Comparative philosophy between two disparate cultural-philosophic traditions, such as Western and Chinese philosophy, has become a new trend of philosophical fashion in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Having learned from the past, contemporary comparative philosophers cautiously safeguard their comparative studies against two potential pitfalls, namely cultural universalism and cultural relativism. The Orientalism that assumed the superiority of the Occidental has become a memory of the past. The historical pendulum has apparently swung to the (...) other extreme. The more recent "reverse Orientalism" has started to reclaim the superiority of the Oriental. We have even been told that the twenty-first... (shrink)

Even as dismissive of pursuing Comparative Philosophy for achieving East-West synthesis in philosophy, the author maintains the need for “open philosophizing.” “Open philosophizing” is one characterized by dialogical openness to culturally diverse philosophical traditions and thought-patterns.

This entry in the ACPI Encyclopedia of Philosophy provides a very brief description of the nature and history of East-West comparative philosophy.

We offer a sceptical examination of a thesis recently advanced in a monograph published by Princeton University Press, entitled Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia. In this dense and probing work, Christopher I. Beckwith, a professor of Central Eurasian studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, argues that Pyrrho of Elis adopted a form of early Buddhism during his years in Bactria and Gandhāra, and that early Pyrrhonism must be understood as a sect of early Buddhism. In making (...) his case Beckwith claims that virtually all scholars of Greek, Indian, and Chinese philosophy have been operating under flawed assumptions and with flawed methodologies, and so have failed to notice obvious and undeniable correspondences between the philosophical views of the Buddha and of Pyrrho. In this study we take Beckwith’s proposal and challenge seriously, and we examine his textual basis and techniques of translation, his methods of examining passages, his construal of problems and his reconstruction of arguments. We find that his presuppositions are contentious and doubtful, his own methods are extremely flawed, and that he draws unreasonable conclusions. Although the result of our study is almost entirely negative, we think it illustrates some important general points about the methodology of comparative philosophy. (shrink)

The essentially comparative conception of value entails that the value of a state of affairs does not depend solely upon features intrinsic to the state of affairs, but also upon extrinsic features, such as the set of feasible alternatives. It has been argued that this conception of value gives us reason to abandon the transitivity of the better than relation. This paper shows that the support for intransitivity derived from this conception of value is very limited. On its most (...) plausible interpretations, it merely provides a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for intransitivity. It is further argued that the essentially comparative conception of value appears to support a disjunctive conclusion: there is incommensurability of value or betterness is not transitive. Of these two alternatives, incommensurability is preferable, because it is far less threatening to our other axiological commitments. (shrink)

Our understanding of subjunctive conditionals has been greatly enhanced through the use of possible world semantics and, more precisely, by the idea that they involve variably strict quantification over possible worlds. I propose to extend this treatment to ceteris paribus conditionals – that is, conditionals that incorporate a ceteris paribus or ‘other things being equal’ clause. Although such conditionals are commonly invoked in scientific theorising, they traditionally arouse suspicion and apprehensiveness amongst philosophers. By treating ceteris paribus conditionals as a species (...) of variably strict conditional I hope to shed new light upon their content and their logic. (shrink)

In 2003, biophysicist and Nobel Laureate Maurice Wilkins published his autobiography entitled The Third Man. In the preface, he diffidently points out that the title was chosen by his publisher, as a reference to the famous 1949 movie no doubt, featuring Orson Welles in his classical role as penicillin racketeer Harry Lime. In this paper I intend to show that there is much more to this title than merely its familiar ring. If subjected to a comparative analysis, multiple correspondences (...) between movie and memoirs can be brought to the fore. Taken together, these documents shed an intriguing light on the vicissitudes of budding life sciences research during the post-war era. I will focus my comparative analysis on issues still relevant today, such as dual use, the handling of sensitive scientific information and, finally, on the interwovenness of science and warfare. Thus, I will explain how science autobiographies on the one hand and genres of the imagination on the other may deepen our comprehension of tensions and dilemmas of life sciences research then and now. For that reason, science autobiographies can provide valuable input for teaching philosophy and history of science to science students. (shrink)

This collection of new essays focuses on metaethical views from outside the mainstream European tradition. The guiding motivation is that important discussions about the ultimate nature of morality can be found far beyond ancient Greece and modern Europe. The volume’s aim is to show how rich the possibilities are for comparative metaethics, and how much these comparisons can add to contemporary discussions of the foundations of morality. Representing five continents, the thinkers discussed range from ancient Egyptian, ancient Chinese, and (...) the Mexica (Aztec) cultures to more recent thinkers like Augusto Salazar Bondy, Bimal Krishna Matilal, Nishida Kitarō, and Susan Sontag. The philosophical topics discussed include religious language, moral discovery, moral disagreement, essences’ relation to evaluative facts, metaphysical harmony, naturalism, moral perception, and the nature of moral realism. This volume will be of interest to anyone interested in metaethics or comparative philosophy. (shrink)

