Author : Bryan W. Van Norden
Publisher :
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 29,12 MB
Release : 2017
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780231184373
Bryan W. Van Norden lambastes academic philosophy for its Eurocentrism and insularity and challenges educational institutions to live up to their cosmopolitan ideals. Taking Back Philosophy is at once a manifesto for multicultural education, an accessible introduction to Confucian and Buddhist philosophy, and a defense of the value of philosophy.
Author : Bryan W. Van Norden
Publisher : Hackett Publishing
Page : 291 pages
File Size : 46,43 MB
Release : 2011-03-04
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1603846050
This book is an introduction in the very best sense of the word. It provides the beginner with an accurate, sophisticated, yet accessible account, and offers new insights and challenging perspectives to those who have more specialized knowledge. Focusing on the period in Chinese philosophy that is surely most easily approachable and perhaps is most important, it ranges over of rich set of competing options. It also, with admirable self-consciousness, presents a number of daring attempts to relate those options to philosophical figures and movements from the West. I recommend it very highly.--Lee H. Yearley, Walter Y. Evans-Wentz Professor, Religious Studies, Stanford University
Author : Bryan van Norden
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 21 pages
File Size : 26,64 MB
Release : 2007-06-11
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1139464396
In this book Bryan W. Van Norden examines early Confucianism as a form of virtue ethics and Mohism, an anti-Confucian movement, as a version of consequentialism. The philosophical methodology is analytic, in that the emphasis is on clear exegesis of the texts and a critical examination of the philosophical arguments proposed by each side. Van Norden shows that Confucianism, while similar to Aristotelianism in being a form of virtue ethics, offers different conceptions of 'the good life', the virtues, human nature, and ethical cultivation. Mohism is akin to Western utilitarianism in being a form of consequentialism, but distinctive in its conception of the relevant consequences and in its specific thought-experiments and state-of-nature arguments. Van Norden makes use of the best research on Chinese history, archaeology, and philology. His text is accessible to philosophers with no previous knowledge of Chinese culture and to Sinologists with no background in philosophy.
Author : Philip J. Ivanhoe
Publisher : Hackett Publishing
Page : 420 pages
File Size : 34,33 MB
Release : 2005-01-01
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780872207806
This new edition offers expanded selections from the works of Kongzi (Confucius), Mengzi (Mencius), Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu), and Xunzi (Hsun Tzu); two new works, the dialogues 'Robber Zhi' and 'White Horse'; a concise general introduction; brief introductions to, and selective bibliographies for, each work; and four appendices that shed light on important figures, periods, texts, and terms in Chinese thought.
Author : William Bechtel
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 584 pages
File Size : 13,80 MB
Release : 1993-12
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780226091860
This innovative book presents candid, informal debates among scholars who examine the benefits and problems of studying science in the same way that scientists study the natural world.
Author : Bryan W. Van Norden
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 165 pages
File Size : 14,79 MB
Release : 2017-12-05
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0231545452
Are American colleges and universities failing their students by refusing to teach the philosophical traditions of China, India, Africa, and other non-Western cultures? This biting and provocative critique of American higher education says yes. Even though we live in an increasingly multicultural world, most philosophy departments stubbornly insist that only Western philosophy is real philosophy and denigrate everything outside the European canon. In Taking Back Philosophy, Bryan W. Van Norden lambastes academic philosophy for its Eurocentrism, insularity, and complicity with nationalism and issues a ringing call to make our educational institutions live up to their cosmopolitan ideals. In a cheeky, agenda-setting, and controversial style, Van Norden, an expert in Chinese philosophy, proposes an inclusive, multicultural approach to philosophical inquiry. He showcases several accessible examples of how Western and Asian thinkers can be brought into productive dialogue, demonstrating that philosophy only becomes deeper as it becomes increasingly diverse and pluralistic. Taking Back Philosophy is at once a manifesto for multicultural education, an accessible introduction to Confucian and Buddhist philosophy, a critique of the ethnocentrism and anti-intellectualism characteristic of much contemporary American politics, a defense of the value of philosophy and a liberal arts education, and a call to return to the search for the good life that defined philosophy for Confucius, Socrates, and the Buddha. Building on a popular New York Times opinion piece that suggested any philosophy department that fails to teach non-Western philosophy should be renamed a “Department of European and American Philosophy,” this book will challenge any student or scholar of philosophy to reconsider what constitutes the love of wisdom.
