Doing Metaphysics in a Diverse World
How We Make Sense of Things Across Cultures
- Textbook
Doing Metaphysics in a Diverse World
How We Make Sense of Things Across Cultures
- Textbook
Description
In a world increasingly interconnected and fractious, cross-cultural dialogue about metaphysics matters more than ever. This essential resource introduces us to the multitude of ways philosophers make sense of things.
Drawing on China, Japan, the Indic world, Islamic and European thought as well as pre-colonial African and pre-Spanish meso-American traditions, a team of leading philosophers and historians of ideas bring case studies, texts, themes and thinkers of very different thought worlds into conversation, including:
- The Xunzi and Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed
- Spinoza and Wang Bi on substance and change
- The Mayan Popul Vuh and Ibn Arabi on the human role in constructing the cosmos
- Kukai and Gregory Palamas on essence and energy
On the basis of this exceptionally rich and diverse canvas, they reflect on the connections between reality, emptiness, mind and consciousness, asking questions of enduring human significance such as: What is realness? What is beyond the real? What is personhood? How do we order our world? How should we live? Crossing cultures, languages, and history, the authors' inclusive approach liberates the tradition of metaphysics and comparative philosophy from the constraints of a Western or Eurocentric interpretation.
Table of Contents
Part II: Texts and Lore
Introduction: Philosophising and Reading Texts from Another Culture, Alex Samely
1. Dao and the Way: a Comparative Perspective, Yao Xinzhong
2. Generative Harmony: Origins and Becoming in Confucian Metaphysics, Li Chenyang
3. The Problem of the Flying Arrow: Comparing Hui Shi and Zeno of Elea, Jana Rosker
4. Xunzi and Maimonides: Language, Metaphysics, Governance, Nicholas Bunnin
5. Metaphysics of Normative Values: Xunzi and Kantian Constructivism, Tang Siufu
6. Spinoza and Wang Bi: Metaphysics of Ethics, Nicholas Bunnin
7. Personhood in Indian Metaphysics: Touchpoints with Other Traditions, Gavin Flood
8. Metaphysics of an Indian Goddess Tradition and European Phenomenology, Gavin Flood
9. Brilliant Darkness: Apophatic Thinking in Early Christian and Indian Traditions, Ana-Maria Pascal and Diwakar Acharya
10. Overcoming Negative Theology: Kukai and Palamas on Essence and Energy, Ana-Maria Pascal and Paulus Kaufmann
11. God Without Power: Kenosis and Tsimtsum as Two Paradigms of Divine Self-Restriction, Agata Bielik-Robson
12. Philosophy and African Art: Leopold Senghor and the Philosophy of Emotion and Rhythm, Victor Emma-Adamah
13. The Divine Names: The Human Role in the Construction of the Cosmos in the Mayan Popol Vul and in Ibn-Arabi's Fusus al-Hikam, Alexus McLeod
14. Philosophy as a Way of Life: Metaphysics, Ethics and Spiritual Exercises, Sajjad Rizvi
Part III: Common Questions
Introduction, Stephen Green
1. Practice, Alex Samely and Lucia Dolce
2. Suchness, Lucia Dolce
3. Beyond, Being, Becoming, Agata Bielek-Robson
4. Names, Naming, Unnamed, Unnameable, Nicholas Bunnin and Sajjad Rizvi
5. Persons, Selves and Metaphysics, Gavin Flood and Ana-Maria Pascal
Part IV: Where Next?, Stephen Green
Bibliography
Index
Product details
| Published | 01 May 2025 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (PDF) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Extent | 432 |
| ISBN | 9781350402515 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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