The following review explores Intercultural Information Ethics in terms of comparative philosophy, supporting IIE as the most relevant and significant development of the field of Information Ethics. The focus of the review is threefold. First, it will review the core presumption of the field of IIE, that being the demand for an intermission in the pursuit of a founding philosophy for IE in order to first address the philosophical biases of IE by western philosophy. Second, a (...) history of the various philosophical streams of IIE will be outlined, including its literature and pioneering contributors. Lastly, a new synthesis of comparative philosophies in IIE will be offered, looking towards a future evolution of the field. Examining the interchange between contemporary information ethicists regarding the discipline of IIE, the review first outlines the previously established presumptions of the field of IIE that posit the need for an IE as grounded in western sensibilities. The author then addresses the implications of the foregoing presumption from several non-western viewpoints, arguing that IIE does in fact find roots in non-western philosophies as established in the concluding synthesis of western and eastern philosophical traditions. (shrink)

The paper discusses peculiarity of the comparative method applied in philosophysince 1920s. It presents its basic foundations and objectives, as well as the early and most recent definitions of “comparative philosophy”. The author aims at reconsidering in terms of philosophy both the reasons for bias against this method and its advantages in the context of cross-cultural comparative studies. The crucial question is whether various incommensurate schemata of thought, including these which are determined by distinct cultural (...) milieus, may be the subject of comparison at all. To answer this question, she refers, among others, to Ludwik Fleck’s conception of a socially constructed “thought style” and“the truth”, being completely determined within a thought style. The author also consults the conceptions of Stanisław Schayer, Daya Krishna, Bimal K. Matilal and Jitendra NathMohanty who recommend the comparative method as highly useful for the on-going philosophical debates as long as it is not confined to tracing merely similarities between different intellectual traditions, i.e. analogical ideas and equivalent arguments. What seems to the present author the most valuable philosophical contribution to the comparative studies is the perspective of polilogue suggested by Franz M. Wimmer, and the metacomparative self-reference recognized by Wilhelm Halbfass and Robert W. Smid as precious enhancement and challenge for profound philosophical inquiry as such. (shrink)

The following review explores Intercultural Information Ethics in terms of comparative philosophy, supporting IIE as the most relevant and significant development of the field of Information Ethics. The focus of the review is threefold. First, it will review the core presumption of the field of IIE, that being the demand for an intermission in the pursuit of a founding philosophy for IE in order to first address the philosophical biases of IE by western philosophy. Second, a (...) history of the various philosophical streams of IIE will be outlined, including its literature and pioneering contributors. Lastly, a new synthesis of comparative philosophies in IIE will be offered, looking towards a future evolution of the field. Examining the interchange between contemporary information ethicists regarding the discipline of IIE, the review first outlines the previously established presumptions of the field of IIE that posit the need for an IE as grounded in western sensibilities. The author then addresses the implications of the foregoing presumption from several non-western viewpoints, arguing that IIE does in fact find roots in non-western philosophies as established in the concluding synthesis of western and eastern philosophical traditions. (shrink)

Earl Conee is a well known contemporary defender of the impossibility of moral dilemmas. In his 1982 paper "Against Moral Dilemmas" he argued that moral dilemmas are impossible because the existence of such a dilemma would entail that some obligatory action is forbidden, which is absurd. More recently, in "Why Moral Dilemmas are Impossible" he has defended the impossibility of moral dilemmas by claiming that the moral status of an action depends in part on the moral status of its alternatives. (...) I will here argue that this claim -- as he understands it -- is sufficiently controversial to undermine the force of his argument. (shrink)

