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Full-Text Articles in Comparative Philosophy

Intercultural Questioning: Teaching Report On A Question-Oriented Pedagogy In Teaching Chinese Philosophy, Sai Hang Kwok Aug 2026

Intercultural Questioning: Teaching Report On A Question-Oriented Pedagogy In Teaching Chinese Philosophy, Sai Hang Kwok

Comparative Philosophy

Language and cultural barriers pose major obstacles to teaching Chinese philosophy to Western philosophy students. Without a cultural and linguistic background, students often struggle to read the original Chinese philosophical texts. Translation also involves issues of interpretation that are difficult to be settled in undergraduate-level courses. To address this situation, this paper introduces a question-oriented pedagogy called “intercultural questioning”. Instead of aiming at a comprehensive understanding of the entire Chinese philosophical tradition, the question-oriented pedagogy reveals the implicit assumptions in one’s conceptual frameworks and unexamined questions in Western philosophy through the East-West dialogue. Students can obtain philosophical insights from Chinese …


A Cross-System Analysis Of Structural Commensurability Between Axiomatic Foundations Of Set Theory (Zfc) And The Principles Of Transcendent Wisdom, Mohammadjavad Maarefvand Jan 2026

A Cross-System Analysis Of Structural Commensurability Between Axiomatic Foundations Of Set Theory (Zfc) And The Principles Of Transcendent Wisdom, Mohammadjavad Maarefvand

Comparative Philosophy

Building on observed similarities in uniqueness proofs for the empty set and the Necessary Existent (Wājib al-Wujūd), this study engages the meta-methodological issue of cross-system commensurability. It identifies four instances of structural commensurability between Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with Choice (ZFC) and Mulla Sadra's Transcendent Wisdom (Ḥikmat al-Muta'āliyah). First, identity principles: the Axiom of Extensionality provides a formal operational criterion analogous to the philosophical principle of identity through absence of distinguishing features. Second, multiplicity mechanisms: ZFC's constructor axioms (bottom-up construction) and emanation principles (top-down explanation) address analogous problems with inverse orientations. Third, transcending limitation: the Axiom of Infinity ensuring quantitative extensional …


A Critique Of Ziporyn’S Interpretation Of Early Chinese Thought: From The Constructive-Engagement Vantage Point, Xiaoqiao Liu Jan 2026

A Critique Of Ziporyn’S Interpretation Of Early Chinese Thought: From The Constructive-Engagement Vantage Point, Xiaoqiao Liu

Comparative Philosophy

Sameness and difference are among the most fundamental and yet most tension-laden categories in philosophy, bearing directly on the conditions under which judgment, classification, and meaning become possible. This article critically reconstructs and compares two influential but methodologically divergent approaches to this issue in contemporary comparative philosophy. One is Brook Ziporyn’s idea of coherence, which seeks to articulate a non-substantialist metaphysics as a response to tensions internal to the Western metaphysical tradition. The other is Bo Mou’s enhanced account of relative identity, which revises both absolute and modern relative identity theories through a bottom-up, semantically grounded framework oriented toward cross-tradition …


A Place For Ancient Philosophy In Axial Age Historiography, John R. Shook Aug 2025

A Place For Ancient Philosophy In Axial Age Historiography, John R. Shook

Comparative Philosophy

Long-standing debates over historiographical approaches to the Axial Age have distracted the history of philosophy from its own disciplined inquiry into the breadth and depth of ancient thought beyond the Greeks. The philosopher Karl Jaspers offered a vista for seeing commonalities among ancient innovations and discerning continuities along history to modern times. That dual agenda divided Axial historiography with the question of whether axiality reflects creativities of ancient systems or have modern reflections created images of axiality. A singular chronology for humanity encourages a mode of philosophical history open to providential designs, epochal turns, spiritual evolutions, psychological leaps, or cognitive …


Moral And Ethical Nature In Confucian Liang-Zhi And Islamic Fitra: Comparative Perspectives On Innate Morality, Yanrong Shi Aug 2025

Moral And Ethical Nature In Confucian Liang-Zhi And Islamic Fitra: Comparative Perspectives On Innate Morality, Yanrong Shi

Comparative Philosophy

This article offers a comparative philosophical analysis of Confucian liang-zhi (innate moral knowledge) and Islamic fitra(primordial nature), focusing on their accounts of innate morality and moral epistemology. Drawing on classical Confucian sources—especially the praxis-oriented interpretation of Wang Yangming—and foundational Islamic texts and commentary, the study demonstrates that both traditions posit an inborn moral faculty grounding ethical universality and responsibility. Wang Yangming’s liang-zhi is conceived as an innate moral principle that, under the imperative of zhi (to actualize or extend), is continually activated through moral practice. In parallel, fitra is understood as a God-given orientation to truth, cultivated and safeguarded through …


The Dangers Of Re-Colonization: Possible Boundaries Between Latin American Philosophy And Indigenous Philosophy From Latin America, Jorge Sanchez-Perez Jul 2023

The Dangers Of Re-Colonization: Possible Boundaries Between Latin American Philosophy And Indigenous Philosophy From Latin America, Jorge Sanchez-Perez