Author : Brian Vanyo
Publisher : Liberty Publishing Company
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 30,53 MB
Release : 2012-08-01
Category : Law
ISBN : 9780983193302
James Madison once wrote, "A people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives." To those who seek to reclaim their command over American government today, "The American Ideology" serves as a powerful weapon to advance that cause. "The American Ideology" provides an objective investigation into the political philosophy that facilitated self-government in the United States. The book examines the origin of the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence. It demonstrates how the Constitution was designed to preserve those ideals. And it identifies the fundamental values that must accompany freedom in any republic in order to sustain it. Based on the writings and speeches of the Founding Fathers, the observations of Alexis de Tocqueville, and the critical works of John Locke, Charles de Montesquieu, and William Blackstone, "The American Ideology" serves as an authoritative study on the foundation of American liberty. "The American Ideology" also sheds light on the means by which the federal government has since subverted American liberty. It identifies the points in American history when the government has departed from its founding principles. It explains how the federal government's commerce and taxing powers under the Constitution have been stretched so far that any kind of individual activity can now be taxed and regulated. And thanks to the Supreme Court's recent ruling on the legality of "Obamacare," the federal government now has free reign to coerce individual behavior--it can tax and regulate inactivity. When this regulatory state is compared against the Founding Fathers' original design, it is clear that the federal government's authority today is overbearing, unnatural, and unconstitutional. As Brian Vanyo writes in "The American Ideology," there is a way for change to prevail--for the people to recover their sovereignty and restore their natural rights. Using the political philosophy that inspired the American Revolution, there is a way for the people to win their independence once again. But they must first arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
Author : Clare Mac Cumhaill
Publisher : Anchor
Page : 417 pages
File Size : 44,1 MB
Release : 2023-10-24
Category : History
ISBN : 1984898981
A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A vibrant portrait of four college friends—Iris Murdoch, Philippa Foot, Elizabeth Anscombe, and Mary Midgley—who formed a new philosophical tradition while Oxford's men were away fighting World War II. The history of European philosophy is usually constructed from the work of men. In Metaphysical Animals, a pioneering group biography, Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman offer a compelling alternative. In the mid-twentieth century Elizabeth Anscombe, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot, and Iris Murdoch were philosophy students at Oxford when most male undergraduates and many tutors were conscripted away to fight in the Second World War. Together, these young women, all friends, developed a philosophy that could respond to the war’s darkest revelations. Neither the great Enlightenment thinkers of the past, the logical innovators of the early twentieth century, or the new Existentialist philosophy trickling across the Channel, could make sense of this new human reality of limitless depravity and destructive power, the women felt. Their answer was to bring philosophy back to life. We are metaphysical animals, they realized, creatures that can question their very being. Who am I? What is freedom? What is human goodness? The answers we give, they believed, shape what we will become. Written with expertise and flair, Metaphysical Animals is a lively portrait of women who shared ideas, but also apartments, clothes and even lovers. Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman show how from the disorder and despair of the war, four brilliant friends created a way of ethical thinking that is there for us today.
Author : William L. Barney
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 262 pages
File Size : 20,41 MB
Release : 2007-11-14
Category : History
ISBN : 0198042892
Despite the advances of the civil rights movement, many white southerners cling to the faded glory of a romanticized Confederate past. In The Making of a Confederate, William L. Barney focuses on the life of one man, Walter Lenoir of North Carolina, to examine the origins of southern white identity alongside its myriad ambiguities and complexities. Born into a wealthy slaveholding family, Lenoir abhorred the institution, opposed secession, and planned to leave his family to move to Minnesota, in the free North. But when the war erupted in 1860, Lenoir found another escape route--he joined the Confederate army, an experience that would radically transform his ideals. After the war, Lenoir, like many others, embraced the cult of the Lost Cause, refashioning his memory and beliefs in an attempt to make sense of the war, its causes, and its consequences. While some Southerners sank into depression, aligned with the victors, or fiercely opposed the new order, Lenoir withdrew to his acreage in the North Carolina mountains. There, he pursued his own vision of the South's future, one that called for greater self-sufficiency and a more efficient use of the land. For Lenoir and many fellow Confederates, the war never really ended. As he tells this compelling story, Barney offers new insights into the ways that (selective) memory informs history; through Lenoir's life, readers learn how individual choices can transform abstract historical processes into concrete actions.
Author : Lydia Amir
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 314 pages
File Size : 50,67 MB
Release : 2019-12-19
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 3030326713
This book presents an original worldview, Homo risibilis, wherein self-referential humor is proposed as the path leading from a tragic view of life to a liberating embrace of human ridicule. Humor is presented as a conceptual tool for holding together contradictions and managing the unresolvable conflict of the human condition till Homo risibilis resolves the inherent tension without epistemological cost. This original approach to the human condition allows us to effectively address life’s ambiguities without losing sight of its tragic overtones and brings along far-ranging personal and social benefits. By defining the problem that other philosophies and many religions attempt to solve in terms we can all relate to, Homo risibilis enables an understanding of the Other that surpasses mere tolerance. Its egalitarian vision roots an ethic of compassion without requiring metaphysical or religious assumptions and liberates the individual for action on others’ behalf. It offers a new model of rationality which effectively handles and eventually resolves the tension between oneself, others, and the world at large. Amir’s view of the human condition transcends the field of philosophy of humor. An original worldview that fits the requirements of traditional philosophy, Homo risibilis is especially apt to answer contemporary concerns. It embodies the minimal consensus we need in order to live together and the active role philosophy should responsibly play in a global world. Here developed for the first time in a complete way, the Homo risibilis worldview is not only liberating in nature, but also illuminates the shortcomings of other philosophies in their attempts to secure harmony in a disharmonious world for a disharmonious human being.