Disciplinary issues -- Field studies -- Appendix: Theory of law : legal ethnography, or, the theoretical fruits of the inquiries into folkways. /// Reedition of papers in English spanning from 1995 to 2008 /// DISCIPLINARY ISSUES -- LAW AS CULTURE? [2002] 9–14 // TRENDS IN COMPARATIVE LEGAL STUDIES [2002] 15–17 // COMPARATIVE LEGAL CULTURES: ATTEMPTS AT CONCEPTUALISATION [1997] 19–28: 1. Legal Culture in a Cultural-anthropological Approach 19 / 2. Legal Culture in a Sociological Approach 21 / 3. Timely (...) Issues of Central and Eastern Europe 24 // COMPARATIVE LEGAL CULTURES? [2001] 29–48: 1. Legal Comparativism Challenged 29 / 2. Comparative Legal Cultures versus Comparative Law 34 / 3. Contrasting Fields 40 [a) The Historical Understanding of Socialist Law 42 / b) Convergence of Civil Law and Common Law 44] 4. Concluding Remarks 46 // THEATRUM LEGALE MUNDI: ON LEGAL SYSTEMS CLASSIFIED [2005] 49–75: 1. Preliminaries 49 / 2. Proposals 50 / 3. Impossible Taxonomy, or the Moment of Practicality in Legal Mapping 69 / 4. Diversity as a Fundamental Quality of Human Existence 74 // LEGAL TRADITIONS? IN SEARCH FOR FAMILIES AND CULTURES IN LAW [2004] 77–97: 1. Comparative Law and the Comparative Study of Legal Traditions 78 / 2. ‘System’, ‘Family’, ‘Culture’, and ‘Tradition’ in the Classification of Law 80 / 3. Different Traditions, Differing Ways of Thinking 85 / 4. Different Expectations, Differings Institutionalisations in Law 88 / 5. Different “Rationalities”, Differing “Logics” 92 / 6. Mentality in Foundation of the Law 94 / 7. Defining a Subject for Theoretical Research in Law 96 // SOMETHING NEW, SOMETHING OLD IN THE EUROPEAN IDENTITY OF LAW? [1995] 99–102 --- FIELD STUDIES -- MEETING POINTS BETWEEN THE TRADITIONS OF ENGLISH–AMERICAN COMMON LAW AND CONTINENTAL-FRENCH CIVIL LAW: DEVELOPMENTS AND EXPERIENCE OF POSTMODERNITY IN CANADA [2002] 105–130: I. Canadian Law in General 105 / II. Canadian Legal Developments in Particular [1. The Transformation of the Role of Precedents 112 / 2. The Transformation of Law-application into a Collective, Multicultural and Multifactorial Search for a Solution 116 / 3. Practical Trends of Dissolving the Law’s Positivity 120 / 4. New Prerogatives Acquired by Courts 125 {a) Unfolding the Statutory Provisons in Principles 126 / b) Constitutionalisation of Issues 127 / c) The Supreme Court as the Nation’s Supreme Moral Authority 129}] // MAN ELEVATING HIMSELF? DILEMMAS OF RATIONALITY IN OUR AGE [2000] 131–163: I. Reason and its Adventures 1. Progress and Advance Questioned 131 / 2. The Human Search for Safety Objectified 133 / 3. Knowledge Separated from Wisdom 135 / 4. Pure Intellectuality thereby Born 137 / II. The Will-Element Formalised in Law 5. Mere Voluntas in the Foundation of Legal Positivism 141 / 6. Formalism with Operations Fragmented 145 / III. The State of America Exemplified 7. “Slouching into Gomorrah” 147 / IV. Consequences 8. Utopianism-cum-Voluntarism 154 / 9. With Logic in Posterior Control of Human Formulations Only 159 / V. Perspectives 10. And a Final Resolution Dreamed about 161 // RULE OF LAW? MANIA OF LAW? ON THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN RATIONALITY AND ANARCHY IN AMERICA [2002] 165–180: {Transformation of American Law and Legal Mentality 165 / With Repercussions on the Underlying Ethos 168 / Legislation through Processualisation 170 / With Hyperrationalism Added 172 / Example: Finding Lost Property 172 / Practicalness Veiled by Verbal Magic 173 / Ending in Jurispathy 175 / Transubstantiating the Self-interest of the Legal Profession 178 / Post-modernity, Substituting for Primitiveness 178} // TRANSFERS OF LAW: A CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS [2003] 181–207: 1. Terms 182 / 2. Technicality 190 / 3. Contrasts in Transfers of Law 200 {Contrasts 200 / Criticisms 202 / Alternatives205} 4. Conclusions 206 // THE DANGERS FOR THE SELF OF BEING SELF-CENTRED: ON STANDARDS AND VALUES [2002] 209–212 --- APPENDIX -- THEORY OF LAW – LEGAL ETHNOGRAPHY, OR THE THEORETICAL FRUITS OF THE INQUIRIES INTO FOLKWAYS [2008] 213–234 1. Encounters 213 / 2. Disciplines 218 / 3. The Lawyerly Interest 223 / 4. Law and/or Laws 226 / 5. Conclusion 233 --- Index of Subjects 235 / Index of Normative Materials 242 / Index 244 . (shrink)

Much of contemporary philosophy of mind is marked by a dissatisfaction with the two main positions in the field, standard materialism and standard dualism, and hence with the search for alternatives. My concern in this paper is with two such alternatives. The first, which I will call non-standard materialism, is a position I have defended in a number of places, and which may take various forms. The second, panpsychism, has been defended and explored by a number of recent writers. (...) My main goals are: (a) to explain the differences between these positions; and (b) to suggest that non-standard materialism is more plausible than panpsychism. (shrink)

A comparative perspective in the study of religion has recently been taken up more and more often. It goes along with a growing awareness of cultural and religious plurality as well as of the importance of religion in terms of its role in the social, political, and economic processes of the contemporary world. This also gave an impulse to organize the two-day international seminar on “Comparative Methodology in Religious Studies” held in Kraków on 23–24 May 2013, at the (...) Pedagogical University of Cracow, Department of Philosophy and Sociology, in co-operation with the Editors of Argument: Biannual Philosophical Journal. During the seminar a variety of methods applied in the comparative study of religion were discussed. The participants considered which of them seemed to be most beneficial or useful for a better understanding of the subject matter, and for capturing the uniqueness and divergence between Abrahamic, Indian (Dharmic), and other religious traditions. Some criteria for a proper comparison in the field of religion were defined and justified during this discussion. The presenters took into account both the sociological context of the analysis and philosophical consideration of the most fundamental questions within comparative methodology. (shrink)