Comparative Philosophy

The field of Latin American philosophy has established itself as a relevant subfield of philosophical inquiry. However, there might be good reasons to consider that our focus on the subfield could have distracted us from considering another subfield that, although it might share some geographical proximity, does not share the same historical basic elements. In this paper, I argue for a possible and meaningful conceptual difference between Latin American Philosophy and Indigenous philosophy produced in Latin America. First, I raise what I call Mariátegui’s Solidarity Challenge to show that there might be some neglectful treatment of the philosophical views of …


Caducitas And Śūnyatā: A Neoplatonist Reading Of Nāgārjuna, Fabien Muller Jan 2023

Caducitas And Śūnyatā: A Neoplatonist Reading Of Nāgārjuna, Fabien Muller

Comparative Philosophy

In this paper I am addressing the question whether Nāgārjuna’s doctrine should be understood as a theory that describes reality itself (ontology) or as a theory of our relation to reality (epistemological, logical, psychological, etc.). To answer this question, I propose to compare Nāgārjuna’s concept of emptiness to that of ‘caducity’, a key element in the ontology of Renaissance Neoplatonist philosopher Francisco Patrizi. By showing that these concepts are similar, I argue that Nāgārjuna’s standpoint can be considered as that of ontology.


From Post-Pantheism To Trans-Materialism: D. T. Suzuki And New Buddhism, James Mark Shields Sep 2022

From Post-Pantheism To Trans-Materialism: D. T. Suzuki And New Buddhism, James Mark Shields

Faculty Contributions to Books

In modern Western thought, pantheism remains a powerful if controversial undercurrent. Recent re-evaluations of the work of Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) point to pantheism’s radical implications for metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and politics. Pantheism (Jp. hanshinron 汎神論) also has significant valence within Japanese Buddhist modernism, particularly in the work of scholars and lay activists who articulated the outlines of a New Buddhism (shin bukkyō 新仏教) from the 1880s through the 1940s. For these thinkers, pantheism provided a “middle way” between materialism and idealism, as well as between theism and atheism. In the postwar period, lapsed radical turned Buddhist Sano Manabu …


Comparative Philosophy As A General Way Of Doing Philosophy Through Cross-Tradition Engagement Toward World Philosophy, Bo Mou Jul 2022

Comparative Philosophy As A General Way Of Doing Philosophy Through Cross-Tradition Engagement Toward World Philosophy, Bo Mou

Comparative Philosophy

In this theme essay for the addressed special-theme section in this special issue of the journal Comparative Philosophy commemorating the first anniversary of the International Society for Comparative Philosophy toward World Philosophy (CPWP), I intend to give an elaboration of the theme “comparative philosophy as a general way of doing philosophy through cross-tradition engagement toward world philosophy” (‘comparative philosophy toward world philosophy’ for short), which has been explicitly presented and formally stated through its recent academic-organizational channel CPWP and focuses on via the Journal’s and CPWP’s jointly organized international conference. The theme “comparative philosophy toward world philosophy” as a whole …


The Yi-Jing Cosmic Model As A Framework For Comparative Philosophy, Harry Donkers Dec 2021

The Yi-Jing Cosmic Model As A Framework For Comparative Philosophy, Harry Donkers

Comparative Philosophy

Based on the symbolism of the trigrams, the Yi-Jing cosmic model offers possibilities in a coordinate system with eight octants to discuss different philosophical developments in parallel. It forms a framework for further elaboration of theory and methodology of comparative philosophy. This paper is restricted to extracting, analyzing and comparing common features from the perspectives of the Yi-Jing model. Achieving harmony is the subject of a new paper under construction. The philosophical developments in the quadrants, Naturalism, Moralism, Rationalism and Humanism, are characterized by a fundamental difference between subject and object. This difference remains intact in the octants, but specified …


Echoes From The Great Divide: On The Faltering Philosophical Dialogue Between Africa And The West, Peter Abspoel Jan 2021

Echoes From The Great Divide: On The Faltering Philosophical Dialogue Between Africa And The West, Peter Abspoel

Comparative Philosophy

Even in the field of comparative or cross-cultural philosophy, distinctive contributions by African philosophers are often side-lined – that is, relegated to niche publications. Why is it so hard for African philosophers to draw their Western colleagues (other than specialists in African philosophy) into a real dialogue? An attempt is made to describe the field of tension; it is shown that some of the reflexes that manifest themselves in it reveal not just the attachment to specific perspectives or frames of reference, but also implicit ideas about the nature of the “philosophical game”. On the Western side, motives constitutive of …


On What Is Real In Nāgārjuna’S “Middle Way”, Richard H. Jones Jan 2020

On What Is Real In Nāgārjuna’S “Middle Way”, Richard H. Jones

Comparative Philosophy

It has become popular to portray the Buddhist Nāgārjuna as an ontological nihilist, i.e., that he denies the reality of entities and does not postulate any further reality. A reading of his works does show that he rejects the self-existent reality of entities, but it also shows that he accepts a "that-ness" (tattva) to phenomenal reality that survives the denial of any distinct, self-contained entities. Thus, he is not a nihilist concerning what is real in the final analysis of things. How Nāgārjuna’s positions impact contemporary discussions of ontological nihilism and deflationism in Western philosophy is also discussed.


