerned, the issues are timeless. (shrink)

This article assesses the prospects for the adoption of Rawls’s political liberalism in non‐Western contexts. The argument centers on the religious resurgence in non‐Western societies and presents an evaluation of the viability and acceptability of political liberal principles in the face of the normative, theoretical and practical challenges posed by this development. Political liberalism emerges as a significant theoretical and normative resource; nevertheless, the socio‐political conditions in non‐Western societies may fall short of satisfying the sociological requirements of (...) political liberalism. A strong historical interpretation of Rawls’s sociological assumptions suggests that relatively younger and developing democracies where religious movements are in the ascendant, will have to wait centuries to live up to the social and moral standards of political liberalism. This article comes to a less negative conclusion. The normative arguments of political liberalism can rest on weaker sociological assumptions that do not require such a long period of time to emerge as Rawls appears to suppose. Indeed, the institution of a political liberal regime may be the condition of its own success, encouraging in its own right the necessary political reasonableness among religious views. (shrink)

Volume 35 of Heidegger’s Complete Works comprises a lecture course given at the University of Freiburg in 1932, five years after the publication of Being and Time. During this period, Heidegger was at the height of his creative powers, which are on full display in this clear and imaginative text. In it, Heidegger leads his students in a close reading of two of the earliest philosophical source documents, fragments by Greek thinkers Anaximander and Parmenides. Heidegger develops their common theme of (...) Being and non-being and shows that the question of Being is indeed the origin of Western philosophy. His engagement with these Greek texts is as much of a return to beginnings as it is a potential reawakening of philosophical wonder and inquiry in the present. (shrink)

The pre-conditions and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are inter-connected with those of climate change, prompting reflection on how to re-think the relations between human and non-human on a changing planet. This essay considers that issue with reference to the contrasts between the philosophies of Descartes and Spinoza, who offered radically different approaches to the conceptualization of human presence in Nature.

The article considers the relation between Chinese philosophy as an academic discipline and Western philosophy. In the academy there are three ways Chinese philosophy can relate to Western philosophy: Chinese philosophy may see itself as the other of Western philosophy, Chinese philosophy may seek recognition from Western philosophy, and Chinese philosophy may refuse to see Western philosophy as the measure for what is philosophy. I consider scholars from each of these three positions as well as (...) the debate between them. Through this review it becomes clear that the relation between Chinese and Western philosophy is an uneasy one. In conclusion I suggest that the relation between Chinese and Western philosophy is not a relation between two separate entities; the rise of Chinese philosophy is rather a symptom of the decline of Western learning. (shrink)

The last sentence of Chapter 10 of the Analects describes a brief encounter between Confucius and a hen-pheasant, and it does so in puzzling terms, ridden with lexical difficulties. At the same time, intertextual references insert this fragment into the context of Confucius’ life mission as well as of Chinese mythological narratives. This contribution assesses the fragment’s meaning and significance: Confucius’ reaction to the hen-pheasant unveils his evolving understanding of the Heavenly Mandate bestowed upon him. The fragment thus forcefully concludes (...) the chapter in which it is inserted. Additionally, I put forward a hypothesis: the focus of this narrative, coupled with its positioning at the end of Chapter 10, induce us to postulate that it may have been purposefully located at the very center of the Analects, a proposition that reverberates on the way we look at the composition of the book. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Columbia History of Western Philosophy ed. by Richard H. PopkinRichard E. AquilaRichard H. Popkin, editor. The Columbia History of Western Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Pp. xxvi + 836. Cloth, $59.95.This volume aims to “… revise the general prevailing understanding of the history of philosophy among present-day academics.” It aims to do so by emphasizing the “full intellectual and social contexts” of the (...) ideas in question, with particular emphasis on developments in religion and science. Unsurprisingly, the theme of scepticism not only looms large in the sections devoted to the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophers, but also, in the light of its more explicit and detailed connection to the context of religious controversy, its presentation is fuller than what might be expected under the “prevailing understanding.” (Both that theme, and also the influence of the Kaballah, are touched on twice in the general introduction. I take the occasion to note that the index, though extensive, is sometimes less useful than it might be, leaving to the reader’s own eventual discovery, for example, the often neglected connection of the latter with Spinoza.)Popkin also takes pain to lament the common attitude “that the history of philosophy is nothing but footnotes to Plato and Aristotle” (xviii). As if to underscore his point, the first chapter—going from the Pre-Socratics through early Christian philosophy—is not even presented as a chapter on “Ancient Philosophy”: what is in question is simply the “Origins of Western Philosophic Thinking.” In any case, although introduced by him, the chapter is apparently not edited by Popkin himself, who lays such claim only to the chapters on medieval Islamic and Jewish philosophy and the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. (Popkin’s introduction effectively emphasizes the three-fold background of “Asian,” Biblical, and Egyptian influence, with the last of its four pages devoted to Bernal’s Black Athena. I confess to not having read Bernai previously. But Popkin’s reflections were effective; I immediately contacted Amazon.com.) Each of the other chapters is said to have an overall “editor or editors,” but their identity is not revealed. However, presuming that, except for the first, the editor is the author of the corresponding introduction, we might guess: Stephen Brown for medieval Christian, Brian Copenhaver for the Renaissance, Rudolf Makkreel for the nineteenth century, Avrum Stroll for twentieth-century analytic. There is no general introduction to the twentieth-century continental chapter.Each section of a chapter is followed by a bibliography, though with no overarching format: some are restricted to secondary sources, others not, and there is no clear pattern regarding inclusion of non-English materials. The Medieval Christian and Renaissance chapters conclude with general bibliographies by their (apparent) editors. In any case, the bibliographies should serve eminently well for the editor’s view of the volume as a [End Page 669] “launching pad” to further study. It is in fact a most effective launching pad. However, there are some possible eyebrow-raisers. For example, apart from anthologies, the only books listed on Spinoza are Popkin’s own on the history of scepticism, Strauss’s Spinoza’s Critique of Religion, andWolfson’s The Philosophy of Spinoza; the secondary references for the Kabbala denudata are about the same in number as those for Descartes and Spinoza together; those for Thomasius and Wolff outnumber those for Kant, and there is no reference, for example, to Heidegger among the latter (and for that matter virtually none in the indexes of the books cited for Kant).In addition to the main sections of each chapter, there are occasional mini-sections, sometimes less than a page, by Popkin and others. Besides facilitating continuity, they provide additional references. On at least one occasion (cf. his brief comment following Plato), they give Popkin the opportunity to suggest that there are also other ways to look at the philosopher in question. In fact Popkin takes pains to note that no effort has been made to “force the different authors into a common expository style or into a common point of view,” and that they often in fact differ with each other (xviii). This seems to me not always felicitous, e.g... (shrink)