The lie detector test has long been treated with suspicion by the law. Recently, several authors have called this suspicion into question. They argue that the lie detector test may have considerable forensic benefits, particularly if we move past the classic, false-positive prone, autonomic nervous system-based (ANS-based) control question test, to the more reliable, brain-based, concealed information test. These authors typically rely on a “comparative advantage” argument to make their case. According to this argument, we should not be so (...) suspicious of lie detection evidence if it has comparative advantages over the epistemic methods currently utilised by the legal system. In this article, I add to this growing support by making a novel comparative advantage argument in favour of brain-based lie detection evidence. The argument focuses on the P300 concealed information test (P300 CIT), which has several unique properties, and on the effect it may have on pre-trial bargaining in criminal cases rather than in-court evidence. The thesis is that P300 CIT could allow for innocent defendants to credibly signal their innocence to investigators and prosecutors during pre-trial bargaining more effectively than current proposed methods for doing the same thing. I defend this argument from a number of objections, and suggest that it opens up an interesting avenue in the ongoing debate about the merits of this technology. Although the argument is presented with the criminal law in mind, it could form part of a more general cumulative case in favour of this technology. (shrink)

Phenomenology, as propounded by Edmond Husserl, is an important movements in the modern western philosophy, while sÅÙkhya and its application yoga are the ancient Indian philosophical disciplines or dar±ana. This is a comparative study of phenomenology with sÅÙkhya and yoga. As per my present understanding this project is now completed. I have organized the outcome of my study in the following four papers preceded by prolegomena: Prolegomena to the comparative study of Phenomenology and SaÙkhya 1, Consciousness in (...) Phenomenology and SÅÙkhya 2. ‘Nature’ (ontology) in Phenomenology and SÅÙkhya 3. Structures (cosmology) in Phenomenology and SÅÙkhya 4. ‘Terminal Transcendental Teleological Cause’ in Phenomenology and SÅÙkhya -/- The parallelism between the philosophical disciplines, so far removed historically, geographically and culturally from each other, which this study brought out, was not only fascinating but also extensive. Certain differences also have been critically brought out. Viewing phenomenology through the grid of sÅÙkhya, I found, elucidates phenomenology. In being viewed from the perspective of a philosophical school, as modern as that of phenomenology, the ancient Indian disciplines also stand to benefit. The comparative study can hope to introduce sÅÙkhya to those acquainted with phenomenology and vice versa. This presentation is an attempt to share the flavor of my findings. (shrink)

For a research project I engaged in from 2004-2007, I gathered and analysed statements made by representatives of Islamist terrorist movements on the Internet and compared key themes of their ideology (such as "democracy", "capitalism", "globalization", "colonialism" and "underdevelopment") to the writings and ideology of authors in various traditions of Christian "political theology". In this paper, it is being established that there are clear similarities in the socio-political analysis advanced by Christian political and liberation theologians and representatives of Islamist terrorist (...) movements and radical Islam, respectively. The paper also offers a short history and extended discussion of the concept of "political theology" and elaborates on radical Islam's understanding of theology and politics. Primary and secondary literature on Christian and Islamic political and liberation theologies and radical Islam are being reviewed (including the most recent writings on "political theology" emanating from, mainly leftist, theory circles in Europe and the US). In an attempt to expand the term "political theology" to cover the socio-political analysis, arguments, and ideology of radical Islam, anti-liberalism is revealed as the single most important factor underlying all political theology. The argument is made that being anti-liberal means being (at least potentially) anti-democratic as well. A discussion of future lines of academic inquiry opens up the possibility of a common definition or framework covering all forms of political and liberation theologies and asks whether comparative political theology may be the ultimate political theory. (shrink)

At first glance there seem to be many similarities between Thomas S. Kuhn’s and Ludwik Fleck’s accounts of the development of scientific knowledge. Notably, both pay attention to the role played by the scientific community in the development of scientific knowledge. But putting first impressions aside, one can criticise some philosophers for being too hasty in their attempt to find supposed similarities in the works of the two men. Having acknowledged that Fleck anticipated some of Kuhn’s later theses, there seems (...) to be a temptation in more recent research to equate both theories in important respects. Because of this approach, one has to deal with the problem of comparing the most notable technical terms of both philosophers, namely ‘‘thought style’’ and ‘‘paradigm’’. This paper aims at a more thorough comparison between Ludwik Fleck’s concept of thought style and Thomas Kuhn’s concept of paradigm. Although some philosophers suggest that these two concepts are essentially equal in content, a closer examination reveals that this is not the case. This thesis of inequality will be defended in detail, also taking into account some of the alleged similarities which may be responsible for losing sight of the differences between these theories. (shrink)