A Dane's Philosophical Attack And A Monk's Ladder: Comparing Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragment And St. John Climacus' Ladder Of Divine Ascent, Chasen David Robbins May 2019

A Dane's Philosophical Attack And A Monk's Ladder: Comparing Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragment And St. John Climacus' Ladder Of Divine Ascent, Chasen David Robbins

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Soren Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript have been extremely impactful in 20th century Western theological and philosophical thought. In a similar manner, St. John Klimakos, from whom Kierkegaard derives the pseudonym Johannes Climacus, who wrote The Ladder of Divine Ascent, is one of the most "studied, copied, and translated" books in Eastern Christendom. Johannes Climacus, the pseudonym for the two Kierkegaard works above, is a theological/philosophical opponent to Hegelian thought. St. John Klimakos, a real person, is a 6th century monk who hopes to assist monks on their journey to God with a manual about the thirty …


Sino-African Philosophy: A Re-“Constructive Engagement”, Paul A. Dottin Jan 2019

Sino-African Philosophy: A Re-“Constructive Engagement”, Paul A. Dottin

Comparative Philosophy

“Constructive-Engagement” is a meta-philosophical and meta-methodological “strategy” suggested by Chinese and comparative philosophy scholar Bo Mou for analyzing and enriching philosophical exchange. In this paper, I will use this strategy towards an end, on a scale, and with a topic not attempted before. I will use it as a “template” for redesigning a poorly developing area of cross-cultural comparison I call Sino-African reflective studies (SARS). My goal in this work-in-progress is to design a plan for reconstituting SARS as Sino-African philosophy (SAP), an inclusive yet coherent field of research and innovation unified through organizing principles. I will design the overhaul …


Moving, Moved And Will Be Moving: Zeno And Nāgārjuna On Motion From Mahāmudrā, Koan And Mathematical Physics Perspectives, Robert Alan Paul Jul 2017

Moving, Moved And Will Be Moving: Zeno And Nāgārjuna On Motion From Mahāmudrā, Koan And Mathematical Physics Perspectives, Robert Alan Paul

Comparative Philosophy

Zeno’s Arrow and Nāgārjuna’s Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way (Mūlamādhyamakakārikā, MMK) Chapter 2 (MMK/2) contain paradoxical, dialectic arguments thought to indicate that there is no valid explanation of motion, hence there is no physical or generic motion. There are, however, diverse interpretations of the latter text, and I argue they apply to Zeno’s Arrow as well. I also find that many of the interpretations are dependent on a mathematical analysis of material motion through space and time. However, with modern philosophy and physics we find that the link from no explanation to no phenomena is invalid and …


How Constructive Engagement In Doing Philosophy Comparatively Is Possible, Bo Mou Jan 2016

How Constructive Engagement In Doing Philosophy Comparatively Is Possible, Bo Mou

Faculty Publications

In this article I intend, on the basis of some previous relevant works on the issue, to further examine a range of conditions for maintaining adequate methodological guiding principles concerning how to look at the relation between distinct methodological perspectives in comparative-engagement exploration in philosophy. The purpose of this paper is to explore how, in the global context, distinct approaches in philosophy can be engaged in order toconstructively talk to each other and make a joint contribution to the development of philosophy and society.


Book Review On The Philosophical Challenge From China (Edited By Brian Bruya), Hans Van Eyghen Dec 2015

Book Review On The Philosophical Challenge From China (Edited By Brian Bruya), Hans Van Eyghen

Comparative Philosophy

In this paper, I review the book The Philosophical Challenge from China, edited by Brian Bruya. I critically discuss each of the 13 contributions.


Derrida And Comparative Philosophy, Steven Burik Nov 2014

Derrida And Comparative Philosophy, Steven Burik

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article argues that Derrida’s thinking is relevant to comparative philosophy. To illustrate this, at various stages classical Daoism is compared with Derrida’s thought, to highlight Derrida’s “applicability” and to see how using Derrida can contribute to new interpretations of Daoism. The article first looks into Derrida’s engagement (or lack thereof) with non-Western thought, and then proceeds to his extensive work regarding language and translation, comparing this with views on classical Chinese language and translation of key Daoist characters. It then explores Derrida’s efforts at opening up philosophy to its outside, and argues that he was very much concerned with …


A Historical Survey Of The Relevance Of Music In Man's Philosophy, Annette R. Arnold Jan 1971

A Historical Survey Of The Relevance Of Music In Man's Philosophy, Annette R. Arnold

All Master's Theses

Some concern with music in relation to man's well-being has been evidenced throughout history. Many philosophers have acknowledged that man's ethical and emotional well-being could be influenced by music. On the other hand, other philosophers have asserted that music had no meaning outside itself and therefore could have no significant impact on man. Some philosophers went further by contemplating the sociological implications of music as it relates to man's concept of self and his cognitive reality. This study is the outgrowth of a response to Nietzsche's cormient that "Life without music would be a mistake" (Nietzsche 81 :6 Vol. 16). …