Study of religion describes, analyzes and compares how certain human beings do in fact express their faith in terms of particular scriptures, religious figures, sacred rituals, community solidarity, etc. — and how all these explicitly religious phenomena may relate to other aspects of people’s lives. It also aspires and addresses the questions to be even-handed, objective, based on evidence that may be checked by any competent inquirer, and non-committal on claims to divine revelation and authority. It is in principle (...) class='Hi'>comparative, not in a judgmental evaluative sense, but in terms of describing and analysing comparable elements or phenomena from various religious traditions, using the same criteria in each case. The paper begins with a brief report on the study of religion in the context of India and presents in detail Rabindranath Tagore’s (1861–1941) views on the need, an objective and philosophy behind the comparative study of religion. As Tagore observes, when studying religion one usually chooses among two alternative approaches: to do research on the secret text or to study the rituals. Tagore accepts fully none of them and instead suggests to rediscover how human aspiration for transcendence works in practice, how it sustains the individual — often marginalized by the power of institutionalised religion — and society, and how it generates new cultural forms. For Tagore, the essence of religion lies is the will to transcend the limit of the self-cantered being towards an ideal of perfection — which he calls divinity of Man. His understanding of the “religion of Man”, as he puts it, is discussed in the major part of the paper. (shrink)

This essay deals with a selected part of an epistemological controversy provided by Tūsī in response to the skeptical arguments reported by Rāzī that is related to what might be called "intellectual skepticism," or skepticism regarding the judgments of the intellect, particularly in connection with self-evident principles. It will be shown that Rāzī has cited and exposed a position that seems to be no less than a medieval version of empiricism. Tūsī, in contrast, has presented us with a position that (...) rejects such empiricism. The comparative aim of this essay is to draw attention to some similarities as well as some points of divergence between the kind of skeptical debate we are focusing on here, and some relevant epistemological discussions in the later traditions in the West. ". (shrink)

In this paper I challenge and adjudicate between the two positions that have come to prominence in the scientific realism debate: deployment realism and structural realism. I discuss a set of cases from the history of celestial mechanics, including some of the most important successes in the history of science. To the surprise of the deployment realist, these are novel predictive successes toward which theoretical constituents that are now seen to be patently false were genuinely deployed. Exploring the implications for (...) structural realism, I show that the need to accommodate these cases forces our notion of “structure” toward a dramatic depletion of logical content, threatening to render it explanatorily vacuous: the better structuralism fares against these historical examples, in terms of retention, the worse it fares in content and explanatory strength. I conclude by considering recent restrictions that serve to make “structure” more specific. I show however that these refinements will not suffice: the better structuralism fares in specificity and explanatory strength, the worse it fares against history. In light of these case studies, both deployment realism and structural realism are significantly threatened by the very historical challenge they were introduced to answer. (shrink)

Confucianism demands that individuals comport themselves according to the strictures of ritual propriety—specific forms of speech, clothing, and demeanor attached to a vast array of life circumstances. This requires self-regulation, a cognitive resource of limited supply. When this resource is depleted, a person can experience undesirable consequences such as social isolation and alienation. However, one’s cultural background may be an important mediator of such costs; East Asians, in particular, seem to have comparatively greater self-regulatory strength. I offer some considerations as (...) to why this may be so, and what insights it may afford to theories of virtue generally. (shrink)

The comparative utility argument holds that the descendants of African slaves in America are not owed any compensation because they have not been harmed by slavery. Rather, slavery in America was beneficial to the descendants of slaves because they are now able to live in a country that is considerably richer today than any of the African countries from which slaves were taken. In this paper, I show that the comparative utility argument is a red herring with no (...) bearing whatsoever on the question of slave reparations because it conflates two separate wrongs: slavery and forced immigration. The fact that the descendants of slaves now live in America is a consequence of the latter, but not the former. As such, it has no bearing on the legitimacy reparations for slavery. (shrink)

The notion of comparative probability defined in Bayesian subjectivist theory stems from an intuitive idea that, for a given pair of events, one event may be considered “more probable” than the other. Yet it is conceivable that there are cases where it is indeterminate as to which event is more probable, due to, e.g., lack of robust statistical information. We take that these cases involve indeterminate comparative probabilities. This paper provides a Savage-style decision-theoretic foundation for indeterminate comparative (...) probabilities. (shrink)

The concept of “harm” is ubiquitous in moral theorising, and yet remains poorly defined. Bradley suggests that the counterfactual comparative account of harm is the most plausible account currently available, but also argues that it is fatally flawed, since it falters on the omission and pre-emption problems. Hanna attempts to defend the counterfactual comparative account of harm against both problems. In this paper, I argue that Hanna’s defence fails. I also show how his defence highlights the fact that (...) both the omission and the pre-emption problems have the same root cause – the inability of the counterfactual comparative account of harm to allow for our implicit considerations regarding well-being when assessing harm. While its purported neutrality with regard to substantive theories of well-being is one of the reasons that this account is considered to be the most plausible on offer, I will argue that this neutrality is illusory. (shrink)

This paper looks at the history of the problem of individuation from Plato to Whitehead. Part I takes as its point of departure Reiner Wiehl’s interpretation of the different meanings of “abstract” in the metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead and arrives at a corresponding taxonomy of different ways things can be called concrete. Part II compares the way philosophers in different periods understand the relation between thought and intuition. The view mostly associated with ancient philosophy is that thought and (...) sense-perception target different kinds of objects. The view mostly associated with modern philosophy (although it was introduced by the Stoics) is that thought and sense-perception are different ways of targeting the same objects. These differences have specific consequences for theories of individuation, which are assessed historically in Part III and then applied to Whitehead’s difficult texts in part IV. (shrink)

The current issue of Argument: Biannual Philosophical Journal (2015, vol. 5, no. 1) provides a platform for cross‑cultural studies of the human body, the embodied mind, agency, intentionality, and various axiological aspects of the human psychophysical identity. Out of the twenty articles that compose this issue, thirteen original papers address the leading theme, namely Psychophysical integrity of the human self. Comparative approach: philosophy, literature and art. The multidisciplinary and comparative perspectives include references to Western and eastern cultural (...) traditions, as well as juxtaposing a variety of views on human corporeality and the mind‑body relationship, discussed from the perspectives of philosophical theories (Venieri, Jakubczak, Kamińska, Kołdrzak, King, Wachowski), literary works (Kamińska, Milewska) and visual artefacts (King, Staniszewska, Wałek, Popczyk, Romanowicz, Lipowicz). (shrink)

The paper discusses the notion of reasoning with comparative moral judgements (i.e judgements of the form “act a is morally superior to act b”) from the point of view of several meta-ethical positions. Using a simple formal result, it is argued that only a version of moral cognitivism that is committed to the claim that moral beliefs come in degrees can give a normatively plausible account of such reasoning. Some implications of accepting such a version of moral cognitivism are (...) discussed. (shrink)

The conception of subjectivity developed by the German philosopher Hermann Schmitz (1927-) is especially suitable for cross-cultural investigations because its foundations lie in human experiences that are basic and universal. The paper has two aims. Firstly, to give an outline of Schmitz’s theory. Secondly, to show its usefulness (and its limits) by interpreting some Greek and Indian philosophers which, at the same time, represent certain main approaches to the problem of subjectivity.

This research will argue about which theory of mind between Searle’s and Dennett’s can better explain human consciousness. Initially, distinctions between dualism and materialism will be discussed ranging from substance dualism, property dualism, physicalism, and functionalism. In this part, the main issue that is tackled in various theories of mind is revealed. It is the missing connection between input stimulus (neuronal reactions) and behavioral disposition: consciousness. Then, the discussion will be more specific on Searle’s biological naturalism and Dennett’s multiple drafts (...) model as the two attempted to answer the issue. The differences between them will be highlighted and will be analyzed according to their relation to their roots: dualism and materialism. The two theories will be examined on how each answer the questions on consciousness. (shrink)

In the Pre-Qin time, pursuing “Dao” was the main task in the scholarship of most of the ancient Chinese philosophers, while the Ancient Greek philosophers considered pursuing “Truth” as their ultimate goal. While the “Dao” in ancient Chinese texts and the “Truth” in ancient Greek philosophic literature do share or cross-cover certain connotations, there are subtle and important differences between the two comparable philosophic concepts. These differences have deep and profound impact on the later development of Chinese and Western (...) class='Hi'>philosophy and culture respectively. Interestingly, while the modern Chinese philosophy has gradually accepted and established the Western conception of “Truth” on its way towards modernization, the “post-modern” Western philosophy is just undergoing a process of deconstructing its traditional concept of “Truth”, thus, in a certain sense, going closer to the traditional Chinese “Dao”. From a comparative, relative and dynamic perspective, there could possibly be a fusion of horizon between the Chinese “Dao” and the Western “Truth”. (shrink)

The idea of a philosophical Other as comparativists have often historically used it to signify radical alterity, although sometimes a remedy and correction for the erroneous generalizations which originate from a presupposition of human sameness, merely shifts the center of philosophy's unchallenged assumptions in at least two ways. First, the notion of a philosophical Other avoids an explicit characterization of how one recognizes that one is philosophizing in the sphere of this Other and of what "otherness" is philosophically interesting. (...) Second, the notion of a philosophical Other is unable to capture and describe the dynamic, ever-changing relations that serve to demarcate philosophical traditions or spatio-temporal webs of thinkers in the first place. For the sake of the comparative project of exposing the comparativist's own culturally-embedded assumptions, comparative methodology should allow for the possibility of analyzing more than one place where similarities and differences can present themselves at the same time. In short, comparativists would serve their own interests better if they began to approach their projects in recognition of a complex, limitless, and dynamic array of sameness and difference, instead of with premature assumptions of radical alterity. (shrink)

We tend to identify “real” knowledge of nature with science, and for good reasons. The sciences have developed unique ways of disclosing and modifying the intricate workings of nature, building on quantitative, experimental and technologically advanced styles of thinking. Scientific research has produced robust and reliable forms of knowledge, using methodologies that are often remarkably transparent and verifiable. At the same time, laboratories and other research settings are highly artificial environments, constituting drastically modified versions of reality, allowing nature to emerge (...) in a particular way. This book starts from the conviction that there are other ways of knowing about nature besides science. Notably, literary documents (novels, plays, poems) on nature and natural entities (landscapes, animals, plant forms) often convey careful analyses and observations, quite elaborate and true to life. Comparative epistemology is the discipline that tries to assess, in a critical manner, the relative validity and value of various knowledge forms. This volume presents a series of case studies in comparative epistemology, critically comparing the works of prominent representative of the life sciences (such as Aristotle, Darwin, Mendel and many others) with the writings of their literary counterparts (such as Andersen, Melville, Verne, Ibsen, and many others). The book aims to contribute to the expanding field of Science and Literature Studies, allowing basic insights from the sciences and the humanities to mutually challenge and enlighten one another. (shrink)

We tend to identify “real” knowledge of nature with science, and for good reasons. The sciences have developed unique ways of disclosing and modifying the intricate workings of nature, building on quantitative, experimental and technologically advanced styles of thinking. Scientific research has produced robust and reliable forms of knowledge, using methodologies that are often remarkably transparent and verifiable. At the same time, laboratories and other research settings are highly artificial environments, constituting drastically modified versions of reality, allowing nature to emerge (...) in a particular way. This book starts from the conviction that there are other ways of knowing about nature besides science. Notably, literary documents (novels, plays, poems) on nature and natural entities (landscapes, animals, plant forms) often convey careful analyses and observations, quite elaborate and true to life. Comparative epistemology is the discipline that tries to assess, in a critical manner, the relative validity and value of various knowledge forms. This volume presents a series of case studies in comparative epistemology, critically comparing the works of prominent representative of the life sciences (such as Aristotle, Darwin, Mendel and many others) with the writings of their literary counterparts (such as Andersen, Melville, Verne, Ibsen, and many others). The book aims to contribute to the expanding field of Science and Literature Studies, allowing basic insights from the sciences and the humanities to mutually challenge and enlighten one another. (shrink)

In this paper I provide some formal schemas for the analysis of vague predicates in terms of a set of semantic relations other than classical synonymy, including weak synonymy (as between "large" and "huge"), antonymy (as between "large" and "small"), relativity (as between "large" and "large for a dog"), and a kind of supervenience (as between "large" and "wide" or "long"). All of these relations are representable in the simple comparative logic CL, in accordance with the basic formula: the (...) more something is F, the more (or less) it is G. I use Carnapian meaning postulates to define these relations as constraints on interpretations of the formal language of CL. (shrink)

En général, un agent peut dire ce qu’il est en train de faire sans l’observer au préalable, et il possède une certaine autorité sur ce qu’il en dit. Partant de ce fait, Elizabeth Anscombe a soutenu que la connaissance qu’un agent a de ses actions intentionnelles est un «savoir pratique» (practical knowledge) «sans observation». Cette thèse a été abondamment commentée, critiquée et reprise depuis la publication d’Intention il y a bientôt 70 ans. Ce qui a plus rarement été abordé est (...) l’étonnant parallèle entre ce que dit Anscombe à ce sujet, et certaines descriptions sartriennes de la conscience d’un agent intentionnel. Cet article tâchera de montrer que les pensées respectives de ce drôle de couple philosophique convergent sur l’idée que nous avons la capacité de dire ce que nous sommes en train de faire sans observation ni réflexion préalable. En critiquant une certaine image de l’intériorité de l'esprit, leur objectif commun est de rendre compte de cette conscience de soi toute particulière qui permet aux agents de savoir ce qu’ils font dans et par cette action même. Comment faut-il comprendre le rapport entre ces deux approches ? Sont-elles complémentaires ? Concurrentes ? Nous considérons qu’une réponse simple et tranchée à ces questions n’est pas possible d’avance, exige une étude comparative relativement poussée. Notre hypothèse est que le savoir pratique d’un agent est indissociable d’une certaine expérience de l’engagement pratique dans le monde que décrit Sartre. (shrink)

Harm is a concept in philosophy that has been able to elude definition. Many attempts have been made to formulate a definition of harm, however they have all been futile. This has led many to question if it is even possible to define harm, or if we really even need a definition of harm? My answer to both of these questions is yes, harm is something that is worth caring about and has many practical implications in society today. The (...) theories of harm that have been the closest thus far have been comparative accounts of harm, which compare different states of the agent undergoing the harm. The most common of these comparative accounts has been the counterfactual comparative account of harm. This approach has faced many problems like preemption, overdetermination, and omission. I argue the comparative account of harm is correct, but the wrong comparison is being made. Instead of a counterfactual comparison we should make a temporal comparison, and evaluate whether or not the agent has become worse off than he or she was before the harming event occurred. First I will use Bradley’s model to sketch a brief definition checklist of harm. I will then briefly evaluate a general counterfactual theory of harm and illustrate why it falls short. Next I will pose the temporal comparative account of harm , and explain how it gets around the counterexamples that tripped up the counterfactual approach. Finally I will present some objections to TCA, and try to respond to them. (shrink)

Action-based theories of cognition place primary emphasis upon the role that agent-environment coupling plays in the emergence of psychological states. Prima facie, mental imagery seems to present a problem for some of these theories because it is understood to be stimulus-absent and thus thought to be decoupled from the environment. However, mental imagery is much more multifaceted than this “naïve” view suggests. Focusing on a particular kind of imagery, comparative mental imagery generation, this paper demonstrates that although such imagery (...) is stimulus-absent, it is also stimulus-sensitive. Exhibiting stimulus-sensitivity is sufficient for a process to qualify as coupled to the environment. The notion of variant coupling is explicated as the coupling of a cognizer’s perceptual system to variant environmental information. By demarcating the categories of stimulus-absent and stimulus-sensitive cognition, and variant and invariant coupling, this paper expands the conceptual apparatus of action-based theories, suggesting not only a way to address the problem that comparative mental imagery generation presents, but perhaps a way to account for other forms of imagery too. (shrink)

Christine Korsgaard bases her interpretation of personal identity upon the notion of moral agency and thereby refutes the Reductionist thesis of Derek Parfit. Korsgaard indicates that actions and choices, from the practical standpoint, must be viewed as having agents and choosers. This is what makes them our own actions and choices as well as contributes to the process of self-constitution. Personal identity manifested as the chooser of our desires and author of our actions can be viewed as the common denominator (...) between Korsgaard and Wang Yangming (王陽明). For liangzhi (良知) is none other than the agency that acts as the capacity for moral judgment and the motivation of performing moral actions. Given liangzhi is the authentic self that make laws for us, our true identities are exhibited in the performance of moral behaviors. Moreover, further engagement between the two sides reveals that Wang’s characterizations of liangzhi, particularly those of practical justification, law-embodying identity, and zhih –zhi (致知), can be seen as either a complement to practical standpoint argument or an approach of consummating self-constitution. (shrink)

Hui Shi (370-310B.C.E.?) is a unique one among the pre-Qin scholars. The object and orientation of his scholarship emphasized on “chasing after the materials” or the research for objective knowledge of natural things. He shows a tendency of tolerating and advocating diversity and variety, and intentionally pursuing new and unusual ideas. In certain degree he judges the value of knowledge by its truthfulness rather than its usefulness. As pointed out by Wing-tsit Chan, Hui shi represents a “tendency in ancient China (...) toward intellectualism for its own sake”. (shrink)

This paper compares different normative and institutional paradigms of journalism with respect to peaceful conflict resolution and democratic communication. It begins with the problematic but still dominant 'regime of objectivity,' and then considers three contemporary challengers: peace journalism, alternative media, and media democratization/communication rights movements. The paradigms are compared in terms of such factors as public philosophy, epistemological assumptions, characteristic practices, institutional entailments, relationship to dominant institutions and power structures, allies and opponents, and antagonisms and synergies between them. I (...) conclude that while peace journalism is a promising initiative, it could gain traction by exploring synergies with the other challenger paradigms. (shrink)

In the Āgamadambara (“Much Ado about Religion”), Jayanta Bhatta appears to be making a case for religious toleration and pluralism. This paper considers whether Jayanta has a concept like toleration in mind at all, or at least something that we today might understand to be toleration. If he is doing neither, our understanding of the nature of tolerance and its conceptual limits may be furthered by determining exactly what he is talking about and why it looks so much like tolerance.

Derek Parfit’s early work on the metaphysics of persons has had a vast influence on Western philosophical debates about the nature of personal identity and moral theory. Within the study of Buddhism, it also has sparked a continuous comparative discourse, which seeks to explicate Buddhist philosophical principles in light of Parfit’s conceptual framework. Examining important Parfitian-inspired studies of Buddhist philosophy, this article points out various ways in which a Parfitian lens shaped, often implicitly, contemporary understandings of the anātman (...) doctrine and its relation to Buddhist ethics. I discuss in particular three dominant elements appropriated by Parfitian-inspired scholarship: Parfit’s theoretical categories; philosophical problems raised by his reductionist theory of persons; and Parfit’s argumentative style. I argue that the three elements used in this scholarship constitute different facets of one methodological approach to cross-cultural philosophy, which relies on Western terminology and conceptual schemes to establish a conversation with non-Western philosophy. I suggest that while this methodology is fruitful in many ways, philosophy as a cosmopolitan space may benefit significantly from approaching Buddhist philosophy using its own categories and terminology. (shrink)

Common notions of comparative philosophy tend to be strongly configured by the East-West axis. This essay suggests ways of seeing Latin American liberation philosophy as a form of comparative philosophy and an important Latin American thinker as being relevant for East-West political philosophy. The essay focuses on the Peruvian activist and intellectual, José Mariátegui, who is widely regarded to have been a leading Marxist, liberatory, and decolonial figure in 20th century Latin America. Like many (...) “Third World” intellectuals of the interwar years, Mariátegui had an interest in decolonization struggles in Asia and wrote with some consistency on this subject and in ways that bear significantly upon key themes in his political theory. Since very little of this has received commentary, this essay begins a discussion of Mariátegui's decolonial experimentation with ideas about Asia, decolonization, and indigenous cultural forms, like those of the Incas and Confucians. After some preliminary discussion of Euro.. (shrink)